Latest / Love Matters With Leeza Mangaldas / How Social Media is Shaping Gen Z Relationships | Ria Chopra

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How Social Media is Shaping Gen Z Relationships | Ria Chopra · Love Matters With Leeza Mangaldas

0:00
Speaker 1: Public displays off. Affection isn't just a physical thing anymore,
0:03
Speaker 1: That's something that happens on life. I like to personally
0:06
Speaker 1: call the Internet as like the sixth love language.
0:09
Speaker 2: So showing off your like of a resistance from a
0:12
Speaker 2: partner to post about you might feel a bit like
0:14
Speaker 2: a resistance from a partner to introduce you to their friends.
0:17
Speaker 1: Exactly. For someone who doesn't have social media, it's street
0:19
Speaker 1: of like, I just don't have it, so I can't
0:21
Speaker 1: post you. But when a person has it and uses
0:25
Speaker 1: it and isn't posting you, does that mean you're not
0:28
Speaker 1: part of their personal life? Are they not wanting to
0:31
Speaker 1: share you with their social life?
0:38
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Love Matters. I'm Lisa Mangobaz, and
0:41
Speaker 2: on the show today we have Riya Chopra. Ria. You
0:45
Speaker 2: are someone who's insights on gen z and love and
0:49
Speaker 2: language and the Internet and how they're navigating identity is
0:52
Speaker 2: endlessly fascinating and actually not just to me, also to
0:55
Speaker 2: the nearly one hundred thousand others that follow you, and
0:59
Speaker 2: we're so excited to be unpacking some of that today.
1:01
Speaker 1: Same, I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.
1:04
Speaker 1: I love watching this podcast and I'm so glad you
1:07
Speaker 1: got me on it.
1:08
Speaker 2: How intertwined do you feel social media and relationships have
1:13
Speaker 2: become for gen Z?
1:15
Speaker 1: I think social media and the Internet at large is
1:18
Speaker 1: one of the primary ways that younger people are forming, finding, forming,
1:23
Speaker 1: and then maintaining their relationships. It's but natural that a
1:28
Speaker 1: generation that has experienced so much of its life online
1:31
Speaker 1: has found ways to find community online, to engage with
1:35
Speaker 1: their interests online. Of course, would also engage in love
1:39
Speaker 1: online and in so many ways, from dating apps to
1:43
Speaker 1: social media relationship updates to couple blogs on YouTube's. It's
1:50
Speaker 1: a vast fast word of love and social media for
1:53
Speaker 1: young people.
1:54
Speaker 2: Now, you wrote this article for advice you know, would
1:57
Speaker 2: you break up if your partner and post you on Instagram?
2:00
Speaker 2: And I loved you started the article with this line,
2:04
Speaker 2: it's not so much about them wanting to post you. No,
2:09
Speaker 2: it's not so much about them posting you, but rather
2:12
Speaker 2: about them wanting me to post here about you. Right
2:15
Speaker 2: where did that tell me about? Where were you in
2:17
Speaker 2: a relationship at the time? Did that have any personal
2:19
Speaker 2: resonance for you? The origin of that article.
2:21
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. That relationship also the same one that
2:24
Speaker 1: I'm in right now. We've been together for a while.
2:27
Speaker 1: It's me and my partner are very different in how
2:30
Speaker 1: we use social media. So that article was born out
2:34
Speaker 1: of personal experience, But also I read this research report
2:38
Speaker 1: that had indicated that I wasn't the only person feeling
2:41
Speaker 1: this way, and like I said, it is natural for
2:43
Speaker 1: the generation whose life is so very online to also
2:48
Speaker 1: want expressions of love and pediate like public displays of
2:52
Speaker 1: affection isn't just a physical thing anymore than something that
2:55
Speaker 1: happens online. I like to personally call the Internet as
2:59
Speaker 1: like the sixth love language. You know the other five
3:01
Speaker 1: that pop therapy speak will tell you that there are.
3:05
Speaker 1: I think the Internet has become an a random to
3:08
Speaker 1: that list. So for me, that article was a combination
3:12
Speaker 1: of personal lived experience statistics that showed that other people
3:15
Speaker 1: were feeling the same way, and then me talking to
3:18
Speaker 1: a bunch of other people but experiencing that gap and
3:21
Speaker 1: that their closest relationships. I also feel like writing something
3:26
Speaker 1: like that gives me more perspective in how I view
3:30
Speaker 1: that part of my life, and a lot of people
3:32
Speaker 1: I spoke with also said that this is something they feel.
3:34
Speaker 1: I think that specific line is Batten not an argument,
3:37
Speaker 1: but a discussion that we were having when I told
3:39
Speaker 1: my partner that I don't want you to post me.
3:42
Speaker 1: I want you to want to post me on Instagram.
3:45
Speaker 1: But he's someone who has like zero posts, and it's
3:49
Speaker 1: not like that conversation was something that we had a
3:52
Speaker 1: lot in the beginning of our relationship. I think we've
3:54
Speaker 1: settled into a better space now in terms of we
3:57
Speaker 1: understand each other a lot more. But yeah, like that
4:00
Speaker 1: was definitely like a point of difference between us, and
4:04
Speaker 1: we've learned from each other in that respect.
4:07
Speaker 2: I think for the uninitiated, can you tell us what
4:11
Speaker 2: a soft launch would mean in the context of posting
4:14
Speaker 2: about a relationship on Instagram.
4:15
Speaker 1: I find it quite interesting that soft launch was originally
4:18
Speaker 1: a term that was applied in the tech industry. It's
4:21
Speaker 1: when someone's about a launch a product. It's not fully
4:24
Speaker 1: out yet, but you start teasing it a bit in
4:27
Speaker 1: your advertising. You know, the founder goes somewhere and drops
4:30
Speaker 1: like a little bit but saying we have something coming
4:33
Speaker 1: out soon. And it's exactly that in the context of
4:36
Speaker 1: a romantic relationship in your life, which is when you
4:40
Speaker 1: haven't put your partner publicly on your Instagram. You haven't
4:44
Speaker 1: shown a picture that clearly shows that this is my
4:47
Speaker 1: romantic partner. But you put their hand in a frame.
4:50
Speaker 1: Either there's two coffee cups, one you're holding, one someone's holding.
4:55
Speaker 1: It's a for women specifically, like it's a it's a
4:59
Speaker 1: man's hand, right, it's quite clear that this is some one. Yeah, obviously,
5:04
Speaker 1: because men can do that. So that that's a surft
5:07
Speaker 1: launch where you've started softly hinting that there's maybe someone
5:10
Speaker 1: in my life. It's a mirror selfie with the mirror
5:13
Speaker 1: covering this mysterious person's face. And I would also want
5:17
Speaker 1: to point out that performance on social media is specifically
5:22
Speaker 1: romantic performance, but performance of all kinds is quite often
5:25
Speaker 1: seen to be the domain in the domain for women
5:29
Speaker 1: to be doing. When people talk about creators or influencers,
5:34
Speaker 1: very often they're talking about women in that field, and
5:38
Speaker 1: women do form a large part of these industries. But
5:41
Speaker 1: I see men on my feed equally doing soft launching
5:44
Speaker 1: and this performance of unveiling their partners slowly. I find
5:49
Speaker 1: it quite interesting that a lot of people now are
5:52
Speaker 1: proud if not soft launching where they say that I
5:56
Speaker 1: may see the Shahdi Pey hard launch karung like that's
5:58
Speaker 1: also becometing directly hard launching my part, but does.
6:03
Speaker 2: No, no, it can just just like a full pick exactly.
6:06
Speaker 1: It's like, this is my romantic part of this is
6:08
Speaker 1: their face.
6:09
Speaker 2: So have you guys soft lunch hard lunched.
6:12
Speaker 1: I think they've been constantly soft launching for years at
6:15
Speaker 1: this point of time. He's been hard launched also various times.
6:19
Speaker 1: But it's his own desire to not want to be
6:23
Speaker 1: on social media so much that I respect now. So
6:25
Speaker 1: I don't put a lot of him on my social media.
6:28
Speaker 1: But he's quoted in the article. His name is out there.
6:31
Speaker 1: We meet people publicly sometimes who say that we've seen
6:35
Speaker 1: him on your Instagram, So I think it's an extension
6:39
Speaker 1: of him, uh being with someone who has now a
6:42
Speaker 1: following online. So he has to make peace to the
6:44
Speaker 1: fact that he's also part of my life and if
6:46
Speaker 1: my life is online, he's going to be there too.
