Gemma Watts And Her Empire

Josh: Wait a minute.

Tommy: Crossface.

Josh: The Daily Talk Show. A conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Janson and Tommy Jackett. It's a Daily Talk Show episode 215.

Tommy: Special guest in the house, Gemma Watts.

Gemma: The one and only.

Josh: What's going on?

Gemma: You know, just running my empire.

Tommy: Yeah. Take it, well, this must be a pain in the ass then to come see us.

Gemma: No, this is nice.

Tommy: Oh, is this good? This is a break.

Gemma: Yeah.

Josh: What's your favourite part about running your empire?

Gemma: Oh, I don't know. All of it sounds like such a wanky answer.

Josh: That's good.

Gemma: I don't know, I just like being the boss.

Josh: Yeah.

Gemma: I think that's, I don't have the personality to work for people.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And when did you discover that?

Gemma: When I was working for people. 'Cause I've been doing my own thing for like—

Tommy: Well, it took Josh and I a couple of times to realise what that—

Josh: I thought it was just Sid. Yeah, so many times where I'm like, oh, maybe it's just the situation. I just blew up the same way every time.

Gemma: I think I'm lucky that I figured it out so young. So I didn't have to like, you know, fuck around for too long. But I was with a business for 5 years and then towards the end I was like, I'm so miserable.

Josh: Yeah, was that when you were like, Super young, or were you?

Gemma: Yeah, yeah, I started working, like working, working when I was 19, and then I stayed there till I was 24.

Josh: Wow.

Tommy: The awkward thing is you're actually here for a job interview with us.

Josh: Surprise! Ah, your worst nightmare. Big media company's first acquisition. First hire.

Tommy: We're buying Glow Journal.

Josh: We're actually hoping that you'd hire us, but that's okay. So Glow Journal, yes, you do Copywriting, is copywriting your main shtick?

Gemma: Yeah, that's my main shtick, but it's all like ghostwritten. So yeah, I just, it's all beauty.

Tommy: Bit like all of Drake's music.

Josh: Is it all?

Gemma: Yeah, a little bit.

Tommy: He has a lot of ghostwriters.

Gemma: Yeah, so I'm gonna be honest.

Tommy: I still love him.

Gemma: Yeah, same.

Tommy: I'm comparing you to Drake anyway.

Gemma: Yeah, I get that all the time. Almost daily. Yeah, so it's mostly that and then a bit of like photography stuff. That's the business business and then the blog and the whole influencer thing, if you will. It's like the side hustle.

Josh: Yeah, I remember I had a flashback when I started following Gemma on Instagram, when I started following you on Instagram, and we had just been at a shoot. Yes, for Foreo. Yeah, and like a beauty.

Gemma: You had a really good business idea that you haven't done anything.

Josh: No, that's plain face, Josh. No, but you know what I remember? I was so embarrassed because I looked back and I looked at all your photos and you've got like all these amazing photos. I remember at the time giving like this instructional of like, now I'm just putting the light here because you wanna have like light nice and close and you want a big—

Tommy: Are you explaining the process?

Josh: I was mansplaining. I was doing the old like—

Tommy: But it's what? Because Gemma knows how to do it as well.

Josh: Yeah, it was just like, I felt like a bit of a dick because I was talking to her like someone who's a photographer.

Gemma: Nah, but I would have told you if you were being a dick. So don't worry.

Tommy: So that was the first time the three of us met was on a shoot and you were the talent. So ooh la la, good catering that day.

Josh: Hey guys. Yeah, they had the—

Tommy: Oh no, we did a few of those shoots.

Josh: They always had the, it was fruit platters.

Gemma: Oh, maybe.

Tommy: You didn't see that?

Josh: God, there was a lot of detail.

Gemma: I don't remember what I did like 2 days ago, let alone—

Tommy: I just remember from that day you did an awesome Pauline Hanson impersonation.

Gemma: I don't do a lot of Pauline, I do Sandra Sully. I do that pretty well.

