Life Uncut - Turning 40, Photos Of Your Ex and Looksmaxxing

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Hey Lifers! It’s finally Laura’s 40th birthday (month) and she’s feeling an unexpected way about it; despite what other people in the content world might think!We speak about the feeling of knowing yourself fully and peace that comes as we get a bit older. Can you still have photos of your ex in your phone? Does it depend on what ‘kind’ of photos they are? We unpack a situation that unfolded on MAFS and why we feel weird deleting photos from the past. Plus we chat about the terrifying trend being sold to young men - looksmaxxing There’s this streamer called Clavicular who has blown up online in the past year. On the surface, looksmaxxing sounds like skincare, grooming, self-improvement but this is not just gym bro content, darker.Is this just the male version of long-standing beauty pressure on women?  Or is it a pipeline into something black pill culture?  Are we normalising surgical self-editing as self-care? You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Hosted by Britt Hockley & Laura Byrne Produced by Keeshia Pettit Video Produced by Vanessa Beckford & Lachy Pugsley Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! XxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany. Guys, big month! I just want to try something new every episode. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna sing a new intro for you. It's been, what, how many years now? If we were in a singing competition who i already know the answer don't worry who would i i stopped myself before i asked there's only one way to prove it sing brit do you want to do one line each of something yeah let's go i'd like to bend singing from the let's just one line what what song do we go big you are the wind beneath that's your only song for our lives to be over sorry i can't that's actually terrible don't put that in the book I don't want to wait for our life to be over

we're very different you're quite high pitch yeah that's actually not real that's my I'm actually really good producer Keisha is having an aneurysm over there I also am having an aneurysm guys I know we shouldn't joke about that because it's probably a very serious thing but this month is a big month for me we've entered the month you're having sex I'm inside the month and that's inside you no it's got nothing to do with sex it's got nothing to do with Matt it has got to do with a potentially a midlife crisis I don't know I'm feeling pretty good and I don't know whether I'm being lulled into a false sense of security about this but it is my birthday month and this month is a really big one because it's not any birthday month it's she's 45

it's my 40th birthday month i am leaving my 30s and i am entering my 40s everyone guys it's been a fucking journey let me put it that way we started this when i was 33 i think was i 33 when we started this podcast we're nearly seven years guys it's our seven year birthday soon and so it's been like this whole journey throughout my 30s and now i'm entering my 40s and i'm not i don't know how i feel about it you know that's sorry just to make this about not your birthday. Let's talk about you, Brittany. No, I was just going to say just what you said then actually gave me goosebumps. Look, I got goosebumps. I don't know if you think about it, but this decade of our thirties, we've been in this room together every day, every day for seven

years. That's a long, you know me better than anyone. It's a long time, but back to you 40. I think it's cool that we turn it into a month. Yeah. I think it has to be a month. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this and firstly there was something was said to us in January this year which has stuck with me and it was said as such that an off-the-cuff comment right so you guys know we kind of gave you a bit little peek behind the curtain about Life Uncut and how we've moved to a new network we're with Listener Now and at the time in January we were doing not Jan it was like last year we were doing different negotiations trying to figure out like where the new home for Life Uncut would be.

Well, very desirable. Everyone was fighting over us. No, but there were two different places that we were talking to and there was a couple of others in the mix. And, like, one of the conversations that we had was, and I don't know if you were on this, Britt, so I might even. I hope you weren't negotiating without me. I'm bringing you up to speed.

Laura's like, hey, just letting you know we're going to the Dominican Republic. I've signed a deal for us. It's tax free. The money's great. We're off. Okay. No, one of the conversations was, okay,

So we know what Life Uncut was, you know, obviously you guys have been like relating to women in their thirties and like, you know, it's dating and all these different things. And they kind of rattled off like the long list of stuff that we've talked about throughout the last sort of seven or eight years of doing this podcast. And then they said that, you know, considering that you're getting older, are you still going to be focusing on the same things or will the content change? Will it become a parenting podcast? Just letting you know, no one said that to me.

that was just a conversation no i think it was i think obviously they were like well like britney you're still bringing the salmon sperm what are we doing they're like laura you are the fly risk on this this is turning into a parenting podcast no but it really you know it hurt me more than i expected it would because it made me think does that mean when i enter my era of my 40s that that's like not a relatable age like am i too old for this is like the content just gonna shift automatically let me tell you it won't it's the amazing thing is is that you've got to remember too our audience like you guys have grown with us as well like so many of you are og lifers you've been there from day one from literally the day we started there are people that have listened to

every single episode you guys have grown with us but our demo like you guys that listen range from 18 into 60s like I feel like we cover some real ground Laura I know to be fair one of my favorite things about our live show was when mums were coming with their daughters but their daughters were in their 20s and so we had like 20 year old daughters and like six year old moms and they're just enjoying the same content together. My dad loves it. And I appeal to the six year old women and you appeal to the 20 year olds. No I don't. Do you remember when Laura went down that rabbit hole? Yeah how could I forget? It was like six months ago. Pretty sure it was that most viral bit of content. It was three years ago for it. No but the thing is you've had kids since we started

this. It's not like you just had a child and we're becoming parenting. Like it's always been a part of your life since we've had this podcast. Yeah don't get me wrong. I don't want to get hung up on that exact part of it I guess entering a different decade like entering your 40s does feel like it's a significant time it feels like a way more significant birthday than say 39 but nothing changes and at the same time I don't I'm not trying to prove that to anyone that wasn't like but guys nothing changes no but everything is fine but what I mean by that is is like I think I felt way more stressed about turning 30 30 felt really daunting to me I'd just gone through a massive breakup I was single again I felt like I didn't have any of the things that I in my mind

wanted to have in my life before I turned 30 like I remember we went to Bali for my 30th birthday with a big group of girlfriends and I was having my 30th too did you and I was having like a great time on the outside but I felt like an absolute failure on the inside like I was so sad and that manifested in me drinking way too much and being an absolute fucking prat on my birthday night like what's a prat just an asshole like I just was a fucking obnoxious drunk did you make that word up I've never heard it I think it's an English word prat I think that's pret a manger it's a coffee shop prat um it's anyway you can use it take that one for free everyone well I think it's like I think you crossed prick and brat well I think I was I think that's exactly what I was I think I