6:50
Speaker 1: But we've reached a compromise in terms of how much
6:52
Speaker 1: of him his life we put and it's it's I
6:57
Speaker 1: like to protect that previously as well. I'm sure you
6:59
Speaker 1: was have these conversations with and anyone who's a creator
7:03
Speaker 1: should keep having these conversations with their partner. It's not
7:05
Speaker 1: a by default thing can post for our media Instagram
7:10
Speaker 1: that I think it's something you should be talking and
7:13
Speaker 1: constantly checking in on.
7:15
Speaker 2: I've actually never posted about a partner ever ever, partly
7:21
Speaker 2: because I think my content is so specific, don't it's
7:24
Speaker 2: not that much about my life as it is about
7:26
Speaker 2: this subject. And also partly because I feel like, because
7:30
Speaker 2: I talk about sex, any man who I post about
7:33
Speaker 2: will just get like a kind of unsplicited. I don't know.
7:37
Speaker 2: I just think, like, why I put someone through that.
7:39
Speaker 2: I think at this point I reach only I mean,
7:42
Speaker 2: it's not really about my personal social circle. I'm just
7:45
Speaker 2: reaching people I don't know. And so it's I was
7:48
Speaker 2: thinking about when we were talking, like how for people
7:51
Speaker 2: who are not creators, let's say, Instagram then serves more
7:56
Speaker 2: symmetrically as an extension of their irl social circle. So
8:00
Speaker 2: showing off your like a resistance from a partner to
8:04
Speaker 2: post about you might feel a bit like a resistance
8:06
Speaker 2: from a partner to introduce you to their friends exactly exactly.
8:09
Speaker 2: I'm thirty five, I'm that old generation of Lilyasing esque
8:12
Speaker 2: creators old, and I feel like by the time I
8:14
Speaker 2: got Instagram, it was already with that I was working
8:19
Speaker 2: as a journalist. The intention was to use it for work.
8:22
Speaker 2: I had never had a private account, and I never
8:24
Speaker 2: posted with the intention of updating my friends. It was
8:27
Speaker 2: kind of like an extension of what of the work
8:29
Speaker 2: I was doing for Times Now and Star Sports at
8:31
Speaker 2: the time, so I never had the sort of I
8:37
Speaker 2: didn't have to change how I was using it because
8:39
Speaker 2: I started off using it as a more work driven platform.
8:45
Speaker 2: But I was thinking about what it would mean for
8:47
Speaker 2: people who use it only privately, have no intention of
8:50
Speaker 2: creating for public consumption, and the sort of like social
8:54
Speaker 2: interactions and the meaning they take on when that's just
8:56
Speaker 2: an extension of your real life interactions, you know, with
8:59
Speaker 2: some who sees your stories but doesn't reply to your
9:04
Speaker 2: texts and things like that.
9:06
Speaker 1: One of the people I spoke with while writing my
9:09
Speaker 1: piece was quite an interesting case because there's two individuals,
9:12
Speaker 1: private individuals with private accounts, and uh it was a
9:15
Speaker 1: woman dating a guy and her problem was that he
9:19
Speaker 1: wouldn't post her, but he posts when he'd go out
9:22
Speaker 1: with friends, and you know, then that asymmetricity in the
9:28
Speaker 1: kind of posting that's happening is a question mark because
9:30
Speaker 1: it's like that thing of why won't you introduce me
9:33
Speaker 1: to them? Like are you ashamed of me? It's easy
9:35
Speaker 1: to start drawing those conclusions. And for people who are
9:40
Speaker 1: both private accounts, I feel like the reasons are not
9:44
Speaker 1: that clear. Like for a creator, it's like for you,
9:47
Speaker 1: it's like this is work, so I'm not going to
9:49
Speaker 1: post you, and that's a blanket.
9:50
Speaker 2: I want to save you from the horrors at the Internet.
9:54
Speaker 1: For someone who doesn't have social media, it's treet like
9:56
Speaker 1: that's a very very small person each today. But then
9:58
Speaker 1: that's like I just don't have so I can't post you.
10:01
Speaker 1: But when a person has it and uses it and
10:04
Speaker 1: isn't posting you, does that mean you're not part of
10:07
Speaker 1: their personal life? Are they not wanting to share you
10:11
Speaker 1: with their social life? A lot of the comments this
10:14
Speaker 1: article blew up a little bit on Twitter, so a
10:17
Speaker 1: lot of the commentary was like this is a shadow
10:19
Speaker 1: thing to worry about. But I think people's feelings are
10:21
Speaker 1: the most deep things possible, So this is causing upheaval
10:25
Speaker 1: in relationships, like people can feel good or bad about
10:29
Speaker 1: how their partners engaging with social media. I think It's
10:32
Speaker 1: something we should be talking about more, and this needs
10:34
Speaker 1: to be a conversation not just with romantic partners, like
10:37
Speaker 1: I do still have it with my parents. I used
10:40
Speaker 1: to post them a lot. Like I said, I've had
10:42
Speaker 1: the same account since I was a teenager, so this
10:44
Speaker 1: is just I still don't see it as a page
10:46
Speaker 1: like this is my profile, which is why I don't
10:49
Speaker 1: like this feeling of having to control what I'm posting.
10:54
Speaker 1: But I've accepted it as a necessity. And people sometimes
10:58
Speaker 1: say things to you. I see people dissecting creators relationships
11:03
Speaker 1: and like Twitter and Reddit and all of these things,
11:06
Speaker 1: like they used to look so happy together and then
11:08
Speaker 1: they divorced and all that those things. So knowing that
11:12
Speaker 1: your conversation, your relationship can be up for public conversation
11:17
Speaker 1: is not a nice feeling too exactly. And I think,
11:20
Speaker 1: like for me, it's now extended to their friends, family.
11:23
Speaker 1: I don't post my parents as much. My sister had
11:26
Speaker 1: a baby, We're not putting the baby on Instagram or
11:28
Speaker 1: on any social media. So I think this is something
11:31
Speaker 1: to navigate across all domains of your social life for sure,
11:34
Speaker 1: and for people with private accounts as that, I think
11:36
Speaker 1: this it might be a question that they would have
11:39
Speaker 1: in all these fields as well.
11:41
Speaker 2: But it is interesting how small and seemingly shallow ways
11:47
Speaker 2: in which we might interact or not interact with each
11:49
Speaker 2: other online do have an impact on how we feel
11:53
Speaker 2: received or seen or understood or included, whether it's you know,
11:58
Speaker 2: somebody not responding something that you sent them, or somebody
12:02
Speaker 2: liking or commenting on some others, Like, there's so many
12:05
Speaker 2: people who maybe I find, at least in my DMS,
12:09
Speaker 2: women complaining that their boyfriends like follow too many random
12:13
Speaker 2: women on Instagram, And you know, what do you think
12:15
Speaker 2: about that? Would you stop your partner from following or
12:18
Speaker 2: make them unfollow anybody? Not necessarily models, but anybody. For me,
12:22
Speaker 2: if if I was if I matched with someone on
12:24
Speaker 2: a dating app and then went to their socials and
12:26
Speaker 2: found out that they like follow Jordan Peterson or I
12:30
Speaker 2: would be like, oh no, no, bye bye, we're not meeting.
12:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, someone's following is a reflection of what kinds
12:37
Speaker 1: of things they like to see, So for me, that
12:39
Speaker 1: would be like specifically politically or socially opposing viewpoints to
12:43
Speaker 1: mind if they're following people with that sort of thing.
12:45
Speaker 1: Andrew d takes straight up no Peterson, Indian politicians or that.
12:52
Speaker 1: But I think this Instagram model thing is also it's
12:55
Speaker 1: a point for conversation, and it's like a personal thing.
12:59
Speaker 1: I follow a couple of people just because they're hot
13:01
Speaker 1: and too.
13:03
Speaker 2: Women too exactly a beautiful woman as such a joy
13:06
Speaker 2: to look at.
13:08
Speaker 1: I think it's a mad scale and it's a personal thing.
13:12
Speaker 1: I would have a conversation about it if it bothered me,
13:15
Speaker 1: because that's the point. If it bothers me, my partner
13:18
Speaker 1: should be.
13:18
Speaker 2: It's you know, men also who are upset that their
13:21
Speaker 2: partners post first traps. Oh yeah, you know, it's a
13:25
Speaker 2: bit like it's quite interesting both the cliche. I guess
13:28
Speaker 2: if the female partner upset that the male partner is
13:30
Speaker 2: following like only fans go to something, and then that
13:34
Speaker 2: the male partner upset that the female partner's posted like
13:37
Speaker 2: a picture of a bikini or something.
