#754 - Freya India - Deconstructing The Female Mental Health Crisis
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Hello, friends, welcome back to the show. My yesterday is free of india. She's a writer and journalist to focus on female mental health and modern culture. Jensie girls are not doing okay no matter how badly you think men have IT right now and they do, girls are doing no Better. From therapy culture to advertising your anti depression use on instagram, it's no surprise that they're struggling and confused. Expect to one just how bad the state of teenage goals mental health is right now, how companies are targeting and monitise ing the crisis, the glimmer ization of taking medication, how self a editing has become a powerful act of self expression, what snapshot this movie is, why girls are so risk of us in dating and much more.

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Is Jenny in a mental health crisis?

Yes yeah basically since the early twenty ten are mental health is just tanked um especially for goes so we started to see these Spikes in anxiety and depression, things like eating disorders um but also rising self harm and suicide so for example, in the U.

S, between twenty twelve and twenty nineteen, the suicide rate for White middle age men increased by three percent, but for girls, age between twelve and fourteen increased by hundred thirty eight percent and the statistics on so far are equally is horrific. So something happened around twenty twelve that is particularly affecting goals. But as a hot is affecting the entirety of jensie.

How much of this is laid the feet of social media? Do you think .

what I would say a lot, but obviously there's in its debate. So some studies show like a negligible impact of social media, others show that is terrible. Um but the thing is with those is some of the studies kind of lumped screen time with social media.

So they will say like you know screen time is bad. Few but that could be texting friends, that could be scroll through instagram. So they are kind of unreliable.

But I think the most compelling the evidence is the timely. So mental health started to decline in the early twenty tens. The iphone came out in two thousand and seven.

Instagram came out in twenty ten, editing out started to come out around twenty thirteen. And also the fact that is particularly affecting goals. We know that girls spend a lot more time on social media. All the other explanations don't really seem to add up when IT comes to why IT would be goals. So things like people say the housing ladder or the economy or the climate across histon, none of them quite fit that explanation, apart from social media for me anyway.

Yeah, why is that? That women would be particularly concerned about the housing crisis or about the future temperature, the front of carbon in the atmosphere. What is IT that causing beyond just the excessive use of social media? What's the what's the type of use of social media that's causing this a desperate effect on girls?

Yeah well, I think there's there's different aspects to IT. So there's how girls are using social media. So things like obvious ly social comparison, comparing yourself to everybody and comparing your productivity and your looks and your lifestyle to everyone all the time, which is terrible for mental health.

So there's that. But then there's also how social media enables companies to have close access to goals. So the targeted advertising and the ability to monitor them, to collect data and to sell that data to platforms who then on barden with advertisements.

So I think a big part of this is the industries that are now able to follow goes around and kind of inundate them is an on slaw of advertising ing. And it's, you know, specific to that, Young goes insecurities or vulnerability. So, you know, if a girl is anxious about how he looks, sh'll get bombarded with beauty companies who are trying to sell her fixes to her specific worries. So it's kind of both. At the same time, it's how they're spending their time on social media, but also how companies are utilizing that to exploit them for profit.

Yeah, dig into that. What what are the companies that are targeting monetising mental distresses of goals online? How are they doing this?

So the way I would phrase IT is, I would like, firstly say that you know, to hap some light adolescents and turmoil when Young is Normal, and especially feel like adolescent goals. So we know that adolescent goals have more anxious, more risk avers, more print of perfectionism than boys at the same. So I think all of that pretty Normal when I think every woman would say she's been through, you know, body image issues or whatever.

But I think what's happening now is companies are able to exploit those vulnerabilities and target them. So for example, aba tates completely Normal for a girl to worry about how he looks. You know, everyone will experience that, but it's not Normal to have to deal with that.

In a world of instagram influences and tiktok filters and editing ups the same time, it's probably Normal to worry about your feelings, to feel a bit anxious. But now girls are having to contend with that in a world of therapy culture. And ads for A D H D medication and quiz is saying, like you might be autistic and other things as well, like, you know, insecurities and relationships, jealousy, paranoia.

I think that's all Normal when you're Young. But dealing with that in the world of dating apps and hookup culture and online point IT becomes unmanageable. So I think what's happening is those all kinds of industries. So the beauty industry, what I would call the therapy industry, the pharmacy to go industry, social media companies are all going after these age old feelings and kind of ramming them up to a degree. But I think the average goal can't cope with you.

Very interesting, you know, online therapy companies in some ways, and I am a huge proponents of therapy. I'm using IT myself in Austin in person talk therapy, and I never thought about the dangers of having immediate twenty four seven access over the internet to somebody that what is the problem with that? Shouldn't people be able to talk about the feelings with someone who's a qualified professional at all times? Why is that? Why is there a danger behind?

Yeah well, so that's the thing. Now it's called unlimited messaging therapy. So what most of these platforms I like, Better help took space is what the advertising um in the way they've phrase IT. So for example, talk space will say you know talking to a therapist is like texting and with a trusted friend or something Better help you say you know pain influence that to say all you know it's like talking to a beste.

And the problem with this couple of problems with that, the first is that you know, being able to message a therapist twenty four, seven from your room means that you're not developing resilience to deal with things. So if you're socially anxious, you're still in your room, is still on your fine. And you know, if you're struggling with something, if you feel an uncomfortable emotion, you're able to just get that instant gratification and be sealed, which is the worst thing for anxiety.

So so that's bad. But then it's also, I feel like these companies push this kind of therapy culture, which is this this kind of idea that you can have perfect mental health so you can any negative emotion you feel ill is diagnosable and solve through their service. And I think that puts pressure on gene. I think you know there's pressure from social media companies to have this perfect life. There's pressure from beauty companies to have a perfect face, then you have pressure from therapy companies to have like this perfect soul that never experiences negative emotions. But if you look at the advertising, the advertising is like if you, if you ever feel worried, if you ever have anxiety, you connect with the therapies now, which you know it's it's so bad for resilience, but it's also so obvious what they are doing that because if you can convince the generation that you know they can, if they pay enough, they can remove those negative emotions, then there's nothing more profitable than that.

Yeah you've said um it's the market tizer and medicalization of Normal distress. A cultural emphasis on treating every emotion we feel as diagnosable and solvable with consumption is doing so much psychological .

damage yeah so I think, you know, two things can be true that can be a mental health crisis, whether goes the civilian mental ill. But there can also be this growing population of girls who are just anxious and stressed and they're being convinced to see their behavior ways that suit these therapy companies and these drug companies and I think very .

often ironically makes them .

film to you what a hot gold pills um so hot go pills are accessorize or and presence um it's a way that jane goes seem to describe their anti depression on tiktok. There's also silly goal pills. There's also all kinds of like mental health merchandise, weird pills on them, this process pillows, there's anti depression phone cases like one. There's a common phrase now like hot girls take like a pro, sexy girls take a trying, all kinds of stuff like that. So not only is the kind of the Normalization of these mental health diagnosis, but the absolute glamorization of them now.

How much of this is .

talked .

about in person, do you think? Because obviously on the internet is selected for a very particular type of communication of very particular type of person. Some insane percentage of people on twitter just look and never tweet, or essentially never tweet. You know ninety percent of the content is created by three percent of the users something those lines um I wonder what the in person discussions have online discussions about S S R S and mental health and hot girls have ibs or whatever the new trend is. Is that showing up I R well as well?

Well, the thing is so sometimes I get criticism where people say, you know this is you're taking tiktok or you're talking about what's on twitter but it's like genera in the U K. Is spending ten point six hours a day on screens. I think that this is the average goes.

So there was a new study recently saying Jenny is spending two hours a day on tiktok alone. Goals of making up the majority of that. So fifty seven percent of tiktok users are female, I think a third under fourteen.

And so when people say we know this is just a social media thing, I don't see this real life. It's like, this is real life for a lot of Young people. This is the majority of their day.

This is what's forming their assumptions about themselves in the world. No, that distinction has gone. And so I think I don't hear IT as much in real life. But you know, I do think if you took a twelve year old's day and you took you know, the time he's spending talking in your life to friends and then they out of time, he is possible scrolling through instagram in tiktok. I think those trends really matter and shape our world view.

