The Overshare with Gemma Atkinson - SOCIAL EMBARRASSMENTS: Your Social Media Mess Ups!

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

We’ve all been victim to a social media mishap, but have you ever ran home sick after sending your boss something inappropriate, or slipped on Instagram Live at the worst possible time?  Prepare to cringe like never before at these hilarious tales.  Gemma’s also joined by author Tanith Carey as they tackle one of the no.1 parenting questions; when is the right time to let your kids loose on social media?In this episode we use a different voice as the voice of the final story - to protect their embarrassment, you'll see why.

hello i'm jemma atkinson and listen before we start can i just say a massive massive thank you so so much we've had a ridiculous amount of lovely comments about our little podcast he's taken off and we're so so grateful we're going to do another little mini episode actually soon talking about the response we've had we'll have a read out of some of your kind words as well but for now thank you they've all been read they've made us all weep and smile and it's all just been a bit overwhelming especially when you add in a 10 week old a four-year-old and a long-distance Spanish dancer into the mix so thank you thank you. Right, back to this week though now. Social media mess-ups is what the Overshare is all about.

Now surely, right, this is something we can all relate to. If it's not us, there'll have been someone in your office or your family or your circle of mates who's got a tale about texting the wrong person, maybe slipping on their WhatsApp or falling asleep on their Facebook. But I suspect they've not cringed quite like the people you're about to hear from.

Right, now this is a warning again. You know it, it's perhaps not for young ears. So if you are listening with children present, perhaps pause and revisit later on when they're not there. Coming up in this Overshare. I was like, oh my God, what am I going to do? I've sent this to my boss and what am I going to do? And she went, go on, stick.

Just in the same way as you wouldn't put a learner driver on the M1, you don't give your child a completely enabled smartphone from the word go. I flicked the stake and it landed straight in his face, purposely aimed. And it just went all down him, down his new top and everything else and i said you know where the door is and i locked him outside my back garden knowing full well he had to climb over the fence to get out of my garden yeah and was it like pants on pants off like what could you really see i bet part of your boss was a bit jealous that he you know he hadn't had that night with you do you know what i mean and our friend and expert abby blaze is back hello abby you're right yeah i'm good thank you good good now abby's becoming quite a star actually we're convinced this podcast series is going to

rocket you to stardom abby you're going to be up there she's going to be joining us through these stories on social media downfalls hey karen hi oh little dog what breed are you breathing names of the dogs i've got two can you can i see you or is it just your voice i'll i'll you should you'll be able to see us hopefully in a minute producer matt's just nipped out to try and turn something on. Oh, come on, Producer Matt. Sort of like that, Matt. Let me turn my phone around. So this is Milo.

Oh, look at my little shih tzu. Little shih tzu, yes. And then this is my old boy. And I've had to bring his bed downstairs because he can't get upstairs anymore. Oh, bless him. He's 13. So when you put on about Ollie and Norman,

I feel for you because this is my... Look, he's even got grey eyebrows now. Yeah. Look at him. They have a grey eyebrows and grey beard, don't they? I know, yeah. So that's my two boys. So welcome to the Overshare, Karen.

Now, Karen, I believe you've done something that we've all probably done at some point. You can't be the owner of a mobile phone without making this mistake. Now, maybe not quite on your scale, though. So go on, Karen, talk us through what happened. I can't even believe I'm telling you this. Oh, my God. I'm embarrassed thinking about it, and it's about 15 years ago I were a PA for one of the partners in the firm and we sat in like a bit of a recess so it was kind of an office with no door on you could see it rest at office and his team sat outside

there were about eight or ten between eight and ten of them he used to be in and out of meetings all the time he were out at a meeting this particular day so I sent my husband a message would add am I allowed to say it make up sex the night before oh fabulous would add a row and obviously it's better than normal isn't it when you do makeup so and I was sat there my boss were out and I thought I'll send him a message so I sent him a message saying oh you know last night was fantastic I hope we can do it again tonight blah blah blah a bit more explicit but you get the gist yeah so I didn't get a reply and I thought hey he wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as me so then about an hour later I thought oh my god

why didn't he reply to me and I looked at my phone and I'd put a name they didn't have the same name but I'd put a name before his my husband's name so that it were at beginning of my contact list and oh my god that moment I sat there with my head in my hands I burst into tears there. Why where did it go to? I sent it to my boss. That's the opposite. So me and my boss, literally, they were all at the two desks facing each other. It was in my eyes' view. I burst into tears.