13:39
Speaker 1: Even in that dynamic, we do position the woman as
13:42
Speaker 1: the performer and the man is the consumer, even when
13:47
Speaker 1: you because that's that's how Instagram and social media larre
13:50
Speaker 1: has grown up to operate. But yeah, I think that
13:55
Speaker 1: that's also a question that a lot of people in
13:58
Speaker 1: my circus have had, especially with creators. Also because women
14:03
Speaker 1: who post doing to look a certain way sometimes and
14:06
Speaker 1: they're especially their beauty influencers, make up influencers. They want
14:10
Speaker 1: to look pretty on Instagram. And then if that becomes
14:13
Speaker 1: a point of contention in your relationship, and then it's
14:16
Speaker 1: like career versus your partner, and your partners seeing your
14:19
Speaker 1: career as an enemy. I think that's a question mark
14:22
Speaker 1: if your private individuals and this is happening, and then
14:26
Speaker 1: the conversation of who is this for? Then you know,
14:29
Speaker 1: if I'm going to a gym, I want to put
14:30
Speaker 1: like a you know, myse selfie and a man doing that,
14:33
Speaker 1: like men put shortest pictures all the time, like why
14:36
Speaker 1: then a woman doing it is a problem. I want
14:39
Speaker 1: to beach. I want to put a picture of me
14:40
Speaker 1: in a bikini. That should be all right. And like
14:44
Speaker 1: I said, it's a personal piece of navigation. I don't
14:47
Speaker 1: want to impose my viewpoints to anybody. But I think
14:50
Speaker 1: if it bothers, you talk about it, and if they're
14:53
Speaker 1: hostile to that, then leave them. Like I'm a big
14:56
Speaker 1: just breakup sort of person, Like if anyone my friends
14:59
Speaker 1: don't come to me for the relationship advice because you.
15:04
Speaker 2: Know, someone's got to stay it real. So thanks for
15:06
Speaker 2: thanks for being the one with that advice. On that note,
15:09
Speaker 2: we're going to play a little game where I'm gonna
15:11
Speaker 2: read you some scenarios and you're going to rate these behaviors.
15:14
Speaker 2: But Instagram partner olympics. Okay, let's go rate them on
15:17
Speaker 2: a scale of one to ten. We're ten is like
15:19
Speaker 2: best Instagram partner ever and one is like epic fail.
15:23
Speaker 1: So one is.
15:27
Speaker 2: Exactly offers to take twenty photos at Golden hour without complaining. Yeah,
15:32
Speaker 2: good good.
15:34
Speaker 1: They call this Instagram boyfriend or Instagram husband, like your
15:39
Speaker 1: partner appreciates your Instagram is and is party to that,
15:43
Speaker 1: and they want you to look good. They take your pictures,
15:46
Speaker 1: they'll post for you without complaints. They're okay that ham
15:49
Speaker 1: kan is a photo engage.
15:51
Speaker 2: You know they have never had an Instagram boyfriend. Yeah,
15:55
Speaker 2: they couldn't take pictures to save their life.
15:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just this is all to my sister or
16:01
Speaker 1: my friends, because women also know how to make women
16:04
Speaker 1: look good. I feel like my partner tries, but he
16:09
Speaker 1: will take this. Beauty is in the eye of the beholders.
16:12
Speaker 1: He take the ugliest foote of me like you look
16:15
Speaker 1: so pretty when I don't. So yeah, but this is
16:20
Speaker 1: this cute. I appreciate it. Okay, ten nine, ten.
16:23
Speaker 2: Okay, tags you in every post, even memes, I.
16:28
Speaker 1: Would get annoyed, like maybe like five day max. But
16:34
Speaker 1: but it's good they're thinking of me, and maybe like
16:37
Speaker 1: six seven I would get annoyed by that by blowing
16:40
Speaker 1: off my phone.
16:42
Speaker 2: Okay, asks is this one story worthy? After taking a selfie?
16:47
Speaker 2: I think men should post.
16:49
Speaker 1: There's so much.
16:52
Speaker 2: I really think men should just take just be behind
16:54
Speaker 2: the camera.
16:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got it, get turned up.
16:58
Speaker 2: Two. I have a double standard around that women should
17:02
Speaker 2: take a ton of pictures of themselves if they want,
17:04
Speaker 2: but men just shouldn't.
17:06
Speaker 1: I have never other than the one or two hot
17:08
Speaker 1: people that I follow, I've never scrolled on Instagram hoping
17:12
Speaker 1: to see a man. I do scroll hoping to see
17:16
Speaker 1: them and look good and take outfit ideas from them
17:18
Speaker 1: and hear what they're talking about.
17:20
Speaker 2: So maybe men need to learn to take better pictures.
17:23
Speaker 2: Men take terrible pictures, like.
17:24
Speaker 1: They just learn how writing works.
17:28
Speaker 2: Forgets to post you on your anniversary?
17:31
Speaker 1: Total yeah, like for me, it's birthday and anniversaries. I
17:35
Speaker 1: think even for someone and like big career moments like
17:39
Speaker 1: so you get promoted with your brand, gets launched or
17:44
Speaker 1: something like that. I feel like, unless they're just not
17:48
Speaker 1: on the app, they should be posting something like it's yeah,
17:55
Speaker 1: no excuse for that, So it's yeah, I wouldn't, especially
17:59
Speaker 1: if you want them to. I assume this question comes
18:01
Speaker 1: when you as a post, So are they going to
18:04
Speaker 1: do it or not? So if you post an aniversity
18:06
Speaker 1: post and they don't, I will. Why don't you want
18:10
Speaker 1: to tell your friends that we've been together for a year,
18:13
Speaker 1: Like what is the problem? So I would not put
18:16
Speaker 1: up with this.
18:18
Speaker 2: Okay, ignorance, the reels and means you DM them.
18:27
Speaker 1: I would. If it happens a few times, then it
18:29
Speaker 1: would get to be a dal breaker. Like it's if
18:32
Speaker 1: I see something and think of you, you should see
18:35
Speaker 1: it too, like that, if I'm sharing this, it's called
18:37
Speaker 1: I think bid for the tension. Also in these spaces,
18:41
Speaker 1: like if I'm sending you something, it's because I want
18:43
Speaker 1: you to see it, so I want you. But I
18:46
Speaker 1: understand sometimes that I feel I'm positioning all these questions
18:50
Speaker 1: in context of my partner. Also, so if they're not
18:53
Speaker 1: to social media friendly, they just don't look at their
18:56
Speaker 1: phone during the day, or they're not scrolling all that much.
19:01
Speaker 1: That's a healthy thing to do all so, like, I'm
19:02
Speaker 1: glad you're able to, you know, spend time outside or
19:05
Speaker 1: at work without constantly checking Instagram. So I would forgive
19:08
Speaker 1: them if they're late. I would forgive them if they'd
19:11
Speaker 1: not apply to a few reays here and there. But
19:13
Speaker 1: if it's a pattern, like they just don't want to
19:15
Speaker 1: see what you send them, then to noted not it.
19:20
Speaker 2: Would you have the same standards for friends or only
19:22
Speaker 2: for a partner.
19:25
Speaker 1: No, I only have these standards for my partner. I
19:27
Speaker 1: think with friends, it's chill, like it's low key, like
19:30
Speaker 1: there's one or two friends I'm committed to, like we're
19:33
Speaker 1: on like a meme sharing thing, and like then we
19:35
Speaker 1: do that. And if like an old friend hits you
19:38
Speaker 1: once and I've had this happen to me, which is
19:41
Speaker 1: something I find so interesting. It's like five years since
19:44
Speaker 1: we last spoke. It's like, oh I saw this and
19:46
Speaker 1: thought of you're like the member when we did this,
19:48
Speaker 1: which is such a wholesome bit for attention or just
19:52
Speaker 1: like earthly calling of no strategic past that you share.
19:55
Speaker 1: I would always respond to those. But I'm alway right,
20:00
Speaker 1: a friend. You know, out of three memes that I've
20:01
Speaker 1: sent them, only the plas to like one or two
20:05
Speaker 1: like it's okay, or they doub it up, or they
20:07
Speaker 1: miss a few times. I do that too.
20:08
Speaker 2: Okay, we shall think about forgiving you Okaya. You have
20:13
Speaker 2: a book coming out, tell me about it. Let's talk
20:17
Speaker 2: about this book. I'm so excited. I'm so excited.
20:20
Speaker 1: I've never spent so much time, like a year and
20:23
Speaker 1: a half in more because this is about all of
20:26
Speaker 1: my learnings from the Internet over the entirety of my life,
20:30
Speaker 1: and I've built it up in my head. I feel
20:32
Speaker 1: like I've been writing this my whole life inside and
20:35
Speaker 1: then to spend over the years putting it down on paper.