was I think I was a prick and a brat no it was a really just it felt really scary entering my 30s and I in my mind if you'd asked me at that point in time what 40s would be like I would have said the same thing but this to me if anything I'm like really excited about it I feel like this is such a good age it's such a good time I feel like 40s is the new 30s you know like I don't suffer any of the bullshit that I worried about in my 30s I feel like I'm so much more myself I'm so much more confident in my opinions in my voice in my abilities and I feel really proud of myself so like 40s feels fucking exciting it doesn't feel scary like 30 did and i i actually can't wait for it i i think that's just more botox yeah i think it's an interesting point i also feel better now

than i did in my 20s and like it doesn't scare me aging doesn't scare me now i know that might shock a lot of you because i do try to stop aging you do seem petrified by it if you ask anyone no i i look i like actively fighting it i look after myself yeah but i'm not actually scared of aging in time like I'm not and I think that would hit differently Laura if you were going into your 40s and not happy with where you were in terms of a relationship or children but for you you're so settled with your life and you know what it looks like but I think it's not necessarily the age it's if you're not where you want to be so I know a lot of people will be listening to this right now being like well fuck I'm petrified of 40 because I haven't found my person yet and I wanted kids

and I haven't been able to do that or whatever it is I think it comes with as much of finding your place in your life and your society and what you want from to get from life as it is the age but I also think I think for me and I absolutely agree Brit like obviously some of the things I didn't have that were I wanted when I was in my 20s or my 30s I have now which absolutely gives me that stability but there's another part of this which is like I have this real deep sense of who I am as a person that I didn't have in my 30s regardless of being married regardless of having children I know who I am now and I had such an identity crisis at 30 I was trying to be a version that was more likable to people I was trying to be the person that would be more

dateable to someone like I was always being this social chameleon and I think that that's where my feelings of not knowing who I was really came from and so I understand and I absolutely don't want to put that pressure on anyone who might be in a phase of their life where they don't have big pillars that they thought or desired for themselves but there is an other part of this which I think is really important to me and that is is like I know who I am and I really am okay with who I am you know like when I was 30 I don't think I liked who I was I think I expected more of myself and now I'm like you know what fuck if we're gonna be stuck together until we're old you're gonna be all right well we can hang out it's also super normal that's what happens with

age you live and you learn and you have life experience and you become more comfortable with who you are because of past experiences because of things you've you've been through or things you've learned along the way there are not many people in their early 20s or late 20s even if they say it even if they say I am so happy with who I am and I am so confident that's probably true but there are still aspects of that that I can guarantee you in 10 years time they will say oh I thought I was 100% I thought I was really comfortable or happy with who I was but now with hindsight I realized that I still had some work to do and that's not I mean I don't want anyone to take that the wrong way but it's almost like my late 20s like I feel like I had my do we call

it a quarter-life crisis about 27 mine was absolutely at 30 that's is that me 27 I don't know 27 was when I packed up shop sold everything I owned if you're gonna live to 120 yeah that's your quarter-life crisis third third life crisis I had a crisis I don't know what it was I literally sold everything I owned every single thing until I had one backpack me and my sister bought a one way ticket we went overseas with no plans and I did not know who I was I did not know what I was doing I had like it's the best times of my life over there and the worst times of my life over there like I the most depressed I've ever been was whilst I was traveling and the happiest I've been was while I was traveling so it's like that is a part of life where you need to go and experience

things and figure it out. But that is, even though I had some of my happiest moments, I'm a different person now in who I am in my core. And that I think can only come with age and experience. Well, I think we've just been lied to. I think that we've been lied to that your 20s are carefree and amazing and this time, like, and absolutely they are, they are a time for exploration, for making mistakes and for all of that sort of stuff. But they are also a time that is completely fraught with feeling as though you have no fucking clue of what you're doing. and I dare say that your 30s kind of feel the same like as much as there's a little bit more stability that comes I still think that there's a lot of working out that happens and there's a

part of me that I always thought 40 felt really scary and if you'd asked me when I was 20 or 30 about what 40 would be like I was like a fucking 20 but now I'm really excited about it and I was having a conversation with someone recently who I didn't know he was a makeup artist he was doing my makeup and he oh my god your makeup artist was doing your makeup that's crazy it was a fucking wild day I told you crazy things happen when you're 40 he was in his 50s looked amazing no chance in hell did I think he was in his 50s and he was like oh how old are you and I was like oh I'm almost 40 and he was like fucking great and I was like what do you mean and he was like 40s were the best years of my life he's like they were the absolute best years he goes I always

was so worried about it he's like I've never had as good a time as I did because I just didn't care in the way that I used to and I had all the things that made me feel more stable in my life and I just love that perspective and you know so many other women have done the groundwork around talking about what your 40s are but I do feel like that there's this renaissance coming and my 40s are going to be the 30s that I always dreamed of and I can't fucking wait everyone and it's three weeks away so can I just say you'll be hearing about it for a while Laura I know we probably speak about this every year but Laura is Keisha will back me the hardest person to buy a present for you are the hardest person it is impossible I've wasted a lot of money over you on the years because I'll

get you something you'd be like i don't want to use that got you i got you like three massages and you were like i'm never gonna use them hate being touched and i was like okay no i don't because you're just hard because like because you don't i'm just not a voucher galley like if you get me a voucher it never gets used girly though like you're not materialistic at all you don't have many things but you also don't have the time to have like we can't gift you an experience because you've got you won't do it yeah you don't like stuff like massages and you don't even have the time to like sit and get a beauty treatment sorry I want to tell you the massage wasn't a throwaway Laura was very stressed and she always says oh my back hurts my neck hurts and I was