I went upstairs to see my friend. I was like, oh, my God, what am I going to do? I've sent this to my boss, and what am I going to do? And she went, go home sick. Tell him you're sick. So I went downstairs. I need to go home I'm not well went home thinking oh my god what am I gonna do didn't tell my husband because we used to go to

do's with him we'd been to his house for barbecues and that I thought if I tell my husband my husband will feel awkward if if I say out to my boss I thought well what do I do so I literally it were never mentioned again I moved my monitor so it were in his eyes view so I couldn't see his face. And I worked with him for another five years and it were never mentioned again. It's that moment, isn't it? When panic sets in.

It was horrendous. Yeah, and your stomach churns. I mean, I bet part of your boss was a bit jealous that you know he hadn't had that night with you you know what i mean i just sat there and i thought you know when you literally freeze yeah and i and what the hell do i do i just went home and i just walked in day after like normal i went morning you're right like that and he went yeah you and i went yeah fine i bet he thought I wonder if you've been at it last night again well I was gonna I bet it is from a guy's point of view Abby I bet it's quite embarrassing as well for them when they read

especially your boss I mean yeah but I mean I guess it depends on the person because some people like super liberal other people are like more closed and stuff so it's just like just depends about 20 years older than me I think it's fabulous I mean I don't I'm trying to think I'm trying to picture my boss now

and I don't I don't even think oh no it doesn't even bear thinking about if I sent it to my boss would you what would you do

in that situation Gemma would you like I'd have to ask it or I'd have to come in like I'd have to come in the day after and say

I'm really sorry I've had my phone stolen I can everyone everyone can get me on this new number but my phone's gone missing so if you get any

friend requests and things like that it's strange it's not me strange emails yeah yeah I like that

it's a bit deceitful but I enjoy it yeah I just didn't know what I could say and then the longer it went on then it were an issue

so I just didn't say oh I just didn't know what I could say. And then the longer it went on, then it were an issue. So I just didn't say it out. I just didn't say it out. So to this day, your husband still doesn't know that your ex-boss knew about how good he was in the sack? No, thank God he's an ex-husband now, so I never have to bring him up to him. Oh, that's all right. Karen, thank you so much. Love to you all. And I watch all your stories, Gemma.

And I think you and Gawker and kids are wonderful. You do an amazing job. Thanks, Karen. No worries. Next to the Overshare is Claire. Now, we had loads and loads of messages from people who found out their other half was cheating via social media. And I believe this happened to you, didn't it, Claire?

Tell us what happened. So I was in just short of a two year relationship at the time. And we decided to have a bit of a break and thought that was it and then decided we'll try and patch things up. So it was the rose tinted sunglasses were back on and everything was hunky dory. And we'd gone out for a lovely kind of refresher date starting again. And we were back at mine. And I was cooking him a very expensive steak dinner that I couldn't afford. That I was trying to impress. And he was outside with my dogs.

Just kind of soaking up the summer sunshine and all that. And I was in the kitchen. I thought, oh, well, everything's preparing. I'll go online and just kind of just go on my Facebook, see what's going on in the world while I've been out that day. And I saw a post from his roommate and it was a picture of, well, my now ex, then time, you know, trying to get back together, boyfriend, looking a bit worse for wear the night before. And the tagline was for someone with a new girlfriend, you don't look very happy. And the comment below was from said girl saying,

don't worry, I make him very happy. So you can imagine my heart was racing. My face was probably about as hot as the frying pan with the steak at that time. And I thought, no, this can't be it. There's no, this has to be a time delay because we'd been on a break for about a month. So maybe it was an old post, but the, uh, the timestamp was the day before. So I went, right. Okay. Don't read too much into it. Give him credit. And then I looked at the shirt he was wearing and the shirt he was wearing was a t-shirt that my mom, it was a kind of funny slogan phrase thing. My mom had thought it was quite funny and had bought it for him. So I knew it was very fresh. And I thought, wow. So for someone feeling worse for wear, this was last night where he told me he had a headache and he couldn't answer my phone call. So I had to compose