20:38
Speaker 1: It's going to come out now, like this is such
20:40
Speaker 1: a long form, long term project, and I'm so excited.
20:46
Speaker 1: You at Liberty to share the title. Yes, I think
20:48
Speaker 1: by the time this episode comes out, the book will
20:51
Speaker 1: be out on Amazon, on zip card and whatever online
20:55
Speaker 1: marketplace you use, and in bookstores near you. It's called
20:59
Speaker 1: Never Logged Out. It's a look at how India's young
21:03
Speaker 1: people gen z as we call them, grew up with
21:06
Speaker 1: and on, and in many ways because of the Internet.
21:10
Speaker 1: I've been writing about the Internet for such a long time,
21:13
Speaker 1: but it's always been articles and reels and like video analysis,
21:18
Speaker 1: and I feel this so much to talk about that
21:21
Speaker 1: it needed to be a book. I've also been wanting
21:24
Speaker 1: to read something like this for a while because I'm
21:27
Speaker 1: tired of reading about the American Internet or like the
21:29
Speaker 1: English Internet, because we're a different internet. No one was
21:34
Speaker 1: writing this book.
21:35
Speaker 2: To create the content you wish to be exactly.
21:37
Speaker 1: Right, So I wrote the book I wanted to read,
21:40
Speaker 1: I think, which is great because there's at least one fan,
21:42
Speaker 1: you know, like my book has one, so I'm quite
21:49
Speaker 1: excited about it. There's an entire chapter dedicated to love
21:52
Speaker 1: on the Internet as well, and I want to talk
21:55
Speaker 1: about that later on. But there's chapters that's looking at
21:57
Speaker 1: how different parts of our life have shifted in ways
22:01
Speaker 1: because of the Internet, so identity creation, things like consumerism,
22:05
Speaker 1: how we look at financial ambition, privacy as a construct,
22:10
Speaker 1: the realm of knowledge altogether, and how we want to
22:15
Speaker 1: see ourselves represented in other kinds of media as well.
22:19
Speaker 1: So it's eight chapters. It's a lot of research and
22:23
Speaker 1: personal anecdotes that I have not read anywhere else that
22:27
Speaker 1: are in there. There are insights that I'm proud of
22:29
Speaker 1: because it reached a point where I used to wake
22:32
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night thinking I have
22:35
Speaker 1: a dream about something, and then I'd wake up and
22:38
Speaker 1: send myself a voice note at two am that writes
22:41
Speaker 1: this down to Moordrows, why don't.
22:42
Speaker 2: You give us an example if you can without too
22:45
Speaker 2: many spoilers, I think you can give us one two
22:48
Speaker 2: am voice note that turned into an insight in your book.
22:50
Speaker 1: So this is interesting. So this love chapter in particular
22:54
Speaker 1: is hinged on a code by Krung that I read
22:58
Speaker 1: some time back that goes, and I'm paraphrasing here because
23:02
Speaker 1: I can't remember that exactly, so I don't want to
23:04
Speaker 1: be courted verbatim on this, but it goes something like,
23:07
Speaker 1: if you like, by a certain point of time in
23:09
Speaker 1: your life, if you don't know who you are, the
23:12
Speaker 1: world will tell you who you are. And I was
23:15
Speaker 1: thinking about this, and it's one of those things you
23:17
Speaker 1: just see on the internet that pinterest winterss Pagada, and
23:21
Speaker 1: I d read it on a certain day and then randomly,
23:24
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, I woke up thinking
23:26
Speaker 1: like this applies to love on the internet today as well.
23:29
Speaker 1: By if you don't come to an understanding of love
23:34
Speaker 1: for yourself, there's so much input from the outside world
23:38
Speaker 1: on how love should look like like hashtag couple goes.
23:42
Speaker 1: And on the other side, you have this tad by
23:45
Speaker 1: sort of thing that's coming out like your man should
23:48
Speaker 1: protect you. And I see then this other shore that's
23:51
Speaker 1: increasingly becoming popular today, which is that should be in
23:55
Speaker 1: your feminine energy and the man should be in the
23:58
Speaker 1: masculine energy and provider my said, and receive a mindset
24:01
Speaker 1: and all of that. So there's so much input, and
24:03
Speaker 1: we've been seeing this for such a long time that
24:06
Speaker 1: if you don't use critical thinking skills to yourself understand
24:10
Speaker 1: what love means for you, it's so easy to get
24:12
Speaker 1: subsumed in what other people are, often with a profit motive,
24:17
Speaker 1: trying to tell you what love is. So then the
24:19
Speaker 1: chapter sort of hinges on that, and I found that
24:24
Speaker 1: quite interesting as a chapter to write, also because it
24:28
Speaker 1: made me think about my own life and how love,
24:31
Speaker 1: the perception of love has changed for me. Another thing
24:35
Speaker 1: that I found interesting, and this is more on the
24:36
Speaker 1: research site, but once again for this chapter in particular,
24:40
Speaker 1: I've written about how we often think that dating apps
24:44
Speaker 1: in particular have made us progressive as people, but the
24:49
Speaker 1: statistics still show that Endegram's marriage, marrying within your own cast,
24:55
Speaker 1: class hierarchies, like, that's still happening as it always was.
24:59
Speaker 1: So you you might have sex with people outside your
25:02
Speaker 1: class group, cast group, you're not marrying them. So how
25:06
Speaker 1: progressive are we really? How breaking the hierarchy are we really?
25:12
Speaker 1: And you know, maybe we're not having so much arranged
25:15
Speaker 1: marriage in the sense of what it used to look like,
25:18
Speaker 1: but we're making some kinds of lists and hierarchies for ourselves,
25:24
Speaker 1: and we're still obeying those rules. So the path breaking
25:28
Speaker 1: this that we thought dating apps or internet dating and
25:31
Speaker 1: internet love could bring into our lives isn't actually true.
25:34
Speaker 2: And people think sometimes that technology equals somehow progressive exactly
25:40
Speaker 2: when often it can just like make it even easier,
25:44
Speaker 2: and it's just optimizing our bias prejudices.
25:47
Speaker 1: It's so much about how you package your content as well,
25:51
Speaker 1: like why is chidwife content seeing such a huge rise
25:55
Speaker 1: now and not just abroad like in India. Also, you
25:58
Speaker 1: see a lot if we didn't have four leaves of
26:01
Speaker 1: feminism right to go back to step one, you know.
26:04
Speaker 1: So it's it can be so easy to propagate all
26:08
Speaker 1: kinds of thought and for people like nowadays, I see
26:12
Speaker 1: kids as young as like seven eight on the Internet.
26:15
Speaker 1: So for them to be consuming that and thinking this
26:17
Speaker 1: is normally, I think it's going to theory shape their
26:20
Speaker 1: perception of what like love and marriage and family looks like,
26:23
Speaker 1: which is scary to think about. No, honestly, they're falling
26:26
Speaker 1: in love with like chad boards and stuff, So that's
26:29
Speaker 1: a whole different.
26:30
Speaker 2: I think there have other problems I want to talk
26:32
Speaker 2: to you about that. We'll talk about AI in just
26:34
Speaker 2: a second. But before that, why don't we play another
26:36
Speaker 2: little yeah, a little game where I throw some Internet
26:40
Speaker 2: palan statue and you'll break it down for us. And
26:43
Speaker 2: since we've already talked a little bit about this, why
26:45
Speaker 2: don't we start with chad wives that anyone who's tuning
26:48
Speaker 2: in it is not yet familiar with the term becomes aware.
26:53
Speaker 1: Nice. So trade vibe is just a short short form
26:57
Speaker 1: for the traditional vibe. It refers on the Internet to
27:02
Speaker 1: a specific kind of content that's increasingly becoming popular. Though
27:06
Speaker 1: I think the seeds for it were sewn back in
27:09
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen fourteen re prid to that when you started
27:12
Speaker 1: seeing a wave of political conservatism gradually happen around the world.
27:18
Speaker 1: But now increasingly this content, specifically in trumps America, is
27:23
Speaker 1: coming out where it's just content showing the traditional conservative
27:30
Speaker 1: domestic life where women stay home, take care of the kids,
27:34
Speaker 1: coke constantly all day.
27:36
Speaker 2: Do the cleaning from scratch.
27:39
Speaker 1: There's a specific woman that I follow who makes it
27:42
Speaker 1: chips from scratch, like oreos from scratch, bread and like
27:47
Speaker 1: all these kinds of things, and it's it grammarizes that
27:53
Speaker 1: in a way that this is what you're supposed to
27:55
Speaker 1: be doing, and a good mother would do this, like
27:58
Speaker 1: you make it from scratch instead of buying store bought stuff.
