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Dying to be Young · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't welcome to
0:07
Speaker 1: stuff I've never told you production of I Heart Radio.
0:18
Speaker 1: So I feel like I have asked you this before,
0:21
Speaker 1: and if so, you'll have to forgive me listeners. And Samantha, Um,
0:24
Speaker 1: but what are your thoughts on immortality? I don't think
0:28
Speaker 1: you've asked me this before because that is a very
0:30
Speaker 1: broad in general question. Who knows a lot of conversations, Yes,
0:38
Speaker 1: we have off and on my when it comes to immortality.
0:43
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. I have no thoughts other than it's not real,
0:47
Speaker 1: So why are we talking about it. My own set,
0:53
Speaker 1: my own sad take on death and immortality is that
0:58
Speaker 1: I assumed I would have been dead of flour. I
1:00
Speaker 1: would be dead before fifty five. And I think it's
1:03
Speaker 1: just because of all the things that I've gone through
1:06
Speaker 1: as a kid that it didn't make sense. But I
1:08
Speaker 1: would extend past a certain time. I do have a
1:11
Speaker 1: small fear of growing old. Actually have a lot of
1:14
Speaker 1: fears in growing older, and as my body feels like
1:17
Speaker 1: it's slowly giving out is getting worse, those little fears
1:20
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out what to do just because
1:23
Speaker 1: I don't want to go to like revert back to
1:26
Speaker 1: being dependent on someone. And then, of course you and
1:30
Speaker 1: I talked about the fact that if we don't have children,
1:32
Speaker 1: who's gonna look after us, who's gonna care for us?
1:35
Speaker 1: And what's gonna happen we can't care for ourselves. So
1:40
Speaker 1: those are my thoughts on life and death and immortality.
1:43
Speaker 1: I don't live forever because that sounds miserable, especially with
1:48
Speaker 1: some of the things that have happened. Being a depressive,
1:51
Speaker 1: it makes me sad to think that I would have
1:52
Speaker 1: to be depressed with the rest of my life seeing
1:55
Speaker 1: some of the bad things that have happened. I am
1:58
Speaker 1: a pessimist, so it doesn't help. True, true, Yeah, I
2:04
Speaker 1: mean it's interesting because I've always felt that way too.
2:06
Speaker 1: Of like, immortality doesn't appeal to me unless people around
2:10
Speaker 1: me that I cared about were and also that I
2:14
Speaker 1: was in good like mental and physical condition. Um, even then,
2:20
Speaker 1: it just sounds like eventually you'd get pretty bored. But
2:23
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I was telling you the
2:25
Speaker 1: other day, it's like this Star Wars is gonna be
2:26
Speaker 1: coming out when I die, And I never stopped true
2:31
Speaker 1: that A care for you. Also as of late, like
2:34
Speaker 1: the more we talked about the apocalypse and thinking if
2:38
Speaker 1: it happens sooner the later, Oh lord, I don't know
2:40
Speaker 1: if I want to be alive through that. That's yeah. Yeah,
2:45
Speaker 1: we're starting out really griham with this one. Yeah, sure,
2:49
Speaker 1: are sure are We're certainly not the only people who
2:54
Speaker 1: have been talking about this and thinking about this and
2:57
Speaker 1: as our technology shifts, because has been a part of
3:00
Speaker 1: our cultural narrative forever, like when we talk about any
3:05
Speaker 1: type of creature like vampires, and that's always like one
3:08
Speaker 1: of the reasons I love what we do in the
3:09
Speaker 1: shadows as you get to see how um wonky they are,
3:14
Speaker 1: out of touch they are with their immortality. But as
3:17
Speaker 1: as technology has advanced, people are legitimately talking about ways
3:21
Speaker 1: to slow down or stop aging and or achieve immortality.
3:26
Speaker 1: And I know Jeff Bezos was just in the news
3:29
Speaker 1: for investing in something looking into this um and there
3:33
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of movies about it, for sure.
3:35
Speaker 1: If for anybody who's already like preemptively angry, that of
3:38
Speaker 1: the language I used around that abaultics stopping aging. We'll
3:41
Speaker 1: get to that. We'll get to that a second. But um,
3:44
Speaker 1: as we are are moving into you listeners, know, we
3:50
Speaker 1: love some Halloween, we love the season of fall and
3:54
Speaker 1: the scary movies and spooky things. And as we're moving
3:59
Speaker 1: into that, this is sort of a lower key tie
4:02
Speaker 1: in because it's just this concept we've been talking about
4:05
Speaker 1: for a couple of months now about dying to be
4:07
Speaker 1: young and our cultural just real fascination and occupation with
4:13
Speaker 1: being young and where did that come from and some
4:16
Speaker 1: of the extremes that it has gone to. So to
4:19
Speaker 1: start out with, we're gonna be talking about media because,
4:23
Speaker 1: as we've talked about before, in in our popular media
4:28
Speaker 1: and movies and TV, as a woman, it's a joke,
4:32
Speaker 1: it's a running joke that you're dead after thirty, like
4:35
Speaker 1: that's your career is over. Um. And the average age
4:40
Speaker 1: of a Hollywood Stars female UM is thirty four, whereas
4:44
Speaker 1: for a man it is forty six. So you can
4:46
Speaker 1: already see that's ten your gap. Yes, yes, absolutely, oh
4:52
Speaker 1: yeah so as in fact, an i AMDB study reported
4:55
Speaker 1: on by Washington Post found that among twenty year old actors,
5:00
Speaker 1: women get eight percent of the leading roles. By age thirty,
5:03
Speaker 1: women only get of the leading roles, and past age forty,
5:08
Speaker 1: men claim eight of the leading roles while women only
5:11
Speaker 1: get twenty percent and have all these roles for women
5:15
Speaker 1: to go to those thirty three any younger and men
5:18
Speaker 1: overall just have way more roles available to them, and
5:22
Speaker 1: we've seen that constantly. Yeah, I think I've told this
5:26
Speaker 1: story before, but I remember so clearly watching I think
5:30
Speaker 1: I was too young to be watching it, but I
5:32
Speaker 1: was watching Entrapment and I turned to my friend and
5:35
Speaker 1: I was like, why does she want to be with
5:36
Speaker 1: Sean Connery? Question? But that being said, I know that
5:44
Speaker 1: people can have age gaps and relationships it would be great,
5:47
Speaker 1: but as a child, it just did not. I was like,
5:50
Speaker 1: I don't understand this, And I think what we're talking
5:52
Speaker 1: about here is not just that fact, but that it
5:55
Speaker 1: is more acceptable to see you very young women with
5:58
Speaker 1: older men to be more like yeah, absolutely normal, um
6:03
Speaker 1: to the point that it reflects real life Leonardo DiCaprio
6:06
Speaker 1: and everybody kind of just accepts it. Yeah, there's a
6:09
Speaker 1: factor of like, uh what after a while, But in
6:13
Speaker 1: the actuality was like, yeah, okay, obviously when it is
6:17
Speaker 1: more acceptable than a woman doing that, because she is right,
6:22
Speaker 1: And we've talked about that a lot before, about that
6:24
Speaker 1: double standard of for men it's seen as like, oh,
6:28
Speaker 1: props to you, You've got a young lady interested in you,
6:31
Speaker 1: young lady, whereas for women, it's like she's praying upon
6:35
Speaker 1: this young man and it must be for nefarious reasons, right, Yeah,
6:39
Speaker 1: those are generalizations and stereotypes, but it's definitely more acceptable
6:42
Speaker 1: for an older man to be with a younger woman
6:45
Speaker 1: then vice versa. And so this whole, like all these
6:50
Speaker 1: ideas around women in age in Hollywood, has been a
6:53
Speaker 1: topic of conversation, especially among female celebrities who has spoken
6:56
Speaker 1: out about this. Maggie Smith, Charlie's They're On, Sara, Jessica Parker,
7:01
Speaker 1: Helen Mire, and Mel Street, Kate Lynchet, so many mostly
7:03
Speaker 1: white women in this context. But a lot of it
7:05
Speaker 1: is happening like now and within recent years. It's pretty
7:10
Speaker 1: new in terms of how many women have spoken up
7:15
Speaker 1: about it. And I did want to give some brief
7:18
Speaker 1: like examples that were just top of mind for me,
7:20
Speaker 1: because this is an idea that we see so often.