myself and I was like, right, what do I do? I thought, oh, do I just confront him nicely? Do I go out screaming and ranting? What do I do? I thought, sod it. So I picked up the frying pan off the stove with the steak and I went outside carrying laptop in one hand, frying pan in the other. I said, do you have anything to say about this? And he looked at it. He was like, oh, that was ages ago. I said, look at the t-shirt. Mum bought you that. And I literally, you know on pancake Tuesday we flip the step yeah flip the pancakes I flicked the steak and it landed straight in his face purposely aimed and just went all down him down his new top and everything else and I said you know where the

door is and I locked him outside my back garden knowing full well he had to climb over the fence to get out my garden I wouldn't let him back in that was my story I'd have over the fence to get out of my garden. I wouldn't let him back in. That was my story. I'd have tied the steak to his leg and let the dog chase him. That's what I'd have done. I did have two Rottweilers. So they were more keen on eating the steak out in the garden than climbing him out, climbing him in the back garden. But yeah, as he was locked out trying to bang the door

and then figure out how to climb the fence, I did write a little comment back to the said girl. I said, you may want to check where he was tonight, dot, dot, dot, left it there. And then I didn't speak to them. I let them all figure out what happened afterwards. He unfriended me. So he thought I couldn't see the posts, but didn't realise I was still friends with his roommates. They're not clever enough to lie, are they? To be a liar, you've got to have a really good memory. I wasted a good steak. That was my only concern.

And Abby, obviously... I could save it for sandwiches the day after. Your role, Abby, is a matchmaker. And with the dating advice that you give to people, do you find that more people are separating because of social media? And even before people get into a relationship, there's loads of snooping that goes on

and things that can be found out. Like someone I know recently found out that the guy she was dating quite casually was dating someone else because she saw him on a date in the background of someone's instagram story oh wow it's like so we're policing people from the very beginning yeah definitely policing you're probably like i'm gonna find something about somebody that's going to put you off. It must be like exhausting to be that cheating person. The angle that got him was the shirt. Yeah. So yeah, my mum said it was the best 10 quid she wasted

and one at the same time, it saved me years of heartache afterwards. Oh, bless her. Has that influenced you at all moving forward in terms of like how you trust people? Majorly, majorly. I overanalyze everything that people say my dad used to say they tell the truth but maybe not the whole truth a colleague of mine thought years and years ago that his partner was cheating on him and he told me about it and I literally said give me 10 minutes minutes. What's the Instagram page? And literally within 10 minutes, I found out she was. And I sent him the evidence.

And part of me to this day feels quite bad about it because I'm like, oh, it probably wasn't my place to find that information out. But at the same time, you know, he was wondering if it was going on and it was. And as soon as he had that, he ended it. It was all he needed to end it. But yeah, I found out on social media

just by going right this picture this date following him following that place you go through like a chain it's like a dot to dot and then bam

there's the picture of them together when she told me mate she was somewhere else God so yeah I felt like I worked for the FBI You should feel a bit like proud of yourself

I felt quite special. I was like, there you go, it's proven. But then it was a bit awkward because about a year later, they did get back together and it was like, well, I can't ever be in a company again. But it didn't last. You know, it goes with things now even, I mean, not just relationships,

but, you know, if family members put a photo up of, I don't know, your kids with their cousins and another cousin's missing from the photo. Oh, why have you left them out? Everyone's overanalyzing too much. I find a lot of it, a lot of my friends and family members have moved away from social media because the 20 questions that comes with a post, I go through an annual cull of friends because I'm like, do those people need to see my posts? If I'm walking down the street, would I say hello to them? Or am I just, just getting, you know, accumulating friends to get the numbers of, you know, friends on my page? You know, what's, what's my kind of remit for

having social media? So I think as you get older, you kind of, your opinions on social media change as well. And what, what use it is for you. Claire, thank you so, so much. And we've all been there when you said early, you know, 1920s, we've all been there. I have been there multiple times, but we get out of it.