28:01
Speaker 1: Though that's obviously a class's statement also because if you're
28:05
Speaker 1: the time one to be a stay at home wife
28:08
Speaker 1: while one person does the financial input work that's required
28:13
Speaker 1: for the family. Increasingly it's hard to survive on a
28:15
Speaker 1: single income household as well, like you need to streams
28:18
Speaker 1: of income. It's east but the woman is able to
28:20
Speaker 1: do that. And then the woman is doing that, like
28:22
Speaker 1: the father is never the one who's cooking from scratch,
28:25
Speaker 1: and whether it be for your kids, or like for
28:27
Speaker 1: your partner, it's this motherhood looks like this, or femininity
28:32
Speaker 1: looks like this, and they're always still in perfect makeup
28:34
Speaker 1: and in the address, and you're supposed to look like
28:37
Speaker 1: that by also.
28:37
Speaker 2: Cooking caricature of femininity but ironically presented as the idea.
28:42
Speaker 1: Also, these women are posting on Instagram. Their job is
28:48
Speaker 1: content create, So this is not a trad wife in
28:53
Speaker 1: terms of what a traditional household's wife would be like.
28:58
Speaker 1: This is not a stay at home mom. She has
29:00
Speaker 1: a job, but it's become grammatized and in a lot
29:04
Speaker 1: of times it's just like cooking blah da dah, And
29:06
Speaker 1: this is a more subtle soft power form of looking
29:10
Speaker 1: at it. On the other hand, you do have now
29:13
Speaker 1: triad vise talking to Camerada talking about their lives saying
29:16
Speaker 1: that it's important for the man to provide and for
29:19
Speaker 1: me to like nurture and like this kind of veetoric
29:22
Speaker 1: is also now part of that trade bive space, so
29:25
Speaker 1: it's it's quite toxic in that sense.
29:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree. I think it also sort of
29:32
Speaker 2: makes it seem like women shouldn't be financially independent, shouldn't
29:36
Speaker 2: be sexy or have agency. I don't know. There's this
29:40
Speaker 2: weird like valorization of being subordinate to men, if that's
29:44
Speaker 2: the natural order of things exactly, which we thought pretty
29:47
Speaker 2: hard to dismantle. Yeah, I, but here we.
29:51
Speaker 1: Are, and these women in the Thames, like I said,
29:54
Speaker 1: are not the ones who are doing that. Like this
29:56
Speaker 1: woman is financially independent, her instagram is making.
30:00
Speaker 2: More money than the husband exactly.
30:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yet like they are the epito me of
30:04
Speaker 1: femininity and womanhood and motherhood and all that. It's like
30:09
Speaker 1: shitty to a next level life if I can see.
30:11
Speaker 2: I agree, I agree, and I feel strongly about this too.
30:14
Speaker 2: But for the other terms, I say, some of which
30:16
Speaker 2: are less high stakes, we can try and give, like
30:19
Speaker 2: the quick okay please, they've gotten together, like the two
30:24
Speaker 2: chatterbox okay, and then they expect us to do rapid fire.
30:26
Speaker 2: It's impossible for me to do rapid fire, but you
30:29
Speaker 2: might be better at it. Okay. Let's do some dating
30:32
Speaker 2: terms also, benching.
30:34
Speaker 1: It's when you go start with someone enough to sort
30:39
Speaker 1: of have them on your doster, but you aren't dating them,
30:42
Speaker 1: so you've sort of kept them as a backup. Like
30:45
Speaker 1: if I am not seeing anyone else, maybe I date
30:47
Speaker 1: this person, but yeah, you bench them like someone's you know,
30:50
Speaker 1: benched on in the basketball game. Yeah, it's that twelfth man.
30:55
Speaker 2: Okay, orbiting obiting.
30:57
Speaker 1: I feel like I heard this. It had a moment
30:59
Speaker 1: a few yours back. I think it's when someone's around
31:03
Speaker 1: your social circus and you keep like seeing them and
31:06
Speaker 1: they acquaintanceship, but it's not like no one's made a
31:10
Speaker 1: move yet, like you don't interact with each other. But
31:12
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
31:14
Speaker 2: We can trouble check. I thought it meant that someone
31:17
Speaker 2: is like tangentially interesting keeps keeps like pomping. You know,
31:21
Speaker 2: they like your stories, but they want to reply to
31:23
Speaker 2: your WhatsApps, but they'll then like share something. They don't
31:27
Speaker 2: let you get rid of them, but they don't actually
31:30
Speaker 2: reciprocate your bids for attention either.
31:32
Speaker 1: So it's like some key stuff is happening.
31:36
Speaker 2: Much exactly I think, but we can go check it out. Okay,
31:40
Speaker 2: what do you think of the term girl math? Oh?
31:42
Speaker 1: I found it a bit derogatory, and I see this
31:45
Speaker 1: as someone who had to leave Math after eleventh because
31:48
Speaker 1: I could not get through trib momentary. But I feel
31:50
Speaker 1: like the way it girl math also came with the
31:54
Speaker 1: gol dinner and all these things, and it's like introduces
32:00
Speaker 1: is girlhood or it makes it seem like being bad
32:03
Speaker 1: at math or doing like shaky math to justify your
32:06
Speaker 1: financial expenses is like what girls do, which I don't
32:11
Speaker 1: think is a nice way to put it. It turns
32:15
Speaker 1: the behavior into a gendered construct. But a lot of
32:17
Speaker 1: people use it, and I use it in patans, but
32:19
Speaker 1: I know it won't be taken incorrectly, Like it's it's
32:23
Speaker 1: like if I spent this much money here, but I
32:27
Speaker 1: got it back another way, like I gol math did
32:29
Speaker 1: to zero. You know, I don't like it. I don't
32:32
Speaker 1: think we should be gendering behavior like.
32:34
Speaker 2: That, agreed. Do you think that there were any content
32:39
Speaker 2: pieces that women themselves put out that managed to put
32:42
Speaker 2: a positive spin on it or not.
32:45
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people took it rightly, which
32:47
Speaker 1: is true, like girl math is like like I spent
32:50
Speaker 1: hundred apiece, but someone gave me sugn for gyalla, so
32:54
Speaker 1: the place is girl math. I weigh like whatever so
32:57
Speaker 1: that it's funny and it's light hearted, and women were
33:01
Speaker 1: making a lot of this content, but just the gender
33:05
Speaker 1: lens to this. I don't think that we should be
33:08
Speaker 1: careful about the words that we use. And I feel
33:10
Speaker 1: this for a lot of slang, like most of it
33:12
Speaker 1: is right hearted, almost anything with the prefixed girl yes,
33:16
Speaker 1: girl boss, girl yeah, I don't feel rightly about it.
33:26
Speaker 2: Agreed. Okay, what does GAT refer to g y A
33:32
Speaker 2: T Do you know this? I don't know. This doesn't
33:34
Speaker 2: mean ass I oh.
33:37
Speaker 1: I think so this is TikTok terminology. And this is
33:40
Speaker 1: another thing I keep going into. So this is not
33:43
Speaker 1: a rapid fire by any means. But I'm just gonna
33:46
Speaker 1: say this so you can start it out later if
33:48
Speaker 1: you want. So, we don't have TikTok in India, which
33:51
Speaker 1: means that TikTok slang comes to us when it goes
33:54
Speaker 1: from TikTok to a Twitter and Instagram, so we are
33:57
Speaker 1: never at the source of it. A lot means you
34:00
Speaker 1: understand and sang you understand because you are in this
34:03
Speaker 1: space where it was created. This is all TikTok sang
34:08
Speaker 1: comes to us in a second hand or like a
34:10
Speaker 1: third hand sort of way. So it's very hard like
34:13
Speaker 1: you wouldn't see a lot of people use this in India.
34:15
Speaker 1: For instance, we'd use like soft launch and all that
34:18
Speaker 1: which is a Twitter term versus this, so I think
34:22
Speaker 1: it means us, but I don't see Indians using it
34:25
Speaker 1: all that much, which is why we need books that
34:27
Speaker 1: talk specifically about the Indian Internet.
34:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see like words like chetta and yeah becoming
34:33
Speaker 2: you talked about Yeah.
34:35
Speaker 1: I love the word Yeah.
34:37
Speaker 2: It is sweet that the Indian Internet has its own
34:42
Speaker 2: sort of like terms. I think the world should borrow
34:44
Speaker 2: some of them. Who should become a three person Sigma?