7:24
Speaker 1: And one is um from Black Swan, which I watched recently,
7:28
Speaker 1: where Winona Writer is this ballet dancer who's been like
7:35
Speaker 1: head of the ballet. She's made a lot of money
7:37
Speaker 1: for this troop, this huge New York troop, but then
7:41
Speaker 1: all the other ballet danswers are kind of talking about
7:44
Speaker 1: her behind her back and saying like, oh, she's dead,
7:46
Speaker 1: like she's a dancing corpse, like she's so old. And
7:50
Speaker 1: then Wanona Writer's character obviously being upset about this and
7:55
Speaker 1: furious that she's given so much of herself to this company,
7:58
Speaker 1: and then he just kind of unceremoniously to her away
8:02
Speaker 1: when she gets older and replace her with Natalie Portman.
8:07
Speaker 1: And even in terms of like the romance kind of
8:09
Speaker 1: dynamic between the male leader of the ballet and an
8:13
Speaker 1: own writer and then Natalie Portman. But that always stuck
8:16
Speaker 1: with me. And Natalie Portman's character has that see where
8:18
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, poor death um, like obviously feeling sympathy
8:22
Speaker 1: and like seeing that happened with her mom when she
8:25
Speaker 1: got pregnant, and feeling like I one day I will
8:27
Speaker 1: be thrown away too. But yeah, that is always stuck
8:30
Speaker 1: with me because it's like, like I said, it is
8:33
Speaker 1: a running joke. We all know this joke and this idea,
8:37
Speaker 1: and there are certain aspects that I get, like it's
8:41
Speaker 1: weird because I understand that, you know, younger people in
8:44
Speaker 1: general can do more athletic things. I don't know, but
8:49
Speaker 1: still like that's really terrible to just be like, well,
8:52
Speaker 1: you're done and you'll never work again. So another example,
8:56
Speaker 1: I've never actually seen Black Swant, I need to go
8:58
Speaker 1: back to it. But another exam a bowl would be
9:00
Speaker 1: of course, our one of our episodes, First Wives Club.
9:04
Speaker 1: I mean that is the ultimate story of being replaced
9:10
Speaker 1: by younger women, as each one of the characters show,
9:13
Speaker 1: whether it's Sarah Jessica Parker's character who is in competition
9:17
Speaker 1: with Bette Midler, or even the therapist with Diane Keaton's
9:22
Speaker 1: character you know who gets gets ran over her. And
9:24
Speaker 1: then you've got the Goldie Hawn character, which she's replaced
9:27
Speaker 1: by the sixteen year old actress because she I think
9:31
Speaker 1: she's in her thirties. In this I'm pretty sure she
9:36
Speaker 1: comments directly on what we're talking about and talking about
9:40
Speaker 1: being replaced, and to the point that she plays the
9:41
Speaker 1: hagmother who dies essentially an upcoming movie and heard thinking
9:45
Speaker 1: she's coming in for the younger character and being like, whoops,
9:49
Speaker 1: just kidding um, And so she retires out of film
9:52
Speaker 1: to go onto Broadway because it's more acceptable for mature
9:56
Speaker 1: women to be a part of. Essentially, Yeah, there are
9:59
Speaker 1: so many things in that storyline on it altogether, just
10:02
Speaker 1: talking about how women are said to pasture at a
10:06
Speaker 1: certain age as if they are no longer of any purpose.
10:09
Speaker 1: And we think about that with like menopause again, like
10:12
Speaker 1: whether or not we're able to breed essentially, to put
10:15
Speaker 1: it very bluntly, and or what our value is. And
10:18
Speaker 1: when it comes to Hollywood, I'm sure and we have
10:21
Speaker 1: seen it being even harsher narratives. But you know, in
10:24
Speaker 1: everyday life people talk about that too, whether it's the
10:26
Speaker 1: cliche of being left for a younger woman and or
10:29
Speaker 1: having to compete with younger women for career or any
10:33
Speaker 1: of those status is. You know, it's interesting to see.
10:37
Speaker 1: But this movie was definitely one of those like, hey,
10:39
Speaker 1: in your face, this is what's happening, right, commented, Right, yeah,
10:45
Speaker 1: and we're gonna we're gonna break in break down some
10:48
Speaker 1: of that. Um a bit more later about kind of
10:50
Speaker 1: this pressure to be invisible as you get older as
10:52
Speaker 1: a woman. And then I was thinking about this Amazon
10:57
Speaker 1: movie called Neon Demon, which I don't know if you've
10:59
Speaker 1: seen that, I have not. Okay, well it was a
11:02
Speaker 1: very strange film, but it kind of That's why every
11:07
Speaker 1: time I think of it, I feel like it's some
11:09
Speaker 1: fever dream that I had. But it's about like models
11:12
Speaker 1: in Hollywood, And is it L Fanning or Ellie Fanning?
11:17
Speaker 1: L Fanning, I don't know, you know who I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah,
11:21
Speaker 1: she comes into the young model into this world and
11:27
Speaker 1: there's a lot of this movie is very up and
11:29
Speaker 1: down and bumpy, but there was an interesting commentary on
11:32
Speaker 1: the power of beauty and youth for women, and she
11:35
Speaker 1: says something about, like, you know what the power she
11:38
Speaker 1: feels when she walks into her room and everyone is
11:40
Speaker 1: looking at her and feeling jealous of her. Of course,
11:42
Speaker 1: these other models that have been in the game longer
11:43
Speaker 1: than her don't like that, so they end up spoilers,
11:47
Speaker 1: I guess how old is this movie is pretty old? Um,
11:48
Speaker 1: they end up killing her and eating pieces of her
11:50
Speaker 1: body to try to get her youth, including an eyeball.
11:54
Speaker 1: Was really gruesome. Well okay then, but yeah, that was
12:00
Speaker 1: just I did not expect that turn for one, But yeah,
12:03
Speaker 1: it was another kind of example of this this pressure
12:08
Speaker 1: to feel young and kind of that diminishing value of
12:13
Speaker 1: like they were willing to murder this person to feel
12:17
Speaker 1: like they were young and had in their minds more power.
12:20
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, songs. We've been seeing
12:25
Speaker 1: these songs, and I will say so for the first
12:29
Speaker 1: song you picked out, because as you were and I
12:32
Speaker 1: were talking about this episode, I told you in my head,
12:34
Speaker 1: I can't stop seeing forever young. Also, that makes me
12:38
Speaker 1: go back to a thirty Rock episode in which is
12:41
Speaker 1: Jenna is being she has that same insidence of going
12:45
Speaker 1: to a show because she's about to be cast as
12:47
Speaker 1: a teenager where probably she's cast as a dying mother
12:50
Speaker 1: once again, and she actually says in the line I
12:53
Speaker 1: have to die now I'm thirty six, essentially saying that,
12:58
Speaker 1: but because she you so in such shock and so
13:01
Speaker 1: sad about it that she's taping up her face singing
13:04
Speaker 1: forever young and rather trying to make herself look younger
13:07
Speaker 1: because he was in that crisis. But that is where
13:10
Speaker 1: both of those things come into mind. Yes, forever young.