That's a good thing. We live and learn. Thank you for joining us, Claire. Thanks so much. Thank you. next on the overshare as we talk about social media fails tanith joins us now tanith's an author and has had first-hand experience in dealing with similar matters to these poor parents here who have been through some social media grief with their kids now we'll get to those in a second hi tanith welcome to thevershare. Now you're a child behaviour guru,

aren't you? So you've written quite a few books around the thinking of teens, I believe. Yeah, well, I've written a suite of books called What's My Child Thinking, What's My Tween Thinking and What's My Teenager Thinking. So yeah, I've covered a lot of scenarios that parents face. Well, in that case, we thought, well, we need to get you on to go through some other stories that have been sent to the Overshare. We've had quite a few on WhatsApp and email. We had one from Georgia. She says, hi, Gemma.

I was horrified when one of the mums from my daughter's school messaged me with a selection of screenshots from a conversation between her daughter and my daughter via WhatsApp about my daughter being gay. She says, I was horrified to find out this way. I was fuming, which only made matters worse because my daughter confused the anger I had over finding out via someone else with anger over her being gay.

I'm clearly not angry about that. I don't think for a second I handled it properly. So, I mean, that's, I mean, what a way to find out, I guess, from your daughter's friend and not your daughter yourself. The mum is absolutely right that often kids, teenagers, particularly, or tweens as well, interpret our kind of of our own feelings of maybe kind of dismay or surprise or shock as disappointment in them and as this woman as this mum says she's not disappointed in her daughter she just feels maybe a little bit let down that her daughter hasn't come to her but i mean to be honest i mean your mum isn't necessarily the first person you would come to to process your feelings about your emerging sexuality.

Teenagers are forming their identities and they have an innate knowledge that basically parents are uncomfortable hearing about their sexuality because they know that parents see them as children. They don't really see them as sort of, you know, as people with sexualized feelings. So it's entirely normal. The other mum sending the message, was she in the right to do that? I'm trying to think if it was one of Mia's friends, would I let their mum know? I don't know what I'd do.

Absolutely. I mean, yeah, I'm kind of questioning the other mum here and what she's achieving out of this and how she had access to these messages. And she's kind of creating a little bit of a drama going oh look what i found and really this is a private conversation isn't it really so i'd be kind of questioning the motives and uh maybe the slightly dramatic behavior of the other mother um i think what i'd say to this mother is that the mum that's written in is that we all have

the opportunity to rewind and admit we made mistakes and say to our children can we do this over and in fact that's an incredibly important teaching and learning opportunity so she could go to her daughter and say I'm really can we do that again I was a little bit shocked that somebody else had found out about this first you know I love you I want us to be able to communicate I totally understand that you wanted to tell your friend first but like if there's anything you want to talk about with me about this i am totally here for you and never be afraid of anything you're going to tell me because i'm going to support you and and i think what we want to say to our children when they're having these emerging sexuality is that you know they're in the process of finding their identity and whichever

direction they go in we will be in the in seat, the passenger seat next to them as they make these decisions. And I'm curious, is it because my sister's got three children, she's got two boys and a girl and they're all really, really open. They've got a family WhatsApp and they're very, very open about things. But is it different in your experience with your writing? is it different for boys and girls in how they communicate? Is it more because you typically assume, oh, I've got a daughter, so she'll tell me everything and my son will tell his dad everything. But is that usually the case or not? I think that it sadly is the case, but that's not because boys don't want to talk. It's just that they're socialised to believe that they shouldn't express emotion as openly as girls.

So I think we definitely need to encourage our boys and just say to them, yes, all emotions are allowed for you too, as well as your sisters. A lot of food for thought. Thank you. We also had a message from Kelly-Anne, and I believe you've experienced this as well, Tanith, firsthand. This message says, Hi, Gemma. My husband took me away for a romantic anniversary break in the lakes.