34:48
Speaker 1: Oh, it's a man because it almost exclusively refers to
34:53
Speaker 1: men who doesn't exist within the traditional Internet hierarchy of
34:58
Speaker 1: like alpham this, this man is on his own path.
35:02
Speaker 1: He doesn't care how women see him, he doesn't care
35:04
Speaker 1: how men see him. He's Sigma in the sense that
35:07
Speaker 1: he's a lone wolf outside the back mindset of humanity.
35:11
Speaker 1: So it's it's used for like a very like I
35:15
Speaker 1: don't care and I do what I want.
35:17
Speaker 2: Do you think young men on the Internet today aspire
35:20
Speaker 2: to be Alpha or Sigma? I mean, I think the
35:23
Speaker 2: whole all of this is just offputting to me, this
35:25
Speaker 2: masculinity discuss among men. But what do you think, gen z?
35:30
Speaker 1: So you don't have to be the beta for sure?
35:33
Speaker 1: I think alpha is desirable if you see yourself in
35:36
Speaker 1: a leadership kind of rule like I I watch and
35:40
Speaker 1: Rowtage sometimes for research, So he uses that terminology quite
35:44
Speaker 1: a lot because he's speaking to a followership. So for him,
35:47
Speaker 1: he is the alpha. Someone who has a pack is
35:50
Speaker 1: like the alpha, but a sigma is I think, almost
35:53
Speaker 1: equally as respected in the sense of like this person
35:58
Speaker 1: is forging his own part, which is also any masculine
36:00
Speaker 1: ideal sort of thing to do to reject what society
36:03
Speaker 1: tells you and be able to survive on your own.
36:05
Speaker 1: So I think both are fairly desirable in that sense.
36:10
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a hierarchy, like a more someone in inser
36:12
Speaker 1: spaces could tell us better.
36:14
Speaker 2: Okay, last one, what's a sneaky link?
36:18
Speaker 1: I think it's when you date someone under down, like
36:20
Speaker 1: it's oh, like we hooked up or be dated and
36:24
Speaker 1: no one journey knows.
36:26
Speaker 2: That's a sneakying. Okay. Maybe it's a is a negative positive.
36:30
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a forensic so something like it's someone you
36:32
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about, so it could be negative,
36:36
Speaker 1: but it's a descriptor it doesn't go there's like a.
36:38
Speaker 2: Mutual agreement between both parties that we're going to keep
36:40
Speaker 2: this on the down load. Interesting, okay, Okay, So with
36:47
Speaker 2: regards to the Sigma Alpha think it made me think
36:51
Speaker 2: of performances of gender, and I think performativity recently has
36:54
Speaker 2: been having a moment also, I mean it always has
36:56
Speaker 2: a moment. But there was this idea, let's talkbout masculinity
36:59
Speaker 2: for a second, because we talked about chadwives already, but
37:02
Speaker 2: there was you know, I'm a thirty five and I
37:04
Speaker 2: feel like growing up, the type of hyper femininity and
37:07
Speaker 2: hyper masculinity that were presented as the gender ideals has
37:10
Speaker 2: had some repackaging, where today maybe the soft boy or
37:15
Speaker 2: like this idea of the man with the feminist literature
37:17
Speaker 2: and the toad bag in the match a latter, But
37:19
Speaker 2: then that's also a performance, right, Like, how do you
37:22
Speaker 2: think gen Z is navigating gender stereotypes or gender expectations?
37:28
Speaker 2: Do you think that things have gotten better or do
37:30
Speaker 2: you think we've just replaced old pressures with new ones.
37:35
Speaker 1: That's an interesting and very broad reaching question because I
37:37
Speaker 1: do think that all life lived around people is performative.
37:44
Speaker 1: To some extent, you are performing who you are for
37:49
Speaker 1: other people. That might be true to who you are.
37:51
Speaker 1: That might not be true to who you are, but
37:53
Speaker 1: it is by virtue of it being public actions is
37:57
Speaker 1: right down to how we dress, like we woke up
37:58
Speaker 1: in chows.
37:59
Speaker 2: To whethers for the bot and it are quite similar
38:01
Speaker 2: right then.
38:06
Speaker 1: But yeah, like I do think like there's that performativity
38:10
Speaker 1: with everything. I would question why the performative meal today,
38:16
Speaker 1: which is the term that has coming to popular discourse,
38:19
Speaker 1: is being used to refer to this kind of literature
38:22
Speaker 1: reading soft boy told back carrying sort of figure Because
38:27
Speaker 1: for me, uh, men who go to the gym a
38:30
Speaker 1: lot and workout and are taking steroids and are in
38:33
Speaker 1: no way attractive to like women in any case, Like
38:37
Speaker 1: they're performing for the masculine gaze as well, So that's
38:40
Speaker 1: a different kind of performance you're and route it. So
38:44
Speaker 1: performing masculinity to that extent are also performative men. Why then,
38:48
Speaker 1: are soft boys being referred to as performative meal when
38:52
Speaker 1: arguably their performance is the least harmful out of all
38:56
Speaker 1: the other kinds of performance that are happening. Like for me,
38:59
Speaker 1: it's a performance that's doing a met positive in tho,
39:02
Speaker 1: like if someone's performing being kind to me, and the
39:06
Speaker 1: lack of that performance is someone being unkind to me,
39:09
Speaker 1: I take the performance any day.
39:11
Speaker 2: The way I read it, though, was that there was
39:13
Speaker 2: a slightly in sort of manipulative agenda tota like they're
39:22
Speaker 2: reading bell Hooks to seem attractive to women rather than
39:26
Speaker 2: not actually, or they're just sitting with the bell Hooks book,
39:28
Speaker 2: you know.
39:29
Speaker 3: I think I get that bit like that it was
39:33
Speaker 3: more to get into women's pants than then with any
39:36
Speaker 3: actual interest in feminism or sensitivity or but I could
39:39
Speaker 3: be wrong.
39:40
Speaker 2: That's how I saw it.
39:40
Speaker 1: No, I do think that's part of the discourse. But
39:43
Speaker 1: like my idea is, it's okay if that's the gateway drug,
39:45
Speaker 1: you know, whatever gets.
39:46
Speaker 2: You to read, whatever gets you to bell Hooks.
39:49
Speaker 1: I do think a lot of the ways that you
39:53
Speaker 1: live life are often just like a lot of performances
39:56
Speaker 1: are just to get to read. Sometimes like it's it's
39:58
Speaker 1: all right, you know, if you engage with the deep
40:02
Speaker 1: enough that that becomes who you are, then in this case,
40:04
Speaker 1: that's a good thing.
40:05
Speaker 2: I guess the arguments that I've seen made sometimes against
40:09
Speaker 2: this particular performance of the feminine, the idea that a
40:12
Speaker 2: feminist man is almost oxymoron, that there cannot and so
40:17
Speaker 2: then This performance is particularly evil because you know, the
40:21
Speaker 2: one like the word woke, for example, got completely crushed buried,
40:26
Speaker 2: and because of the number of like woke man that
40:29
Speaker 2: ended up for example being me to see whatever right
40:35
Speaker 2: where you're quoting like feminism on your instabio. But then
40:38
Speaker 2: so I think maybe in those contexts, I think.
40:42
Speaker 1: Anything that creatively done.
40:47
Speaker 2: We almost prefer like blatant misogyny being on your Instagram
40:51
Speaker 2: than like feminist quotes. If what we're hiding over here
40:53
Speaker 2: is a misogynist I don't know, I don't know, it's
40:57
Speaker 2: it's tricky. I would prefer no misogyny at all, exactly exactly,
41:01
Speaker 2: So we wanted to also ask you about AIM. I
41:04
Speaker 2: know you briefly touched upon. It just is the way
41:08
Speaker 2: that people are now using AI finding its way into relationships.
41:13
Speaker 2: You know, whether it's you're taking relationship advice from Chad
41:16
Speaker 2: GPT or maybe you're using Chad rept to write you're
41:19
Speaker 2: dating a bio or I mean some people are even
41:22
Speaker 2: at this point consulting chat GPT.
41:25
Speaker 1: For every data therapy.
41:27
Speaker 2: But also like just communication with that partner. I've seen this,
41:31
Speaker 2: like people would just face the WhatsApp message and what
41:34
Speaker 2: should I say back, because they're too lazy to what
41:37
Speaker 2: do you think of that?
41:38
Speaker 1: I think we should be highly questioning of any outsourcing
41:43
Speaker 1: of critical human skills or fundamental parts of human rights
41:47
Speaker 1: onto technology, which is why I would say even online dating.