13:13
Speaker 1: It's been sick in my head too. What did you know? Good?
13:16
Speaker 1: I always thought of that as being like in your heart,
13:19
Speaker 1: forever young? But what do I know? And then for me,
13:23
Speaker 1: are you old enough? Which is a very creepy song
13:26
Speaker 1: which is about this guy basically saying like are you
13:28
Speaker 1: old enough to have sex with? But that was recently
13:30
Speaker 1: featured in Wellington Paranormal and it has been stuck in
13:34
Speaker 1: my head. But there's I mean, there's so many songs
13:36
Speaker 1: about that, and right, yes, yes, and kind of like
13:42
Speaker 1: a lot of times it is dudes like trying to
13:44
Speaker 1: get young girls. And then there are plenty of songs
13:48
Speaker 1: about you know that romanticized youth, and we're gonna look
13:54
Speaker 1: into that as well. But yeah, that it's very present
13:56
Speaker 1: and a lot of our media. I was also thinking
13:59
Speaker 1: about book because like the Portrait of Dorian Gray, which
14:01
Speaker 1: isn't women but kind of again shows this like real
14:05
Speaker 1: historical preoccupation we've had with youth, or the old hag
14:10
Speaker 1: feeding on the young maiden shop which is in snow white,
14:12
Speaker 1: and pretty much every fairy tale features an older woman
14:14
Speaker 1: and a younger woman. I don't take that youth, yes,
14:18
Speaker 1: which is another way women have been pitted against each
14:22
Speaker 1: other in our media. Um, but also if you move
14:26
Speaker 1: out of that, like it's a compliment to say you
14:28
Speaker 1: look so much younger, and it's one of those kind
14:30
Speaker 1: of problematic compliments where what are you really saying and
14:34
Speaker 1: what are we holding up with a compliment like that? Um,
14:37
Speaker 1: there's this whole idea of like trying to get away
14:39
Speaker 1: with it or looking you know, younger. And I was
14:55
Speaker 1: thinking about this too in terms of I haven't been
14:59
Speaker 1: shopping in am all in a very long time, but
15:03
Speaker 1: I mean certainly within the past couple of years. I
15:06
Speaker 1: always I still go to the junior section, and it's
15:08
Speaker 1: because I feel like that closed their acuter and if
15:10
Speaker 1: you go into like the women's section, it's all like
15:13
Speaker 1: business clothes. Right, I'm not gonna lie. I've now jumped
15:18
Speaker 1: away from the junior's clothing because their size no longer
15:22
Speaker 1: makes sense to me, so I'm gonna go over here.
15:28
Speaker 1: I think that's why I stay away from things like
15:30
Speaker 1: the mall, where you have departments who are very like
15:33
Speaker 1: ages in that they separated like that. In places like
15:36
Speaker 1: Target where they do have the junior sections, I've seen it,
15:39
Speaker 1: but the women's section and the junior section are similar
15:42
Speaker 1: enough that it's like, Okay, there's not really the different
15:46
Speaker 1: variations to this. I'm good with it. Um. And typically
15:49
Speaker 1: it's just all like, hey, here's this one sweater. It
15:51
Speaker 1: was like Ponchos season of the Ponchos. So I'm definitely
15:55
Speaker 1: leaning into quote unquote my age clothed in that I'm
16:00
Speaker 1: just rather but I've always dressed like this. There's nothing
16:05
Speaker 1: in my wardrobes, I even being younger, that really said
16:10
Speaker 1: this is a junior self of it. Like I never
16:11
Speaker 1: really wore like jeans, I had holes in it. I
16:14
Speaker 1: don't have one accidentally tripped and fell, and I you know,
16:18
Speaker 1: like that's why, sure, But like it was never my
16:22
Speaker 1: thing because I was always so self conscious that I
16:24
Speaker 1: wanted to mute it down as much as possible. So
16:27
Speaker 1: just as plain as playing can be is my my
16:30
Speaker 1: go to and I still am that way to this day.
16:33
Speaker 1: And again, I love cardigans and ponchos, and I feel
16:36
Speaker 1: like that's definitely like older leaning, and I'm like, I'm
16:38
Speaker 1: cool with that. I will forever wear that. This is
16:40
Speaker 1: my this is who I am. Yeah, yeah, I mean
16:44
Speaker 1: I do think there's I don't want to make it
16:46
Speaker 1: sound like there aren't cute clothes for women who are
16:50
Speaker 1: not juniors like older there are, but I feel like
16:53
Speaker 1: in a traditional mall department store setting, it's like, oh
16:56
Speaker 1: these are It's again like the breakdown of the badana
16:59
Speaker 1: and the whore almost where it's like, oh, junior section, cuter,
17:02
Speaker 1: cuter things, maybe some cleavage going on, and then like
17:05
Speaker 1: business suits. Yeah, you have the dresses that has no
17:10
Speaker 1: body shape and it's somehow doubles up to something else
17:12
Speaker 1: and you're like what is this because yeah, even in shoes,
17:17
Speaker 1: I do that, like this is obviously a younger kid
17:20
Speaker 1: to stick with this, you know, not this, and it's
17:23
Speaker 1: kind of like these are shoes I don't, right, Yeah,
17:28
Speaker 1: And that's something I know a lot of my friends
17:31
Speaker 1: and I have joked about because I'm really young at heart,
17:34
Speaker 1: as they say, and I feel like I get judged
17:37
Speaker 1: for liking childish things and a lot of times I'll
17:38
Speaker 1: end up in like the boys section because they have
17:41
Speaker 1: like Superhero shirts or Star Wars shirts and that's what
17:45
Speaker 1: I like. Um. But then there's this whole idea of
17:48
Speaker 1: like age appropriate clothing, which we could break down in
17:52
Speaker 1: more seriously, but in terms of what we're talking about now,
17:54
Speaker 1: it's like you reach an age and that's just you
17:57
Speaker 1: have to wear, yeah, a formal, right, blanket, you know
18:03
Speaker 1: what they give me? My mum, I've got my Star
18:07
Speaker 1: Wars poncho. You know all of a good poncho. I
18:11
Speaker 1: do too. I have not there's nothing wrong with it,
18:13
Speaker 1: but I think we need our options and we need
18:15
Speaker 1: to investigate why this is. You know, when it comes
18:18
Speaker 1: to also, it's kind of the expense and who gets
18:21
Speaker 1: what what is seen as stylish. And we also know
18:25
Speaker 1: that we see that as in sizes too, like when
18:28
Speaker 1: we talk about celebrities trying to find really nice, fancy
18:31
Speaker 1: things and being told we're not going to give you this,
18:33
Speaker 1: we're not gonna sponsor to you this, we don't want
18:35
Speaker 1: you to wear this type a thing, um, And we
18:38
Speaker 1: see that agism is a complete thing where we saw
18:42
Speaker 1: Millie Bobby Brown got like ripped apart because they were like,
18:45
Speaker 1: you wearing clothes as too old for you. And it's
18:47
Speaker 1: kind of like, I don't understand she's wearing a cute
18:50
Speaker 1: suit outfit. Yeah she's sixteen, but she's pulling it off
18:54
Speaker 1: and she's coming to a fancy event. M what's what's
18:58
Speaker 1: the problem and her right ripped for that. It's not
19:01
Speaker 1: only it was sexy, and even them like, we need
19:03
Speaker 1: to talk about that standard dress co standard outside of
19:05
Speaker 1: this anyway, But all that say is why can't she
19:09
Speaker 1: And then having older women who were wearing a little
19:11
Speaker 1: bit tighter clothes and a few more things would be like,
19:14
Speaker 1: that's that's too sexy. You're a mom, You're like does
19:17
Speaker 1: that mean? Yeah, it's just another instance of policing women's
19:21
Speaker 1: bodies and what they wear. And like we'll take we
19:25
Speaker 1: being society at large, not me but personally, but any
19:29
Speaker 1: opportunity to tear a woman down right um and make
19:33
Speaker 1: her feel bad about her body. But yeah, like going
19:38
Speaker 1: back to the you know that whole quote of like
19:39
Speaker 1: looking good for your age, which is I think also
19:42
Speaker 1: problematic in terms of behind your back. They might be
19:47
Speaker 1: saying she's too old for that or whatever. You know,
19:50
Speaker 1: never ask a woman her age, which really implies that
19:53
Speaker 1: it's shameful and embarrassing to get older. And then yeah,
19:57
Speaker 1: I was just kind of as you were talking, I
19:59
Speaker 1: was kind of thinking about how clothing cycles, so like
20:03
Speaker 1: what people might have been wearing in the eighties is
20:06
Speaker 1: now popular nineties among younger people, and so it's kind
20:10
Speaker 1: of like silly that will police people for this, but
20:13
Speaker 1: when when the cycle comes back now, it's cool when
20:16
Speaker 1: young people are right. I really kept some of my
20:21
Speaker 1: clothes because it has. I'm like, I had that outfit,
20:23
Speaker 1: like I picked out specifically, I wore that in junior
20:26
Speaker 1: high school, in middle school. Cool cool cool. Yeah. And
20:29
Speaker 1: I think one of the big things too, as you
20:31
Speaker 1: were talking about, you know, being complimented, I I tell
20:34
Speaker 1: my age. Obviously I'm very fed everyone knows my age.
