Latest / Friday I'm in Bed / It’s Friday My Emojis Are Showing My Age

Transcript

It’s Friday My Emojis Are Showing My Age · Friday I'm in Bed

0:00
Welcome to Friday. I'm in bed.
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Podcast for midlife women living their best life in bed by 10.
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We're here to chat and sometimes rant about the news of the week
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and how it affects us and you. I'm Kate, a 53 year old
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postmenopausal mum of two whose happy place is at the front of a
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very loud gig, especially one that ends.
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Early gem. I'm 46 years old, I love running
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on cocktails and I'm child free, but I am a devoted mum to two
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very spoiled pug babies. Please do like and subscribe
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wherever you listen to your podcasts and do leave us a
0:31
comment. We love to chat, as you can
0:33
probably tell. This week, on Friday, I'm in
0:42
bed. We're asking whether the modern
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school day actually works for the lives women are living now,
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considering it was designed decades ago, when most women
0:49
weren't working at all. We're also digging into flexible
0:51
working, whether it's quietly biased when it all seems to be
0:54
offered mainly to mums rather than you know.
0:57
Everyone, we're talking clothing sizes too.
1:00
Why? It's basically impossible to
1:01
know what size you are anymore, whether that's a design failure
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or just the reality of wildly different bodies, and if there's
1:07
even a way to make it make. Sense And finally, emojis.
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How Gen. Z uses them, how Gen.
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X thinks they're using them, and whether we've all accidentally
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been sending the wrong message this whole time.
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So grab a cuppa and let's get into it.
1:26
Hi Kate, How are you this week? Good.
1:29
Thank you. Back to work after a nice
1:32
Christmas and New Year off. Getting into the swing of it.
1:35
Yeah, I'm not. You may notice that I am
1:37
somewhere different today. For those of you that can't see
1:40
us, I am sat in a campervan today because we have had to
1:44
take one of our pugs down to the big vet, as we call it the
1:50
specialist vet, where she's having dental surgery today
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because she's got really bad teeth.
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We think she might have some light. 1415 teeth out yeah.
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So I'm I'm a bit I'm a bit worried about her.
2:02
We will we will put that to the side to talk about emojis.
2:05
That's important things, but random things like emojis, I
2:09
think that's going to be quite a good topic.
2:10
We're chatting about it at the end at the pocket and I think it
2:13
might be quite funny. I might test you on whether you
2:17
know what the emojis mean to young people.
2:20
So have you had snow? A little bit of snow, not a lot,
2:26
a little. Dusting I saw you on stories
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running in the snow, which means you are a dedicated runner.
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Well, I am a dedicated runner. I went out when it started
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snowing. So we had like, you know, an
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inch maybe on the ground because up in up in Norwich, we've had a
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quite a lot of snow. And so I started running
2:44
thinking it's probably better to get it out of the way now while
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it's fresh snow than it will be when it's like ice and
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everything. However, I got snow on my
2:51
glasses so I couldn't see and then I took my the glasses off
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and I still couldn't see. And then as the snow got thicker
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I could not see the edge of the curb and I fell off the curb.
3:01
And I have like a skinned knee. And when I say skin I mean like
3:04
a proper skins knee like like a 5 year old playground accident
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skins knees. So I wouldn't necessarily
3:11
recommend being a dedicated runner and running in the snow.
3:14
It's not the best idea. See, to me, that just is another
3:19
reason why I won't be running. Oh, it was.
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Beautiful to start with. Absolutely beautiful to start
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with is It was peaceful. The snow was falling.
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I ran through some woodland. It was beautiful.
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But yeah, then it was not beautiful or nice or safe.
3:37
Anyway, let's not talk about the weather.
3:39
That's very British. Let's get on with it, shall we?
3:43
I really want to talk about a news item that was in the press
3:47
just before Christmas or over Christmas.
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And this is where AGP Doctor Helen Eisenhower was suspended
3:54
for five months because she was making fake doctor's
3:58
appointments at the end of the day to enable her to be able to
4:01
leave on time to be able to pick up her children from our school
4:05
clubs. This was all over the news
4:07
because obviously it's dishonest.
4:10
It's, you know, it's really hard to get AGP's appointment.
4:13
However, what was interesting to me was when I went online, I
4:18
read the comments and you know you they always say don't read
4:20
the comments, but I am obsessed with reading comments because I
4:23
can kind of gauge feeling. And I would say about 99%,
4:29
obviously that's not, you know, actual data that, but that 99%
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was full of people, not just women saying I'm in exactly the
4:40
same situation. I might not be a GP but I can't
4:44
get away from work to pick up my kids.
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I can't get my kids into after school clubs.
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There are no child minders locally like this is a thing and
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actually this has raised awareness that it is a thing.
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So it's of men in the comments, in particular the men saying
5:01
they had to block out appointments exactly the same
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way to to get away. And actually we should be
5:07
getting better flexible working so that we can leave work to
5:12
pick up our children. So it's kind of an interesting
5:14
thing to chat about because there's many players to this.
5:19
There's one, the child care issue.
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And obviously, you know, I've got children, I know you
5:23
haven't, but it'd be good interesting to think about the
5:25
fact that like, is school fit for purpose anymore with the
5:30
hours with working moms, But also there's flexible working
5:33
hours. Should an employer allow you to
5:37
get away from work to be able to pick up your kids?
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But is it right that AGP does it because you can't get a doctor's
5:43
appointment? We work, so we want doctor's
5:45
appointments in the evening. But doctors have a life too.
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And so it's like there's so many threads to talk about here.
5:53
Yes. So I I.
5:54
Actually hadn't seen the news story when you first mentioned
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it. And I did go, I did go and read
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it and it actually I was quite so it seems like she actually it
6:01
wasn't that she was doing it regularly either.
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She did it once by the looks of things, like one time in July.
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It kind of suggested in one the articles I read and that she was
6:11
supposed to leave at 4:45 and she she put face to face
6:18
appointments in with people she'd already spoken to earlier
6:21
in the day just to make sure that she could leave on time.
6:24
So I feel like it's really important that we're not
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actually saying that she was like skiving out of work that
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she was supposed to be doing. She was.
6:31
She was. Trying to get away on one time
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in her job to make sure that she could pick up her children.
6:37
Because I feel like that that is important to kind of all the
6:40
layers of the conversation because like you kind of get
6:44
that thing of it being, you know, somebody's got to pick up
6:47
the children, like and you can't just go, well, you know, they'll
6:51
just have to sit there because they're children.
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Like, I might not have children, but I am well aware that if
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children need picking up, they need picking up.
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But also to like the other layer of things that for some reason,
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the idea of leaving work on time in so many industries, not just
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the NHS, seems to be some kind of like, well, work should come
7:10
first and why? So we had that kind of a thing
7:13
over the pandemic. So we had obviously things got
7:17
kind of more flexible. People were working from home
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and we realized that that was possible.
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But then there's been this massive push since to get
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everybody back into the office and back into, yeah, with GPS,
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it would be to see that people face to face rather than on the
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telephone, which to be honest, I actually quite like telephone
7:38
appointments, at least as an initial one, as long as a face
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to face is available. Like why is that and who does
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that benefit? And obviously we're both quite
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lucky in that we're both, we work for other people, but we're
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both self-employed. So.
7:52
But we've been employed in the past, right?
7:54
Yeah, absolutely. I, I left, I left predominantly.
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I had my own business that I was setting up, but I knew I
8:03
couldn't work in a corporate job which was very male dominated I
8:08
have to say, and be able to look after my children and pick them
8:11
up. It just was not an option.
8:15
A flexible working wasn't particularly a thing as such in
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that environment. Obviously it was around as a
8:21
concept, but a leaving on time as you said, but also school
8:26
hours like the school hour thing.
8:28
I'm quite like to unpick before we get on to flexible working
8:31
and things is like school hours are 9 till three if you have
8:35
little ones. Well, what kind of hours are
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they for a working woman? And I'm saying woman because
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ultimately the female, the mum is generally the primary carer.