41:53
Speaker 1: And this is going to be like regressive or like
41:56
Speaker 1: a little controversial, but I think even that shouldn't be
42:00
Speaker 1: default that it is for a lot of people today,
42:02
Speaker 1: like at least try to meet people off time instead
42:06
Speaker 1: of by default the second you come into a new city,
42:09
Speaker 1: downloading like a hinge or the bumble like dating apps
42:13
Speaker 1: in general scene for AI, I think just the speed
42:18
Speaker 1: with which people seem eager to offload their relationship responsibilities
42:23
Speaker 1: onto a tech tool, I would question why that's happening
42:28
Speaker 1: in the first place. And obviously this is going to
42:31
Speaker 1: cripple you, like you're going to reach a point where
42:33
Speaker 1: you're incapable of, in the absence of technology, being able
42:36
Speaker 1: to interact with your partner or being able to solve
42:39
Speaker 1: your relationship troubles or whatever you're coming up with. And
42:42
Speaker 1: there are those people who are taking it a step
42:44
Speaker 1: further and then like falling for the AI chad board,
42:47
Speaker 1: et cetera. But I think that's an outsider case. A
42:50
Speaker 1: lot of people are in the zone. If just AI
42:53
Speaker 1: supporting their dating in some way, I would consider it
42:57
Speaker 1: extremely sus If a person I can tell this talking
43:01
Speaker 1: to me on a dating app and is using AI
43:03
Speaker 1: generated like messages, why are you not able to talk
43:08
Speaker 1: on your own? And for that person, I struggle to
43:13
Speaker 1: think why they'd be doing this in the first because
43:16
Speaker 1: it's the funniest part. You're talking to someone new. Why
43:20
Speaker 1: do you need another And this is on a tech medium,
43:24
Speaker 1: like you're already on a dating app. You're separated by
43:27
Speaker 1: so much technology already, and you're bringing another tech tool
43:30
Speaker 1: into a middle of it. I think it's going to
43:32
Speaker 1: cripple us emotionally. It's going to cripple our communications because
43:35
Speaker 1: I've heard if people who use chat GPT as a
43:38
Speaker 1: therapist and then your relationship queries are also answered by
43:43
Speaker 1: that tool. But when it doesn't know you, it doesn't
43:46
Speaker 1: understand your context and it's.
43:48
Speaker 2: But you know, if you talk to it enough, it
43:50
Speaker 2: starts to remember your context. That's a scary thing too.
43:53
Speaker 2: It'll quote you back to you, not as a therapist,
43:55
Speaker 2: but I mean again as a work tool. Write like
43:58
Speaker 2: Monday and emails you know, or something like that, but
44:00
Speaker 2: it's crazy how to remember remember numbers Like that's.
44:02
Speaker 1: Quite useful, and they're increasing that capacity even more so.
44:07
Speaker 1: It's going to sound like a real advice giving sort
44:11
Speaker 1: of figure. But we should be so suspicious of any
44:14
Speaker 1: two like this. Specifically, if I suppose in like a
44:17
Speaker 1: work case, or in like write an emails for me
44:20
Speaker 1: or something like that, it's a logistical necessity that you
44:23
Speaker 1: might be resorting to. It's saving your time, it's like
44:25
Speaker 1: your in turn. But the second you start using it
44:28
Speaker 1: to replace your skills, I think like I would stop that,
44:32
Speaker 1: and I would not do that anymore. I have spoken
44:36
Speaker 1: to people who have used it to supplement like they
44:42
Speaker 1: ordered their profile, like how would this bio do? I
44:45
Speaker 1: think that's an interesting gray area. You should always just
44:49
Speaker 1: ask friends of the gender you're hoping to attract, like
44:52
Speaker 1: what is this? Or right talk to each other for
44:54
Speaker 1: heap like they friends, I have family, have partners like
44:59
Speaker 1: X partners whatever around you, and use that to learn
45:04
Speaker 1: how relationships work instead of technology like I would. I
45:08
Speaker 1: am not a preroponent of bringing any kind of teck
45:11
Speaker 1: into this space. I don't think it's healthy.
45:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's important for people to be using
45:18
Speaker 2: the tool and love for the tool to be using
45:20
Speaker 2: the person. And I think with the social media, I mean,
45:25
Speaker 2: Instagram is the app we all update for free every
45:27
Speaker 2: day from our soccerberg. So I don't know how far
45:33
Speaker 2: gone me already, but I do think of how can
45:35
Speaker 2: I make this tool work for me as opposed to
45:39
Speaker 2: sort of yeah, And I think many smart people end
45:42
Speaker 2: up using the tools because the tools there, it's like tempting.
45:45
Speaker 2: It's hard not to use the thing. It's almost and
45:50
Speaker 2: like it's there. But actually I think and it's good writers.
45:54
Speaker 2: I'm seeing good writers using when you already write so well,
45:57
Speaker 2: And I think there's some of that, just like will
46:00
Speaker 2: others get ahead of me now?
46:01
Speaker 1: Because exactly I've heard of friends who work traditional jobs
46:05
Speaker 1: feel that there's now an increased pressure of work because
46:08
Speaker 1: your bosses assume you're using AI, so you should be
46:11
Speaker 1: faster in your tasks. So like work forces have wholeheartedly
46:17
Speaker 1: embraced it, artists are trying to be trying to figure
46:22
Speaker 1: out what to do with it, and relationships, financial advice,
46:28
Speaker 1: all of this is running rampant on a as well,
46:30
Speaker 1: like it's it's very hard to even try to predict
46:34
Speaker 1: where it's going because in this case, in particular, like
46:37
Speaker 1: the Internet was still the human part of it, because
46:41
Speaker 1: a lot of social media wholes were built by people,
46:44
Speaker 1: the interactions were shaped by the users. You could still
46:47
Speaker 1: watch them happen and try to predict them. EI Specifically,
46:50
Speaker 1: those tools built by a few conglomerates invested in by
46:54
Speaker 1: the same few VC firms are heading in directions motivated
46:58
Speaker 1: by motives that we don't even know about and what
47:02
Speaker 1: these companies. That's why I would really push for caution
47:06
Speaker 1: in terms of how quickly you choose to adopt those tools.
47:09
Speaker 1: You don't know where they're going to go.
47:11
Speaker 2: Okay, so read Our last game for the day is
47:15
Speaker 2: no overthinking. Okay, so I'm going to throw some lines
47:18
Speaker 2: at you and you just respond with the first thing
47:20
Speaker 2: that comes to mind. Okay, if someone's not on Instagram.
47:24
Speaker 1: They probably normal.
47:28
Speaker 2: When my partner doesn't see my Instagram story, I.
47:31
Speaker 1: Feel he's probably busy.
47:35
Speaker 2: The weirdest thing I've cut my partner liking on social
47:38
Speaker 2: media is my partner.
47:40
Speaker 1: What is a lot is Hindi memes is like cringe
47:45
Speaker 1: Hindi memes that I don't understand at all.
47:49
Speaker 2: If someone still follows their x on Instagram, I think healthy.
47:54
Speaker 2: My biggest pet peeve on WhatsApp is.
47:57
Speaker 1: People sending thumbs ups up everything unless my parents do it,
48:02
Speaker 1: Like that's all right, that's their way of acknowledging, But.
48:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, can you give them one alternative emogy?
48:09
Speaker 1: Use the green tick. It's a much more positive way
48:13
Speaker 1: of acknowledging some as you don't really use words, that's fine,
48:17
Speaker 1: use a green tick or better still, kind of fun whatsappsticker.
48:20
Speaker 1: I have a default one, which is a cat saying
48:23
Speaker 1: this that I thank you. It's cute. It leaves the
48:26
Speaker 1: other person feeling but you.
48:27
Speaker 2: Know, at office I used to use this emogi sometimes
48:30
Speaker 2: and my gen Z employees were like us, like you,
48:34
Speaker 2: why don't you use the pink nails or something. They
48:39
Speaker 2: were like, Lisa, you're like an uncle. Yeah, this is
48:42
Speaker 2: like okay, okay. The most romantic thing a partner can
48:49
Speaker 2: do on social media is.
48:51
Speaker 1: My partner sometimes will send us I really like us
48:57
Speaker 1: kind of content, like two cats sitting on the bed
49:00
Speaker 1: and us and just send that. I think that's such
49:03
Speaker 1: a cute, low key sort of thing, like two clouds
49:07
Speaker 1: in the sky that looks like they're kissing us like
49:09
Speaker 1: two plants that have grown to entwine with each other. US.
49:12
Speaker 1: I think US is such a wholesome social media trend.
