The Phonebox Podcast With Emma Conway - MySpace's Savage Top 8!: Sophie Bradbury-Cox

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Who had a secret snogging tryst with a bestie and teaches me all about the brutal world of the 'MySpace Top 8'? Sophie Bradbury-Cox that's who! The amazing disabled fashion and travel creator joins The Phonebox Podcast to give me a peak into the world of a 00s teenanger.Be sure to follow Sophie over at fashionbellee for a dose of Disney and dopamine dressing.For more of me follow @brummymummyof2 on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok and follow the @phoneboxpodcast account on Instagram for polls and nostalgic fun.If you have any guest suggestions, topics you would like me to cover email [e-mail] and be sure to tag so I can see where you are listening!#00s #00smusic #nostalgia Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Phone Box Podcast. How the flippin' heck are you? There's a little bit of sun today. I'm a little bit shocked. There's a little bit of sun. I took the dog for a walk and as we know, I'm very menopaused. My face was cold. My back was dripping, dripping with sweat. So please have that image with you.

But we actually have a younger person on today. A younger person to the podcast. He was not 14 in the 90s. She was 14 in the noughties. So welcome to the podcast the amazing Sophie Sophie how the flipping heck are you hello I'm good thank you does your back drip with sweat um no only in Florida only oh god every bit every crevice of in Florida, the backs of my knees are dripping with wet. Oh, my God.

Flipping awful. So, listeners, if you don't know, Sophie's actually in a wheelchair. So, Sophie, if you're in a wheelchair and you sweat in and you're sat in Florida, is it even worse? I cannot tell you. I mean, it's not a pretty image, is it? And you're just sitting down in 27-degree heat for 13 hours a day. It's not a pretty image, is it? And you're just sitting down in 27 degree heat for 13 hours a day. It's not a pretty sight, let's put it that way.

No, that would be absolutely terrible, especially now I'm menopause. I'd simply melt. I would just be a puddle on the floor. So Sophie, can you tell the people where they can find you? Yeah, so I'm known as Fashion Belle with two e's because one e wasn't available very annoying um all over social media basically so yeah that's who I am everywhere and she does if you like dopamine dressing that's you in it it is you those color all the brightness yeah she wears lots of bright beautiful clothes lots, lots of inspiration, clothes, outfits, especially when it comes to spring and summer.

You like come into my own. Am I making it up or do you often wear a beret or a little hat? I like a beret. Oh, my God, I look awful in a beret. I look like this is a very old reference. Frank, what's the one? Frank Spencer. Do you know who the hell I'm talking about?

I do. I do know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I probably do look like that anyway you look flipping great okay Sophie what year were you 14 so I was 14 in 2002 2002 excellent and where did you grow up so I grew up in Northamptonshire I lived with my mum and dad, which was literally in a house about 10 minutes from where I live now. I haven't gone very far. I moved away a little bit and then I've stayed in the same area. So do your mum and dad still live close? Yep. They moved away,

but they, we all live in the same town. So we're all very close. Nice. Okay. So what was on your bedroom when you were 14, your bedroom bedroom walls so I didn't really have many posters but as you can imagine my bedroom was color everywhere I had literally wavy walls so I had like a green strip at the top bright blue at the bottom and it was like wavy the whole way around my room I literally made my parents do that like what kind of child was i hang on they had to paint it away but was it waving wallpaper it was literally paint so they painted the bottom blue and the top green bright green then my bedding was like orange nice so every like every color she could imagine it's like i'll want it all i will chuck it on the walls yeah so i didn't

have to figure out how they did it i wonder how because there was because in them days you couldn't just google how to paint away the wall my mum's always loved interiors though so i feel like it was a good little challenge for her so so she's quite quite creative we were talking the other day about like 60 minute makeover and changing rooms and stuff like that so perhaps you got some inspiration from that we love to change your rooms i think that's where it came from absolutely it's always good when they went really bad yeah when lawrence llewellyn bowen used to do it and then absolute car crash and you're in this house this little two-bed semi in macclesfield and lawrence llewellyn bowen has done a purple velvet theme