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And the reason I'm focusing on mum is I feel that the working
8:51
day has been, the school day has been designed for women.
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So back in the day, women didn't work.
8:58
You know, we were homemakers. Not everybody obviously, but
9:02
ultimately we were homemakers. And a nine to three was fine,
9:06
wasn't it? We could drop off our little
9:07
ones at school, always walk of course, because everybody has
9:11
this, you know, when your mum shouldn't drive because even
9:14
though they've got to get on to work, they'd want to school,
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they'd come home, they'd, you know, do the housework and make
9:20
the dinner and and go and pick up the little one type of thing.
9:23
But then life isn't like that anymore.
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And how are mums or dad currently mums?
9:30
It's supposed to work and hold down a full time job and pick
9:33
their kid up at 3 like it doesn't work.
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And when anybody mentions how about we revise or review the
9:41
school day the response is always a guarantee.
9:46
It all teachers saying absolutely not like we can't
9:50
work any extra hours, which I get, but it's like something is
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not working here. It's back to this kind of adage
9:56
that I talked about quite a lot online about how Gen.
9:59
X is particularly what Oh, we could have it all, You know, we
10:02
could have the job and we could have the family.
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But actually it's really hard to juggle a career and working with
10:10
with childcare. Like it's nearly impossible.
10:13
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's hard enough
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sometimes just to have a life and work, let alone manage small
10:21
people's lives as well. What would you suggest if you
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were going to adjust the school day?
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I mean, do you think it's adjusting the school day or
10:30
adjusting how we look at work that would be the best?
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I'm asking you on the basis that you have children and have had
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to do this. Now I don't have all the
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answers. I wish now some people you know
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and I think, no, I don't. I'm not sure if countries
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already do this. Maybe I should have done my
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research. Sorry and they have split days
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for children because actually young children, well to be fair,
10:53
even teenagers, well particularly teenagers now with
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their short attention spans as you find it quite hard from 9
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till three with just with a lunch break to kind of get
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through that day. So one option is more of a split
11:05
day, so you schooling and then you spend a number of hours in
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more recreational things, sports, PE, cooking, cooking,
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you know what I mean? Crafts, you know, playing and
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then go back to more learning. That is one option.
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But who would actually manage that for or teach or you know,
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is another thing or is flexible working hours the thing, you
11:30
know, do we have? It's a bit like the siesta
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thing, you know, like, you know, people work in Spain or wherever
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and then they stop working and then they go back, back to work.
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There's like, you know, and they go and sleep allegedly.
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I don't know who, I can't imagine sleeping like just every
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day. But that kind of model maybe is
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better, I don't know, Or flexible working.
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But then that's really hard because I moved my job from 5
11:59
days to four days so that I could spend one day with my
12:01
child, my son when he was young. But the expectation was that I
12:04
did 5 days work in four days. Like my workload was never
12:08
reduced. I just had to do it less time.
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So that didn't seem very fair either.
12:15
So I don't really have the answers, but but something.
12:19
Do you have the answer? What do you think?
12:21
Well. Obviously not if we had, if we
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had the answer that worked for everyone, then I'm sure that we
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could have done it. But I do think that, I mean,
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obviously most people need that dual income, especially if they
12:32
if they have children, you know, cost of living, all that.
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It's not a thing where it's practical for one parent,
12:38
regardless of which one it is, to stop working and be a stay at
12:44
home parent. So there has to be a solution.
12:47
I mean, historically these things disadvantage women more
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because they tend to be the primary carers, so then they're
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the ones that end up in part time jobs and having to take
12:56
career breaks and therefore not progressing as much.
12:59
It's one of the things that leads to the pay gap.
13:01
So this is like a massive, massive, massive societal issue.
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So no, I do not not have the answer.
13:09
If only we could just fix it on a podcast on a Friday morning.
13:12
Wouldn't that be lovely? I don't have the answer, but I
13:17
do think, I do think that the pandemic bought a lot.
13:20
I know I keep bringing it up because it was just a really
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kind of interesting moment with that office work.
13:26
So I have worked in the NHS before as well.
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I know that again, it's a quite a female dominated place to work
13:35
and therefore you're going to get more issues with people kind
13:38
of wanted to pick up, take up their children.
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But I also had a friend who worked in government who was
13:44
civil service and they obviously all worked from home over the
13:47
pandemic. And the push to get them back in
13:50
the office when things started to get back to normal was crazy
13:54
because they'd all kind of proved that they could do their
13:57
jobs perfectly well from home. And for her, it was kind of like
14:00
a 2 1/2 hour commute. So whether you're trying to look
14:06
after children or literally just have a life, the kind of way
14:09
that we've got work set up as a concept just doesn't seem, it
14:15
feels like it's not moving as fast as the, as the world is
14:18
moving, if you see what I mean. So we can, we have this
14:23
technology, we can work from home, we can put the washing on,
14:26
go and do some work and then hang the washing out.
14:29
And still I've got as much work done as we did when we had to go
14:32
into the office. And with those, those 12 minutes
14:35
would have been spent listening to John's golf story, for
14:39
example. So, but why why don't we do it
14:43
again? The only thing I can think is
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it's they want to see what people are up to.
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There is all this kind of push that all people were just being
14:51
lazy when they were at home and then that ties into that.
14:55
The suggestion when even with this GP the suggestion is that
15:00
women just aren't working hard enough.
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People aren't just working hard enough.
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They want to go home and play with their kids rather than, you
15:07
know, it being a genuine caring responsibility.
15:09
And it still seems to be this idea that somebody else.
15:13
Should be doing this and we don't know, but no one seems to
15:16
know what do we have nannies? Well, that the thought of
15:20
childcare is another concept that needs to be looked at
15:23
within all of this if it's going to be fixed because nobody can
15:28
afford childcare. I mean, there are more people
15:32
choosing not to work because they can't all their salary
15:36
would go on childcare. So that doesn't, you know, the
15:38
nanny concept or the childcare or nursery like it's, it's
15:43
thousands. You know, it's a lot of money.
15:45
And also that after school club. So back to the GP.
15:49
She wasn't trying to pick me up at 3.
15:50
She's trying to pick me up at 6:00.
15:51
So she'd got them into after school club, which only if there
15:55
there is a cap on how many kids they can have at after school
15:58
club. Because if you've got a school
15:59
of like 500 kids, you can only have 40 in after school clubs.
16:04
There's a lot of kids. You've got to fight for your
16:07
place and you've got to pay for it, although it isn't overly
16:10
expensive, but you've got to fight for your place.
16:12
So I think create childcare that's affordable, that would
16:16
help. That would help because having a
16:18
nanny like no one's got, and also you don't need a nanny for
16:21
an hour a day. Do you know what I mean?
16:23
It's like between, yeah, 5:00 and 7:00 so I can get home from
16:27
work. Well, there that doesn't.
16:28
Well, there are childminders, but they stop at six as well.
16:31
So. But I'm really interested with
16:32
flexible workings. You've said about employee
16:35
employers wanting to get us back into the office, and I think
16:38
there's a lot of distrust. Again, I wonder how much it's
16:42
female focus versus male focused, you know, because we're
16:45
putting the washing on and we do.
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But you know, well, I've, I know because I've worked from home, I
16:50
can put the washing on and quickly walk the dog around the,
16:54
around the block and do more work than my colleagues who are
16:56
in the office. You know, right.
17:00
But I also, I think flexible working.
17:02
I feel oh this is from my experience when whilst working I
17:06
work for Tesco's but in a very male got to see Tesco's is is
17:10
you know stores are very female orientated actually.
17:13
Because it's part because it's part time working.
17:15
Exactly, I was working in property, so it's builders,
17:18
although it's not builders, it's builders and suits.
17:21
But anyway, where was I going with this?
17:22
Yes, flexible. We didn't really have flexible
17:26
working, but it was starting to happen.