We'd just settled down to an amazing meal. It was our first dinner without the kids in years when my neighbor phoned to tell me 30-odd kids had turned up to my house. It turned out my 14-year-old son had a Snapchat account that I had no idea about, and the week leading up to us going away, he'd been organizing a party. We raced back home

to complete mayhem now that that's that'd be horrendous i absolutely love this letter because yes i fully admit i have no i'm not going to say admit i have been through this and i i know that it is every parent's sort of nightmare but um having been through it um and having rationalized what happened i do have some perspective on this and you know some of this is part of the teenage uh development i mean teens are prone to take risks at this age their prefrontal cortex which is where they make their decisions is still wiring up um i mean my own daughter did this and i was i had a similar call i was out on a date night with my husband um i got a text from my older daughter who was

sort of left in charge going we have a situation when my older daughter says that we got to the to our road literally it was like i couldn't believe what i was seeing there were crowds of of teenagers in the front garden some of them were trying to break the window in um there was a bouncer but he was struggling to hold the door back. But I mean, you know, I always say... A bouncer? She's already had a bouncer. I was going to say, she's arranged it like a proper club. A friend, actually, yeah. Oh, my God.

Really charging, the entrance. I mean, she freely will admit that was the most stressful night of her entire life. And she would never want to repeat it, because obviously, can you imagine what you're thinking you're seeing all these people these crowds of people like trying to you know get in your house treating your house disrespectfully it's completely out of your control i mean she was completely like completely traumatized by it and she said to me yeah that was the worst night of my life so

you know at the end of the day um you know, most damage can be repaired. Most mud can be cleared up. And, you know, that's what happened. And I know, and I've gone away again, leaving her in charge of the house. And it's all been fine, because I know she wouldn't want to repeat it. So I do think that we just have to see it in terms of development. And we have to see it as learning experiences. And, you know, teenagers learn best from experience, not from us nagging and sort of like bracing them and telling them what they should be doing. We've had a lot of stories, you know, about kids and social media

because I think it's a difficult one because all kids want social media. They nag you for it. We want to be on Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. They all want to be on all of them and especially if their friends start being on them. And no one tells us as parents what the rules are. I mean, at what age can they be trusted with social media? I mean, you want them to have a phone so you can make sure they're safe. And if they need you, they can call you. And if you want to track them, you can. But when are they, you know, what are the rules on ages for giving them social media?

Yeah, this is one of the biggest challenges in modern parenting and it pervades our entire experience. It's actually changed parenting to a kind of almost unrecognisable degree. So basically, we have to be realistic and that phones are now a part of our lives. I think that by the time most children in the UK go to secondary school, they will have one. It's basically about how we train them to use them and how we frame phones. So I would say that when we first give

our child a phone, we tell them they are not toys and we also remind them that they are not theirs. That doesn't mean we don't give them some privacy on them, but that kind of reframes the power balance. I also think just in the same way as you wouldn't put a learner driver on the m1 you don't give your child uh a completely enabled smartphone from the word go so there will have to be a certain amount of practice now that can take the take the the former for example before they have a phone you could give them access to the family tablet on which to access social media and you can monitor that. You can say if you are to join social media, then it has to be within a closed group of friends or family and friends. You could also say as they get older, do you have a cousin or a family friend that you trust just to keep an eye. And then as they develop the skills not to get into conflicts,

not to say things that they will regret, that they understand how to curate the experience properly, they learn how to block, they know how to report, all those things, then you can gradually allow them a little bit more freedom and liberty once they've had that kind of experience of it. And also, you're not ready to give your child a phone unless you personally are ready to talk to them

about issues like pornography. Of course, because it's all there, isn't it, for them. And they get great WhatsApps with their mates and they'll get sent all kinds. I mean, my niece, she's 20 now, but when she was younger and it was Facebook was the only thing out when she was like a lot younger. And my sister allowed her to have a Facebook page, but it was, she had all the passwords for it.

So any friend requests that came through, it came through to my sister's phone as well. So she could approve. And she did openly say some of these friend requests were from older guys who none of them knew. And, you know, so that's where she'd like no absolutely not so exactly so that's why you have to accompany them in order to show them the red flags we have to accept there are people who are hovering around particularly looking for young sort of naive very trusting tweens and younger teens who just don't know so we have to be present with them and we have to keep talking to our children about their social media and phone experiences.

