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SMNTY Classics: Dying to be Young · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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