17:28
So I, when I had my kids, I went back part time, but but when I
17:32
came back after my second child, I did a job share.
17:35
And so they were starting to bring more flexible hours with
17:38
job shares and things like that. But if you were a mum now, there
17:42
was a man in the office who had it started off as a side hustle.
17:47
So he was, he had aspirations of being an art dealer and he was
17:51
starting to deal with art. I mean, I don't know how you get
17:54
into art dealing. I mean, it was kind of expensive
17:57
stuff, but he got, you know, he was starting to sell art and it
18:00
was starting to take off. And he really, he was at that
18:03
moment where he couldn't leave the job, but he'd like to go
18:06
part time to be able to run his business.
18:08
So maybe do like 3 days in the office, 3 days work and then two
18:12
days not working at all. So not, you know, not at home,
18:15
literally part time work. And he asked to do that and it
18:19
was a flat no. But if I had asked to look after
18:22
my children and do a three 2 so I could spend 2 days with my
18:25
kids and three days working, it would have been considered, not
18:28
necessarily granted, but considered.
18:30
And that's made me think, especially with, you know,
18:32
preparing for today is is flexible working?
18:36
I mean, obviously it's a positive, but is it actually
18:40
biased towards mothers, IE it would be biased against you and
18:44
it would be biased against a dad or a man who isn't a dad.
18:49
Actually, before, before I ask you that question, the person
18:53
who had asked to go part time, he was a dad.
18:56
If he'd have said it was for childcare reasons, he probably
19:00
would have had it granted, but because he wanted to sort of
19:03
grow another venture or, you know, alongside it was a flat
19:07
no. So again, that feels.
19:08
Just really biased. Well, OK, that was one of the
19:12
things that I did want to bring up.
19:13
Actually that was on my list. But first, I'm going to talk
19:16
about that particular guy because again, from the terms of
19:20
a, from the perspective of a business, I guess they have this
19:24
kind of thing in their head that why on earth am I going to give
19:27
one of my employees more time to set up a business which might
19:31
take them away from my company? So again, it's that concept
19:36
where we've, we do have to remember that businesses don't
19:40
care about us. Yes, no matter how much they
19:43
claim that they love their employees, they absolutely do
19:45
not art people without children was actually one of the things I
19:50
wanted to give up bring up because this is one of the
19:52
things that particularly when I worked in the NHS worked, I was
19:55
AI was a nurse. And obviously that shift work
20:00
and wards need to be covered on Christmas Day and they need to
20:03
be covered on New Year's Eve, and they need to be covered on
20:06
Sundays. And they, you know, they need to
20:08
be covered on all these times which are thought of as family
20:11
times. And there was always this kind
20:14
of expectation that people without children would be the
20:18
ones that covered those shifts. Like we didn't have families or
20:23
responsibilities or anything else we would rather be doing
20:26
with our lives on the on those days.
20:29
And that was always a bit of a bit of a sticking point, I
20:33
think, because again, you know, I was, I was much younger at
20:36
that time and I was I wasn't married.
20:38
And I wanted to go home and visit my mom and dad on that day
20:42
who lived a couple 100 miles away.
20:45
So if I was working in the morning, I couldn't then go home
20:50
for Christmas at all, which would mean that I wouldn't, I
20:53
wouldn't see my family at all. And people with children could
20:57
come in and do a shift in the morning and then be home for
20:59
lunch Where because they generally lived nearby.
21:04
It was quite an interesting kind of.
21:07
Is there then. Yeah, this expectation in even
21:10
in places that do take the requirements of people with
21:13
children into account that they're then kind of just
21:16
pushing that responsibility onto other.
21:18
People like me, I agree. And I even as a parent, you
21:24
know, when I was in my corporate job, all the parents fought to
21:27
have half term off and we were all in, you know, And then if
21:31
you weren't a parent, it was like, well, it was almost like,
21:34
will you fight us to have half term off?
21:37
But then the reason when you were all fighting each other to
21:40
have half term off wasn't because we were all going on
21:43
fancy holidays is because we couldn't afford childcare and
21:46
there was no childcare. So it was like my kids are off
21:49
school, I have to be off. I mean different from Christmas
21:52
Day obviously. But there is, I think it's just
21:55
the flexible working and whether that shifts or like who's
21:59
booking in for Christmas or holiday or part time is
22:02
definitely biased towards mums and without a doubt, and I don't
22:08
think that's fair. But then if we don't have flex
22:11
for working, we're going to have to create fake meetings to get
22:15
away from work, if you know what I mean.
22:18
Do you know what it reminds me of?
22:19
Did you ever work in a bar like when you were like at college or
22:22
uni or whatever? And if you smoked, you could
22:26
have a fag break at the end of the garden chat every 15
22:29
minutes, 20 minutes and you'd stand there, I don't know, for 5
22:32
minutes. But if I, who has never smoked,
22:35
stood at the bar just having a chat and not working for 5
22:39
minutes every 20, like every half an hour, I would be pulled
22:42
up and I remember then going. But that's not fair because
22:45
they're having 10 minutes off an hour to have a cigarette and I'm
22:48
not allowed to do that because I'm working.
22:51
And it's sort of a similar. Obviously cigarettes are a bit
22:54
different from children, but it's the same concept.
22:57
Yeah, if can't be one rule for one and not the other, it's not
23:01
fair. Yeah, I, I, I tempt, I tempt for
23:04
a bit. And I did smoke and yeah, it
23:07
was, it was also a good way of kind of meeting people and
23:09
stuff. But but yeah, office offices are
23:12
much the same though, you know, kind of if you, if you've done
23:15
those kind of office jobs where you're like on the phones or,
23:19
you know, the kind of, yeah, it's not a proper responsible
23:22
grown up job, but yeah, you're in there then.
23:24
Yeah. But kind of people just
23:26
wandering outside for a fight every few minutes like and
23:28
you're like I. Smoke, but I always thought.
23:31
I want to walk. Outside the front and just stand
23:34
there for 5 minutes. I mean, I don't because I don't
23:36
want to be surrounded by all the smoke.
23:38
But the point is, is that why then just, you know, sit on my
23:41
phone? We didn't have phones back then,
23:43
but you know, it would be like what you're doing Kate.
23:45
Whereas it was it, you know, So flex for working hours, just to
23:48
be fair. I think the dream is that we
23:53
live in a world again every week we do this, don't we?
23:57
The dream is that the world was an entirely different.
23:59
Place. Because even when you know, you
24:02
have employers that sound really family friendly and they're
24:06
like, we've got a crash and all of this kind of stuff that's all
24:09
provided for you, you have to remember that they're still only
24:14
doing it for their benefit because it keeps you in work
24:18
longer. So I do think it would be lovely
24:22
if the changes came rather than relying on corporations to do
24:28
this kind of thing, if it was a thing that we could legislate
24:31
for and that governments weren't necessarily being led by kind of
24:37
businesses and that we have this understanding that people.
24:40
'S lives were the first priority and then the next step down was
24:46
their responsibility to work and their employer.
24:50
Wouldn't that be nice willing it and it's back to the matriarchal
24:55
society, IE if there were more mums or women and both making
25:00
some of the decisions because yeah, it's well, ultimately, as
25:04
you said, businesses don't care about us, but also it's it's
25:06
productivity. And if you're not here, we are
25:09
not being product productive. In fact, we are more productive
25:13
when we have the flexibility of where we work, how we work, the
25:17
hours we work. That actually breeds a happier
25:21
workforce. Happier workforce equals a more
25:25
productive workforce, and a more productive workforce equals more
25:28
money in the till. I just wish people saw that
25:32
rather than. Creating obstacles, but So in
25:37
summary, women should rule the world.
25:41
Yeah, about clothes. I love.