We were in dubai for three years ago and escaping locked down and um we were in mister mihai es just like famous popular bar on the mariner and George been on the show, was talking to a twenty two year old, twenty three year old girl that lives in dubai and didn't have much to do and I can't I can't what a job was a maybe he was in school or something and he said I could have look at a screen time, so went in and SHE didn't even know.

I don't think SHE was aware of of that. There was at something tracking. And that day he would spend eight hours on tiktok that one day you'd been eight years on tiktok, eight hours in a single day on tiktok.

yeah. So that's real life then.

But that year, it's been to a full time job. It's probably more than the amount of sleep that shit gotten, which is well. And I think that you're right. you.

If during a period of your life that so super formative, so much of the things that you're exposed to are through the internet talking about that's just what you see online is a presumption from people who assume that there is a life outside of being online. Yes, like is a misunderstanding of how the day is portioned out between keyboard and non keyboard. I I think that about .

a lot of things I could think IT about, say, like beauty trends, some people will be like, I don't understand why goals are having this plastic women are having this plastic surgery. And IT looks so weird in real life and it's like they're they're not doing IT for real life. They're doing IT for social media very often and how they look on camera as I think there's a lot of trends that people find confusing about jenee. Well, as if you start to think actually there's no distinction between social media and the real world anymore, they start to make a bit more sense.

Yes, if it's an online first existence, everything kind of opens up from there. There is no distinction between what you're seeing on the internet or maybe even the internet is more true than the the world. This is, this is where I don't need to listen to mom and dad.

No, I don't need to listen to what's happening on the news. No, I don't til listen to the whatever this is my source, this is my oracle and my source of insight about how I should behave about how other people behave. I had this idea um a while like i've not i've never talked about this before actually.

So I think you get me too much shit, but I will at some point, uh, recursive red pill learning. So a one of the problems with some maries of the manufacture is that a lot of the guys go to this type of content as A. Safe haven from having to interact with things in the real world yeah and monk mode.

I've had super amount of success with monk mode in my own life and big into that. But then to the extreme IT can end up if all of your information comes from other people within your record chAmber IT excuse your opinion of what's happening in the real world. And this recursive red pear learning thing was the most egregious.

Stories on the internet are the ones that get the most exposure because they are the most outlandish, crazy. Then that crazy, most representative on representative story gets used as a signal of what actually happens in the real world by everybody else. Then that forms the base of their beliefs.

And then that gets respond up into the sort of things that are looking for. And you get this recursive sort of self learning, A I fuck and ChatGPT from a hell that is always looking for the most Carry acute, most outlands stories. Yeah, yeah.

Well, there's a similar thing that i've write about, so I called IT like her. The the algorithm convey about the children are on, which is basically to say that every child is on their own, convey on social media depending on whatever, say, interest or insecurity or vulnerability they have, and whatever IT is, they will get push to the extreme end point of that. So for example, if you are worried about your looks, you'll start with makeup tories, which will then gradually become cosmetic surgery ies, which will then become no botox near you on tiktok ads. Same with things like, uh, gender identity, you might start questioning that.

And then you see video same way, you know, being tired as a symptom of gender euphoria something and then you see which is a real tiktok sy and then you see one which is like glamorizing the surgery when another child might be worrying about them into half and then they go on the convey about and end up taking medication for um you know something that they don't actually have a diagnosis for. And the the theory of is, you know, like so many things in jen zee will really extreme like the way we talk about mental health, the way we took sexuality, the way we talk about politics, everything is very extreme. And I think that's because each child is getting pushed to the extreme of whatever they're interested in.

And that explains, you know, some parents say, all, you know, my child's fine. They're not looking at gender identity staff. They'd never get into this mental health space and it's like, no, they're on their own path. And whatever IT is, the algorithm will learn more about them and the content will get more extreme to boost engagement.

It's this baLance between Normalizing and glamorizing mental health issues. I think no cause how do you twenty four? okay. So you must be the top end. You must be the older end of jensie bridge.

Struggling that in millennial, there was a period, I think I probably about five years ago or so was IT. It's OK to talk that was the mental health campaign in the U. K. Remember, I always had a problem with that mental health, something i'm so i'm super passionate about because always, uh, difficulty for me in my twenties and I hate you that it's okay to talk thing because I understood what he was trying to do with say, we must literally Normalize the a topic of mental health is something which is discussed by typical people from friends to friends because, like, it's not just like and what like and what after that, what else needs to be done? I think we have moved away beyond Normalizing the conversation about mental health.

Now that certain sub groups, yeah my dad, my dad, for instance, I imagine him and his friends, you know, in the sixties, probably could do with a little bit more of a push, a poke to do that. I had the men's shed initiative in australia, which was very good at this, men talking shoulder to shoulder, where as women are talking face to face. But it's almost like the it's like a bad of honor or a right of passage for certain sub groups, especially in genie, to talk.

The hot girls have ibs. Like your good problems are something that you should be wearing front center, you know, like ibs hottie or whatever on tiktok probably exists. You know, at this link saying, I supposed to something else that you ve spoken about. And I had a huge conversation with mary herrington about which is the danger of showing the entirety of your life on the internet. What's your perspective on that?

Yeah, well, I feel that, especially with mental health issues, I like the amount of that you said, the amount of campaign saying we need to open up, we need to talk, need to share your problem, share them on the social media. So there's influences who start hashtags like that. This guy, doctor alexia, he was on love island. I remember .

doctor alex.

yeah. So he started a campaign called post pill, which is to encourage Young fans to post their mental health medication and talk about IT. And he's kind of urging them, you know, please join in because you need to fight the stigma, you need to join part of the conversation. And thursday, I don't think we should be telling Young people that is their duty or its kind of, you know, they should be part of fighting the stig.

A, it's noble for you to post about your pharmaceutical intervention that may have predatory been pushed on you by an instagram ad and a tiktok algorithm that showed that you didn't actually need the thing that you thought you needed. Yeah, what a lucky y idea god didn't like. I mean, this is just talk another one up for the retard of social media and love island in particular.

Yeah, well, i'm thinking, like, surely I don't know if he must have good intent, he must think that .

this wasn't he. He's the government. What was he?

What is he? He's like a mental health adviser or or something is .

the first time that what he is?

Well, this campaign is just to me. I find IT so irresponsible because, you know, his fans are like probably pretty and tins and if you go on the hashtag, they're all kind of listing out their mental health problems, sharing their pills. And i'm thinking also at that age, you you don't know where you're gonna and say five, ten years time, you might not want that out there once you post something, especially on tiktok, IT can stay there.

And I think there's a lot of Young people now who think it's kind of you know it's a good it's knowable when it's brave to post them into health problems. But what if you get over your social anxiety, and in five years, you want people to see you is confident, but you made at your whole brand and you posted IT all over tiktok. Now I just think that a lot of people will grow up and realize that maybe this is not the place to be sharing IT, and that these influences were very responsible to be pushing this on Young people and to be kind of framing IT .

as activism. Like I said, duty, this desire of everybody on the internet to have a cause to fight for, to be some White night, flaming sword, performative empathy, toxic compassion person, is so perverse because it's it's causing people to find issues where there are on so that they can be the paragon on that fighting the power. You know that that speaking truth forward, I am here for you people who don't feel like the S S R. I medication is sufficiently public. I who's got that problem?

Who's got i'm looking at like anti depression cripes. Like for example, I think it's one in three teenagers in the U. K. Have been prescribed antidepressants and i'm pretty sure between something like between twenty fifteen and twenty twenty one, the number of anti depression prescriptions for children age four to twelve has increased by over sixty percent.

So these are more in s as well.

Yeah yeah, way more. And so and you've got like kids putting their mental health medication and diagnosis and their twitter BIOS Young know Young people putting them on their tender profiles that you can't say it's stigma anymore. That's the wrong context, especially for things like anxiety and depression, autism, A D H D. You know, i'm sure there's areas a bit that stigmatize, but the way they talk about IT, the way these campaigns talk about IT IT, as if what it's ten years ago, yes, it's like the context is completely different now it's such a.

it's such an easy narrative is very simple to understand, right? We need to Normalize the conversation around this. You it's it's the same as if if somebody has one answer to every question, that's because the demand for an ces outstrips their ability to supply them.