20:37
Speaker 1: I'm turning forty one soon, and it's kind of like,
20:39
Speaker 1: oh god, I'm turning these a huge number. And then
20:43
Speaker 1: comparing myself and this is really bad on me and
20:46
Speaker 1: my own perspective as well as my own biases, was like,
20:49
Speaker 1: do I look like that forty one year old? Because
20:51
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to look like that like that.
20:54
Speaker 1: There's levels of like I need to look younger, and
20:56
Speaker 1: I want to tell people my age so they better
20:59
Speaker 1: have a right reaction, like myad it's gonna be shocked
21:03
Speaker 1: or disbelief because as a way that has to that
21:06
Speaker 1: they're like okay, like son of and I just kind
21:10
Speaker 1: of walk away. But there is that level as I'm
21:12
Speaker 1: getting older, like but I don't look like that forty
21:15
Speaker 1: one year older because I still have the image of
21:18
Speaker 1: my mother being forty something when I was so young,
21:20
Speaker 1: and now I'm like yeah, I look like my mother.
21:23
Speaker 1: Obviously I don't because she's very white and I'm not. Uh,
21:27
Speaker 1: there's very big differences, but the aging level of like wow,
21:32
Speaker 1: it's weird. Yeah, And I think that kind it is.
21:36
Speaker 1: I think, I think that line of thinking is really
21:40
Speaker 1: it is encouraged by our media because I feel like
21:42
Speaker 1: I see magazine headlines like that all the time, like
21:44
Speaker 1: how did she accomplish this? Look? She looks so young
21:48
Speaker 1: and right, I know, like you know, list thirty under thirty.
21:51
Speaker 1: When I was researching this, this came up a lot
21:53
Speaker 1: of like that's also kind of a troublesome line thinking,
21:58
Speaker 1: But we do see it. We see it, and it
22:00
Speaker 1: usually is trying to sell something where it's like how
22:02
Speaker 1: does she do it with this retina cream? Of course,
22:12
Speaker 1: it's the whole thing, you know, going back to it
22:15
Speaker 1: is a whole conversation about how we look at youth
22:18
Speaker 1: and how we treasure that and long for it. Sometimes
22:23
Speaker 1: I don't want I wish there's a part of me
22:26
Speaker 1: we're like, man, I do wish that I was able
22:28
Speaker 1: to enjoy my youth in that I have so much
22:32
Speaker 1: more confidence now than I did a more ten, fifteen,
22:36
Speaker 1: even five years ago. Honestly not really like to ten
22:39
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago and really wishing that I could have
22:42
Speaker 1: gone back to be like, hey, it's okay, enjoy being
22:46
Speaker 1: you instead of constantly being so self conscious that you
22:49
Speaker 1: can't you feel awkward in any situation. And that's not
22:52
Speaker 1: a way to enjoy life. That's the only part in that. Um.
22:56
Speaker 1: But Yeah, in the West, the aging is often seen
22:59
Speaker 1: as something shameful and to be hidden away and fought
23:03
Speaker 1: against instead of being respected, which I'm like, let's get
23:06
Speaker 1: back to that. Also, to be fair, some of the
23:10
Speaker 1: boomers have not shown that level of I think, which
23:14
Speaker 1: we could talk about that later, but like in general,
23:16
Speaker 1: respecting age versus yeah, experience being invisible because we're no
23:24
Speaker 1: longer relevant. We are elderly are often invisible to us.
23:29
Speaker 1: And yeah, in the US, specifically in this culture, it's
23:32
Speaker 1: kind of gross. Yeah, we don't respect. Of course, respect
23:36
Speaker 1: is earned, but there's just that level of like, huh,
23:41
Speaker 1: where's that sort of like we want to age that
23:45
Speaker 1: means we've come through life okay, ish, we've survived it. Uh.
23:49
Speaker 1: And we've long discussed the link between traditional beauty for
23:53
Speaker 1: women and power, and that's a whole big conversation. Looking young,
24:12
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to women, is a big business.
24:16
Speaker 1: So many products promising to do away with any signs
24:19
Speaker 1: of age. You can get rid of your wrinkles or
24:21
Speaker 1: race gray hairs, get thinner and look younger, get dimples
24:24
Speaker 1: that will make you look young to like almost everything.
24:27
Speaker 1: When we did our episode of Ridiculous History where we
24:29
Speaker 1: were talking about beauty trends, um kind of ridiculous beauty
24:33
Speaker 1: trends or dangerous beauty trends of history, almost all of
24:35
Speaker 1: them were about looking younger. Right, Oh yeah, absolutely, we're
24:39
Speaker 1: looking wider both of those things. And some numbers for you,
24:42
Speaker 1: because you know we love some numbers up in here.
24:45
Speaker 1: As of two thousand eleven, Americans spent about ten point
24:48
Speaker 1: four billion dollars on cosmetic surgery. The anti aging industry
24:54
Speaker 1: is believed to be worth a hundred and forty billion dollars.
25:00
Speaker 1: And then a two thousand eighteen study found that over
25:03
Speaker 1: fifty percent of women aged eighteen to twenty four survey
25:07
Speaker 1: agreed that an anti wrinkle treatment was essential to their
25:11
Speaker 1: beauty regiment. I'm like, I don't think I have any
25:15
Speaker 1: of those. I'm trying to think about it. Mine was
25:17
Speaker 1: all about acting because I still get them. I got
25:20
Speaker 1: one between with people right here. I'm like, I'm supposed
25:24
Speaker 1: to be forty. This is not supposed to be an
25:26
Speaker 1: issue anymore. It's okay. And this was a from twenty
25:30
Speaker 1: percent who said the same thing in two thousand twelve
25:34
Speaker 1: and searches for retinal I believed anti Asian ingredient doubled
25:38
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. Not gonna lie kind of us that
25:42
Speaker 1: from my under eyes because I was like, WHOA, I
25:45
Speaker 1: was like tired. Yeah, I've definitely tried products for my
25:50
Speaker 1: under eyes. It's a minor very dark and baggy, and
25:53
Speaker 1: that is because I don't sleep very well, among things.