like I'm gonna get a massage she'll love that and she's like no time don't like to be touched I was like oh I'll take them back I like I like them but you're you are notoriously hard to buy for because you don't like to do stuff don't buy me it no no but like Keisha's like like when I say stuff like experiences it's hard because there's no time and then you don't want to go do stuff without the family because that's what you are yeah no do you know what I do I do like doing stuff I think the reason why I love just this it sounds lame and I'm sure that it kind of goes against what you see every woman doing when they're like having their 40th birthday parties and everything else and like I always envisaged that my 40th I was going to go to Greece with

my girlfriends right like that's what I always thought I was like I'm gonna go to Greece we'll do it with my girls I've had a baby company card right and I'm not taking my kids to Europe because it's so expensive like you can take Britain out of Europe yeah we'll go I think I'm sure they would be keen it's just a very different stage of life to what I thought I'd be at at 40 and I didn't think I'd have a baby again and here we are and like I don't know my the things that really make me excited and make me happy aren't the big things that I thought that they were going to be when I hit this age, but they're like hanging out, having a nap, hanging out with my kids. We have boundaries. And I know that the one thing that you really want to do is go nude

swimming down the coast. And we're not going to do that. We can all go. I'll do it. We see each other nude all the time. Let's do it. Keisha, you're in. Laura and I, we haven't made it yet. I know it looks like we're TV hosts. We share a really tiny little change room and we're naked together all the time. I've seen you naked more times recently than I've seen my husband naked. Actually. That's same. Yeah. That's hot. That's hot. Here we Well, there's your birthday present. Also, not where I thought I'd be at 40. Okay, let's talk about maths.

Now, if you guys are watching Married at First Sight, you will know the last couple of days there's been a little bit of a tumultuous time between Scott and Gia. To be fair, I'm surprised that there aren't more tumultuous times between those two. I think there's probably a lot, but we don't see it. But let me just set it up because I think it's a really interesting conversation starter and I think a lot of people are having it today.

So if you haven't seen it, long story short, Gia accidentally saw a photo of Scott's ex on his phone. So she tells the story that they were driving in the car and she wanted to change the music on his Spotify. So she picked up his phone. We all create elaborate reasons. Don't we? And she was going through it at like 4am.

It also came at a really convenient time because she'd just gone to like the meet the family, right? So like she was with Scott's friends and one of Scott's friends was like, so how do you compare to Scott's ex-girlfriend? And then conveniently she saw a naked photo of Scott's ex-girlfriend, like at all. Well, this is the thing. Gia has proven herself to be quite the liar.

She tells a lot of porcupines, but I sort of believe her in this and I believe it because it's happened to me a lot. So wait, so she was going through Spotify? Well, yeah. She said she picked up his phone to change the music and like a memory popped up and that does happen. Like it happens to me all the time. You know how your phone now has all these weird updates

and it just serves you a photo from like 20 years ago, whatever. Apple just made us get used to that photo update, didn't it? Everyone in the world hates it and they never took it back. I want to know. Well, she's not going to tell us. No. Gia. Gia.

No, I want to know. I feel like Apple is pretty smart. Like your phone is pretty smart. Your phone knows what is a nude and what isn't in a nude, right? Like it's got it all pretty worked out. I don't think it serves memories of nudes. I've never been served a memory. I mean, I don't have that many on my phone.

Okay, well, we haven't actually told the audience that it was a nude yet. You're getting ahead of yourself. Okay, but no, but genuinely, if we're going to unpack the lie for a second, I want someone to tell me have you ever been served a memory of a nude like does that happen on phones or or is it actually a lie I don't know and I don't think Apple's gonna tell us either and she is not gonna tell us how she saw the photo but it's irrelevant she saw a photo of his ex in his phone and we don't want to go too much into it but it wasn't just like a you're not just at lunch having a beach date or whatever it was like a sexy photo I think there was lingerie involved

that's what she said but the details are here nor there it wasn't just like your everyday hanging out photo and so she asked him to delete it she's like do I want to be served this when you're my new husband and we're trying to work on our relationship and I want to see photos of your ex no I don't can you delete it and Scott said no and she said I will leave if you don't delete it and he was like bye and she was like bye and then she left sorry I haven't been watching the show because it's a lot of time thanks for supporting Laura and myself I've been watching your show I feel like it catches up. But so he refused to delete a photo, a sexy photo.

Yeah. Okay. Fair enough that she cracked the shit. 100%. This is the first time I've been like team Gia. Like if you're asking me about Gia. Yeah. Like 100%.

She had every right to do that. She had every right to ask him and she had every right to stand her boundaries and her ground and say like, I'm actually going to leave if you're not going to delete it. So Scott overnight thought about it and he thought about it and he said, wow, I probably was in the wrong. I will delete it. So he went through. What a revelation.

I know. Imagine it taking you 24 hours to realize you shouldn't have naked photos of your ex on your phone. I don't think it's a problem to have them if you don't know that they're there. Like, you know, we all have pasts. It's a problem to say that you're not going to delete it. Like, I don't blame him for having it there because, you know, I don't know how long they were together and maybe he has a lot of them and maybe he just hasn't scrolled back through that time. The funniest thing was he was like, I thought about it. So I went in and I selected and deleted all 450 photos. So it wasn't one.

He's like, I went back and deleted everything, all 400. So there were like, it was a chapter of his life evidently and I'm not saying all those photos. He's like, I needed time to store them to the clouds. Totally, into the hidden calculator vault. No, and I'm not saying all those photos were sexy nudes and stuff like that. You're not saying that they weren't.