So they just retrofit the one answer they are to everything, right? What about what are the other things? What this trend of people documenting the lives on the internet, what are the ridiculous things of people being documenting?

Well, the most ridiculous. So I write recently, like ranted about this, but the the thing is really getting to me recently is like the intimate, personal moments, so meaningful things that happen in your life, like once or twice, never again, people are spending that time filming them and recording them for social media, like ordinary people are not just talking about influences.

I'm talking about this pressure to capture everything and share IT. So I did like a subset post where like looking through some of these tiktok for its so influences are the worst examples. So there is the the most crazy, but there's like one where this woman is just given birth and her family come in to view the baby, all holding their phones, filming as they come in the door, and then looking at the child through the screen rather than at the actual child.

D and that's not the most estoppel thing. The most estop an thing with the Normal Young people like, quote, tweet is really to stop in video saying, like there's nothing wrong with IT. You know, they just try to remember the moment. And if you take yourself out and look at IT, it's so distinction and it's just so weird that we we come up with inner justifications for something really surreal like that. And there's a bit, do you see the video of paris on new?

Yes, the biggest light show, what people, phone screens, the everyone.

the people justify that saying they want to remember the fireworks. And I just like .

memories don't exist without you've travelled all the way to paris. You're about to see the countdown. I understand it's strange because things that are really impressive with the things you want to take photos of because they're impressive.

But because they're impressive, they're going to stick in your memory more. So you don't actually mean to take the photos. It's different if you're taking a self fee like that, that you don't see yourself.

There's something special about, I don't know I that I really struggled this. I had A I encounter an issue a that realized about two years ago. I associated any sort of posting any sort of photo taking a super cringe because I thought classic influencer decade.

Here is, you know, can't even go out for dinner without taking a photo of the food, but I realized that almost all of the photos I was taking weren't getting posted on social media. Yeah, they were for me. They were for me.

I was standing them to, uh, my mom, or I was sending them to friends or doing whatever that I just wanted that and IT wasn't big shit. IT was usually small things on the way of the taxi. The thirty dollar ten minute taxi right I got in honduras is, uh, back here I took photo of the guys, the driver's seat, because he had this crazy and fixed the seat, obviously little bit of developing country in some ways.

And I was like, that's fucking cool. I just wanted to remember, god, you remember what you're in pandora and that guy seat was fixed with a tennis racket like that call. But yeah, I and especially if this news cameras there, that so much footage of the things that many people take photos of, like that paris, think if you want to remember IT to someone with a nk telescopic zoom that you could probably use yeah that that is .

not that's where that one makes no sense because it's like there's millions of people all filming the same thing. And like you said, there's professional people there. But I think there's nothing wrong with documenting things, keeping them for you.

It's it's the pressure to like make a moment marketable for other people while you're in the moment. So it's like, you know like I was saying really meaningful moments like say, pregNancy funding out your pregnant and telling your partner and filming IT. I think there's something about getting the camera or knowing the cameras there.

The cheaper that moment and and take your mind away from the moment because instead you're thinking, how's this coming across? How are looking on camera? How people gna respond to this while you're in the moment? So it's more those things that I think extremely distant in because they're like people have the urge to do IT when a moment is meaningful. But that's when is the most corrupt because you you're only get those meaningful moments a few times in your life and you're cheaping .

IT or we don't need the apple vision pro for people to live their life via a screen if that's what they're already doing, just a city six six version of IT, but they're already coming in doing. This was something else that I learned that um she's so funny. You know how if you were to suggest to one of the waiters while you were on a holiday, hi, would you mind take a photo of us please? Like that the universal, that universal.

Take photo of us, please? Yes, yes. I only found that out recently that it's not it's like, would you take a photo of us, please like this pressing on the middle? The middle of your palm is supposed to the top of the finger, dude. So crazy yeah.

it's crazy. Yeah but it's it's it's so weird because like that that woman who's given birth in the family looking at IT through the screen is like he could have just face time. You you'd have the same expect like there is a woman who's literally looking at the baby, smiling, not looking up or not looking and I think there's something to be said for, like he said, remembering things through memories.

Like I think there's something nostalgic about only having a memory of something. I think if you if you've just got tens of thousands of kind of instagram reals and snapped stories and whatever of moments, you first way not going at the time to look back at them all and feel that nostalgia. And I think the things that will actually stand out are the things that you forgot to film because you are. So in the moment, you weren't even thinking .

about the threshold for that is now being changed. The threshold for things that are fully into the moment, so much that you forget to film them is basically zero .

yeah and people say, oh, you know, the amount of uh, kind of tweet and stuff you say people say, I went to this and I forgot to film more. I forgot to take a IT and regret and it's like, no, that's a good thing because you living your life and you forgot. The big difference, I think.

is are you doing IT as a memory for you? Are are you doing this so that you can then post on social media? Yes, because even if it's your job, there are certain things that I think it's a good idea to keep off social media and especially for isn't your job who's this for if you're posting IT online, what you're trying to do is get some fucking tight traded dose of whatever kim kardashian did. Which one of the carditis was at the east to surrogate and then the baby was born and immediately .

like handed IT over to.

I don't know.

I try, I try hard not .

to know you also said, i've seen you for me that says what's totally absent from modern mental health advice is trying to be a Better person. What I mean.

yeah, I got some backlash for that. Well, what I was trying to say by that is, I think, you know, jene especially bombarded with mental health advice, that is, always buy a product or have this service or you know take a pill for whatever is wrong with i'm not talking about you know civilian mentally or people but for most of Jenny who are anxious, stressed um having these Normal adolescent feelings that are being ramped up by modern life.

You know, you you you don't necessarily need therapy. You don't necessarily need to take a pill. What you very often need is to look at your life and think about IT.

You know, the first thing to think about is whether you have real human connection in your life, whether you have like a solid community, and then if you you know eating right, if you're exercising right, then things like how you're treating people, how you're maintaining your relationships. But it's so absent from mental health advice because people like are absolutely terrified now of telling Young people, you know, maybe this is not a mental hole diagnosis. Maybe this is something you have agency over.

You just would never hear. You would never hear from mental health. You have never hear IT from an influence, or you'd never say, you take a look at your own life. Have you done everything you can to feel good and are you trying your best to be a good person? Um yet there's no way they would get away with .

saying IT it's very strange you know coming from this joe rogan, David goggins joker willink, alex homos y universe of everyone saying no one cares, just work harder like stop complaining, just improve like that whole sort of world view almost feels right and obvious and kind of in some ways like old all that know that that's there's nothing novel to be said with that. But I guess you're forgetting about the cohort of people for whom that is a radical yeah assumption.

Well, I think girls and yang women don't hear that. Um you know I think this there's a lot of obviously talk about like Young men or having role models, but I think in recent years that has changed. You know there's all there's Jordan Peterson, there's you there's all kinds of protesters who trying to fill that gap and speak to Young men and tell them you know to think about discipline and think about how they treating people when you know if they are the best version of themselves.

But I think there is a massive gap for Young women, because people are absolutely terrified to say, yes, yeah, are you being a good person, especially to women, because they think it's, you know, regressing back to telling women what to do. But I think, you know Young women are craving that because deep down, because always hearing is everything you do is great. Everything you do is empowering everything.

You know, if if you like IT, then it's good for your mental health. Then go for IT. You know, we hearing that from that mainstream feminism, we're hearing IT from therapy culture and we're hearing IT from all of these kind of influences and celebrities who are our role models like kim kash, ian, whoever IT is.

You know, where is the female jon Peterson saying, no, this behavior is not good. Um this is the kind of behavior that you know is gonna bad for your well being and the people around you. We we just make .

him out who are the heroes heroines? Who are the heroes of genee? Like one of the girls you know, if you were talking about, i'm aware that you say there isn't an equivalent of the of the joran Peter, another Andrew of the rogan or whatever. But who is the who with the girls looking up to kassim? What else?