25:51
Clothes, yeah, me too, but not just how pretty they are, how we
25:55
actually find ones that fit us. So this was a reel that kind of
26:00
first prompted this one off on on Instagram with someone
26:03
talking about like kind of the grading of pattern sizes and how
26:07
when fashion became manufacturing and things started
26:12
to be made in mass, they had to kind of grade passions, fashion
26:16
clothing sizes so that things weren't specifically made to fit
26:20
your body anymore. And your body was expected to
26:23
fit in the clothes rather than the clothes fitting your body
26:27
and the. Whole.
26:28
World that that's ended us up in now, which is like, yeah, a big,
26:32
big, big thing. So I've.
26:35
Spoken a lot about vanity sizing in the past.
26:38
Back in the blogging days, I wrote about it a lot because
26:41
it's something that if you you're interested in vintage,
26:45
you will know that the sizing of clothes has changed
26:49
significantly throughout the years.
26:51
That what was a 10 in the 1970s is not a size 10 now.
26:57
You know, I had like a size 14 skirt with a 26 inch waist from
27:00
the 70s back then. In fact, I was on Women's Hour.
27:05
That's just the Women's Hour talking about it.
27:08
That was my, that's my one big media moment.
27:11
Yeah. So we know that the kind of
27:12
actual clothing sizes have to have changed throughout the
27:15
years, and we know that it changes from shop to shop.
27:18
But should we be expecting clothes from the shops to fit
27:25
fit our bodies, or should we be going in there with that
27:28
assumption that it's not us that's the problem?
27:30
Some of these clothes are going to fit us, some of them aren't
27:33
going to fit us. And it's not us that's the
27:35
problem. We may have to expect that we
27:37
might need to make alterations or that there are some styles
27:40
that won't work on us in specific shops.
27:43
And what is the responsibility of the retailers to make it
27:47
clear to us kind of what will, will or won't fit us in that
27:51
shop? When I saw that reel, there was
27:56
a bit of a light bulb moment. So I know that a size 10 in one
28:02
shop is different from a size 10 in another shop.
28:04
And I know that in some shop Apple size up and some shops I
28:08
am the same size. And you know, I know this and
28:11
it's the sort of thing that we all moan about and have moaned
28:15
about for a day because it's frustrating and you don't know
28:18
what to order. Especially with online shopping,
28:20
it becomes hard work. But the light bulb moments me,
28:24
and that sounds so obvious for you.
28:26
We were just talking about it there, but it was like a light
28:28
bulb moment was that all our bodies are different.
28:31
Everybody, everybody's body is a different shape and dimension.
28:36
So how the hell it is a clothing retailer going to create
28:41
something that fits us all? It can't.
28:45
And obviously, as you said, you know, in years gone by, people
28:48
had clothes made for them or they made their own clothes or
28:51
they adapted clothes they were handed down.
28:54
It's, it's, yeah, it was just a moment of like, ah, but then of
29:00
course is how do we then manage that ourselves?
29:04
Because we find it quite emotive when we go in and I say I'm a
29:08
size 10 or I'm a size 12 or I'm a size 18 or whatever size you
29:12
are and you go in and it doesn't fit you.
29:15
You feel that if you used to say there's something wrong with
29:18
you, have I put on weight? Have I lost weight?
29:21
What's wrong with me? You know, it doesn't quite fit
29:24
around my waist. Why is that?
29:26
Maybe it's because your waist is slightly smaller than your hips,
29:29
more so than the next person. How do we kind of manage the
29:35
emotional side as well as the practical side?
29:38
Because obviously you do need to shop and get some clothes that
29:40
fit and we can't also. So this was actually the topic
29:44
of, of, of the women's hour section that I did was they had
29:48
a man on obviously saying that women were too emotional about
29:52
clothing sizes. And obviously I was quite
29:55
enraged by this because it's just very typical to have a
29:58
bloke turn up and, and, and tell us we're all too emotional.
30:01
But I think part of the issue is, is that understanding.
30:05
I mean, if you had, if you had that light bulb moment, then
30:08
imagine the way kind of 20 year old or a or an 18 year old is
30:14
feeling when those clothes don't fit them and they've and they
30:17
people place such a random amount of value on on the number
30:22
on a clothes. Size label I've.
30:23
Always known that my proportions, I had my waist to
30:27
hip ratio, I had a small waist and big hips.
30:30
Something that has changed with perimenopause and steroids and
30:35
and then medical menopause and all that.
30:37
So the people would say, oh. With your curves you'd look.
30:39
Amazing in this kind of like fitted dress.
30:42
But I would know full well that I could not wear that fitted
30:45
dress because the shop that it came from would mean that either
30:50
it'd be so tight every time I sat down there'd be a risk of it
30:53
splitting on my hips, or there'd be so much extra fabric around
30:56
my waist that we would not be getting that lovely kind of like
30:59
curvy silhouette. But in other shops, that dress
31:04
might have fitted me perfectly because the shops were were kind
31:08
of cutting to kind of different pattern sizes.
31:10
But it's very difficult to know without trial and error which
31:14
shops are the ones that will fit you, because even their own size
31:18
charts aren't necessarily as accurate as you would, I would
31:22
hope that they would be. So there's just that lack of
31:26
understanding at all that the fact that you are a size 10 does
31:30
not mean you are a size 10 everywhere, or that something
31:34
that's a size 10 will automatically fit all parts of
31:37
your body because we're essentially trying it to return.
31:41
A. 3D human being into one number which isn't even
31:48
possible. I mean, even if we did waste
31:50
waist and hip measurements, you would still find that people
31:54
would be shaped slightly differently.
31:56
They would carry their weight slightly higher, slightly lower,
31:59
you know that and that therefore those those things still still
32:03
wouldn't. Fit them perfectly, So should
32:05
shops. Is the ideal that the shops all
32:08
use the same pattern ratio? So bust, waist, hips, leg
32:13
length, arm length, torso length ratio?
32:17
Would that make our lives easier?
32:19
So the problem that you have with that is that no, it
32:22
wouldn't make your life easier because then you would find that
32:25
you if you were slightly outside of those normal ranges, normal
32:29
ranges that you wouldn't be able to, you wouldn't be able to buy
32:33
clothes anywhere. Yeah, taking into account the
32:37
target market of shops as well. So like I said, as I've got
32:40
older and for various reasons, I my waist to hip ratio, I have a
32:46
slightly thicker waist now than I did previously when I had
32:49
that, when I had like 1112 inch difference between my waist and
32:52
hips. And a lot of shops cut to like
32:54
an 8 inch difference. Shops that cater largely to a
32:59
older market like will cut their clothes to take that potentially
33:04
into more account. Shops that sell to a very young
33:08
market will also be taking into account the ratios of their
33:13
average customer, whereas that kind of then people who were
33:16
selling to people in their 20s and early. 70s.
33:18
Would then cut to a different thing but it's it's again.
33:21
I don't know what the answer to it is other than us all to start
33:24
doing our own sewing again. But I do think that if shops
33:29
took that responsibility to make it clearer kind of how they
33:33
grade their patterns, who their target market was, then it would
33:37
make it a lot easier for people to understand that it's not
33:41
their bodies that is the problem.
33:44
The other problem that they just need to find the place, but
33:49
works for them. Picking up on what you just said
33:51
though about your women's hour interview and how the man there
33:55
said that women are more emotional and you were like
33:59
cross or whatever. You know, like we are.
34:03
I actually agree with him. We are more emotional.
34:07
If my husband goes into a shop and the medium doesn't fit him
34:11
and he has to wear a large, he just buys the large.
34:14
He literally does not care. Whereas if I go in and try on a
34:19
medium and it's too small and I have to buy a large, I spiral
34:23
into a pit of whatever, you know, of, Oh my God, have I put
34:29
on weight? What's wrong with me?
34:31
You know, do I need to do a go on?
34:33
Am I bloated? You know, I just go into this.
34:36
Whereas my husband would be like, well, the large looks
34:38
better on me, so I'll buy that one, like totally chill.
34:41
And we need to be more like that.
34:43
And actually, OK, so the medium doesn't fit me, the large is
34:45
better. That's fine.