He's just, well, I think he just said I went through and realised that like that wasn't conducive to developing this healthy relationship. So I deleted it all. Gia came back and they made up, but it has started an interesting conversation about nudes aside, like take those aside. That's very obvious. We know that we shouldn't have nudes of our exes in our phones when you're in another relationship. What's the line? What is the line for having photos of your ex? Do you guys think? The reason why we got into this is because originally I didn't realize that the photos were nudes. So I was like, why is it such a big deal to have photos of your ex on your phone? Right.

and then Britt was like did you even see what the photo was and obviously like well I didn't see the photo well no but I mean like you said Britt it goes without saying that if it's a if it's a naked or inappropriate photo or a photo of someone where once you've broken up the consent has been taken away to have that photo it's actually illegal you're not allowed to keep it then delete it but there is a gray area here right like a lot of people have photos of their exes that is a memory you know it's a chapter of life that you don't just delete because you're no longer with the person could be the two of you eating a fucking ice cream under a bridge i don't know what the photo is but it's like a memory of a really special time it doesn't mean why were you under

the bridge not on top of the bridge such a weird place to eat an ice cream no wonder your relationship didn't work you're like let's go sit under the bridge like gollum like trolls let's just troll under the bridge without ice cream it was the first thing that came to my mind like sometimes we're gonna go sit in the swamp the thing is though if you're in a new relationship and then the photo of you eating an ice cream with your ex pops up sometimes it doesn't make that other person feel very good okay my example on this so when matt and i first started dating each other he lived overseas with his ex-girlfriend like they lived in europe together they traveled all of europe together like they had the most

beautiful holidays they're like sunbaking in malta and doing all these different things and Were they on the bridge or under the bridge? They were under the bridge. They were on it because there was some sunbaking. But no, there were so many photos and it wasn't that long before. It was like a year and a half. So anytime you would scroll back to find something or to see something, these photos would constantly pop up.

And I was like, like I know. I never asked him to remove them. I wasn't angry that he had them. I wasn't jealous that he had them. But I hated to be reminded. No, I hated to be reminded. You don't want it to pop up on Spotify. yeah that's it was like an unnecessary thing when we're like you know having a really great day or

like we're in a really great moment being like oh there's a photo of you cuddling your ex that's weird cool no problems and I never said to him like can you take them off your phone because I felt as though that was unnecessarily controlling and it almost was like I guess it wasn't being the cool girl version of myself that I was trying to be at the time but looking back I can understand why it makes people feel uncomfortable or why it would make someone feel a bit nervous or a bit like comparative of their own relationship? I have such weird feelings about it. And I've been trying to unpack it in the last 24 hours in my brain

because there's a part of me that thinks – so first of all, I have photos of my ex in my phone. Sorry, Ben, if you're hearing this for the first time, I'll talk to you about it tonight. I also have 200,000 photos in my phone. I just don't delete it and I'm that person that doesn't know how to use technology. So I get a new phone and I just transfer it all over.

I've got – my whole life from like 2012 is on my phone. Your Google Drive is just like 3 million terabytes. It is. And because I don't know how to deal with it, I just keep buying more data, like more fucking storage. Anyway, I occasionally have something pop up and nothing is sexy. They're just a chapter of my life. And I don't think about it and I don't look at them, but I also don't want to delete them.

And I can't work out why, because I understand why for the good things, right? Like Jordan, my ex, that was a great time of my life. We had a great relationship. We did really cool things together. You know, I've got photos at Wimbledon and like some of the most amazing moments. And I don't want to hold on to those memories because of him, but it was a cool time, cool things that I did. But then the other day, there was a photo the other day popped up of my psycho ex, like

the most horrible person. And we actually barely have photos together, but one photo popped up, a selfie we took on a walk at the beach, beautiful backdrop. And I saw it and it made me, you know, when you instantly feel sick, like it takes you back to a time I felt sick but I didn't delete it and I don't know why I don't know why I reckon I probably have it's probably one of two photos I ever have of that time and I there's probably something a lot deeper that I need to unpack there I don't know if I hold on to that in my phone in case I need to be reminded of something I don't know what it is but I couldn't bring myself

to delete it knowing that that was probably the last photo of that horrific time so I don't know what that is but therapy yeah I don't know but I think I think it's hard and where it gets hard is if it becomes really important to your partner if your partner is saying to you I really don't feel comfortable with you having photos on it becomes a bigger discussion but for me on like a top level it doesn't bother me if Ben had photos of his ex if he's not looking at them and he's just it was three years ago and it was on a holiday and it was a time of his life that he enjoyed and wants to remember no I know but I think the problem is is that there comes a point where it can become controlling like someone if somebody says to you I want you to delete all photos of your ex

my bigger question would be why why do you need to delete an entire chapter of my life that in absolutely no way impedes on us or has any impact on us at all and they might turn around and say well why do you need to keep it and I actually think memories are really important and I look back and I say this because you might be too close to the memory now right like that person you might of dated a year ago or six months ago but when you're 70 it's quite nice to look back and be like that's right when I was in my 20s name again that was that was the guy from under the bridge and I say this because recently Ellie pulled out a whole heap of photos and we were sitting down looking through photos from like Matt's childhood and like from Ellie when Ellie was young when she

was like 19 20 and and I was like oh who's that and she's like oh that was my boyfriend at university and to me like imagine just deleting that entire story that entire chapter of your life simply because you married someone who was like actually everyone who came before me needs to be erased like they never existed that that feels silly so I think there has to be a fine line between being respectful and also being allowed to have things and photos and maybe they aren't in your phone but photos that actually show your life story which is made up of many many chapters I was about to say the same thing Laura one of I have this really direct memory of a photo album we have at home and we used to always go through it as a family like we used to pull out

all the albums and in the same album like two pages between each other are photos of when my mom and dad first met a few pages before same thing I say to mom who's this guy and she's like oh that was my boyfriend before your dad dad doesn't care dad was like yeah dad won you know so dad took mom from him but it was really cool to see her mom was dating at that time and see him like he was at the beach and it was just a nice memory and there was no one that felt awkward about it. I didn't feel awkward as the daughter. Dad didn't feel awkward as the husband. Mom didn't feel awkward as somebody that, you know, had a past and a present in the same time. And I think it was nice. Imagine if we didn't have that to look back on. The only other side to this that