25:56
Speaker 1: But and yes, it's just disclaimer. We're not really coming
26:00
Speaker 1: out against any of these things per se, but more
26:03
Speaker 1: against the societal pressure that makes people, and in this
26:06
Speaker 1: context mostly women feel like they have to do these
26:09
Speaker 1: things that it has to do with their worth, and
26:11
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of fear around it, like
26:13
Speaker 1: every day your skin is getting worse. I saw this.
26:17
Speaker 1: I think it must have been in two thousand one
26:18
Speaker 1: or two thousand two interview with oh, what's her name?
26:23
Speaker 1: Naomi Watts, and she was saying, you know, my skin
26:29
Speaker 1: The way I keep it this way is I put
26:30
Speaker 1: on sound screen every day and ever since then, I
26:32
Speaker 1: put on sun scary owns every day on my face. Um.
26:36
Speaker 1: But that was like the power of it, because I
26:38
Speaker 1: was like, what if if I if I mess it
26:39
Speaker 1: up now, it'll be too late later. And yeah, this
26:43
Speaker 1: does start at a young age, because I must have
26:45
Speaker 1: been like, I don't know, fourteen, thirteen or fourteen. And
26:47
Speaker 1: I saw that interview, and I remember when I was
26:50
Speaker 1: in high school, this really traditionally pretty girl who was
26:55
Speaker 1: like a year older than me. She was talking about
26:57
Speaker 1: her anti wrinkle regimen that she was doing, and I
27:00
Speaker 1: was I looked at her, like, oh my gosh, am
27:01
Speaker 1: I supposed to be doing that already. And a lot
27:05
Speaker 1: of anti wrinkle commercials do use young women that definitely
27:08
Speaker 1: don't have wrinkles anywhere. If they do, they're airbushed out
27:11
Speaker 1: or like not that many, right, And I find this interesting.
27:15
Speaker 1: I think the other big problem is not we're not
27:17
Speaker 1: saying that these things are awful or that you know,
27:19
Speaker 1: the devil or anything. What we're saying is we see
27:23
Speaker 1: this as a marketing racket that is completely aimed at women.
27:26
Speaker 1: And if this is truly for their benefit, women's benefit.
27:30
Speaker 1: Why the hell is this so damn expensive? That's the
27:33
Speaker 1: other part. I'm like, what is happening? And then the
27:36
Speaker 1: links and the way we're ruining the environment to get
27:38
Speaker 1: to some of those things also really really problematic. Um
27:43
Speaker 1: and it's all about that capitalism. Yeah, and we know this,
27:47
Speaker 1: and I think that's part of the problem. Is it's
27:49
Speaker 1: not so bad to want to try things that are
27:51
Speaker 1: good for your skin or what you don't want to
27:53
Speaker 1: do things preventatively whatever. I'm being self conscious and making
27:56
Speaker 1: you feel good about yourself, that's one thing. But doing
28:00
Speaker 1: it at what cost is the conversation as well as
28:03
Speaker 1: who is benefiting it and why aren't we looking closer?
28:07
Speaker 1: That's and of course we make fun of older women
28:12
Speaker 1: who do it too, that they're pathetic and not fooling anyone,
28:16
Speaker 1: despite the fact that we live in a society that
28:19
Speaker 1: penalizes age and our further penalizing women for trying to
28:22
Speaker 1: fit into that society that was created to go against
28:27
Speaker 1: right essentially, so trying to fit into that narrative, trying
28:30
Speaker 1: to make it a situation or having you know, uh,
28:34
Speaker 1: the audacity to change something that they don't really find
28:37
Speaker 1: uplifting for themselves. That's whole other conversation too. Why can't
28:40
Speaker 1: we let it be? Yeah? And I think this has
28:42
Speaker 1: been a big It's been something people have been discussing
28:46
Speaker 1: a lot around um women and cosmetic surgery and all
28:50
Speaker 1: of this stuff we're talking about. We could unpack further
28:53
Speaker 1: in other episodes. But how like we're saying the joke
28:56
Speaker 1: is your debt at thirty like the media ages thirty
28:58
Speaker 1: three or whatever. And then and yet we make fun
29:01
Speaker 1: of actresses who get cosmetic surgery to look younger when
29:06
Speaker 1: that's their career and their job, and that is a problem.
29:08
Speaker 1: It's a problem that that's true. But I think it's
29:11
Speaker 1: very telling that we are making fun of people who
29:16
Speaker 1: are trying to not lose their job essentially in a
29:20
Speaker 1: really sexist, patriarchal, agist system, right, and also just knowing
29:25
Speaker 1: that for a lot, And we can talk about the
29:28
Speaker 1: Korean beauty standards, which is just which is a whole
29:30
Speaker 1: different conversation in itself. That happens starts at a very
29:34
Speaker 1: young age and being molded essentially into what is thought
29:40
Speaker 1: of as the perfect body, the perfect face, the perfect
29:45
Speaker 1: skin tone, like all of these things. It's such an
29:48
Speaker 1: oh yeah, overwhelming sense of like what what are we
29:53
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing? And for those who aren't within
29:56
Speaker 1: that narrative, within that frame of thinking and or seeing looking,
30:02
Speaker 1: what happens to those people completely dismissed and I'm not
30:04
Speaker 1: seeing Yeah, Yeah, it's yeah, like we said, it starts
30:08
Speaker 1: at such a young age and you really get inundated
30:11
Speaker 1: with it and internalized it. I know there's been studies
30:13
Speaker 1: that found by like the age of four, for young girls,
30:16
Speaker 1: they're like wrinkles are bad, age is bad um and
30:20
Speaker 1: a lot of other troubling beauty standards as well, just
30:23
Speaker 1: so young we pick up on it. And like, going
30:25
Speaker 1: back to your point when it comes to this whole
30:28
Speaker 1: conversation of yeah, we want women to do what they
30:32
Speaker 1: want to look to feel good about themselves or something
30:36
Speaker 1: they might just enjoy. It's like when we talked about
30:38
Speaker 1: in UM taking self care and you know, spa days.
30:42
Speaker 1: That might really be your thing, but there is a
30:44
Speaker 1: financial and time cost. And also this whole what we're
30:50
Speaker 1: really talking about is the demonizing of age and particularly
30:53
Speaker 1: for women. And also yeah, it's just that pressure, the
30:58
Speaker 1: pressure to do it, like if you want to do it,
31:01
Speaker 1: you know good for you, but it's I think a
31:03
Speaker 1: lot of us feel like we have to do it,
31:05
Speaker 1: and there is this kind of like a fear based
31:08
Speaker 1: decision of oh no, my my value is going down.
31:11
Speaker 1: I need to save up money and go get this
31:13
Speaker 1: and go do this, and just feeling bad about yourself,
31:16
Speaker 1: which I hate. Yeah. Um. And then when we look
31:21
Speaker 1: at sexual assault and grooming, there so many instances like
31:24
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier, of older famous men grooming
31:26
Speaker 1: younger often underage young women. Um. And there are even
31:31
Speaker 1: pieces of media, in all kinds of media, directly about
31:34
Speaker 1: that whole thing. Several recent studies have looked into why
31:37
Speaker 1: growing numbers of young women are seeking cosmetic surgeries, with
31:41
Speaker 1: one of the dominant theories being asked to do with
31:43
Speaker 1: social media filters. So basically, you want to look as
31:46
Speaker 1: airbrushed as your social media filter looks. You want to
31:50
Speaker 1: match that. Um. But also obviously the constant bombardment of
31:56
Speaker 1: messaging in our media. Again, we can unpack all of
32:00
Speaker 1: the right and yeah, it's definitely grown. Maybe also accessibility
32:05
Speaker 1: has grown. That needs to be part of that conversation too. Uh,
32:09
Speaker 1: But it's always been there where if you think about
32:11
Speaker 1: the women who literally went through plastic surgery to look
32:15
Speaker 1: like Barbie, and that was before social media. She was
32:18
Speaker 1: already famous because that was her whole stint. And then
32:21
Speaker 1: there's been several more that follows suit and they're big influencers.