49:17
Speaker 1: So someone just sending you a lot of this, or
49:19
Speaker 1: better still making one of you, like putting a picture
49:22
Speaker 1: of these two cups and being like us and on
49:25
Speaker 1: the Instagram story. I think that's so cute.
49:27
Speaker 2: Okay, using the hashtag relationship goals when posting about one's
49:32
Speaker 2: own relationship is.
49:35
Speaker 1: Like, don't do that.
49:36
Speaker 2: Do you think using hashtags is it's outdated?
49:38
Speaker 1: Now? Yeah, it's it's stop doing that.
49:41
Speaker 2: Stop doing it? Okay. If my partner sends me memes
49:44
Speaker 2: but never calls, I feel it's okay. I'm a text anyway.
49:49
Speaker 1: Just I would I could live without phone calls, you know, like,
49:51
Speaker 1: I'm already doing everything on text. He's sending me memes.
49:54
Speaker 1: That's fine.
49:55
Speaker 2: As a wife, interesting, I need the calls. Do you
49:59
Speaker 2: think that's a generational thing?
50:01
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah. I'm also always online, so you
50:04
Speaker 1: don't need to call me. I will respond on text.
50:07
Speaker 1: If I'm not responding on text, that means I'm ignoring
50:10
Speaker 1: you because I saw it.
50:12
Speaker 2: So yes, take notes to get the hint right.
50:18
Speaker 1: Some people are gonna be angry after this. No, but
50:20
Speaker 1: actually I do that too.
50:22
Speaker 2: Not reposting a story or tagged in is that's okay.
50:26
Speaker 1: Sometimes there are reasons for it. Instagram kills reach for
50:29
Speaker 1: your stories if you reshare too much content. Yeah, like
50:31
Speaker 1: they're doing some stuff. Sometimes you just don't know good
50:35
Speaker 1: in that, or you don't want people to know you
50:37
Speaker 1: were somewhere because I told someone, no, my I have
50:40
Speaker 1: to go help my mom with something. But actually I
50:43
Speaker 1: was like, at someone else's body.
50:44
Speaker 2: I'm not going to So people shouldn't take it personally.
50:47
Speaker 2: A voice notes feel they're.
50:51
Speaker 1: Okay if I send them, but if someone sends them
50:53
Speaker 1: to me, I'd have to listen to all of that.
50:55
Speaker 1: And I feel like people treat voice notes like a podcast.
50:59
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's like five minutes, you know, send me long text.
51:04
Speaker 1: I read it because I can just zip through it
51:06
Speaker 1: fast as fast. I can only listen to your voice,
51:09
Speaker 1: not onto X, and then I don't know what part
51:11
Speaker 1: is the operative part. Sometimes it can feel like you're
51:14
Speaker 1: being too demanding of my time, Like if it's an
51:17
Speaker 1: urgent thing, then send me a text. Otherwise I listen
51:19
Speaker 1: to it at the end of the day. You know,
51:20
Speaker 1: when I have five minutes not in traffic.
51:24
Speaker 2: Okay, as we wrap, I want to allude to this
51:29
Speaker 2: wonderful line from your Vogue article. You talked about the
51:33
Speaker 2: commodification of human experience when social media output and life
51:40
Speaker 2: become so sort of enmeshed, right. I mean I've been
51:45
Speaker 2: there's been times that I've been with a partner and thought, oh,
51:47
Speaker 2: this would be great for real. You know, it's so
51:50
Speaker 2: bad that you start seeing your own life almost as
51:52
Speaker 2: content pieces. How do you think that players in to
51:57
Speaker 2: relationships today, especially for people like us whose life is
52:01
Speaker 2: kind of now about creation for consumption.
52:06
Speaker 1: I think it can be very easy to start viewing
52:09
Speaker 1: your life and a contents and almost dissociating sim the
52:13
Speaker 1: emotions you're feeling in that moment in favor for a
52:15
Speaker 1: third party view of how this would look. I used
52:19
Speaker 1: to post on Twitter a lot about like, oh this happened,
52:22
Speaker 1: funny thing my partner did this, x Y said and
52:25
Speaker 1: it was cured. I got two thousand people like the
52:27
Speaker 1: fact that my partner did something. And I still do
52:29
Speaker 1: that from time to time. I'm not saying I don't,
52:31
Speaker 1: but I think it's it's important number one to not
52:35
Speaker 1: experience it as content in the first place, at least
52:37
Speaker 1: be there and experience it post factor. If you think
52:42
Speaker 1: it would have made for something good, that's all right.
52:45
Speaker 1: But I think we really need to be stricter, especially creators,
52:48
Speaker 1: with everyone, with the boundary setting of how much of
52:53
Speaker 1: our lives and our relationship in particular we allow to
52:56
Speaker 1: be shared as well as determined by social media. Like
53:00
Speaker 1: that piece about everything becoming content and becoming commoditized, it
53:06
Speaker 1: still resonates with me. I wrote it a couple of
53:08
Speaker 1: years back, and it does with a lot of people
53:10
Speaker 1: because we feel that pressure of performance or documentation so much,
53:14
Speaker 1: and for the generation that lives on the Internet and
53:18
Speaker 1: grows and experiences on the Internet, it can be a
53:21
Speaker 1: very blurry space to navigate. But I think that boundary
53:25
Speaker 1: setting is important because once you start dissociating from like,
53:31
Speaker 1: it can be very hard to try to relearn that
53:34
Speaker 1: skill of you know, like, I'm going to be in
53:36
Speaker 1: the moment. So it's very cliche thing to say, but
53:40
Speaker 1: try to be there more often than not and do
53:44
Speaker 1: your job. Like if you're a creator, some of that
53:46
Speaker 1: is necessary. So I'm not saying don't do it, but
53:48
Speaker 1: be careful with how much and how and it can
53:53
Speaker 1: make you unhappy, like frequently even if you get like
53:56
Speaker 1: a lot of legs, etc. You weren't there, you were
53:58
Speaker 1: thinking about how this would Can I talk about a
54:01
Speaker 1: trend that I've seen more recently and it's been bothering
54:04
Speaker 1: me a lot. I was thinking of making a read
54:05
Speaker 1: about it, and I might just but I don't want
54:07
Speaker 1: to say it out loud or so. Which is that
54:10
Speaker 1: people on Instagram have been making rease And I think
54:13
Speaker 1: it started on TikTok about if your partner is proposing
54:16
Speaker 1: to you and instead of proposing to you like this,
54:20
Speaker 1: like me that that thing, they're like this, that's bad.
54:25
Speaker 1: It's not going to look good in the pictures. And
54:27
Speaker 1: I was like, I would just be happy that my
54:29
Speaker 1: partner's proposing to me that I'm not going to be
54:31
Speaker 1: checking if it's back as straight in the proposal pictures.
54:35
Speaker 1: So I think the second everything becomes image, everything becomes content,
54:41
Speaker 1: there will stage for.
54:42
Speaker 2: Whole proposals for the internet.
54:44
Speaker 1: Right. I think we need to stop thinking of everything
54:48
Speaker 1: in terms of esthetics, in terms of onlookers, and just
54:51
Speaker 1: look at what we want ourselves to be, which is
54:54
Speaker 1: not content and which is not commodity. It is people.
54:58
Speaker 1: That's important, and that's something people our age and the
55:02
Speaker 1: people who come after us are going to increasingly have
55:05
Speaker 1: to contend with. Start thinking about it. Is all I say.
55:10
Speaker 2: Thank you, Riah, It's been such a pleasure chatting with you.
55:13
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining us on Love Matters. Thank
55:16
Speaker 2: you for tuning into Love Matters. If you have any
55:19
Speaker 2: feedback or topic suggestions, you can write to us at
55:21
Speaker 2: Lovematters at DW dot com. Love Matters is produced by
55:24
Speaker 2: the Indian Express and DW Germany's international broadcaster, We'd love it.
55:29
Speaker 2: If you like, share, subscribe, leave a review. Share this
55:33
Speaker 2: with your friends. Don't you see by Ria's book? Ria
55:37
Speaker 2: Tell them where they can follow you.
55:38
Speaker 1: You can follow me at Ria Chops on all platforms Instagram, Twitter.
55:44
Speaker 1: If you want to see some of my bass stuff
55:48
Speaker 1: bit just buy my book. It's there in bookstores. It's
55:51
Speaker 1: then on the marketplaces who read it. It talks about
55:54
Speaker 1: our experiences with social media. I think it's an important
55:57
Speaker 1: book for anyone of this generation to read, and I
55:59
Speaker 1: hope you make it.
56:01
Speaker 2: I'm sure you will see you next time.
56:05
Speaker 1: H