Yeah, I think pop culture figures. So I think he would if you were to ask them, IT would be like singers and celebrity would be like Taylor wift. IT would be like .

action ses.

They see on T. V, yes. yeah. 所以， you know, people who are aren't gonna push a strong moral and value system on Young.

They're gonna very vae about everything for fear of offending and for fear of lecturing um and I think you know everyone talks about codling jene, but I think this is a big part of IT is that we absolutely terrified to to tell girls and Young women what to do, you know but you have to tell Young people what to do, what to aim for so that they can, you know, they are growing up now with absolutely no milestones for coming of age, no kind of guidance of where to go in the direction of their life. And I think IT does a great in a service to Young women to just pretend everything they do is fine. And I think, yeah, we are actually craving some of that discipline that men are craving as well.

Yeah, I have a theory that over the next ten years, the female mental health crisis will be the main story, and the male body image crisis, I think that we're going to switch for a crisis of fever, crisis of masculine ity, crisis of vanity and crisis of female body image, crisis of male body image. Now girls are also maybe gona hold on both of those titles, i'm not sure. But male male body this movie is on track to overtake female body dismore be within about two decades really.

Yeah it's like buying is that fitness .

kind a good chunk of IT? Um so the male the ideal male body has changed north a lot in a perfect examples of this. If you look at action figures, if you look at luke skyWalker from the seventies as a you know a kid's action figure, he's just Normal dude, you look at look skyWalker now and he looks like he's on a very heavy cause of pds um and yeah, they are like all of the representations physically of men are unbelievably jacked.

He did not not to say, I mean, look at what happened with bobbi. I like how many. Um look at the waste to hydro of barbi.

If barbi was in the real world, you basically have no internal organs at a SATA. There's been no a reckoning around for women and that hasn't been for men. So it's always this flip flop of, well, men. I've got, you know that this thing is something that we need to be concerned about with them, and that gets forgotten for the girls. And then the same thing happens for girls with what gets forgotten for men.

Yeah, that's true. yeah. I think the I think a lot of the mental health advice now is is good toward women. So it's like, you know talk more about your problems in view in a very kind of female way um but I actually think that's gone so far that is now harming women as well you know constantly saying to men you should be opening up more about your problems would never ever you know ever dare to say to women maybe you're opening up too much ah you know that would be unacceptable. There was this interesting .

quote that i've found from Steve Stuart Williams guy that wrote the April understood the universe, one of my favorite books, and he said, considered the claim that society encouraging sales to be aggressive. This is probably true in some ways. We do sometimes give boys the message that they ought to be tough and not cry over, although we spend a lot more time discouraging male aggression than female.

why? Because males are more aggressive. Or consider the claim that we tell girls to be quiet and passive.

Again, we probably do this sometimes. More often, though, we tell boys to be quiet and passive. why? For the same reason boys are loud .

a and more disruptive yeah that's true yeah .

and I think it's .

um yeah but I think what what's happening now is we we try to the more you try to do something is gonna help Young women like I think everyone's trying to be very careful with their language and careful with how they approach these issues because they know that women don't really like that direct discipline. The same amount the boys are ending, they don't. We don't respond to IT quite the same.

I think that is true. But now we've taken IT to such an extreme where we're terrified to tell women anything, you know, it's all about and what makes us happy, our desires are. So it's based on some truth, but it's just song.

Wait for this is coddling culture basically.

Yeah.

what is IT making girls more depressed on more bitchy, do you think .

both at the same time? No, I think I think most of the narrative now is you know social media and therapy culture and all of these things are making goals anxious, are making them depressed um but I think a lot of things in what life also making goals you know behave worse as well. Social media, for example, we know that goes in securities are a liquid market that companies go after.

But I also think companies know how to draw out female voices as well. So if you look at social media platforms, they're like perfectly set up for goals to be mean to each other, to engage in this kind of indirect forms of aggression, like reputation destruction, passive aggression, gossip. It's like perfect on social media.

So if you wanted socially exclude someone, you've got like the sap, a sap map where you can have your live location on with the friends are together, you can see that you're not with them. And you know, you can create group chats where you cut people. Now you can if you want to be passive aggressive, you can like tweet about someone but not mention their name so you are just like sad ily and dig in them. And you know companies play on this, like instagram lets you have a set of close friends where you can exclude other people is up like um N G which is like an anonymous messaging up.

not gonna lie.

So like says right to lie. She's really ugly.

There was something called yah yah yah yah.

oh yeah. Is that a similar thing?

Yeah, that was basically the same. So is geo located, anonymous hosting? And uh, this was for A A couple of years in club promote. This was fuck in fire because IT meant IT meant that we could all we could all talk shit about every other promoter from town. I know that everyone in town that was using yak or whatever um would see IT but that no one could say who IT came from because IT by design IT was anonymous is so funny.

Did you have to ask if m was that .

when you know .

said that was brutal? That was again, as economists messaging up where you can just like people would just use that to rate other people. So you would be like, can you give this go rating on that looks, personality, this absolutely britain. But yeah companies are doing that because they know adolescents, teenagers especially goals can be up to brute or to each other and that way um so they are playing on that as well. So I I think it's it's not only how social media is making us feel, but it's like who is encouraging us to become as well.

Do you think self hie editing is a powerful, active self .

expression? Uh, yes. So that was face tune wasn't so it's so weird how that has changed. I mean, remember when I was sh Younger people used to kind of disguise the fact they were editing their photos.

IT was like A A shameful thing but now it's kind of on to something to be proud of. Its like self expression. It's just like putting on makeup um and the companies I don't know what came first but now the companies are jumping on that saying, you know sophie, dating is empowering and it's about um self love.

It's like about being proud of who you are and enhancing that like they use all kinds of language to spin IT, I think IT was curry classic said, like, face tune is life changing. SHE also, face tune, her newborn baby as well. SHE face tune, her newborn e baby.

yeah, there's a .

picture about holding her baby. And the baby is like, predicate air brushed.

Did anyone puller up on this?

Yeah I think people did say the step sixty far.

but saying that it's a powerful female self expression and it's true self love to.

yeah.

what have took me through what's happening with self image. Body image goes sort of perspectives and perceptions of how they should look physically, facially.

all the rest of IT. What is interesting because we we seem to be the generation that's been inundated with this kind of message. Self love and body positivity is everywhere, but where the generation who seem to be struggling with IT the most.

So we are having we got record rates of cosmetic surgeries among jensie. So things like lip fillers, like section beef jobs going out fig z and the clients getting Younger and Younger. So you're getting kind of teenagers who are so botox is banned in england. Teenagers are traveling to whales to get botox to prevent aging. So you've got this like record rates of cosmetic surgery, record rates of body demotion, eating disorders, facial this mopar. So things like a Young women going to plastic surgeons asking to look like the snapshot filter version of themselves, whether before theyd come in, we're like a picture of a celebrity and now with them with filter so despite being so loud about you know self love and self acceptance in having that kind of shop down of its, the opposite seems to be happening .

that's so interesting .

yeah and I mean, I would put that down to social media because, you know, I don't think older generations quite realized how often jensie, especially jensie women are looking at their faces because of their fine and because of tiktok and instagram.

It's like having a mirror with you everywhere that .

you go yeah and it's you know it's also you're seeing a distort television of yourself through filters and through your camera. So when you're looking in the mirror or someone takes a photo of you is very different to that camera image that you are so accustom with .

the right angle that you know, with the right lighting that you know with the filter that you like.

So it's more .

I like.

yeah it's not .

it's it's a couple of things. He had, first of being other people on the internet portray themselves and make photos and videos of themselves in a way which is most representative of the way that they actually look in the real world. And again, this recursive convey about thing that we will separately came up with.