Josh: Amazing. Well, we don't even have to have Sandra Sully on there. Can you, what can you say?

Gemma: You just gotta go down like 2 octaves.

Josh: Go for it.

Gemma: I'm Sandra Sully and welcome to Australia's Brainiest Kid. That's—

Josh: yeah, yeah, he's like the whole time.

Gemma: And then you go up a bit from there and then you've got Jane Bunne doing the weather.

Josh: Now Jane Bunne's the Channel 7 lady?

Gemma: The only one that's an actual meteorologist. And I'm just saying that because that's what the ads do you mean.

Josh: Mike Larkin?

Tommy: I thought he was a stand-up comedian.

Gemma: I assumed he was a stand-up comedian with all those one-liners.

Josh: I was thinking how I was watching Mike Larkin do the weather the other day. I just thought, what an amazing life.

Gemma: Yeah.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Just like, it's very specific.

Tommy: Can I tell you guys a storey about Mike Larkin? No.

Josh: Well, it depends. I don't know, based on that, are we gonna have to edit again?

Tommy: Well, no, no, this is a personal story.

Gemma: Okay.

Tommy: So I grew up in—

Josh: Doesn't answer the question.

Tommy: I grew up in Brighton. I grew up in Brighton and so did Mike Larkin. He didn't grow up in Brighton. He lived near my house, my family home. Right. And so I lived in this for 20 years. 23 years, 22 years. Anyway, a long fucking time. My parents bought it way back in the '80s.

Josh: He's just setting up the fact that he's not rich, guys. So don't ask him for money.

Tommy: So we were selling our house.

Gemma: 'Cause he just told me he was super rich.

Tommy: We were selling our house and this was 2008. This is like the financial crisis hit like 2 weeks after we sold the property. So we were like, fuck yeah, that was awesome. And we had the open for inspections as you do.

Gemma: Yeah.

Tommy: 'Cause you kind of got to get out of your house. You don't just want to sit on the couch while people are coming to walk around your house. And so we would either like sit in the car or go out and—

Josh: Sitting in the car.

Tommy: So my mum told me that she was sitting in the car across the road and she saw Michael Arkin go in, the weather guy, walk in and have a sticky beak around our house that we were selling. Sold for $1.46 million, thank you.

Gemma: Great. I'll write that down.

Tommy: Yeah, it was a good market then and went to shit 2 weeks later. Anyway, so it's worth $3 million now, by the way.

Josh: Crazy.

Tommy: They've done a reno on it.

Josh: Jesus.

Tommy: So we're the losers.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Anyway, my hopes aren't good.

Josh: I hope something else happened with Mike Larkin other than him going into your house.

Gemma: Mike Larkin.

Tommy: Mike Larkin goes into our house, comes out, and my mum saw him, I don't know if it was a few weeks later or just she bumped into him and asked him, oh, you, um, 'You sure you had a look at our house?' 'No, sorry, what house?' 'Oh, the one around on blah blah blah street.' 'No, no.' He fully denied it. My mum saw him.

Josh: Really? Was he wearing one of your dad's t-shirts? It's like, 'No, and this is my t-shirt if you're asking.' No, but he fully denied that he'd entered our property. I would do that too.

Gemma: I would, and if you've been busted, like—

Josh: Nah, we had— what about our—

Tommy: She never said, she didn't put him in the awkward thing of saying, 'I saw you enter our house, you pest.

Gemma: I've got photos.

Josh: Yeah, here it is on my phone.

Tommy: But yeah, he fully ignored it, denied it.

Josh: I get that. Like, we had a mate who was taking their kids to a school to cheque it out, potentially going there. And then someone 3 degrees of separation texted and said, oh, your kids are going to this school, are they? He's like, you know what, fuck it, we're not gonna send them there. Because it was like, because it does feel a bit weird if you've got spies all around.

Gemma: Yeah, a little bit. I don't know any of my neighbors, so they could all be spying on me and I wouldn't know.

Tommy: Mike Larkin bought the house.