I think is a bit more like, is it good for you? It doesn't really matter about your partner. And this is, I could be maybe opening up a little bit too much, but sometimes I have a lot of exes that lived overseas. And so when I would go over, I've spent a fair bit of time in Europe. When I would go over and see them we would go on these amazing holidays and it was like a real highlight reel and we have heaps of photos from it and every now and then those memories will pop up on my phone and I know that I'm looking at them with rose-colored glasses but I think it makes you play a comparison game of what you have now versus what you had then and obviously you don't remember all of the little nitty-gritty bits about maybe you had an argument on the way to that place or

those kind of negative sides you look at the photo and you're like oh that was just such an amazing time and sometimes I think I can catch myself in the comparison game of being like did I have more fun when I was you know like did I experience more highs because you forget about all of the little bits that the photos don't show you I think that's a problem I mean not for you sorry I mean I think if you're using those photos as a comparison then it's something that you need to think about but if the photos don't do anything to you other than like that was a great time then I think it's okay I think it's hard to not have that you know unless you kind of make your phone not show up any of those memories it can happen with friends as well sometimes I'll see photos

of like traveling with one of my best friends in 2016 it was the most fun year of my life and I'm like fuck that was just such a good time like I really miss the fact that I don't have that anymore do you know what I think the difference is between like the reminiscing in terms of like how our parents could do it or the generation before us us is that back in the day you didn't have unlimited scrolls of photos you might have had three photos or ten photos or like you know a little stack that you have in a photo album stored away somewhere and they're stored in a cupboard that you have to intentionally go back and get because of our digital and i guess like never prolific use of photography now like we have as you said brit you got 200 000 photos like an

unfathomable amount of memory documentation and so i guess for a lot of people it's not that you have one photo of your ex in the phone it's that you have your entire relationship captured and your entire relationship is accessible within two minutes which feels different very very different to having like a token memory the only I guess the reason why I kind of am a little now one I'm in a secure relationship so I don't care I don't look at any photos of Matt with his exes and be like oh my god I feel intimidated but what I do think is you know I look back on something I did when I was in my 20s and I regret doing it I used to have this box that used to have all of like memory keepsakes in it it had my yearbooks in it it had my school uniforms in it it also had

buck loads of photos like every photo that I'd ever kind of like taken that was important to me of like exes or yeah just just it was really a memory trove of everything the shoebox that you thought was really safe and secret and hidden but like your mom and your sister everyone everyone was there everyone looks through it but it wasn't it wasn't safe well I live I lived with a boyfriend at the time so it wasn't it was something I'd had since I was a kid and it was a big wicker basket like a big wicker box that sat at the end of my bed and when I went through a bad breakup because There were so many things that he'd given me and that were his. I just took the whole thing and I put it on the side of the road

and it's gone, everything, and I didn't even open it. But that's brave. You should have burnt it, not just given everyone your deepest, darkest secrets. No, I just knew it was going to get picked. Free to go home, more secrets. It was going to get picked up by the council team. I just put it in a tip pile.

And it makes me really sad because there were other things in that that at the time I thought were disposable. At the time I didn't care because I was so angry, so angry that I was like, you know what, I'm going to throw it all out in the bin and I'm going to start my life fresh. and it was kind of like for me a line in the sand but now I'm like you know there was pressed flowers in there that were from my grandfather's funeral you know and there were just things in there that I wish I had kept that don't have any impact on my life now you know I don't think about them

but it would have been a really nice thing to have gone back and been like oh that's your year 10 year book that I don't have because in a fucking fit of anger I threw it all in the bin and that's what I I guess some people do as well you go through a bad breakup or you go through like a bad ending and you delete everything and then once the anger subsides you're like you know what yeah I don't have those photos but that was actually a chapter of what made me me and sometimes it's nice to go back and look at that whether it's reminiscing or whatever you want to call it or it's just a memory I think that it's okay to have those things you know accessible somewhere just maybe not on your phone yeah and I also don't think I don't know the details but

I don't think Gia asked Scott going back to Matt I don't think Gia asked Scott to delete everything but it was obviously very confronting to have that particular style of photo pop up. Also, like, that's not even a conversation. If it's fucking nudes, delete them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well said.

If you listened to our Off Cuts episode, which was on Saturday, you would have heard us talking about a guy who was doing something called looks minimising. Basically, he was trying to make him himself, like, the most unattractive version that he could possibly be. He was training one side of his body. One trap. It was weird.

He was going for the most asymmetrical version of himself to be a looks minimiser. Now, we mentioned this on the episode. If you haven't listened to it, go because our Offcuts app is, like, very good. It's great. It's fun. Just going to put it out there in case, you know,

even if that's self-indulgent and not very modest. It's fun. It's humble. No, but looks minimising exists because looks maximising exists. Well, looks maxing is something that we have been talking about for quite a few weeks. We have had this prepped for how long, Keisha? Since November.

I brought it up in November when I saw this guy on a podcast, this guy that we're about to talk about. Clevicula. Who's kind of like the king of looks maxing. But it was because he went on a podcast and shared his routine of what he does to his body to obtain the status of, you know, being a looks maxer. And it was so concerning and genuinely insane.

Yeah. Well, I mean, and this guy, Clevicula, who we'll get into, he's kind of ground zero of this. But it really pertains to and leans into the incel culture. But basically, if you've never heard of looks maxing, the most basic definition for it is someone who is maximizing their looks, so making themselves the most attractive version of themselves as the absolute number one priority. There's a whole lot of different steps to be able to achieve this looks maxing profile.