32:25
Speaker 1: And that's kind of that other conversations the level of
32:28
Speaker 1: what we look at as who are influencers, and it's
32:31
Speaker 1: typically everything about looks. So it seems to me, especially
32:35
Speaker 1: when it comes to women or non binary and it's
32:38
Speaker 1: one thing to love makeup and do makeup that's gorgeous.
32:41
Speaker 1: I really wish people could teach me how to do
32:43
Speaker 1: do it well because I'm not one of those people think, well,
32:47
Speaker 1: my niece is really good at it. She's actually a
32:49
Speaker 1: makeup artist, and like, go ahead, do your things. I
32:51
Speaker 1: don't know what this means, right, and like maybe I
32:53
Speaker 1: need your help, But that's something different than that. That's
32:57
Speaker 1: the influence and trying to get that perfect standard. And yes,
33:00
Speaker 1: some of these what's we need to come back to
33:03
Speaker 1: Annie is decide that a lot of these filters are
33:06
Speaker 1: not made for women of color. Many times that I've
33:09
Speaker 1: put it on my face and it did nothing, I
33:10
Speaker 1: was like, what is this? And the fact of the
33:12
Speaker 1: matter is because it's not for women of color, and
33:16
Speaker 1: it doesn't do which is probably a good thing. Honestly,
33:19
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know. It looks yeah, I don't know.
33:23
Speaker 1: There's many times when I did the filters like why why,
33:26
Speaker 1: So it's probably a good thing. But many times when
33:29
Speaker 1: there was nothing, I was like, oh, I'm too brown
33:30
Speaker 1: for this. Interesting, will come back to that. Uh So.
33:36
Speaker 1: Data from Okay cupids suggests, not surprisingly, that men seek
33:41
Speaker 1: out slightly younger women when they may be the first
33:44
Speaker 1: time women slightly older, but if men be married, they
33:48
Speaker 1: seek out women have their age. The rating theory for
33:52
Speaker 1: why is this is how men and women have been
33:54
Speaker 1: socialized historically, with women more concerned about social status, men
33:59
Speaker 1: more concerned with indicators of fertility. I wonder, though, I
34:03
Speaker 1: have to go back, because We've talked about this a
34:05
Speaker 1: little bit. Every time I've ever been on a site.
34:10
Speaker 1: Most of the men, if they had an age preference,
34:13
Speaker 1: if I would always do their own age as the
34:17
Speaker 1: cap and younger m So if the man was thirty five,
34:21
Speaker 1: it would be four like I've seen that, And there
34:25
Speaker 1: will be several men who would do not even to that.
34:27
Speaker 1: As they were getting older, the age would stay the same.
34:30
Speaker 1: So they might be thirty eight, but their capped for
34:34
Speaker 1: thirty five. And I'm kind of like, you're a thirty
34:37
Speaker 1: y year old man, you want to have twenty four
34:39
Speaker 1: year old what is what is happening? So I did
34:43
Speaker 1: find that a lot like if it was specific, it
34:47
Speaker 1: was much younger typically, and I found that very interesting.
34:50
Speaker 1: So I find this like, I feel like that's underwhelming
34:53
Speaker 1: of a report. Well, you know, it was only a
34:57
Speaker 1: couple of thousands of people and all. So yeah, I
35:01
Speaker 1: mean it's hard to I would imagine the data pool.
35:06
Speaker 1: It's probably pretty significant, but not too significant when it
35:09
Speaker 1: comes to remarrying and um and things like that. But
35:13
Speaker 1: it was just interesting because he the founder, wanted to
35:15
Speaker 1: look more into this and that's sort of the general
35:20
Speaker 1: pattern that he saw, but yeah, be interested to find
35:23
Speaker 1: out more. In the US Food and Drug Administration had
35:41
Speaker 1: to release a statement advising against older people injecting themselves
35:44
Speaker 1: with the plasma of younger people, the so called vampire treatment.
35:48
Speaker 1: Soon after the FDA statement, California started up. Ambrosia Health
35:52
Speaker 1: began offering one leader of quote youth blood for eight
35:56
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and two leaders for twelve thousand dollars, and
36:00
Speaker 1: several companies have popped up around blood and use in
36:04
Speaker 1: this idea of like it's not always framed as it
36:06
Speaker 1: will make you younger, but it's supposed to like revitalize
36:08
Speaker 1: your body inside. And yeah, we talked about the vampire
36:13
Speaker 1: facial as well. I feel like if you got like
36:18
Speaker 1: just blood, that's going to start a lot of flowing
36:21
Speaker 1: in your system, and typically not necessarily because you're healthier,
36:24
Speaker 1: but because of like the flow, the blood flow, which
36:27
Speaker 1: we know doesn't have a little to do with like
36:30
Speaker 1: whether or not you are pale, you know all of that.
36:32
Speaker 1: I feel like that whole narrative is misleading. But any
36:35
Speaker 1: you want to go in, we'll buy two two for
36:37
Speaker 1: one to pull the cheaper price. No, that's some weird
36:43
Speaker 1: like blood bond is. Look at two bags. It's cheaper
36:47
Speaker 1: to get too, obviously, look at it. There we go,
36:50
Speaker 1: There we go. I have actually written a horror story
36:52
Speaker 1: about this very thing. When it happened, I remember this
36:55
Speaker 1: new story and I was like, it's happened. Speaking of
36:59
Speaker 1: horror stories. UM. Q and on has gotten in on
37:02
Speaker 1: this too. Um. Some followers of Q and on believe
37:04
Speaker 1: that members of the Hollywood elite take a psychedelic drug
37:07
Speaker 1: manufactured from the fear of children called adreno chrome, and
37:11
Speaker 1: they also think that Monsters eight, the Pixar film is
37:14
Speaker 1: essentially a forty and slip that that's what kind of
37:16
Speaker 1: happens and Hollywood accidentally told on themselves. Um so the
37:20
Speaker 1: story goes that this chemical is extracted from the pituitary
37:24
Speaker 1: gland of tortured children. From what I can tell, the
37:27
Speaker 1: actual adrena chrome is fairly easily obtained chemical. I don't
37:30
Speaker 1: know that it's like legal, but it's not too hard
37:34
Speaker 1: to get. Not that it's like it doesn't matter, they're
37:36
Speaker 1: not going to listen to me. But obviously I know
37:41
Speaker 1: they went as far as the saying that, yeah, pedophiles,
37:43
Speaker 1: that eight children and that has something to do with
37:45
Speaker 1: that as well, like keeping you as well, because as
37:49
Speaker 1: a satanic ritual, right right you are you are something
37:59
Speaker 1: else anyway. So there has been some pushback against these
38:04
Speaker 1: narratives recently. In seventeen, Helen Maron appeared on the cover
38:10
Speaker 1: of a Lord magazine where she was called the hero
38:12
Speaker 1: we need and when it comes to ending the anti
38:16
Speaker 1: aging industry. That same article got a lot of flak
38:19
Speaker 1: for its promise to use different terms of things like
38:22
Speaker 1: anti aging, anti wrinkle drawing criticism that it was just
38:26
Speaker 1: repackaging the same stereotypes. Yeah, it was this whole thing.