34:47
Nobody sees the label anyway cares, you know, doesn't matter.
34:51
But we still all. I definitely do and I know a lot
34:54
of women do still go into that spiral of doom because of the
34:58
label number. That's because.
35:02
That's because we are taught our whole lives that our worth is
35:07
entirely wrapped up in how we look and how we present and what
35:10
other people think of us in that way.
35:12
So we're told that we should be, we should be a size 10, that we
35:17
need to be small. We're told kind of like, I mean,
35:20
yeah, we'll go back to the 90s and weighing Victoria Beckham
35:23
just after she'd had children, which comes up again on social
35:26
media every so often, doesn't it?
35:29
So we are told to connect our self worth with that.
35:33
So when we go in and clothes don't fit, it's not the close of
35:37
the problem. It's us.
35:38
And again, there's a whole industry that we've, that we've
35:41
built around that we the, the diet industry, which it being
35:45
January is obviously it's obviously right up there right
35:50
now. And we're all being, we're all
35:51
being sold the wonders of weight loss.
35:55
So it kind of all those we're talking about big business a lot
35:59
today and how they impact our lives and don't care about us at
36:02
all. But this is another.
36:04
This is another perfect example of it.
36:06
The. Weight loss industry can tell us
36:08
that it's us that the problem and the fashion industry can
36:11
tell us that it's us that's the problem.
36:13
It's not their clothes, it's us that's the problem.
36:15
And therefore they don't have to fix anything.
36:18
They don't need to give us some more information, which would
36:20
obviously be way, way harder for them right then.
36:23
That's why that light bulb moment was so good for me last
36:27
week. You know when I saw it because,
36:30
you know, realizing that this size ten person and this size 10
36:35
person, this size 10 person and this size 10 person all have
36:38
different bodies and all have different dimensions and will
36:41
all fit or not fit in was like, yeah.
36:45
And it's kind of getting that message out there.
36:48
I think is really important because it it's it's so hard to
36:52
unpick decades of your worst is due to your, you know, is is
36:58
linked to your size. That's a huge bit of unpicking
37:01
that's going to take a long time to unpick.
37:04
But realizing that one size 16 is different for another size
37:09
16, like it's not it's that size 16 dress is not going to fit
37:13
everybody who is a size 16. It's just not going to happen.
37:18
Was quite revolutionary for me in my thinking.
37:21
I found it actually quite beneficial.
37:23
But then back to what you were saying about, you know, sewing,
37:26
you know, I'll go back to schooling.
37:28
What I was talking about, if we actually taught people in
37:31
downtime to do things like crafting and sewing, it might be
37:34
good because you could buy that size 60 and just take it in a
37:38
little bit or take it out a little bit, shorten it a little
37:41
bit and have the confidence to do it like we used to do.
37:45
That would probably be good, although why should we?
37:48
You could also say, to be fair, if we're paying that much for
37:52
some of the pieces of tats that get they, they get shipped out
37:58
as well. I mean, once you get into plus
37:59
sizes, you, you face even more issues.
38:02
So once you get outside of that kind of like standard size
38:06
range, which seems in most places to go up to like kind of
38:08
a 1618, the grading of patterns, it's not just literally a case
38:13
of making them bigger as well. It's like people will have
38:15
different proportions. If you just keep making them
38:17
bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, then people
38:19
end up with, you know, arms lengths down by their ankles and
38:23
also the way when you get into plus sizes that people will,
38:29
again, people will be carrying weight differently.
38:32
People, the shapes of things need to change as well, not just
38:36
the measurements. And I think that's a very
38:39
important thing to take into account as well.
38:40
So when you're looking at size ranges in shops, you don't
38:44
necessarily just want to go they do a bigger size range because
38:48
there is there is a different pattern grading that's needed
38:51
for those those larger sizes. So are there any shops, for
38:57
instance, that you know that fit you better than, say, somewhere
39:01
else really? Buy clothes from the High
39:06
Street. So probably like Marks and
39:11
Spencer's, for example, but they're probably designing it.
39:13
Well, historically they've designed it it for, you know, 50
39:17
year old women and above. But now obviously they've
39:19
invented themselves with their new fashion woman, I don't know
39:24
her name that's come from Top Shop to be more millennial, SO40
39:27
somethings. But generally if it's me.
39:31
But it's funny because if I was, I mean, I don't really didn't
39:33
really shop on the High Street, but I know say for example, in
39:36
H&M I'd have to go up a size. So it's funnily enough I'm not
39:40
that worried if I have to because it's demographic is
39:43
younger than me. Back to what you were saying
39:45
about our bodies changing, I always sort of think, well, it's
39:48
kind of not aimed at me. So obviously I need to go up.
39:52
That's OK. But and I think maybe because I
39:56
wear so much vintage, I'm used to the fact that you just
39:59
measured the item. I think I'm not so like.
40:04
Tied up with it. Something interesting I wanted
40:06
to add is I had a phone call last year at some point from a
40:11
journalist who wanted to talk about the effect that weight
40:15
loss jabs were having on clothes sizing.
40:18
Because she was her research was showing her.
40:22
I don't know where her research was coming from that retailers
40:26
were beginning to make clothes smaller because we are all
40:29
shrinking. I didn't get too far into with
40:31
her, but it'd be interesting to think, is that even a thing?
40:34
And why would that be a thing? Because if you've got smaller,
40:37
you wouldn't want the clothes. The clothes don't need to
40:39
shrink, you just go down a size. But apparently companies like
40:43
M&S are making their knickers smaller and their tights smaller
40:47
and things. But have you heard of that or is
40:50
that just a random thing? Conversation I had once last
40:53
year. Next time, feel free to send her
40:55
in my direction because yeah, I've done, I've done kind of a
41:00
lot on these kind of things. It is, it is interesting because
41:03
that is, again, very much into the vanity sizing.
41:08
So the fact that of making them smaller interests me because
41:13
historically sizes have been getting bigger and bigger and
41:17
bigger and bigger. So they're trying to make women
41:21
feel good. So they're they're playing on
41:25
that emotion so that you'll go in and you'll go.
41:27
I'm a size 10 in here. This is wonderful.
41:31
I'll be back here. Yeah.
41:32
Yeah, I'm. Definitely coming to show them
41:33
more, yeah. The idea that they're making
41:38
them smaller as we get smaller is not something that I have
41:43
heard of that is happening. Well, I have noticed that some
41:49
places aren't broadening their sizing range or or offering as
41:57
many clothes in plus sizes, which is obviously not a great
42:01
thing for people that that need to get dressed.
42:07
But but there is that focus on the smaller end of the sizing
42:11
scale. So whereas places may previously
42:16
have gone up to a size 18 or 20 that the ranges are now stopping
42:20
at kind of a 14 in some places or a 14 or 16.
42:28
So do you think we are shrinking to the need is getting smaller,
42:33
even though there's obviously people that still need those
42:37
sizes, there are fewer of them. So therefore the need, the
42:41
demand is lower. So therefore they're making
42:43
less. I think some of it is more to do
42:46
with the fact that we're seeing this kind of rise of skinny
42:51
culture and it being fashionable to be skinny.
42:56
So I think it's more kind of the high fashion brands aimed at
43:00
those aimed at younger people rather than body positivity was
43:06
all the big, all the big thing. And lots of brands wanted to be
43:09
seen to be using plus size models including which is
43:14
probably a whole other topic, a lot of brands that didn't make
43:17
clothes that would fit those people.
43:21
But I think now that we're seeing fashion moving back
43:25
towards that kind of ultra skinny aesthetic, the brands are
43:31
less concerned with being being seen to offer a wider range of
43:37
clothes sizes. What really annoys me and I
43:41
don't know if you can explain why.
43:43
Well, they probably do it to save money.
43:45
Actually I think I've already answered my question.
43:47
But shops that have size 8/10/12 to 1416 to 18 and I'm a 11:50.