Josh: Oh, did he really? Imagine that. If he did. That would have been a good story. The Logies, you go to the Logies every year. Yeah.

Gemma: Oh my God, I have the best Logies gig. It is the most gemma role possible. I, during—

Tommy: Can you just quickly describe a gemma role?

Josh: What does that look like?

Gemma: When I explain the position to you, you'll be like, okay, this makes a lot— like it's the most self-indulgent possible job.

Josh: Perfect. Sitting, does it? Or not?

Gemma: Yeah, yeah, a lot of, yes, because I'm a seat filler. So that's part 2. Part 1 is for the rehearsals. I sit in the seats of the winners so that, and like the presenters will come in and practise for 15 minutes and then I'll go up and accept the award. So then there'll be someone from production like, okay, like ramble on so we can practise the like wrap up sign. So the cameraman can, you know, practise waving. Yeah, so it's just 2 days of me accepting awards and I have to do the like, oh my God, I can't believe I won.

Josh: Your ego by the end of it.

Gemma: Yeah, because then on the night when I'm seat filling, it's in my muscle memory to get up and accept the award. And I'm like, no, I'll let Bert take this one.

Tommy: Tommy's gonna ask, do you know who wins it before it's?

Gemma: No, because they will sub in like someone else's name. Like just someone.

Tommy: You know, so the Logies are like the Oscars. They're not even close to it, but they're the Australian Television Awards for anyone overseas.

Gemma: Yeah, television's night of nights.

Josh: No, what is the— it's like the Emmys.

Tommy: The Emmys?

Josh: Yeah, they'll be closer to the Emmys.

Tommy: Okay.

Gemma: But which still feels generous.

Josh: How did you even get that job?

Gemma: My auntie's the talent producer. So it is not what you know at all. Yeah. Yeah, the second I turned 18, they were like, come on, Gem.

Josh: And so you've been doing it for like 7 years or something?

Gemma: I'm a veteran.

Josh: That's amazing.

Tommy: They actually pay you or they pay you in meals?

Gemma: No, they pay me. Oh, that's good.

Tommy: I've been in there.

Gemma: I'm really rich, so.

Tommy: Yeah, well, it's how you get an empire from the night of nights. Yeah, there's some good catering. I was in the media room at the Logies and it was like buffet, it's fucking sick.

Josh: Tommy's a bit of a scab. Do you tend to?

Gemma: The richest people are.

Josh: He's very, you know, there's the scab-like tendencies. Were you hard on the food or would you sort of like go quite light at the Logies?

Gemma: Oh, I don't eat at those things.

Josh: Yeah.

Gemma: 'Cause I'm in dresses.

Tommy: Coke though.

Gemma: Yeah, I'm coked out of my mind.

Tommy: But that's most other people at the Logies.

Gemma: I didn't see any like blatant nose rubbing this year.

Tommy: No.

Gemma: Which was surprising 'cause we're on the Gold Coast, but.

Tommy: Oh yeah, it shifted from usually in Melbourne. This was the first year.

Gemma: Yeah, so it was just television schoolies this year.

Tommy: Well, they were just, all waiting to be piggy after the event when they went out to the nightclubs.

Gemma: Just like me.

Josh: Full-blown. But I feel like the thing that gets me, 'cause I don't drink that much. The only time I drink is when I'm in Italy and I'll have an Aperol Spritz. So it's very specific. It's quite specific. But like people can still drink, you can still drink a lot of cowls in a night like that. Like people would go fucking hard.

Tommy: Well, yeah. I mean, that's what you go hard on.

Gemma: Well, see, fillers aren't allowed to drink until after it's finished 'cause technically we're working, but then.

Josh: Oh really?

Gemma: After party.

Josh: And so day to day for you, you like writing and shit? What's like a typical day?

Gemma: Yeah, writing and shit. That's it. Yeah.

Josh: That's all. We do video and shit. That's basically it.

Gemma: Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, just like talking about lipsticks and taking photos of them. And so writing about them.