And the reason why they're doing it is because it ties back to dating. It basically says that your value in dating, your value and your currency to the opposite sex purely lies in your aesthetic there isn't it like doesn't matter if you're funny doesn't matter if you're smart doesn't matter if you're wealthy doesn't matter nothing else matters the most important currency you have is your attractiveness so your number one priority in life is and should be to be as attractive as humanly possible for your base level yeah they call that a terror chad which is the unattainable aesthetic perfection so there's there's a scale and they score them from one to eight. Subhuman is the lowest. That's hideous and ugly. And according to this system,

people like Angelina Jolie, Margot Robbie, and the Australian model Jordan Barrett are ranked amongst the most attractive people on earth, but they're still not eights. They're still in the seven categories. So they rate them across four different categories. One is harmony. So that's the cohesiveness of one's features. Dimorphism, which is how distinct you looked from the opposite sex so much to unpack about that angularity the keenness of your features which correlates to low body fat and miscellaneous features so that's things like your eyebrow thickness your skin clarity your nose shape they even measure the distance between your nose and your lip because they have all of these things the reason that we're going to talk about this clavicular guy

is because his clavicle which is like your collarbone is apparently of the perfect dimension Oh, for God's sake. It's a fucking joke. It started as black pill in cell forums. It's an extremely dangerous ideology that is gaining a lot of speed and traction online. Now, I don't know if I'm seeing it a lot more because I'm in an echo chamber. I've been doing the research for a couple of months. And so now the internet's like, your lag looks maxing.

Dude, but it's not. Have some more content. Yeah, it's only men. So it's not women. It's like, I'm not being fed anything about women. It's all just men that are doing this looks maxing. But it's really dangerous because these men are, I mean, they're profiting from it now. they're making money so they have programs and they say ascend with me so the word is ascend

they they link a program and they say ascend come come and join my ascending program they charge people money for them to say this is how to get the lowest amount of body fat but still be able to function through the day this is what you have to take to ensure that you build muscle and lose fat simultaneously this is we're going to give you a load of drugs that you can take that normally if you took too many would be unsafe but we'll tell you just the right amount to take it these are 20 year olds by the way we're going to tell you how to get a jaw line and cheekbones by hammering your jaw with a hammer they chisel their own face because they truly believe that they can change the structure of their bone which mind you they can't it's not doing anything it's very

damaging but they're selling this ideology to young impressionable men and this is the next wave of generation of men that are coming through they truly believe and they are teaching that your only value and the only way you will ever have access to a woman is if you look and act like these people which is i think it's it's really sad and dangerous but it's funny because women don't think this this is just men telling other men but okay bone mashing thing is that something that i think we need to sit on unpack so this has got a terminology in the name for it right so it's It's called bone mashing. That's the hammering of your face.

It's like gouache on steroids. So you take a hammer and you smash into your bone structure to reform your bone structure. Well, you don't smash, but you tap. You tap. It's like sculpting Michelangelo or something. But you know what? I was thinking about this, and absolutely,

it is a very dark corner of the internet. I don't think that there's anything positive that comes out of it. The fact that they're selling the programs to looks maximise really is just monetising on people's insecurities. To ascend, if you could use that. To ascend, sorry, to ascend. But I do think that there is a question in this, and that is, do you think that this is just the male version of very longstanding beauty pressures that women have experienced for so long? Like, is this the leveling up?

Because so much of this is being targeted towards men, but women have been at the receiving end of absolutely insane beauty standards for so long. We just haven't called it looks maxing. And then in addition to this as well, a lot of what comes into looks maxing is also promoting surgery, right? So in order to optimize your look, not only is it bone mashing, not only is it taking different microdosing on drugs, but there is also like surgical options. And so it's saying like, you know, surgery is a really beneficial way to achieve your most optimal look. Women have been receiving this forever, but we've just kind of sugarcoated it in a way

that's like, it's okay if you want to change your nose and that makes you feel better about yourself, that's good for you. You know, it looks different though for men because it's the kind of things like we spoke about a few weeks ago which is like the leg lengthening where you're breaking your legs putting the um metal in there and you're slowly opening it up to gain inches it's different because that stems back to well women only want a man that's six foot like if you're short if you're a short king you're not a king i agree i think that is something that women have experienced for a really long time from society but i think that for some reason this feels more dangerous

this feels i don't want to use a pun but this feels like what women have experienced on steroids Yeah. And I think that that's actually where I drew, draw the line that it does make it such a distinct difference. And I think the easiest way to explain this is to show a clip from that podcast I was talking about. It's with a guy called Jack Neal and it was titled face determines everything looks max exposes ugly truth about success. We've heavily edited this for pacing because it goes on for a couple of minutes, but here is him answering what he takes daily. What drugs do I take in a day? For growth, for the gym, I'm taking testosterone every single day. I take minoxidil for my hair. I take dutasteride for my hair. I take 7.5 milligrams of Accutane

a day. I use crystal meth, so methamphetamine as a stimulant and to lean max, right? It's very suppressing of your appetite. It's a very long acting stimulant. So this is something that I've started using in place of Adderall, and I use it to lean max, right? So I'm pretty much using meth for hollow cheeks. So that's kind of where we're at in terms of looks maxing. And I also will take Redish Routide once a week. I take Milano Tantoo every single day. How much Redish Routide do you take? I take 15 milligrams. Got it. And that would be considered a fairly high dose?

Extremely high dose, yes. It's a giga dose of Redish Routide. But I value my leanness extremely highly i'll take igf1 occasionally and hgh and i think that the biggest issue with this and as i said we did cut that down and by the way this is completely factually inaccurate he says in that that you know meth is a mild or a softer form of adderall and so i played this i played the whole clip in front of my partner who's a doctor and his brain nearly exploded he was like what the fuck is this guy saying and the way that he says it is so convincing he seems to have a lot of the terminology that is in line with scientists and is in line with medical professionals but what he's saying is not correct and it's not true and I kind of looked at this and I was like

who is the doctor that is prescribing all of these things like are you shopping around or do you have one person who has absolutely no morals that is just willing to give you whatever you want because at this point he is a human experiment and like these drugs impact you systemically so Laura you saying like you know surgery women have gotten surgery on their breasts on their butt on their face for a long time and I think I feel a little bit differently because I'm like yes but that's conducted by professionals now this guy is encouraging people to take testosterone to take methamphetamines to take you know Accutane like the list of things that he takes daily and the combination of them is what I think is the problem.