dungeon themed dining room and they're coming and they're like what do you think kathy and kathy's just like oh it was the eyes wasn't it yeah and then they're stuck with it oh and like oh yeah and i bet i always imagine when they left that the whole dining room would just collapse yeah they're just or they'd just fall on the floor and just pass out like all of it all the pictures would fall off the wall okay so you didn't have many posts on your wall but if you could have had posters of your favorite crush who would it have been so I was a bit of like a boy band I loved busted oh they were quite a favorite of mine um so many that I actually really liked I liked I liked the boys with the floppy hair

of course we all did we Sophie who didn't we all like the boys with the floppy hair I always fancied this boy at school and I fancied him from infant school and all the way up to junior school and I remember he just had like the proper curtains and my teacher used to take the mick out of him when we were in year six and say well did you clip it up at night to make sure it gets the perfect like curl on your face but I loved it I loved him floppy hair yeah who's your favorite member out of busted James James he would like the floppier haired one yeah have you stumbled across them in your time recently have you been to see them in concert? Because they came back a bit.

Yeah, they came back, but I never saw them. I didn't even realise. But, oh, my God, like the nostalgia of listening to all the songs again. Yeah, I went to see Muck Busted, which was... Yes, we did. Muckfly and Busted. But it didn't have... I don't feel like it had all the members of Busted in that, Muck Busted.

Didn't one of them just rejoin? Yeah, I feel like Charlie went away, didn't he? He was a bit rocky. Yeah, and then he was like, I need some money. I'm coming back. I'm bopping back in Busted. Yeah. We'd all do it.

Have a top up. We'd all do it if we could. Absolutely. Okay, so you fancied floppy hair boys. So in school, what kind of school did you go to? Where were you in the hierarchy so I went because I was in a wheelchair the schools in my area weren't accessible so I had to go to a school that was like sort of 30 minutes away from my house yeah so I hated it

because I had to travel there every day on like a bus with like other disabled people and like I love disabled people but when you're at school and that's you're associated with it just wasn't great and I used to get there and have to get off the bus and then I had no friends that lived like I am like in from school so I was a bit of a loner really I had had about three good friends. FanDuel Casino Daily Jackpots. Guaranteed to hit by 11pm with your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute?

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11pm Eastern. Research and supply. See full terms at canada.casino.fandu.com. Please play responsibly. We were all a bit geeky. I was a bit geeky. I used to have my hair up and I didn't look great. have my hair up and I just I didn't I didn't look great I took no pride in my appearance do you know what I haven't took pride in my appearance today so that's fine you still look great I just scraped my just literally scraped my hair back and put on

a jacket so um how big was the school is it quite a small school um no it was a pretty big one um but it was like because everyone was kind of from the area. So all their local schools would go to that school. Because I was like that bit further away, like they would all hang out after school and have all their little stories and everything. So I was a bit like a bit of a loner really. Did you stay there till sixth form or did you leave? No, I got out as soon as I I could I literally did my GCSEs and then I was like right I'm going to college yeah you know when you're just like I don't fit in here I want to go somewhere and I literally found myself at college that was the time I was like this is me I felt like I got to wear fashion like because at school you wore your uniform

college we could just wear anything you wanted I did an art abce so it was I didn't even do a levels so and I loved art so I was like I can just express an av what's that an abfc hang on now I'm thinking of Aston Villa football club that's not the same thing what did you say abfc did you say abfc abce oh it's like Aston Villa football because we're an AV. No it definitely wasn't anything so it was basically a BTEC I think. Oh okay yeah. But it was like I'm old so it's the equivalent of a so I did two years in doing art basically and it was just amazing and everyone was like really cool like everyone had was really individual and yeah I fitted in so much better there than I did at school. Oh that's nice I'm very happy for you that you had a fun time there and after sixth form did

you go to uni or did you just kind of like crack on with life? Yeah I went to uni I did photography. Oh nice. So I only went to I went to Northampton uni so it wasn't like that far away from where I lived but it was like it was good I felt I just like the art I was a quite a creative person I still am really so it was yeah I felt like it was it was a good place to be well that's nice so we talked about you liked Busted did you like their music or did you like different types of music girl bands I loved Girls Aloud Spice Girls all of those kind of sugar babes those kind of sugar babes, those kind of things. Sugar babes, yeah. And then as I kind of then got to, like, my older teens, I found, like, indie and rock, and I loved, like, Razorlight and Green Day,