43:55
So then 8:00 to 10:00 will be too small and 12 to 14 will be
43:58
too big. Why is is that purely to save
44:00
money? And how annoying is it that I
44:04
therefore can't therefore shop in those shops?
44:06
I think a lot of places do it depending on like the cut of of
44:11
the product. So on soon is one that I found
44:14
did that at one point I seemed to recall.
44:16
But it would depend on what if you went to their kind of party
44:19
wear section, then we would do specific sizing and they're more
44:24
was kind of everyday where then you would find that then they
44:29
were doing those kind of size ranges or they would do more
44:32
medium and large. And that tends to be like kind
44:36
of a shorthand like 8 to 10 you 810 small, you know, kind of 12
44:42
to 14 medium. But that would tend to be for
44:44
things that were less, less fitted or less structured
44:47
clothing. So it might be if you were
44:49
buying like a smock or a or a tunic or something or something
44:53
that had a lot of stretch in it, then they would offer a more a
44:56
size range. But yeah, almost certainly it's
44:58
because then they only make need to make 3 sizes rather than 6.
45:03
Yeah, just really annoys me because I'm in between that
45:06
size. Have been in between those.
45:08
I always have. I've been in between those sizes
45:11
and well, I, I actually wanted to ask you because obviously
45:13
you've been wearing vintage for a long time, because that's how
45:15
we originally, originally met. So you must know that those that
45:20
that sizing has changed a lot over the years, but that that
45:24
still gives you that impact when you do try stuff on in a modern
45:27
shop, still gives you that kind of emotional impact.
45:29
But do you feel it? Impact if, for instance, you had
45:32
the most beautiful. Vintage dress that said it was a
45:34
size 20. So vintage I don't ever look at
45:37
a label ever. I can hold it up and know if it
45:40
will fit me or not. I don't.
45:42
I mean, obviously when if you're shopping for vintage, you need a
45:44
tape measure and to know the dimension of the clothes that
45:47
fit you. So obviously that I know that
45:50
not like carry a tape measure that often anymore, but I can
45:54
hold something up and pretty much know and I never look at
45:58
the label. So therefore I don't have an
46:00
emotional response, you know, have an emotional response if I
46:02
find the best dress ever that's affordable and it's too small.
46:06
I mean, I I, I could have real tears over that.
46:10
But yeah, I think I try not to have an emotional response in
46:13
modern clothing shops. But has somebody that's had a
46:16
history of disordered eating and, you know, just emotion, you
46:21
know, just diet culture, you know, just the usual, all the
46:23
things we've said. I do still have an emotional
46:26
response, even though my content is about empowering women.
46:30
You are not your size. You are not what society, you
46:33
know, deems you to be. All that uplifting stuff.
46:36
I still have that reaction and I think most women do.
46:39
And as you said, when you say when, when you're almost like,
46:43
oh, it's smaller size in the shop and I'm going to carry on
46:46
chopping there when you know that they're potentially doing
46:49
that on purpose to make you feel good and to shop there more
46:54
often. It's setting you up to fail in
46:56
the next shot. It's just really horrible
46:59
because it's playing with our emotions and you know.
47:03
It sucks. Yeah.
47:04
Again, we're not going to change the entire world, are we?
47:07
But if we take anything away from this conversation, I think
47:10
it's to. Yeah, really, really think
47:12
critically about where that emotional response comes from.
47:15
And remember, it's not you, it's them.
47:19
Absolutely. I think we should finish on
47:27
something a little bit more fun, which is emojis.
47:30
There's been quite a few articles like over the last year
47:34
about how certain emojis mean different things for different
47:40
generations. And actually I want to just put
47:42
it out there that I made a tick tock about this back in 2021.
47:46
So I've been talking about it for a long time because if you
47:50
are a marketeer like me and you are marketing to a younger
47:53
audience, if you're using emojis in the wrong way, you're going
47:58
to have a disconnect. So I thought it would be quite
48:01
fun to chat about the different emojis.
48:05
Also talk about AI, I'd like to talk about AI because if you use
48:09
ChatGPT a lot, it really likes emojis and actually their emojis
48:14
make it really obvious it's AI because they always use the same
48:17
ones. And does AI understand the
48:19
difference between a Gen. Z emoji and a Gen.
48:22
X emoji? And yeah, I thought we could
48:26
potentially educate some listeners just in case they
48:30
didn't realize, particularly if they're parents or if they're
48:33
marketing to younger people. So I'm going to start asking
48:37
you, Jim, what you think an emoji means if you're a
48:42
teenager. So I'm going to start with the
48:45
classic :) emoji, just it's probably the first one.
48:50
It's literally yellow face smile, maybe slightly open
48:54
mouth, just a smiley mouth emoji.
48:57
What do you think that means to a young person or to a young
49:01
person or what does it mean to me?
49:02
Okay, so. Yeah, I mean, I was around for
49:05
the birth of emojis, so I I think that to me that was always
49:11
just like the that was the default.
49:13
But if someone put that at the end of a thing now, it would be
49:16
a bit. I don't know.
49:17
What the word is is it would be like, I'm not really happy, but
49:22
maybe I think maybe. I don't know.
49:24
Do young people even use the basic emoji?
49:27
OK, yeah, for me, I'm going with.
49:28
To me it means. Well, it basically means what
49:32
the fuck, so you're kind of right.
49:35
Although maybe you. Or or I are.
49:40
Thinking about that, I, because I think most people think a
49:44
standard smiley emoji is like, yeah, like that happy face, like
49:50
it's just a bit banal, you know, it's a bit like nothing, but
49:55
it's not offensive. Whereas Gen.
49:57
Z, it's very much like, what the fuck?
50:00
That's how they'd use it. And I'm like, how does that even
50:04
work? Because it's literally just a :)
50:05
yeah. Yeah, maybe I can.
50:07
Yeah, I don't. For me, not what the fuck, but
50:10
it's just because I feel like there's much smilier ones if you
50:14
were really happy about it. So yeah, for me, if someone just
50:17
used that one and they were not my mum, like if they were maybe
50:21
like younger than me and stuff, I'd, I would think oh, what have
50:24
I done? That's interesting.
50:26
The thumbs up emoji. Now we have talked about this a
50:29
little bit, but just pretend we haven't.
50:32
So the thumbs up emoji OG for Gen.
50:34
X is particularly like my father who's a boomer just means got
50:40
it, breed on it, just thumbs up. What do you think?
50:45
If you're 18, thumbs up means now.
50:48
I was actually talking with my husband about this the other day
50:51
because I think there's a real interesting multi generational
50:53
difference in this thing. If you're 18 or yeah, I think if
51:00
I think, I think kind of 18 year olds are thinking that that's
51:05
very like fake, maybe a bit rude.
51:09
Like you're saying, oh, shut up. But I was talking to my husband
51:13
about this yesterday because he said, oh, I thought the thumbs
51:16
up was just yes, excellent. Over and out.
51:19
Kind of like a message, like I hear you, but I actually don't
51:24
think that anymore. To me, when someone, to me, the
51:28
thumbs up means this conversation is done.
51:30
So if someone just does a thumbs up to your message, I don't
51:33
necessarily think of it in a rude way, But to me, when I see
51:37
the thumbs up on a message, I feel like they're going, yeah, I
51:40
read that. I've got nothing else to add
51:42
conversation over. OK.
51:44
So I can see how maybe like an 18 year old then that would
51:48
start to evolve further into like being like actively?
51:52
Rude think you're maybe a secret Gen.
51:54
Z pretending to be a Zennial because you seem to be quite
51:58
spot on here. So it means two things.
52:01
First of all, it means you're old if you use it, you're old as
52:05
far as they're concerned. Like literally like your
52:08
granddad. Even though you might be 38
52:12
that, you know, it's an indicator.
52:13
They he said. So my teenagers both says it
52:16
means whatever, don't care, whatever.