Um IT causes youtube spend to see people as the online version, not their real life version. Yeah then this is a very unique version of IT, which is how you see yourself on the phone is actually different to how you are in the real world. So I imagine I there must be something like mirror is movie or like phone, this movie, which is wow, on my phone, I looks so great, but in the mirror I don't like myself. Well, yeah, because you're making all of these .

edits and it's A I mean, have you seen the tiktok filters now? Like the beauty filters you, they are so so like when I was Younger, we would have like salt filters, but they would kind of like lag. So they had like there was one that was like puppy is, but I kind of smooth your skin and like cheese with your cheeks. So like all the thirteen or goals, we're using IT, but if you moved, IT would like leg. So I was obvious to wearing a filter, but now like there's .

what the puppy is won enough the giveaway.

Okay, wow picker would do not the popular one, but there be other ones like you'll be makeup or you have that butterflies or something and goals would trying .

crop out the filter IT. Then companies .

tried to introduce seamless ones, but now there's like Young women trying on these filters that give them like a perfect kind of avatar face, but is very realistic. And if they go like this, nothing changes. So when I was Younger, like the fake lashes would be like on your hand the thing, but is now you can do that, you can move, you can, you know, speak Normally, you can edit your body on face chain so you can make your waste microscopic. You can change your .

like bone sides.

and then you confirm yourself walking around with a different body and the background doesn't move for rubble or anything. And so not only a goal staring at their faces for hours a day, but they're staring at a often distorted version, but then go into the mirror then thinking they have a mental illness of body demos here, whatever. And it's like anyone would have this movie because you're not supposed to be staring at your face for this long, especially a modified version.

Have you been watching this season of love island to the happening right now? I have not right. What a shame for you. What a shame.

Ah so this is love island all stars which is bringing back does at least two or three a people from my season yeah and that's been interesting to observe. Um do you remember ing my season was eight years ago, eight or nine years ago. Now you want to go back for the old stuff.

I mean, look, I mean, they were in a very big mood with me after I revealed all of the inner workings. The first podcast that went super viral, which people probably won't know, um was maybe up to fifteen I think. And I revealed all of the in the secrets of how the shows made and how the city yeah that they were unhappy with me about that i've made up with a bunch of the producers.

But yeah no, I think I think i'm very much on the end modish. But a hana, who was this, uh, scout go um SHE purpose sly went to get bright stall surgery. Have you heard of this?

Nearby, I can guess, is IT brats, brats, face of brats, body proportion.

face, but also body to a degree. There's a video, josh, one of the kids, actually another kid that was on my season. They really took a lot from season one. Maybe I was left out no um but they he he was walking away from him.

They were just catching up or whatever his friends and SHE was walking away from him and he said, walking out of addressing as well and he went, yeah, I have ah so you know this very few bit. I mean, he was pretty enhances the first time but this broke the internet at when the thing first came out. Someone sended to me.

And I mean, how I was a playboy girl scouts, playboy goal for the americans listening scout is kind of new jersey a little bit. I guess it's like sort of joy shore josey short type sort of fake tan and fake glashes and stuff. And he really took IT to the extreme about this. And yeah, the internet was let up so that A B B L.

that she's SHE was had A B B L.

yeah no. And I mean, SHE had a boob job. Fuck in eight years ago when we on the show, he had a pretty big set, a scut missiles on her. Now that I like nuclear warheads about.

The thing is, I think when you get this a small fit, well, when you start to get these procedures, it's almost like you get blind to how far are taking IT until like SHE might look in the mirror and not see IT .

as extreme because it's .

been gradual process person, she's upgraded each feature one by one where as you meet her my life and it's like drawing.

That was the thing that people were comparing the photo from eight years ago to the photo now. But it's it's the question, when did you get old? When did you get fat? Or did you get whatever? Well, one day a time, one perceived at a time, one let fellow appointment at a time.

Yes is true. And then social media, I think, is a big part of that again because it's the algorithm one step at a time. So firstly, you get an add for lip fillers and then it's like a well, if you've had lip fillers, you might want to even out with a noise job. And then if you get a noise drop, you probably wanna, you know, IT just goes on and on until, you know, there's a lot of influences now who are coming out and dissolving pillars or reversing surgery. And they also the same thing, which is I just woke up and didn't recognize myself and .

made did lucky this like love ison podcast mulley made did a big thing with that didn't SHE SHE said the beauty vacation herself yeah.

he looks way banner looks way Younger and but he said the same thing. He just said, I have no idea who that person was like. She's like, I look at that philae sion, and I don't recognize her because IT happened gradually.

What do you think about this trend of fitness chicks or just instagram goals uploading? See, i've got roles in stretchMarks too. What do you make of that?

Yeah um what i've seen a couple of those and they're always like unflustered ing but flattering so IT was like the most flattering version of an unflattering photo you get which I think is kind of worse than just posting a load of flattering stuff because it's like, oh, he is my vulnerabilities but i'm also still using godlier tying and it's it's .

not that like humble .

brag yeah yeah so I think I don't know. I still see that as kind of inauthentic sometimes and actually worse in a way because you're pretending .

is your ultimate the goal is laudable, right, which is, um look, I am not perfect all the time. This is a photo of me posing and this is a photo of me not posing. James smith, my business partner on neutronic and dern cartel, made a very big mess of instagram for like they were like mercenary assassins going around and finding these girls that we're doing IT and then doing A A parody of IT themselves with them in like a girl's crop top, sort of posing, going crying on the fact that y've got they've got roles and stuff.

But then on on the other side, how you supposed to fight back against insane body standard imagery if you don't do that, if you don't try and do that, well, this is me in real life. This is what happens if i've had too much gluten. Or this is me around that time of the month, or this is me when i'm not posing and i'm not late and I don't have makeup on.

Well, I think it's it's like the mental health thing. So I think a lot of people share their mental health problems online because they think all social media a highlight real. Everyone's pretending to be perfect.

So i'm going na show my vulnerability. You know a lot of influences to do that. That will be like, oh, here's a self fee of me crying you know, i'm Normal, you know, don't worry. But it's like, I don't think the answer to the endless posting of perfection is then to start revealing your most vulnerable personal moment, especially if you are Normal Young go.

I think the answer is to post less in general and to consume less of this stuff as I think a lot of Young people now kind of being convinced that they need to share their vulnerabilities that, that their whole south is on social media and it's kind of baLanced. But I don't think that you know, if you're a pretty or a teenager, I just would not be putting my deepest vulnerabilities online. Now you know, when you don't know yourself, you don't know how you're gonna feel in the future. Um is a similar thing.

What do jersey girls think about guys?

Um well, there's a big gap between Jenny goes and Jessie guys and I don't know, did you see that financial times? Yeah 所以 the jensie girls and Jessie guys world viewing values definitely seem to be diverging。

What do you lay that at the .

fate of a couple of thinks? So most of the most of the divide in most of the countries is goes on Young women shifting to the left. So guys seem to be either staying the same or becoming slightly more conservative on things like generals or I think, race and immigration as well.

But it's Young women who are like bunching rapidly to becoming more progressive. And so I think to explain that, to explain like the rise of liberal women, I think a big part is education. So universities leaning left, but Young women wait more likely to go to university than men.

Men is an age group, for a lot of them below the age of going to university.

true. So, well, yeah, I think this most of survey is are looking at jensie men and women. I think if you were to include, you know, ency girls and boys, IT would also be the things like social media. So for example, if your you're looking at progressive um something progressive on social media and social justice post or something, again, the algorithm will serve you the more extreme version of that ah and you can end up going from kind of like a Normal liberal position to the extreme left very quickly.

And obviously the same is true of right wing content but its liberal team girls who spending five or more hours a day on social media this seems to be what I think is happening, is goes a kind of naturally drawn to something like the social justice movement, because it's very much about compassion, it's very much about lived experiences. And I think, you know, Young women hire and empathy, more conformist. So we drawn to that.

And then those natural tendencies are then picked up by the algorithm. And then you're spending hours a day on social media getting that confirmed in getting IT more extreme. And guys are getting a different experience. And then as they grow older, going to university, getting a different experience, good study stem subjects rather than humanities, which are much less left leaning. So IT just seems to be that we having such different experiences in its getting to the point where our world views are completely different and we're not even like inhabitant the same reality anymore.

Yeah, i've got Daniel cox, who was the dude that did the research. I've got him coming on. He's a bit of digital ghost.