I agree. And, like, firstly, no one should be taking medical advice from an influencer on the internet. He's also 20. Also not from us either. He's 20. And don't get me wrong, I'm not discrediting how dark and how problematic this is, but I am comparing it

to how problematic women have faced for so long. And, yes, and when he says methamphetamines, I just want to clarify, he even says himself, I use that as, like, a shock value. No, I use it as a shock value. It's not actually, he's not injecting crystal meth. You know, he's not saying that that's what he takes. He takes a prescription version of it, right?

It's clickbait. It's all clickbait. And he even says that himself. And so I think it's important to make sure that that is something that is known. But the medication is used for people with psychiatric conditions. Absolutely. Not to chisel your cheekbones. Absolutely.

And it's not there for micro dosing because it makes you more attractive. But what I guess, and what I don't want to discredit, is as women, we have been subjected to such insane standards for so long think about things like the fucking lemon detox diet like the lemon detox diet we all shit ourselves for like six days straight because Beyonce lost 14 kilos in two weeks like there's been insane trends that have happened within the women's space of healthcare quote-unquote that's happened over and over and now I'm not saying that one is worse than the other but I am saying that like it's almost like it's just caught up for men in this instance Yeah, I do think this is where some of the difference lies.

Not all women, some women. Some women have surgery and change their looks to please the eye of a male, to feel like they're more attractive, to get a life partner. But a lot of women do it for themselves and that's also what we encourage. Like you do it if you want to change something about yourself to make yourself more confident or to make yourself happier. The ideology here is very different because the basis and the teachings of ascending and looks maxing lies purely with you are worthless

to the opposite sex if you do not look like this. And, of course, there are some women that feel like that, that feel like the men in society has made them say, okay, I need to look like this to be successful or accepted or find a life partner. Like we are never going to deny the pressures that we feel. But a lot of women choose to do it for themselves. And like even Keisha was saying the other day, I cut my hair for women.

Women dress for women. You know what I mean? There's a different conversation. And I think for the men, it's like, you're fucked. If you don't look like this, no one's going to like you, which ties back to the incel culture. I agree. It's way more aggressive, but it is very, very tricky.

And it's something that we've, we've danced around this and talked about this as well many times. But even if you say you're doing it for yourself, you're doing it because of the standards that have been set in terms of what beauty, our beauty standards are. If you're getting breast implants, even if you say you're doing it for yourself, and I'm not poo-pooing anyone who does any surgery, but you're doing it because of the benchmark of the beauty standard where does that beauty

standard come from that's the thing to unpack at least with the looks maxing they've put a reason to it they've been like because it'll make you more attractive to the opposite sex like at least they're being honest about it do you know what I mean like we we have dressed it up as like self-empowerment or self-improvement but at the end of the day all surgery and once again I'm not saying whether it's good or bad or anything I'm just saying some like as a objective observation surgery has become self-care normalizing surgery has become self-editing and like it happens now across both sexes before men weren't getting plastic surgery in the volume that they currently are but like you know we sat here the other day and we talked about how crazy leg lengthening

surgery is right like it's fucking insane if you're gonna do that i guess like it's also pretty interesting to unpack how fucking insane it is to get your breast cut open and get silicone put in it like and then walk around with silicone inside your body for the rest of your life like both things are insane yes but they're very different absolutely absolutely but they are both when you actually get to the base of what they are they're insane concepts when they are not for functionality they are purely for aesthetics I think some of the language that is used in this whole like looks maxing is where things tend to take like a really particularly misogynistic turn absolutely everything that you're talking about they have a word for this sorry they have

an acronym for it it's smv and it means sexual market value but some of the other words that they use around it are hard maxing and that refers to the extreme permanent changes so things like surgery the limb lengthening plastic surgery implants that kind of thing amog which is an acronym that means alpha male of the group so they're all trying to achieve the status of being that but then what happens if you have a group of seven and you're all alpha males it's going to well they can't they can't interact with each other right because if they did they would potentially try and frame mog each other which means that you have a broader more muscular build to achieve dominance and you will often stand next to someone that you can frame mog to prove that you

are you know the bigger more masculine man there's a term called gesture maxing that means where you try to appeal to women with humor or personality and they look down upon people who do that so they say like they would use gesture maxing as a term of like you're not hot enough yes like you have to rely on your personality because you're not hot enough because you're a subhuman appearance you have to be funny because you don't have a jawline like and they refer to women as foids so like even in that word you think of like a robot right and you think so a female robot that's how dehumanizing the language in this culture is around women it's very Andrew Tate oh a hundred percent but also it is to me interesting to understand where this stemmed from especially when you use like the

terminology abbreviations that they are using within this culture this entire trend has come from like the deep subgroups of gaming online like the chat online groups typically the most attractive among society so you've got to you've got to imagine a lot of the people who find themselves in these chat groups are potentially men who feel outcast in social situations i'm not saying all gamers are by any means like a lot of gamers have great personalities are really social people but there are people who go to gaming because they don't feel socially comfortable in a normal interaction right and so gaming becomes a safety net and a social interaction for them I am not excusing it that's not what this is but what I'm saying is when you get a

whole heap of people who I guess are either insecure or share similar ideologies like that's where this shit just festers and that's where it's grown from. And then this, you see this person like Clavicula who are sprouting that they once upon a time looked like X, but now look like Z and it's increased their profile. I guess it gives them something to aspire to, right? And so the whole thing is disgusting. It's, it is all so grotesque. It is really dehumanizing to women. And it also puts immense pressure on men that the only way in which they're going to be able to claw themselves out of this incel situation is to be able to be more attractive for women to want to have sex with them. And it's because most of the people who are subscribing to this culture

are that. They're finding dating incredibly hard. They are not people who are confident in their own looks or in how they appear to the world. And they've latched onto this purely because they've seen this version, which is what's going viral, this clavicular who's giving them a pathway to achieve something that feels completely unattainable to them. The main reason that I actually think this is particularly an issue at the moment and I think it's being spoken about now is not just because this guy has over a million followers across Instagram and TikTok. It's because of the language that they use and it's a lot more palatable to like normal people. You know, they make out that it's for fitness and health and self-optimization. And I can only imagine how fucking scared I would be if I had a teenage boy right now.