52:19
So it's not like a yeah, yeah, I agree or yeah, yeah, done it on
52:24
it. You know, enthusiastic, which I
52:26
think a lot of Gen. X's or Boomers would think it
52:29
is. It's more like, yeah, whatever.
52:31
Yeah, it's not enthusiastic. And it's a bit like the :), the
52:34
:) isn't happy, A happy face. It's like a what, yeah, yeah,
52:38
piss off kind of face. Like it's not, it's almost the
52:40
opposite. Yeah, I think it's because it's
52:42
the default one that you used to be able to.
52:44
To send was the thumbs up. Oh, and it's a bit like because
52:47
I've started to see the heart on Instagram in the same way
52:52
because I know that I use it a lot.
52:53
When you use the heart on Instagram, to me that's the same
52:56
as the as the thumbs up. You're kind of going.
52:59
I acknowledge your message, but I have nothing else now.
53:02
That's it. But I have started using the
53:05
heart to do that because the thumbs up is seen as so
53:07
negative. So I've now moved to the heart
53:11
actively because of the thumbs up being a negative thing,
53:14
although my son does heart messages and and, and what he
53:18
means by that is got it, read it.
53:20
That is exactly doesn't mean he loves it.
53:22
He means yeah, got it. Acknowledge.
53:24
So this is a good one. This is all about the crying
53:27
faces, like crying with laughter.
53:30
So there are many, many crying faces on in emoji language.
53:35
There is, you know, looking straight at you with a crying
53:39
face, crying with laughter face. And there is like skew with
53:42
crying face, crying with laughter face.
53:45
Both would never be used by GNZ because again, it means you're.
53:51
Old. Basically what they use instead
53:55
is floods of tears. So there's an emoji where
53:59
there's like almost like a river coming out of each.
54:03
So that is their laughing emoji. Whereas I always thought that
54:08
was like cry me a river crying. That's it's kind of crying with
54:12
laughter, like floods of, you know, like that's their one.
54:16
So again, if you're talking or marketing to a Gen.
54:19
Z and you use the skew with laughing face, which I use all
54:24
the time, again, it means you're old.
54:26
You have to do floods like crying with laughter.
54:29
See, I knew. I knew that the skew with like
54:36
you know, with the eyes screwed up laughing face.
54:39
I knew that that many year old and I still use it.
54:42
That is, I am afraid, my laughing emoji of choice.
54:45
I knew that already. I knew it meant I was old.
54:47
I'm still using it. I didn't know because I use
54:50
yeah, the crying one. I use one.
54:52
I'm genuinely sad, but I use it when I'm genuinely sad in a
54:57
maybe less serious sense, kind of, you know, I wanted to go to
55:03
that party but I can't now. Crying kind of senses is how I
55:07
would probably use the kind of cry me a river 1.
55:10
I don't know if that was ever correct, but yeah, that's that's
55:14
how I tend to use that one. However, I do know, I do know,
55:17
and I do occasionally use because obviously I'm so young
55:20
and trendy. The skullface emoji.
55:23
So the skullface emoji has evolved.
55:26
So when I did the TikTok in 2021, my kids told me it meant
55:31
like dying with laughter almost. So the skull face was used as a.
55:36
That's really funny, but that's evolved.
55:39
Because of course. You know, we can't say the same.
55:41
It now means what have I written?
55:44
It's almost like, for fuck's sake, laughing.
55:47
Now I wrote back to my children because we did this via
55:50
WhatsApp. And I was like, what do you
55:51
mean? For fuck's sake laughing?
55:53
And this is what my daughter said.
55:55
It's like when you laugh at dad's jokes when they're not
55:58
funny, but they're so bad they're almost funny.
56:02
So it's for fuck's sake laughing.
56:04
And I thought, well, that sums up my entire relationship with
56:07
my husband. But so it's quite hard to kind
56:10
of really pinpoint where that is.
56:12
But it's almost like Oh my God that's so funny but not really,
56:16
but is but isn't but is. Well, I'm not as cool as I
56:19
thought I was then, obviously, because, yeah, I thought it was
56:22
like dying laughing and that's how and that's how I use it.
56:25
I don't, I know that I have friends who are like in their
56:27
30s that use it like that. So yeah, that was me thinking I
56:30
was super cool. Obviously not because.
56:33
Yeah. No, I haven't.
56:34
I haven't caught up with the with the.
56:37
Is it I guess it's is it a bit like that then?
56:40
Is it, you know, where you like grown with laughter?
56:43
You know I. Think so?
56:45
It's like a cringe laugh is well like my husband's jokes.
56:48
I so next one I asked them what would you never use and they
56:53
said this really surprised me. The angry face, which is the
56:57
round red like or orangey like angry face.
57:01
And also next level up, which is the angry face but with like
57:05
exes or it's like expletives across the mouth.
57:09
And I said, well, what do you use when you're happy?
57:11
Then what do you use to show you're that you're angry?
57:14
And they both said we don't. And I was like, what?
57:18
Like why don't you? And they said if I'm angry, I
57:21
just turn off from the conversation or I just
57:24
communicate that I'm not happy. And I was like, OK, sounds very
57:28
grown up for a teenager. Right.
57:31
See, to me those kind of angry faces are very boomer coded.
57:35
To me, I associate those kind of red angry faces with and you'll
57:41
say gammon with that kind of. Gammon by like.
57:45
People get angry when they see it on.
57:49
There's a there's a post about someone who came from Poland
57:54
having a job. Angry face like that's what I
57:59
associate that with. So I don't I don't use those
58:02
emojis. I if I am angry online, I don't
58:06
use emojis at all. So I don't do that.
58:09
I tend not to get into arguments online because I get upset.
58:13
But I would like to say that I just walk away politely and
58:16
don't get involved in the conversation.
58:18
But what I would actually do is just go and tell my husband how
58:20
angry I am. Again, you're so Gen.
58:22
Z but. I wonder whether it's because
58:25
the Facebook, which is Boomer land, obviously we're all on
58:29
Facebook, but you know what I mean.
58:30
This is what Gen. Z's think.
58:32
They are the default ones. You know, there's the, there's
58:34
the wow and that, the thumbs up and the, and the angry face.
58:38
So maybe that's why I'm gonna these might be new to you, might
58:41
not be new to you, but I thought it might be useful for anybody
58:44
listening, particularly if your parents what all the drug emojis
58:49
are. So if you are assessing what's
58:52
going on in your kids lives, what are the drug emojis?
58:57
So weed is 2 leaves, ketamine is a horse, cocaine is snowflake,
59:04
any kind of pill is a pill and vaping is the puff of smoke.
59:10
So I thought they were quite interesting because if you're
59:13
using them, that is if you know, if you're using them online in
59:17
your social media marketing, that is how if you're aiming at
59:20
young people, that is how they're perceiving them.
59:22
But also quite useful if you're a parent to know what.
59:26
They are actually communicating via the power of image.
59:30
So that's interesting. I knew, I knew a couple of
59:32
those. I knew the the snowflake, for
59:35
example. But yeah, you see a lot of
59:37
companies using, that's probably when it snows outside just
59:40
popping up a little snowflake like, oh, so cute and lovely.
59:42
And you don't know, you have to be aware of.
59:44
Yeah. What you what you might be
59:45
communicating is I, I love a bit of snowflake exactly.
59:50
Then there's a whole level of racist emojis and used on
59:56
purpose. And I'm not going to discuss all
59:58
of these, but I think again, it's, you know, useful to
1:00:02
realise particularly with your marketing, particularly if
1:00:05
you're using AI and it's just giving you all of these emojis
1:00:09
that things. Mean other things or can mean
1:00:13
other things so for example the the man or the woman with their
1:00:18
hand up, which I thought meant me, you know me like putting
1:00:22
your hand up in class in the wrong scenario is a Nazi salute,
1:00:28
for example and it is used actively in that way.