I had to go through a bunch of people to to get in touch with him um but I can't wait for that episode. Yes, I think that's going to be so good. So that's exciting.

Going to bring him on have a conversation really digged into the mechanisms of IT. I've been interested to try find somebody else that can dig into the mechanisms, more clubs y he knows the demographics and he's made some influences and that articles fantastic. But um yeah there's a bit more I wants to understand why is this happening more than just what's happening? okay. So um gently girls about guys, what do they think about the relationships and dating and the importance of of that?

Well, I think a big thing now that i've noticed is being is jersey women being risk of us around guys and around dating um so for example, if you go on like tiktok dating advice is a very kind of cynical. It's very negative. It's like know if a guy approaches you, he's a predictor or if he kind of compliments you a law and gives you the gifts.

He's love bombing you he's an abuse a you the words like nassim and red flags being thrown around and is honestly everywhere like I saw a tweet recently that was when viral that was like, oh, if you if you meet someone and you have intense chemistry, that's a major red flag but you should leave because it's like a trauma signal that reminds you of your care give a you mystery, you order it's got like thousands of likes and it's that kind of language is so common among Young women talking about dating, which I get I think there are legitimate reasons to be risky. So I think you know of it's much harder to date now with in after the sexual revolution, with less kind of god, rows of customer and shivering. And I do think these reasons women, a risk averse to being kind of disposed of and you know not having a meaningful relationship follow from meeting someone, also think, you know we've got in very high rates of divorced parents, which you know plays into that risk aversion. Well, I think social media teaches you to be risk averse and avoid discomfort.

But what what is the reason for the risk aversion is IT just not wanting to ever get hurt. How much of this is just an avoidance of any discomfort?

Yes, there are. Basically all of these things are creating this absolute terror of getting hurt. So I think a lot of the therapy speak and the kind of feminist language is a is closing this deep, fair vulnerability um yeah I think jensie grew up with this kind of message that anything with brisk is a threat to be avoided you know whether that's through social media, whether that's family structure, whether IT was, you know, the childhood we had, you know our childhoods were very much like avoid risk.

You know, prioritise health and safety in regulations, you know, simulating IT all online, rather than actually engaging in Price taking behaviour. And I think that plays out all the time in agency's life. But a big you know, part of that is relationships because they come with a high level of risk.

And I I don't think some genie people can kind of it's almost like we've been convinced that's not a part of life that you can actually get away with the life that avoids risk and you uncomfortable motions um but you can't. And so IT IT is actually you a really tragic because IT puts on a path to miss out on really meaningful things. So I think a lot of the kind of child free tiktok stuff that everyone makes fun of in the you know less desire among jersey top children can be explained by this. Fear of discomfort in risk aversion is like a deep terror of things going wrong um which you know you go on like child three tiktok as well. It's all about discomfort and it's all about what is that .

for the people that don't know.

So um people who have made the decision not to have children will post unlike a link which is like double income. No kids so they're post like their luxury lifestyles that they can afford and then then post their kind of child free days and what they go to and everything. Um but there's also among that. There's a lot of Young women especially talking about kind of the risks and discomfort that comes with having children and trying to warn other Young women and goes not to have children. See, for example, as ago, he does a free birth control series on tiktok, where he basically this, like every possible risk could go wrong with pregNancy or children .

to go with the list.

That's another one, then there's another. So this is just to go SHE. He does like a helpful birth control series to remind me why you shouldn't have children. And we just put clips of, like children screaming and throwing up and destroying stuff. And they hope .

this is like a cultural intervention. Pe, yeah. A lifestyle, a lifestyle warning.

Yeah.

I think he didn't have kids, so she's right.

yeah. And then I think the first person to do that was this woman who created the list, which like a crowd source list of reasons not have children.

I think there was three hundred and fifty reasons not to not to have kids. And there was a page in the heart and SHE printed them out. So it's nine pages, ten pages of some every reasons not to. And I think that the reasons to amounted to a page of a four, but in the reasons not to have kids was can't White cute heals anymore? Will miss miss brunch with the girls literal parasite living inside of your body?

yeah. Plus every every kind of risk of health scare that could possibly go wrong is like listed on IT. So like everything from starting with, you know, losing sleep and you know having like a stomach ache or headache to absolute worst case in ario risk that can happen.

And you kind of read IT and you like, god, this is like the most meaningful thing a human can do, you know, is the fundamental human instincts. Not not to say that everyone should have children, but when you see, you know, so many Young people convince that life, we should be fine, uneasy all the time, and there anything that comes with this level of risk is not worthy. I think that's the symptom like something extremely sinister, which is, which is, you know, gensia suffering from because they're on a path to miss out on the most meaningful things.

because of IT out of fear, which the prioritization of immediate emotional comfort over long term flourishing. It's the avoidance of risk, but also change because change is associated with risk.

Yeah ah that there is A A kind of individualized solipsism about I think that the most popular reasons for why people aren't in relationships are why they're not dating is a working on myself right now， just don't feel ready, don't have enough time, having too much fun on my own. The same thing for why people don't want to have kids. It's this sort of imposition on their life.

That's what that's what they primarily concerned about because if I do this thing, things are going to change. And if the things change, uh, why was IT here? This is interesting. Um when asked what IT takes the leadership filling life, the public prioritized job satisfaction in friendship of a marriage.

In parent hood, seventy one cent of all adults say having a job, career they enjoy extremely, are very important for people to live for filling life, and sixty one percent say having close for is equally important, only about one in four adults say having children, or twenty three percent being married is extremely, very important to, in order to live for filling life a third say each of these is somewhat important and forty two percent and forty four cent say having children are being married is not too or not at all important. Having a lot of money is viewed as extremely or very important for a fulfilling life. Women place a little more importance on job, career enjoyment than men do, seventy four percent versus sixty nine percent.

The same time, men places somewhat more importance on marriage and having children. Twenty eight percent of men competitive. Eighteen percent of women say being married is extremely or very important for a fulfilling life.

Similarly, twenty nine percent of men, vos, twenty two percent of women say the same about having children. And that was pew research that literally came out three months ago. The interesting take online was. Having a great job is zero sum. Only one person can be the best sales person, but hypothetic ticals everyone can have a happy marriage and family.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think again, that's the I will put that down to the lack of, you know role models again for Young women who are who are showing that different lifestyle of in our family and children um you know if you look at the top kind of pop culture stars that jensie women are looking up to and loving, they're all living a similar lifestyle because they're in the world where their ultimate goal is money. And you know, 翻译 们 and all of these values that you know are kind of incompatible children they make you know， children get in the way of a they're not seeing role models whose ultimate values are family or, uh, you know, legacy or anything like that. So that is just not being translated to them.

I wonder what will happen if Taylor swift gets fragment? Ant, like.

I fucking hesitate .

to use Taylor swift as the linchpin for female culture, but SHE has captured culture in a way that I know I don't think really anybody else has. And something tells me that travis healthy. He's a bearded bear drink.

I an he is also responded by fisa, uh, and maybe paid for by George soros. But he is a pretty like old school sweet guy him in his brother, you know, behave in that kind of a manner. Something tells me that he probably intends on having a family at some point.

And if you've got the greatest a one of the greatest nfl players ever, their genes, plus perhaps one of the greatest female pop stars, like, make some kids come on. But if that, if that happens, remember when a dell lost weight and know all of the body positivity people will like betrays and the, I wonder how many people will say, you know, they're all happy for the fact of Taylor swift in a relationship. But SHE is still able to do the link role model thing.

But if SHE decide to start having a family, I wonder how much of that would change. And then look at IT the other way. I mean, alex Cooper should have been called to account.

So fucked in hard, he should have got dragged so fucking hard on the internet for extolling the virtues of casual sex and no first attach and sleep with them and don't catch feels. And here's how to the gg. Four thousand or whatever. This like good blow job episode, the episode number three of apart, something else like extolling the virtues of casual sex and then for the final three years of the podcast, secretly having a relationship with a guide that he was totally abode in in love with, and then to kind of like like Bruce wae saying that his batman go, i'm engaged and the engagement was so cute.