those kind of things. Like, it was my rock. I was a bit of an emo. Looking at you, I would never, ever put you down as an emo because you're generally in, like, a hot pink flowery dress and like orange trainers or something there's like one or the other of me honestly I had like fake like blue bits in my hair I had the sweepy like black hair with the fringe yeah I had purple hair once I had black hair yeah I went through all the different phases loved it just a little bit

of emo I don't think I've ever been emo I've always lived the pop yeah I don't think anybody has mentioned sugar babes on this podcast and that is an absolute travesty because they're flipping brilliant I love sugar babes I mean they love sugar but you know I feel like they're back to their original form yeah I feel like again somebody's like oh I need a bit of cash yeah I'm bopping back in the sugar sugar baits also girls allowed touring again aren't they yeah I'd love to go and see that yeah you know I saw it because I love desktop seven as well and I went to see them when they did their like bring it back tour like it was like 2015 I think and honestly it was one of the best gigs I've ever been to in my life because all the words you know when you just love all the songs and it was just it was amazing I'd quite

like to go and see Steps because I imagine that would be an absolute cracking concert I need to get some nostalgia I saw an advert yesterday for a festival in Manchester that had like Blue, Peter Andre, Ronan Keating and all these bands I thought that song is brilliant and there's something about knowing all the words isn't there and just it's like takes you back doesn't it I always remember when Tate that reformed

going to that concert and just crying because I just felt like oh my god I felt like oh my god it was just it was just like oh it's just like so good okay so you're into all sorts of different types of music um what kind of fashion did you wear then we've talked about emo but any real fashion faux pas apart from the blue bits in your hair so I think like when I was a young like around 14 I just remember having all of these like well I went

through like the chav phase so I went through the kappa trousers with the poppers I went through the adidas outfits like I thought I looked so cool and then I got through to like the girly bit and I had like pink t-shirts with like diamante angel written on the front nice or like tops with like massive sleeves like there was a phase where there was like massive floaty sleeves like me and my best friend had like we'd get different colors but they'd match and we just thought we were like that's what you want is a floaty sleeve it's like why did we love a floaty they were massive like literally massive and we just thought we were the coolest did you have any tops anything inappropriate on like too hot to handle or they had like they had

some like funny i wouldn't let my kids wear them nowadays i know a bit like crop tops and things like that was all like a bit like 90s like noughties wasn't it i mean it's all coming back now which is absolutely ridiculous because i think all these low-slung jeans and everything what what who is right if i right let's all if listeners and sophie let's make a pact if you see me in a low rise jean and a crop top call the police or call an ambulance because something's going on something Something's going on with Emma. Absolutely. Just call my mum and say something's not right because she looks insane. Yeah. No one is pulling that off, are they, honestly?

Kate Moss, potentially, but certainly not me. I don't think I've ever wore a crop top. And, in fact, as a mother of a daughter yourself, it's quite hard to buy tops these days that aren't crop tops it's hard to just buy a normal top I just want a normal a normal t-shirt please top yeah is there anything that you wore then that you'd wear now so I had a pair of shoes I found a photo the other day and it was they were like black platform like slip-on shoes and the top bit was a rainbow but they were like plastic and I loved them and now I would wear I would absolutely wear them so lovely little rainbow shoe they were great okay so you loved your rainbow shoes is there anything else that you would wear

no probably not no I had some flare jeans that I loved I feel like that's that's a bit on trend isn't it a bit of a flared jean but no I don't ever really look back and think oh that was that's a good outfit that's a cracking one yeah right we're gonna talk first snogs oh oh oh your face went a little bit like your face went a bit like oh no what what you've never had a snog I mean you've got a child I hope you've had a snog i was 18 i was 18 were you oh my god we need badges let's start a club i was 18 so no shame in that great well that's that makes me feel a lot better because i was i was a late bloomer so where was your first snog and was it disgusting?