38:30
Speaker 1: It's kind of hard where you're like, I think this
38:33
Speaker 1: is where we have a hard time with feminism as
38:35
Speaker 1: well women, not because we don't think it exists and
38:39
Speaker 1: we know it's necessary, but the fact that we have
38:41
Speaker 1: to highlight it in such a way that it becomes
38:44
Speaker 1: a typical and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be like
38:48
Speaker 1: they should just let it be. The opposite should be happening,
38:51
Speaker 1: where we don't have to worry about aging. Instead of
38:53
Speaker 1: highlighting it looks she looks so young and forever young
38:56
Speaker 1: because she's successful. Now it's like we should change that
38:59
Speaker 1: and make that a norm instead of trying to highlight
39:02
Speaker 1: it being unusual. Can we do that same thing with
39:05
Speaker 1: feminist stuff, Like we shouldn't be highlighting someone because they're
39:08
Speaker 1: doing well as a woman, but we have to in
39:10
Speaker 1: order for any recognition or any equity to be had.
39:14
Speaker 1: And it's irritating. Yeah, oh yeah, but whatever the case.
39:19
Speaker 1: People are finally getting tired of all of this. Yea
39:22
Speaker 1: US included two thousand twelve worldwide study found a sixty
39:27
Speaker 1: of respondents belief that our cultural preoccupation with youth have
39:32
Speaker 1: gone too far. And yeah, I think we just started
39:36
Speaker 1: to understand that as all of the regimens and the
39:40
Speaker 1: turturies and the money that we could spend, and the
39:43
Speaker 1: lies that are happening, and the influencers like keep spouting
39:47
Speaker 1: miracle drug. Yeah. Yeah. And there are a lot of
39:52
Speaker 1: reasons behind our cultural preoccupation with you, some of which
39:55
Speaker 1: we've already talked about, and particularly in this context in
39:57
Speaker 1: the West, one is yep, money, capitalism. People are believed
40:00
Speaker 1: to be, not always accurately, actually the people who spend
40:04
Speaker 1: more time on screens and thus are exposed to more ads.
40:08
Speaker 1: Because of that, ads often are more geared towards younger
40:11
Speaker 1: people and feature younger people, which intern leads to this
40:14
Speaker 1: idea that youth is the norm and what we should
40:16
Speaker 1: all strive for. We should all want to be these
40:18
Speaker 1: beautiful young people were seeing in ads because they're cool
40:22
Speaker 1: and there's something to aspire to. Again, generalizations, because most
40:27
Speaker 1: ads I see these days are just cringe e. But
40:30
Speaker 1: you know that's the idea. Um They represent people who
40:34
Speaker 1: are connected and living life to the fullest people aged
40:38
Speaker 1: eighteen to thirty have long been believed to have the
40:40
Speaker 1: most disposable income, but again study found that people over
40:44
Speaker 1: fifty accounted for over forty seven percent of household spending.
40:47
Speaker 1: And that's been an interesting conversation to play out as
40:49
Speaker 1: well of just like how these kids are just coming
40:53
Speaker 1: out of college, how do they have disposable And I
40:56
Speaker 1: think it's just a really false It kind of goes
40:59
Speaker 1: back to this conversation where we're there's all this handwringing
41:02
Speaker 1: over likens aren't buying houses and known cars anymore, and
41:05
Speaker 1: we're like, yeah, because we are not the same generation
41:08
Speaker 1: and we don't have we can't get jobs, we can't
41:10
Speaker 1: get well paid jobs, Like it's different. But I think
41:13
Speaker 1: they're basing it off of how it was and it's
41:16
Speaker 1: a mistake and it's not the same anymore. Interesting I'm
41:19
Speaker 1: baffle because I'm like, I didn't get a living wage,
41:21
Speaker 1: truly living wage until I had three jobs and that
41:26
Speaker 1: was just four years ago. Yeah. No, I think it's
41:30
Speaker 1: really misinformed. I think it's based off of how it
41:33
Speaker 1: was with like boomers who who had this postible right,
41:36
Speaker 1: but it's not. So another reason our narratives around age,
41:41
Speaker 1: especially for women, as something humiliating, in shapable, something to
41:46
Speaker 1: fight against lest yeah, we need to we need to fight. Yeah,
41:50
Speaker 1: for that, we need to fight to change it. Well,
41:52
Speaker 1: let's just how when you think of because companies and
41:55
Speaker 1: capitalism is so good at doing this and adapting, right,
41:58
Speaker 1: So we're like, oh, we don't like anti agent. Quit
42:01
Speaker 1: saying that in your ads, and they're like okay, And
42:03
Speaker 1: so now they're using all these words like combat or
42:05
Speaker 1: defy or implying that you're fighting against this thing, which
42:10
Speaker 1: thereby implies that it is bad. Yeah. Yep. Another factor
42:19
Speaker 1: is this long held belief that youth is linked to
42:21
Speaker 1: fertility and health and women, and that's a young person,
42:23
Speaker 1: particularly a woman, is a more desirable partner. And we've
42:26
Speaker 1: talked about that a lot. This very unfortunate, unfortunate pressure
42:32
Speaker 1: for young women like our sexual desirability, particularly when comes
42:37
Speaker 1: of the male gaze, is also the value and youth
42:40
Speaker 1: is usually almost always tied into that. A study of
42:44
Speaker 1: dating sites conducted by sociologists at the University of Michigan
42:47
Speaker 1: found that a woman's desirability to other website users began
42:50
Speaker 1: to decline after age eighteen, whereas a man's desirability as
42:54
Speaker 1: a potential date could peak as late as forty five,
42:56
Speaker 1: which is just upsetting. That's eight. Yeah, yeah, this makes
43:03
Speaker 1: me want of like flip the table over what eighteen
43:08
Speaker 1: the hill. So in two thousand and eleven, study found
43:12
Speaker 1: that men reported feeling old at fifty eight. For women,
43:16
Speaker 1: oh yeah, twenty nine. Yeah. I always talk about I
43:21
Speaker 1: make a joke about feeling older. It's typically because my
43:24
Speaker 1: friend groups, I'm the older one of the friends groups,
43:27
Speaker 1: so I always tease about the fact that I'm old.
43:30
Speaker 1: I don't know if I started feeling really old until
43:33
Speaker 1: recently when my hips started hurting, which I was running in.
43:36
Speaker 1: My hips started hurting around thirty five, and I was like,
43:39
Speaker 1: oh God, what's happening? And my back went out, and
43:43
Speaker 1: I was like, yep, there it is. Yeah. I think
43:47
Speaker 1: it's an interesting juxtaposition with conversations that you and I
43:50
Speaker 1: have had. Whereas I don't necessarily feel old, but man,
43:53
Speaker 1: am I already preparing for what if I slip in
43:55
Speaker 1: the shower? Like I'm already imagining these scenarios and what
44:02
Speaker 1: am I gonna do? Um? Which is I mean that
44:04
Speaker 1: is also a big part of what we're talking about.