Josh: Do you think that's so hard? Do you find it like, what is the, what's the misconception do you think for the whole freelancing? Thing?

Gemma: I don't know. I will— I think my friends think I don't have a job because they'll like— I'll get a text saying, oh, are you home today? Thought I might come over for lunch. And I'm like, that's two different questions because yes, I'm home today. No, you can't come over. This is where I work, man.

Josh: That's so— it is that, um, like Tommy noticed that like the first week of us, um, being in partnership where it's just like I can get, when people ask for anything, I'll be like, yeah, sure. My brother's like, hey, I have the day off and my mate was meant to play basketball, but he's not. Maybe I'll come to your office. Such a specific example. I was like, yeah, sure. So he just rocks up with his basketball.

Tommy: And guitar.

Josh: And his guitar. And we ended up doing Missy Higgins on like a cover on the podcast.

Tommy: No, I think having like being, Do you think you need to have that bit where you're like, I cannot work for anyone else to then actually be able to work for yourself?

Gemma: Not necessarily. I mean, that's just how it kind of went for me because everything sort of blew up and then I left my job in like a, you know, half.

Josh: When you say everything blew up, what does it mean?

Gemma: I was just unhappy for ages 'cause the business had changed. So then I think, I don't know, it's a bit of like cause and effect 'cause I wasn't happy so I was, like just being lazy at work. And then I was like answering back and anyway.

Josh: We celebrate good blowups. 'Cause not many people talk about it, right?

Gemma: Everyone's like, oh, we have— It was a spectacular blowup.

Josh: What was it? Can you—

Gemma: Well, I stormed out.

Tommy: And never came back.

Josh: Is that your final day?

Tommy: Yeah.

Gemma: Oh, awesome. Yeah.

Josh: Keep going. No, no, no, no.

Gemma: Then I like, I gave myself, I'm not a super emotional person. So I gave myself 30 minutes to sook. And then it was like an alarm went off and I was like, okay, now I'm gonna, I said like so many times just then. That's fine. I called every client I'd done any freelance work for and said, hey, I'm actually going out on my own, so I've got capacity for more work. And then I signed 3 clients that arvo.

Josh: So you were, so that 30 minutes, where were you and what were you thinking about?

Gemma: One of the other girls I worked with was driving me home 'cause I didn't, I only learned how to drive a minute ago. So I was still catching the tram in and out of work. And the girls were like, we don't really want you to get on the tram home. Right now. So one of the girls drove me home, had a little sulk.

Josh: Are you embarrassed?

Gemma: Yeah, oh, big time. Yeah, big time. Because I think my biggest fear is for people to think I'm shit at my job. So to not have someone begging me to stick around was a bit like, oh, but I'm amazing.

Tommy: Yeah, I think that's— everyone falls into this trap where they're like, I'm not replaceable.

Gemma: Yeah.

Tommy: Somehow the business always finds the person.

Gemma: Absolutely, they're doing so well now. I just think, but what they're doing is not— because when I first started working for them, I was a fashion editor. Yeah, so I'm very content. And then it became more doing the strategy for other businesses, which is not me at all. And then I sort of woke up one morning and I was like, what am I doing? Would you have done anything differently with the blow-up now that you're I would have left earlier, not for my own sake, but for the sake of the business. 'Cause the work I was pumping out the last couple of months I was there was not my best.

Josh: Yeah. And so that, like who, when you do something like that, like when I have had my blowups or, you know, left, it's always me explaining to Bree what I've done. And then like my parents too, like what's the conversation?

Gemma: So my partner, told me to leave probably 6 to 8 months before I did. Left the job?

Josh: Yeah.

Gemma: 'Cause he could see I was so unhappy, same with my parents and—

Josh: Oh, that's good. So you had buy-in.