1:00:31
So that might be relevant to you in marketing and even the milk
1:00:35
emoji stands for white supremacy, but it also just to
1:00:41
complicate everything. According to my 15 year old
1:00:44
means fun. I refuse to have a language in
1:00:49
which one thing can be white supremacy or fun and milk white
1:00:55
white supremacy. But how it means fun.
1:00:58
Like honestly, this is the point where you despair, particularly
1:01:02
as a parent, because you're like, that doesn't even make
1:01:05
sense. Another one that doesn't make
1:01:07
sense to me is the pointy emoji. When you .2 fingers together.
1:01:12
That means shy. And I'm like, why?
1:01:14
No idea, no idea. Then I've got, I've got more,
1:01:18
I've got more. There's some funny ones.
1:01:20
So for example, I see a lot of women, when they're talking
1:01:25
about hot flashes and sweating, they use the water droplets, but
1:01:31
that actually means ejaculation. I knew that one.
1:01:34
Yeah, don't use that. We.
1:01:35
Don't use that one or the opening.
1:01:37
And then there's things like, and there's those things like
1:01:40
corn is porn, cherries is boobs. I didn't realise that one and I
1:01:45
was sending my man messages to my daughter covered in cherries
1:01:48
because I was talking about cherries and she kept thinking I
1:01:51
was talking about her boobs. But anyway, and.
1:01:54
This is the last. One I'm going to finish on,
1:01:57
which you mentioned at the beginning around heart and using
1:02:00
the heart. Apparently according to my
1:02:03
daughter, a heart instead of using the heart.
1:02:06
There's one where I'm going to do it on the screen as well, but
1:02:09
I will try and explain where two fingers, not in a cross, but not
1:02:14
in a I'm crossing my fingers. There's one where just sort of
1:02:17
the ends cross or something. And apparently that is a heart
1:02:21
because it looks like a little heart, your two fingers crossed
1:02:25
and that's what they all send to each other.
1:02:27
And again, I'm like, why don't you just send the?
1:02:30
Heart interested, I have to say in like, like this kind of like
1:02:34
language of emojis, because when people started using emojis, I
1:02:37
know that there was a lot of kind of people would say, my
1:02:40
God, they don't even use proper words anymore.
1:02:43
They're all just using emojis. And I really think that that
1:02:45
kind of underestimates like the evolution of language and how
1:02:50
much communication can be done in that.
1:02:53
And I also not to get a bit highbrow now in a conversation
1:02:56
about emojis, but it's always really, really, really
1:03:00
interesting to think about how people use language like that to
1:03:05
hide their meaning from people. And they're all using these
1:03:09
emojis to try and hide the meaning from their parents and
1:03:11
they're kind of giving them new meanings as they go along.
1:03:15
But you've got to think about things like Polari and Cockney
1:03:18
rhyming slang and things like that, where you could use
1:03:22
completely different words to means mean something, mean
1:03:26
something different. So I genuinely, I genuinely
1:03:29
think it's a really, really, really fascinating topic.
1:03:33
I absolutely love it. I love anything that's sort of
1:03:37
generational, that's linked to social history and think, you
1:03:41
know, things like that. You know, in the future, we'll
1:03:43
talk about how young people used emojis or how young people spoke
1:03:48
and how, you know, it's, I think it's really fascinating.
1:03:51
I think from a marketing perspective, it's really
1:03:53
important to keep on top of it. And I thought maybe we could
1:03:56
just quickly end with ChatGPT because we have talked about AI
1:04:01
before and it loves an emoji. Like, my God, you know, every
1:04:05
time you ask, if you ask it to like write an Instagram post, it
1:04:08
plasters it with emojis. You always know if it's ChatGPT,
1:04:12
if there's a rocket in it, for example, because that is so
1:04:15
ChatGPT. So I think there's, I'd love to
1:04:17
know what do you like? If you use it, you take out the
1:04:20
emojis, you keep them in. Are you like does it give you
1:04:24
the ick the way they they just put the same emojis into
1:04:26
everything? I don't use it to write my post
1:04:28
because one I love, I love writing, so I don't use it to
1:04:32
write my posts. In the past, I have occasionally
1:04:35
put something I've written in and gone.
1:04:37
This is way too long because I'm a very wordy human being and
1:04:41
I've said this is way too long and I really need it to be
1:04:44
shorter. Can you make it shorter?
1:04:45
And yeah, it did almost always come back to me with something
1:04:49
where they've gone. That's all right.
1:04:50
I've taken all the words out and put some stupid emojis in that
1:04:54
mean nothing to. And yeah, so that's probably one
1:04:58
of the reasons that I don't use it to do things like that
1:05:01
anymore. But I would take it if I did do
1:05:03
that, I would take the emojis out and I would also take it's
1:05:07
love of the M dash out. I think it's the overuse.
1:05:10
We always laugh. My mother-in-law, every single
1:05:13
time she sends a message she just puts like 5.
1:05:16
Five emojis at the end, but they're always like like a
1:05:20
butterfly, a dolphin, a ladybird.
1:05:23
I don't even know that's a ladybird 1.
1:05:24
You know, like a heart like this, like random and you're
1:05:27
like, is this, does this mean something?
1:05:30
Or is she just randomly putting a dolphin And and we think she's
1:05:34
just randomly putting a dolphin in.
1:05:36
But again, it's that boomer thing of emojis.
1:05:38
Like I'm going to use loads of emojis and I'll just put all
1:05:41
these in. And I feel like ChatGPT is like
1:05:43
is the same level of like I need to put loads of random.
1:05:46
Emojis in to make me look really fun and it's just yeah it gets a
1:05:51
little bit lost I think I think probably boom is just think
1:05:54
they're pretty pictures that you put on the end rather than being
1:05:58
a language of itself. So once you get into like Gen.
1:06:02
X, especially younger Gen. X and like Daniels and the
1:06:07
millennials, we start to be more aware that this is a language
1:06:11
and that we are using these to communicate.
1:06:14
So we're less likely to just go, oh, I really like the picture of
1:06:17
the flower. So I'm just going to put it at
1:06:18
the end of at the end of my post because it's pretty.
1:06:21
Well, I'll let you know if she ever sends a text message with I
1:06:24
don't know this the the snowflake and the ejaculation.
1:06:29
She's likely to do that because she's got no idea.
1:06:32
Yeah, because we, I mean, we all know you really don't.
1:06:34
You might be thinking you're putting some like lovely fruit
1:06:36
and vegetables at the end here, but we really don't want
1:06:39
cherries, Peaches and aubergines in the same message.
1:06:42
Anyway, I think that was fascinating.
1:06:44
I think we should come back to the Gen.
1:06:47
Z thing in the future. I think there's like even just
1:06:50
like the abbreviations, you know how we say lol lol, which they
1:06:55
would never ever use because that's like the most boomer
1:06:59
thing ever. Even though I think it's very
1:07:01
Gen. XI, don't even think it's
1:07:03
boomer. They have a whole like I get a
1:07:06
text message and I think, well I can ask, I can write back and
1:07:09
say what is this or wdym what do you mean?
1:07:13
But sometimes I'm like, no, they're not going to get me.
1:07:15
I'm going to work this out. I'm going to sit and fuss it out
1:07:19
and sometimes I just can't cope and I Google it sometimes
1:07:22
because I'm not going to let them know and I don't know what
1:07:24
they're talking about. So we'll come back to that one.
1:07:26
I think it's definitely a lot more we can do on the evolution
1:07:29
of language and text speak. See, they don't even need it.
1:07:33
We used to have restrictions on characters.
1:07:35
They're spoiled. They can send as many words as
1:07:37
they. Like, yeah, you could just say
1:07:39
it's that short attention span, you know, why would you say yes,
1:07:43
Mum, that's fine when you could just write?
1:07:47
And on that note. K see you next week lol.
1:07:50
Thank you for joining us for another roundup of midlife chat,
1:07:53
hot takes, and occasional moaning.
1:07:55
Well, quite a bit of moaning. Make sure you hit subscribe so
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