44:06
Speaker 1: Too right that we've talked about that a lot of
44:08
Speaker 1: this fear of ending up as the heaven forbid the
44:11
Speaker 1: spinster who has no one who's gonna care for her,
44:13
Speaker 1: and she's going to die alone, die alone. Un yep
44:18
Speaker 1: it is, and we've talked about that recently, and we're
44:22
Speaker 1: not going to go into too much history because we
44:24
Speaker 1: did talk about it, and we have talked about it
44:25
Speaker 1: in several things. If you didn't listen to our Ridiculous
44:28
Speaker 1: History episode, you can hear us go into more examples
44:31
Speaker 1: of the history of women trying to usually capture beauty
44:36
Speaker 1: and youth through these very dangerous and painful looking things. Often,
44:40
Speaker 1: but yes, there are so many instances throughout history of
44:43
Speaker 1: people and especially women going to extreme measures to stay young,
44:46
Speaker 1: whether it's Cleopatra bathing in the milk of animals, Elizabeth
44:50
Speaker 1: Bathory allegedly bathing in the blood of virgins, Medieval and
44:55
Speaker 1: Victorian practices of putting slices of meat or putting some
44:58
Speaker 1: wine on the face and hope of minimizing the appearance
45:01
Speaker 1: of wrinkles. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ads
45:05
Speaker 1: around skin creams were almost entirely targeted towards women with
45:08
Speaker 1: these messages that looking young was the only way that
45:11
Speaker 1: they could attract men. And here are some examples of
45:14
Speaker 1: it at copy from this time, one claiming that quote
45:17
Speaker 1: middle aged skin, which could set in as young as
45:20
Speaker 1: twenty two, meant that women had quote empty date books
45:24
Speaker 1: or a wife who quote loses love. There was an
45:28
Speaker 1: ad that featured to Belieguered Cupid crying I give up
45:32
Speaker 1: um a nineteen ad read poor lois, see how old
45:36
Speaker 1: she's growing? Or this ad that asked is it the
45:40
Speaker 1: greatest crisis of a woman's emotional life? The sudden merciless
45:43
Speaker 1: message from a mirrors crystal dips you are fading just
45:47
Speaker 1: a bit? How dare you? Yes, don't throw me? And
45:54
Speaker 1: this is also like, I mean, no surprise, but depending
45:58
Speaker 1: on the life you've had and career options you've had,
46:00
Speaker 1: an environment you grew up in, your skin might just
46:04
Speaker 1: get a little rougher around the edges, have access genetics,
46:10
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of things not necessarily in your control
46:13
Speaker 1: or at all in your control. And this is just terrible. Again,
46:18
Speaker 1: I filled that's a threat. So as these days have
46:21
Speaker 1: shifted gears to sound yes, more modern, moving from shaming
46:25
Speaker 1: language to traditionally empowering language like defy or combat as
46:30
Speaker 1: you had just said. And then there's also the health
46:32
Speaker 1: based jargon for you, like vitality, radiance, or that glow
46:37
Speaker 1: which I told recently that I was glowing. I was like, yeah,
46:40
Speaker 1: I'm just really oil any things right. And there's a
46:44
Speaker 1: lot of emphasis on natural and the scientific sounding terms,
46:48
Speaker 1: which if you haven't noticed, we don't have many of
46:50
Speaker 1: those ads that we boys because and he's like Helena
46:53
Speaker 1: and I definitely agree. And in two thousand seven, Dove
46:57
Speaker 1: even debuted a pro age line because we're pro age.
47:01
Speaker 1: In eighteen and neut Regina ran an ad featuring Kerrie Washington,
47:05
Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman, and Jennifer Garner, women all over forty with
47:09
Speaker 1: a tagline We're not anti aging, We're anti recals. Yeah.
47:13
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the same thing in that Well,
47:16
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of this whole thing we've been talking about,
47:19
Speaker 1: is we're these companies are so good at this. They're
47:22
Speaker 1: repackaging the same thing different language, but it's still the
47:26
Speaker 1: same thing with celebrity level of examples. Rather occasionally, these
47:32
Speaker 1: companies get fine for making unsubstantiated claims like boosting Jenes.
47:36
Speaker 1: If you'll notice the language in these ad copy is
47:40
Speaker 1: usually quite vague, and I only did a precursorysearch on this,
47:44
Speaker 1: but I'm fairly certain nothing has None of this has
47:49
Speaker 1: been proven to work. All it does like a lot
47:51
Speaker 1: of times they'll say might minimize the appearance of wrinkles
47:54
Speaker 1: or something like that, but yeah, you might want to
47:56
Speaker 1: keep an eye out for that. We've also got things, yes,
48:00
Speaker 1: the vampire facial leeches and placentic treatments that celebrities are
48:03
Speaker 1: singing the praises of, like some of the sounds when
48:05
Speaker 1: I was reading up like surely this is the six
48:07
Speaker 1: or something. Nope, it is modern day. So this has
48:11
Speaker 1: just been a through line through our history. And also
48:16
Speaker 1: like it is fascinating kind of what's been happening with
48:20
Speaker 1: some of these women celebrities who have been releasing like
48:23
Speaker 1: that non edited picture um, which is also we've talked
48:28
Speaker 1: about that in the past episode, but it was a
48:29
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, so we might want to revisit it.
48:31
Speaker 1: That can be problematic as well. It's tricky, it's yeah,
48:35
Speaker 1: but it's interesting, interesting stuff happening here. Well, all of
48:40
Speaker 1: this rebranding around anti age was mostly due to the
48:44
Speaker 1: fact that anti aging was already on the way out
48:47
Speaker 1: from profits in that sector of fill from two point
48:51
Speaker 1: to billion dollars to one point nine billion dollars. So yeah,
48:56
Speaker 1: I do hope it decreases. I really do. Yeah. I
49:00
Speaker 1: mean again, if it's something that makes you feel good
49:01
Speaker 1: and you like it, like I have plenty of skin
49:03
Speaker 1: products that just make my skin feel nice, and I
49:07
Speaker 1: love a good just washing of the face, to be honest,
49:11
Speaker 1: it's surprising how nice that can feel. But yeah, this
49:14
Speaker 1: like language and rhetoric around demonizing aging and women especially
49:19
Speaker 1: who are aging any signs of it, that's not healthy
49:23
Speaker 1: and that we need to change and we need to
49:25
Speaker 1: work change that, right and anything that's too gimmicky and
49:29
Speaker 1: over the top versus the things that, yeah, again make
49:31
Speaker 1: you feel good by yourself, that's great if that's something
49:34
Speaker 1: that you enjoy and feel good, wonderful. But to be
49:38
Speaker 1: obsessive and lose a lot of money and doing all
49:41
Speaker 1: these things that really causes you more harm, that's that's
49:44
Speaker 1: a different question in itself, and I think that that
49:47
Speaker 1: that's definitely what we're talking about and understanding, Like aging
49:50
Speaker 1: is not a bad thing, surviving is incredible good job,
49:54
Speaker 1: you did it, which is kind of how I celebrate.
49:56
Speaker 1: I get depressed around my birthday. I've been talking a
49:59
Speaker 1: lot about depression likely uh, mainly because it has a
50:02
Speaker 1: whole other connotation with trauma, and that has something to
50:05
Speaker 1: do with the holidays, which happened around the season, and
50:07
Speaker 1: I have a whole lot of like feelings on that.
50:10
Speaker 1: But what I do celebrate the reason I don't hide
50:13
Speaker 1: my ages because I'm like, yeah, I did it. Yeah,
50:15
Speaker 1: I didn't think I can make it. I made it.
50:17
Speaker 1: Forty one did it? Yes, So we're happy that you
50:22
Speaker 1: did many more returns. Um. But that's the other thing
50:25
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the other day, is I just
50:27
Speaker 1: it's not a great way to live if every day
50:30
Speaker 1: you're like you think your value is getting less, and
50:35
Speaker 1: it's not a great way to go, um, go about life. Anyway.
50:39
Speaker 1: We had a lot to say about this, Yes we
50:41
Speaker 1: did well. Listeners. As always, we would love to hear
50:45
Speaker 1: from you. You can email us at step Media, mom
50:48
Speaker 1: Stuff at i heeart media dot com. You can find
50:50
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at most of podcast or Instagram at
50:52
Speaker 1: stuff I've Never told you things. As always, to our
50:55
Speaker 1: super producer Christina, thank you, Thanks to you, for listening
50:58
Speaker 1: stuff I never told his prediction of I Radio. For
51:00
Speaker 1: more podcast on my Heart Radio VI is the I
51:02
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
51:04
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.