You know, when you look at the options that they have to follow online and the pressures that they're kind of up against, I just can't imagine what you would be experiencing if you had a son and looking at this as something that they might aspire to be like. Well, I think the thing is, is it's taken this incel culture from what was once upon a time a very niche subgroup into mainstream. I mean, it's very easy to find information about this now across Instagram or on TikTok. like there is numerous reels about this and it is really coming under a spotlight but the problem is is that by creating a version where you're saying the only redeemable quality about you

when it comes to dating is your looks it creates instant disdain for women it creates this instant hatred because it's like well if I look like this no one's going to want to date me I didn't choose to look like this this is not my choosing so therefore like you're the problem it creates an enemy in the genders in doing this as well well i think it also just puts a an extra level of pressure for the next generation of women because if these men think that they hold themselves to such high account they're going to hold the women that they want to be with to the same level so they're going to expect women to step it up a fucking another notch the last thing i want to say and the reason it's an issue is it is the next generation of men but he spits out comments like

he dropped out of school right and he says in an interview why would i take a two hundred thousand loan out to go to college because America is more than Australia but he's like why would I take a $200,000 loan out to get an education when I could spend that $200,000 on plastic surgery he's like that's fucking scary because if we look at what the next generation is no one's going to be educated and everyone's going to go around looking like this Hollywood-esque type man with no brains I don't know what the future actually is really concerning it scares me a lot to think where we're going to be in 20 years the antidote to this is just date the funny guy literally like like it's that's why I think it's so comical because of course there's people who

value aesthetics out there but the majority of women if you ever speak to them and I think feel like every fucking person listening to this is like I'd rather choose a guy that's funny over a guy that's hot any day of the week make me laugh and then you can fuck me and like all of this goes against that and I don't know I mean you'll definitely now that we've talked about it it's probably going to infiltrate your algorithm you're going to see it more and more but it is something that yeah go and have a look at it it's entertaining if nothing else but it is frightening and I definitely think it's something that's worth an unpack and at the same time it's like what are these ridiculous standards that we keep on putting ourselves up it's like the standards

the beauty standards across the board shift so dramatically and now once again they have just reached new and unattainable heights well guys that is it from us it is time for our suck and our sweet of the week I'm gonna kick it off because I had a really cute little weekend my suck for the week. Actually, I don't can I say I don't have a suck? Yeah, you say it every week. Almost every week. Well, because I feel like my life is, I'm in a happy place, guys. I'm in a happy place. You either say the kids aren't sleeping

or I don't have a suck. So you don't have to have a suck. Yeah, I really don't have a suck though. I mean, apart from the fridge but the fridge has been fixed now and so life is good again. We spoke about that last week. Move on. We can't talk about the fridge again. Okay, I don't have a suck. Everyone is well. My only very mild suck is that Poppy got her first

head cold. So she was a little bit sick. But like apart from that that's boring yeah but like boring yeah but once again this is not a parenting podcast and my sweet for the week is that on the weekend we went to the zoo after talking about punch con the monkey i was like we woke up on sunday and it was an overcast day and i was like you know what we should do and i said it loudly enough so that the kids heard and so that then matt couldn't say no i was like we should go to the zoo today that's so manipulative it was it It really is. It was.

And he was like, fuck you. I hate you. And the kids were like, the zoo! And we actually had just the best day. It was so cute. I did see the videos. It did look, the me cat, very up close. Everyone, the iPhone 17, chef's kiss.

With a zoom on it, it's next level. It was amazing. There's also not a technology podcast. No, but we had a really cute time. And like, I know that there's, I know zoos are like not necessarily great. They're not great, but like they're, look, we had a great time. Okay. I'm not promoting the zoo, but we had a great time.

My suck for the week was I went to the Gold Coast to see my sister, brother-in-law Jay, and baby Maya and my parents. And the suck was that every time I've gone to the Gold Coast lately, it pours. I don't know what it is. And every time I get there, Sherry says to me, it's been sunny every day until you get here. It's hard for you, isn't it, Britt?

Three of the four days. Because I get Delilah in that rain. It is hard for me. I haven't had a summer in three years. Since I've been with Ben, I just have to have winter, winter, winter, winter on every continent. But yes, it sucks to have dogs in the rain. So my suck was that.

But my sweet was I saw my parents and baby Maya and my sister for the first time since like November or something like that. So it was a really long time coming. So we just had like a wholesome family weekend, which was really cute. And baby Maya, I've got to stop calling her baby Maya. Toddler Maya. But to her face, I'm always like, baby Maya. But anyway, she has finally said my name for the first time.

she can't say britain and nicola mayo but she says bit bit like bit bit bit bit and it was really cute i was like i've made it so so that was it just family weekend but anyway that is it from us guys please we want your confessionals we want your accidentally unfiltered and a big one that i'm going to ask you for aftermaths if we've ever answered your ask uncut or you know we've answered your friends ask uncut or there's been any resolution whether it was positive or negative Can you please send those in? So you can just send them into Instagram, which is Life Uncut Podcast. Just put whatever it is.

So at the top, just put like Ask Uncut or Aftermath or Confession. Accent filtered, all of the stuff. Yeah, because we go through them all the time. We don't look at your profile. Like we're going to keep you anonymous. I do. No, we don't. You're always going to be anonymous.

But we want to do a very specific call out because we want to do some more Aftermath episodes and Confessional episodes. Well, speaking of Ask Uncut, just before we get out of here, usually on a Friday, you guys know that we usually have our interview episodes, but this year we have decided to add a little bit of spice, a little bit of, you know, mixing it up a bit, and we're going to have a guest Ask Uncut about once a month. The first one is coming out this Friday, so in two days' time, and it is with the amazing and fucking hilarious Tony Lodge. It was such a funny episode. I laughed the entire time I edited this. Well, basically it means that instead of just us answering your ask on cuts, we will have a celebrity guest also answering your ask on cuts too. We might not always be a celebrity, but we'll have a guest.

Guys, we're getting out of here. Remember, tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends and share the love because we love love.