No, actually it was in randomly in my bedroom, my mum and dad's house. And we'd spoken over MySpace. It was someone I knew, like it was a friend. Never, ever thought of him in that way ever. And then we kind of made a little pact that we were like, next time we see each other, should we do it? And we were like, yeah, okay. other should we do it and we were like yeah

okay I was 18 like this is ridiculous so we literally came over I don't even know the next day or something we just snogged and that was it and were you like what a what a sigh of relief were you like yeah I think that was it I just wanted to do it and I feel like I'd probably spoke to him about it and we were like let's just do it let's do it okay so you've done you've done the snogging did you did you continue today or was it like bye no that was it we literally never spoke about it ever again we never I even know him now we never never spoken about it ever again all my family if my family elicits they're talking about I don't think I've ever told anybody oh my god exclusive somebody called up the news at 10 oh my god I can't believe that so I did not do MySpace I don't understand MySpace

was it good was it was it fun was it it was weird so that's where I because I started going out with a guy who lived in Ireland Northern Ireland yeah when I was just like in my 18 and we met on myspace and it was like one of these websites where you picked all the music this is like my emo phase yeah like we had all the pictures and you took them like from the side and you'd power like all of them were very pouty like oh mysterious and then you had like a top i think it's like a top six on your page yeah you pick like your top six people and if you weren't in someone's top six like you that that was it you weren't you weren't cool enough I'm sorry the anxiety of not being in somebody's top top six because I'm such a people pleaser I would be having to be

spending all day every day yeah just championing myself to be in people's top sixes I wouldn't be able to have a job that'd be it you'd just be worried about that yeah all day I mean no wonder it went away because obviously that it was just too much for people but yeah for the boy you liked you'd put him like your number one so you're okay so did you then boot people off so say if you fell out with Michelle down the road she was off the top six she's out the top six and someone else would get bumped up yeah I wonder why they chose six it was a bit weird I can't I don't really understand why that happened so with myspace did one day then it just stopped yeah literally I remember being at uni and my friend was like if you had a facebook and I was like who is on facebook it's all about myspace she's like no no

it's all about facebook and that was it then, no, no, it's all about Facebook. And that was it. Then I was on Facebook. Never looked back. You know what, man? It terrifies me because obviously our jobs are social media. Yeah. It's just so scary to think that one day. It's like Vine. I never watched a Vine.

I never saw a Vine. I don't even know what. But that just went as well, didn't it? I had no idea. And there was like a lemon thing, wasn't and so that was a lemon thing I know there was periscope do you remember that kind of periscope was like a lot probably like instagram live actually and I remember doing a live feed of an airplane display I mean how terribly boring and i got somebody left a really dodgy pervy comment and i was like right off i'm deleting it i'm off periscope no more so

i don't know what happened with that okay so what do you think your biggest teenage success was i mean it's probably really sad but all the way through i hated maths and then when i got to my gcses i got a c and i was so proud of myself because I was like they kept saying she'll get a D she'll get a D and I was like no I bloody won't I'll get a C and I did and so I was so happy with that I also got A's in drama and textiles I like that I like the fact that you then felt the need to say but I did get a few A's yeah did get two a's by the way guys just saying even though it was quite a while ago you still like but i would just like to clarify to get a couple of a's and they were only in drama and textiles more than me i didn't get one single

a nothing in a failed art and a failed child development really which is you know i'm not a mother a bit orcs um i also got to say I was in bottom set maths and scraped a C. So that was really good. What was your biggest teenage flop, do you think? I think it was just the fact that I hadn't been kissed until I was 18. I feel like that was my flop. It was so sad.

Do you know what I mean? I felt like, oh, God, it needs to happen. It was just stress, wasn't it? Oh, God. It was just the be all was just stress, wasn't it? Oh, God. It was just, that was the be all and end all, wasn't it, really? I, see, I don't actually remember it being, I don't feel like I gave it that much thought because obviously I was heavily following boy bands.