And, you know, what have you seen today? You know, what happened there? What happened in that WhatsApp group so that they can process it? You know, social media and phone use, phone use is not in itself unhealthy because there's a middle way and everything. But like if you give tweens and teens access to social media for more than an hour a day that's when the rows and the problems start to break out so if you can ring fence that hour a day to after homework you know after stuff is done and long enough before bedtime so it's not going to keep them awake and also always keep those

phones out of the bedrooms at night because that's when the problems really flare up. They more like to be groomed, they more like to get into rows. So as a parent, just basically say, yeah, you have this amazing tool, but it's not a toy. Let's work together so that you can use it healthily. Phone use is really a health issue. Oh, well, thank you so much for that, Tanith. That's literally, I've learned a lot there.

I mean, my daughter, she's only four, but yeah, and abby we're both like been nodding at each other um thank you tanith when's your your next book out so what's my tweenager thinking is out in january i'm excited about that well anyone with a teenager you can check it out no problem so we received loads and loads of whatsapps and emails and messages on social but we have saved this one for last because this for me even even reading this is making me cringe this is what happened to emma hi jemma um a couple of weeks, oh my god I can't believe I'm telling you this, I was getting ready for a night out and I was doing a bit of essential pruning shall we say, needed my tweezers and I needed the torch on my phone so I could get a better look. So I put it on I got stuck into the task at hand and I realized that my phone was on Instagram live so every single one of my followers had seen what really you don't want anyone to see

um it's it's actually mortifying oh my god well first of all I have to admit we've all we've all been there in the plucking of the vagina I think every every woman has plucked it we've all had an ingrowing hair down there that needs a pluck second of all

could it not just be a torch or the light why do you need to why the light on your phone it's a big risk isn't it i mean i've never i don't even know how to go live on on instagram i don't even know how to do it so maybe she was just like me a little bit like naive and didn't think that you could even end up in that position a lot of people go live once they've had a few drinks and then the next day you're like oh my gosh you know, I always try and say don't go on any social when you've had a drink. But imagine like the second that you realised, because people will see that, oh, Such A Body's live, click to join.

And they'll just be, it'll be like their face is in their vagina because it's so, it would have been so close to the skin. Yeah, and was it like pants on, pants off? Like what could you really see you know like it's just oh that is i reckon that's like one of my worst like night like a fear yeah that's something like that would happen i've got a fear that i'll be like you know you're like getting a shower and you might be naked and you're sat on the loo and you have a little yeah on whatsapp it's quite easy to just call people on whatsapp yes imagine video calling like your family group and you're sat there

completely naked, all your rolls, boobs out, everything, and you're like, it's never happened to me but it's a fear. I have it now with Mia

because she'll sometimes, she likes looking at pictures on my phone and she scrolls through them all the time. And I've had incidents where I've been, you know,

getting out of the shower and she's on my bed going through my phones and you just hear this da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da and I've gone over and she's FaceTiming someone. You know, getting out of the shower and she's on my bed going through my phones and you just hear this da-da-da-da-da-da and I've gone over and she's FaceTiming someone, you know, she's somehow accidentally managed to do it and I'm like, no, no

turn it off, turn it off, but yeah it's just one of those things, I mean that's the thing they're not just phones now, are they? You know, like Tanith was saying you can do all sorts on them there's social media, there's emails there's banking, there's even a torch on them, who put a torch on it?

it's their fault for making them so available for anything you need to do including obviously plucking your vagina Wow, as always thank you to everyone who messaged us and to those who came on to share their story. Wow, we've been so lucky to come across such amazing storytellers.

And thank you, as always, to Abby. We're going to be seeing you again, aren't we? You'll be back. And as ever, we would love your comments on this episode and your reviews, because it really does mean a lot to us. You can get in touch whenever you want to via our WhatsApp. That's on 07761 039898. Or you can email us at theovershare at bowermedia.co.uk. That's theovershare at bowermedia.co.uk.

The Overshare is produced by Matt Foyster, and we shall return. There's much more to come, including the episode that I'm getting so many messages about, Coping with Grief. There's also some partner pregnancy fails and epic first date disasters

all on the way as The Overshare continues. Gosh, so just don't plot your vagina anywhere near your phone, I suppose. Invest in a proper torch and you're safe.