And there was a rose garden, and he got down on one nee, and he had asked my dad, and he's done all of this other stuff, and he goes, go, how big is the wake of broken goals that allowed themselves to be used by guys? Yeah over the last half decade because of you as the the second biggest, whatever one of the biggest female podcast s on the planet. How many ghosts did you basically sell a lie to about the lifestyle that you thought was good, when what you were doing was the opposite, and then you knew that you knew that this was the case?

Yeah, yeah. I I think, again, it's that fear. You know, the fear of telling goes what to do, but also the fear of in promoting a traditional lifestyle in any way. You know that I think there's like a terror of thinking that you regressive if you start saying or you know actually enjoy my marriage, I am actually glad I got married Young or you know i'm gonna give up some of this um you know i'm gona put fame to decide to have children or things like that. I think a lot of probably older women feel that but don't translate IT to Younger women because they don't want elect to them um you know where is you know we need some people in culture who are who are pointing you know not saying all Young women need to have children or get married, but saying, you know actually the most fulfilling things are things that you don't buy and you don't you know you need to have sold to that things like a meaningful relationship and children, which are separate from the market and they provide this kind of sustainable meaning. You know no one saying that because it's not sexy and it's not like attention grabbing.

Well, how many women as .

well that .

would be the role models for this talking point just don't exist in the same communication ecosystem as the audience. That would benefit from IT most.

Yeah, no. Said that the people with the platform usually influences who are whose ultimate values are the fame, money and selected .

for a very particular type of person that was chasing the fame. And the fame is what got them, the platform on which they can talk about the virtues of chasing fame.

yeah. So probably the best role models for women are not on social media. And I know something.

having a quiet coffee with their friends on the tuesday afternoon.

Yeah yeah and then and then you get this like like trad wife movement or whatever, where you get the the other extremement. But it's still it's still a performance. There's still like filming IT for tiktok. So it's like either way, we're still getting like a shallow version. Do you .

know who some select is?

No.

he said he like so unsurprising that you a girl on the internet doesn't when every guy on internet pretty much does. He is a uh twenty two year old, twenty three year old body builder, I guess um and his whole thing is completely raw authenticity.

His entire youtube channel, there's no crafting of thn nails, there's no crafting of titles um and only does his film of training sessions and he gets in a car and he's just the the least to polished person that you're going to me is a little bit socially awkward. He's jacked out of his mind so he's huge. So there's a lot of aspiration in his Normality.

But there's a trend at the moment, at least on the guy side, I think of moving away from the hyper polished, very edited, very curated messaging. I think people are falling in love with people that yeah I get that like I understand I I I drive a toyoy fucking events. I you sometimes getting uncomfortable when people come up to me in the gym that those sorts of things, he's he's just showing what's going on. And I wonder when there will be a female equivalent because he's had phenomenal success. That seems to be I mean, he's playing five dimensional chess if he's if that's actually a role yeah and he's called everybody but yeah, I think that could be gap in the market for an influential female to come in and do something similar .

yeah I think the problem is with that is I think some people try they try to be very authentic online. And then like I said, they end up performing, but in a different way. So they end up performing like you know like you see videos on tiktok like influencer saying or you know, this is me kind of crying on my bedroom floor because everything's going wrong and it's yeah and it's also you've set up the camera in order to cry in order to capture this man it's like inference the saying, you know I caught my panic attack on camera and you watch IT and it's like, yes, this is the comments again so I think there's a very now line to to actually be authentic. Um and again, we just seem to be swing right past IT does still be performing all the time.

How is or why is that the case that sex in dating a down if hookup culture is so prominent?

Yeah this is interesting. I think I think IT seems to be that when people are having sex is more often casual sex, but in general, jensie are having less sex compared to previous generations at the same. But if you talk to Young people about their sexual experiences, there will usually typically be like a hookup or something like that.

Um but I think a lot of what jennie is now like situation ships. So they're like this grey area where they seem to be hooking up and there's no commitment, there's no relationship out of IT. So the people who are having sex like don't seem to be in committed relationships like previous generations were there in this kind of weird stage where you're not exclusive but you're having sex. And I think that is like a big cause of anxiety relationship problems, he said. There doesn't seem to be boundaries anymore with that.

And why is that the case? What what is the underlying driver that. The encouraging but sex positivity and risk aversion at the same time, like I understand what the current is.

but there seems to be this paradox in so many areas of Young women's life. So like he said, there's the risk aversion in the sex positivity. Then there's also the, you know, self love and body positivity and the body to small fear in the eating disorders.

And there's also like, you know, i'm a feminist, empowered women who doesn't care, but also I have crippling anxiety, depression. There seems be so many like paradox is going on. And I I think it's because a lot of the narratives are like a front for how we actually feeling like a defense mechanism.

So there's a lot of people talking about sex positivity and how casual sex is empowering, but there's also a lot of people saying they they stuck in situations ships, they can't get a guide to commit. They don't want to commit you. They're having all kinds of doubts and thinking of all kinds of red flags of reasons not to commit.

So I think like the louder we get about sex positivity, the louder we get about anything really in her modern life, IT seems to be the deep down, the opposite story. There's real pain. There's real confusion. Yeah, think we were of dealing with IT.

This definitely the paradoxes, I think, exist because people are performing this performative ea, thy toxic compassion thing causes where you want to thread the needle to intersect two, one diagrams sometimes, right? Like, I don't want to kink shame. And women can have sex the same as men do.

And also, like I, you should be afraid of all of the things that exist on the internet and all of the things that can happen in real life. And he has red flags because he's come up to you in the like that sometimes that that needle gets thread between the two, because people aren't actually doing the sense making for themselves that outsourcing to people on the internet. And this person over here, the guide approaches in the gym person also, that there's one cohosh. Okay, I believe that thing, even if I don't believe that thing, I think that thing and i've seen that thing. And then you've got the other side, which is the don't can shame me, you can sleep with them or not catch fields I listen to alex coop er and you know those things .

come together yeah yeah note is true and I think it's one of those things where people is like they not thought through the consequences of IT. So there will be for example, there's like um a lot of feminists who push kind commodified yourself and selling yourself online as as fun and light, risk free and empowering. But then if they saw like a thirteen year old copying that behaviour, they would be absolutely horrified. Um so they know that there's you know when they're saying it's fun and risk free and there's nothing wrong with IT, they know that like there is something about IT that you shouldn't be sharing with Youngers without warnings of the risks in the dangers um but they continue to do IT and sell IT that way. So I think a lot of the time what people are pushing and celebrating, they know there's dark sides to IT or they know there's dangers, but they keep pushing and celebrating IT to kind of justify that and it's like a defense mechanism.

Talk to me about the glamorizing of divorce.

yeah. So I feel like writing about that when I saw so adell got divorced and IT was like .

a big did SHE I in my world, SHE don't just got married.

No, SHE got. SHE was married very Young. He got to first and and SHE made IT kind of like her personal brand. So like SHE pressure, SHE was setting like divorce to match and dice her concerts.

ah. What does that consist of? I think .

he was necklaces saying divorced. And pretty sure her catch race was like dior spay or something. And I would be fair to her like a lot of fans were pushing IT as well. Like I was her divorce how and said would like loving IT. I like noticed as well like mainstream magazines and publications also glamorizing divorce. So like the new york times could IT erratic crate of self love um and the vote was saying this valentine's day let's celebrate divorce um and yeah what the guarding was talking about the joy of divorce parties they think about IT recently as well .

so to celebrate your .

divorce with your ones so i'd seen all of this stuff in culture that was not just kind of saying, you know don't shame people forgetting towards IT was saying like that actively celebrated and I think it's the same thing. Again, it's like a defense mechanism because we all know intuitively and through the data that, you know, divorces devastating for children and families by almost every metric.

And yet to kind of deal with that, again, we're getting louder and louder about the joys of divorce and how itself love in its empowering. And I think the only way to explain that is it's it's like a topic that's so close to home, that's so like difficult to confront that the only way to handle this is to kind of wrap IT up in this language and pretend that you we're all celebrating IT, but i've seen that so much. And it's also interesting that it's never mentioned is like a factor in gene's mental health.