So all I cared about was, where do you think Boyzone are going to be next week when they come to Coventry? What hotel is? And I don't think I ever really thought about kissing i certainly i certainly because a few of the bands did snog some of the fans not me by the way i looked terrible um so like you know we were over 16 it was it was up until 18 but i never really gave it much thought uh but i was i think yeah and also i don't really remember

talking to my friends much about it I don't know man that seemed like 4,000 years ago um but I'm glad you had a nice time because it's rare to find somebody on this podcast that had a nice snog yeah well there you go we were obviously that bit older than it was just it worked you know oh it worked okay so if if there's a knock at the door now and you opened it and it was james from busted yeah would your heart still flutter no not anymore what would you say to him what do you want well hang on you'd be like you are james what are you do yeah yeah no it don't bother me anymore tell you what matt willis though looks great doesn't he yeah he has he's aged well hasn't he matt willis as um and also i have mentioned this on the podcast a million times emma willis went to my school did she she

did she seems like a nice person so that's a little fun fact she was about i think the year above me at school so you know you know. Same, same. And we ain't got many people come from Birmingham. And she was one of them. And Kat Dealey did not go to my school. But she did go to my friend's school. But I bet everybody in Birmingham has got a story about somebody went to school with Kat Dealey. And I don't think any of them are true.

I think they're all lies. Okay, if you could go back in time and chat to Sophie back then, what you think you'd tell her oh I'd just say not to worry like I used to compare myself to the other girls all the time like they were always thinner than me prettier than me like you know you just compare everything and I just I would just look back and be like just don't worry about it I used to worry if I'd ever get a boyfriend I used to because when you're in a wheelchair like I just felt so not like everybody else so it was a deal to kind of I want to look like them I wanted and my best friend was always skinny and I was like oh I just want to look skinny and like and now I just don't care and like you just get to that point in your life where you think that's not that doesn't matter anymore like who cares it's all about you it's not about your looks and so yeah I think now I'm much better in a much better headspace it would be

lovely to tell my Sophie back then that please worry about it stop comparing yourself yeah and that seems to be a general theme with most people like don't worry just be yourself so you were kind of around when social media started a little bit yeah for me I had absolutely none nothing so do you think when you're a teenager it made life a little bit easier for you or um do you wish you'd had none um I'm really glad at school that we didn't really have anything like I got off I was 11 when I got like a little phone but it was like one of these really crappy little phones that you could literally text on and that was it but then we had no money so you had to pay 10p a text like that was insane yeah so we don't yeah I'm glad I didn't have it at

school and then it was like by the time then I was like 18 you kind of you know yourself don't you know your boundaries and everything and so I'm quite glad yeah I would have hated it at school I think and that's what makes me worry about my daughter as well because it's the unknown isn't it yeah do you think there's any positives to social media because obviously it helps you find a boy to snog that's exciting yeah and a boyfriend so there we go but yeah no I think there is good things and I think like now especially with my disability the community on Instagram is amazing and seeing yourself represented by people and that's why I do it what I do because I just want people to grow up and be like oh that's so normal like all these

things she has to do to go to the toilet that's different to everybody else it's it makes it more normal and that's just I think that's a really special side of social media that you don't get anywhere else I think you're really good because you're so vulnerable online with the stuff you post and you do get some as well as the positivity some flipping awful comments yeah um and I think you do well to kind of just keep keep keeping on that's like these the kind of role models that I want my kids to see. Like, you know, different people doing different things. Yeah. Because that's it, we're all different, aren't we? We're all different and the world is just full of nasty people.

Horrible people. And we need to show all the lovely people like you. So I highly recommend you all go and follow Sophie for some dopamine. And also she loves Disney. I do. Big Disney fan. Yeah. So we do big Disney fan yeah so we went to Disney World twice when we were younger I think because we went in 2020 2020 that was like 2000 um and we got like mum bought like the baubles that had 2000 on them because we're

like it's the millennium yeah so we um yeah so we that was the last time we went and then we didn't go again till last year so it was like 23 years or something later that we went because then it just got really expensive mum and dad were obviously like no no no more so um yeah so we had it really young and then obviously I've grown up with the films and loved that and I just wanted Zyra to have a bit of that magic and the it's just so nice isn't it it's such a lovely yeah it's such it's such it's such a bubble well sophie everybody gonna follow her she's going on a disney trip soon so you'll see some great disney action over there and thanks so much for listening to another episode of the phone box podcast pop back next week for another

episode definitely go and follow me on social media and message me on brimley with two or the phone box podcast we do great polls every week such as best floppy hair boy band that's been a poll we're tackling the hard hard issues best 80s comedy show it's just you know it's non-stop also would love it if you gave me a little review and I will see you next week for another episode thanks so much Sophie for coming on and I will see you

online and hopefully IRL very very soon goodbye bye bye bye bye

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