Family breakdown is just if you look at the academic essays, if you look at mainstream, you know, media commentators trying to figure out it's never divorce, it's never, you know, maybe this there could be a part to play that you know one in three and see their parents split by the time sixteen in the U. K. That's never mentioned. It's always, again, the climate crisis is or the housing ladder, whatever is.

How much of a big world do you think? How instrumental are broken families and single parent households? How much of genesis problems are downstream from that?

Well, I would say, I would say a lot of dansey struggle because of that, because we know from research that having divorce parents means IT more likely to suffer from anxiety, from depression, from eating disorders, self harm, you know, goes especially seem to have these like internalizing behaviors when they go through trauma, like family breakdown.

So they they very often get very anxious and withdraw in woods and kind of punish themselves through things like eating disorders or so harm, which we're seeing like on mass now. So it's not to say that I think like family breakdown causes all of jersey's mental health problems, but I think everything jersey is struggling with. This made worse by family breakdown.

So for example, if you're like, I think social media is terrible for Young goals, but I would say it's probably worse if you don't have a family to ground you and you're putting more of yourself worth into these platforms and you're depending on strangers online for that emotional validation that you're not getting from both parents. Same with things like i'm sure there are some gensec who are terrified of climate change, but i'm pretty sure if you don't have a stable family around you and like you know a place to develop that resilience in those healthier coping strategy, then you're going to be even more afraid of climate change. So the way I see is just that family breakdown will be exactly ating all of these problems, and not giving goes and boys that kind of grounding to be more resilient to these things.

Do you think that .

progressives make worse parents? I think that the took like parenting style is popular among progressives to this new like gentle parenting style, which is very much a listening to your child's a like validating their emotions and their explanations for things instead of punishment. So having the compassion and the love, the parenting need, but without the kind of strictness, I think that is worse for parenting.

And I think there's a lot of research showing that conservatives are actually much Better disciplining children and actually have Better relationships with their children as a result. Is that thing again of like goes and Young women and men, but goes and Young women as well, need this discipline with the compassion. But society as a whole, and some families seem to be just prioritizing the compassion and the instant gratification. You know what looks most loving in the moment, but is not long term.

There was a really interesting book, life of dad, by animation. And he came out of robbin dunbar lab in an oxford evolutionary anthropologist, a like, ardently pro women. But when he had her first kid, her husband really suffered his mental health, suffered IT was a difficult G A difficult birth, difficult pregNancy.

And his wife and newborn child got wheeled out of the room with ventilators and things attached, all the rest of IT. And he was just left there. And he started researching the chAllenges, the father's face, the fact that we, all of the attention is on mom, but that dads don't even get prepared with the cascade of homos that they slap.

And obviously the woman's bodies is the one that goes through IT, the hormones and the stress and health and all the rest of IT. The morning signal, you obviously, but it's this inability of the modern world to hold two slightly new one's thoughts in your mind that not contradictory, they don't conflict with each other. It's like haf having a child can be stressful on both participants, even the one that doesn't have the child inside of their body like that.

The the level of new ones that we need to get to, but it's such a zero. Some mentality in the gainers of hyper individualism is focus on the discomfort of the person means that it's very hard to be able to get someone to to see that. And he was great. The the episode that was was super interesting. And yeah I wonder that there was some really cool stuff about how.

We often hear about the negative outcomes for males when they grow in a fatherless household because the kind of externalizing behaviour that yes and do when they grow up is, you know they burn down car, they burned cars on firing social behavior in, uh, but it's not good for girls either. It's very, very important to some really worrying sociological al adjustments that girls who grow without a father have, that they seem to chase a male validation in a different kind of way. The particularly formative during the are teenagers to have a father around.

I can't remember why that was, but he just so many things. And again, the main reason is, well, if you say this, you are implicated delegating the hard working single mothers that are trying to yeah build a family on their own. And we need to be inclusive, especially to the people who are the ones that are suffering the most in life, which means that this conversation and the insights of IT are publicly less invoke.

Yeah I think it's it's this conceptive of stigma which obviously comes from somewhere that like this truth in IT you know their issues um they have stigma attached. But I think there's a fixation with stigma, particularly on the progressive left, that seems to just stop us from being able to have honest conversations about things. So family breakdown is is a good example of IT like is all about the stick against single mothers.

So you can't talk about farmers living or it's the stigma of you know divorced parents. So you can't talk about all the data showing that and that's not good for children. And I feel like that again with the mental health stuff, especially this word, stigma seems such as block of honest discussions about these issues. And IT seems to be a way to shut people down and stop them from going any further, where it's like sometimes, you know, this conversation is more important than this idea of societal stigma, you know, is very important that we talk about the effects of divorce on children. And I think, yeah, constantly bring that up, stops there and makes people afraid to talk about IT.

There is this idea. I learned that I think IT explains. This is called a semantic stop sign.

One way that people end discussions is by disguising descriptions as explanations. For instance, the word evil is used to explain behavior, but really only describes IT. IT resolves the question not by creating understanding, but by killing curiosity. Semantic stop sign, I think.

yes, I is. I, S is a semantic .

stop sign.

S any kind of further analysis? You know like okay, we can't go any further because it's it's now stigma tizer um because I think you know for so many issues, this idea of stigma stops us from actually getting to the root of the mental health crisis.

What's the role of mainstream feminism here then? Like how does that fold into like what's happening, what they supposed to be, what they time doing?

I feel like you the feminism I grew up seeing and know I I not read all the feminist literature, but I can just go off of what I have grown up with, what I associated with and what I associate maintain ing feminism with is very much selling me things. It's like almost like a marketing strategy because IT feels like whenever I hear about feminism or empower ment, it's like some kind of productive service or procedure is being so to me or is a lifestyle that's very much materialistic and consumer is in some way. Um so that's like my interpretation of feminism now because that's what i'm seeing. So I feel like it's been corrected by corporations and this version that jensie are growing up with the the thing that that um feminism kind of tells you to value again is is money is um you know working for a CoOperation is it's kind of all of these values are very, very convenient for companies in industries. That's definitely what I associated with unfortunate, but that's how powerful the patriot is.

We've convinced women that not only do they need to be the homemaker, but also that they can go to work and be the bread winner while we get to stay at home and play x box.

Yes, exactly. Work out well.

It's worked out incredibly well. What are you working on next? What's coming up?

Um well, i've just written that article act about what we are talking about about stopping opening up about mental held online um so that's yeah kind of saying, you know we need to stop swinging too far to the extreme. We need to stop you know telling Young people with their duty to open up and trying to back track on somebody there. So I think my focus at the moment is mental health culture and the industry is developing around IT because I think like I said, I think there's a genuine mental health crisis. But I think a lot of IT is the way Young people are being taught to think about their mental health and to talk about IT has just gone way too far in the wrong direction.

Do you follow? See rut traveller on instagram. She's fucking fantastic. Tic SHE was on the show.

She'd had three hours sleep because she's gone down some netflix rabbit hole the night before. But she's so she's so great and she's very sort of unapologetic. She's a tough love.

He is a good mean.

She's a tough of kind. She's like the psychotherapy, female psychotherapy. David goggins, very anti coal culture, very anti victimhood.

Yeah, that's cool. Like friend, I am really, really embrace with you. I think that your work fantastic. I think that the next few years has got huge things in store.

You're part of the based british women squad 6 but I it's me that came up with IT um but then um mary isn't IT Lewis isn't IT。 Um I think kind of Helen Lewis in a little bit nana powers in IT. Um the problem that we found was that base british women shorts is an acronym to b bw, which is a type of porn.

So we need to come up with the new name I thought, like I D W, base british women based, british women's cool. But B B W is maybe a little, we might be fighting a, fighting a hill with that. Where should people go? They want to keep, keep up today with all of this stuff.

So most of my sub stack. So uh, that's fair. India dog code, you came as cool goals. So i'm publishing most mountains on there um and also twitter is prayer india a but have no of the social media is terrible.

Well played for I really appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you.