Gemma: Yeah, so I kept going, no, I still have so much to learn as you do. I was very young, so I thought—

Josh: I think that's maybe the diff, like the female difference because like it's, I never had that thought of like, I've got so much to learn. I'm like, they've got so much to learn with me being here. Here. And so it's like a little bit, um, a little bit different. Like, were you looking at opportunities and being like, if I hold on, were you thinking about like climbing the ladder?

Gemma: Not really. I think the biggest thing that I got out of there was, was networking because I was going to a lot of—

Josh: on your head, which is a common one. There you go, there you go. I felt something and I was like, oh my God, I didn't know whether to say something, but I thought maybe I'm not really irked by bugs, but it's very Collingwood of us. Go on.

Gemma: Yeah, I felt something crawling on my arm. Yeah, it was big. Okay. I've forgotten what I was saying. I'm very distracted by—

Josh: It would do that. Local fauna. No, the thoughts around opportunities.

Gemma: Oh, yes. So I was going to a lot of parties and I thought at that point it was very important for me to be seen to be at things and for people to be like, "Oh, Gemma's here," so on and so forth. So I thought, No, I still got networking to do. I didn't. I'd, yeah, I'd, you know, hoard myself out enough, but yeah.

Josh: Did you send, like, did you get to send an email to people? Like, did you get, or like, was there a going away party?

Gemma: There wasn't a party. There wasn't a party. I did have—

Josh: 4 years, no party.

Gemma: 5.

Josh: 5 years, no party. Wow.

Gemma: No, but I was a bit of an asshole. That was probably on me. I can admit that. I did send the email out and—

Josh: Unauthorized sort of deal?

Gemma: No, I think they said to me like, you have 1 hour to cheque your email. Yeah.

Tommy: So that's ridiculous. Yeah, the job when I left, I didn't get a party from, but I was there for 6 months.

Josh: Yeah, it was a weird one. I had the last job, they did like a dress up like Josh Day. I had this very specific look at the time, snapback hat. Lanyard and a company t-shirt.

Tommy: Could that be a slight troll versus a compliment? Will they dress up like Josh? Dress up like the quirky guy?

Josh: They made two cakes for me. One of them had my new company logo on it.

Gemma: That's so nice.

Josh: It was really, really nice. But the—

Tommy: What did the other one have on it?

Josh: The other one was— Had their logo? No.

Tommy: Who's the fucking boss here?

Josh: The bigger cake. Yeah. No, it was a slightly off-tasting, but a lovely thought burger cake. So it looked like a burger.

Gemma: Oh, okay.

Josh: But someone had gotten like two sponge—

Gemma: Yeah, classic cupcake.

Josh: Yeah, but it wasn't much of an eating cake, but I was really, I feel like I had two parts of the business. People either like I got along with them really well, or there's people who really disliked me. And there was even—

Gemma: Right.

Josh: Glassdoor, do you know Glassdoor?

Gemma: Yeah.

Josh: So there's specific reviews of Glassdoor that like are about me. Oh my God. So for people that don't know.

Tommy: They don't say the names though.

Josh: No, but so I got one taken down 'cause it was so obvious that it was about me, but one person said.

Gemma: They're like, there's this one guy, Mosh Pantsen.

Josh: Mosh Pantsen, a new name. No, I had, there was one where someone said, the only company where you can do absolutely no work and still be positioned as a, as a, what's it called when you're a character in a big outfit for a team?

Tommy: Oh yeah, a mascot.

Josh: Mascot. They said, yeah, someone can do no work but still held up as a mascot.

Tommy: That says so much more about the person, the gutless person that writes it with no name on there.

Josh: Yeah. I won't say what company one of them was, was, but— McDonald's. No, let's be honest. No.

Tommy: This is when you used to dress up as Ronald.

Josh: There were friends that I had in HR, not my last job or whatever, but they, I would catch up with them and they said, oh, we still like, people mention you in their exit interview.

Tommy: It's so funny.

Josh: So there you go. That's the type. So I'm as much of an asshole. Well, I don't think it was an asshole. People were annoyed that within the business there was a lot of non-fun jobs to do. And I just landed on the best gig in the whole place.

Tommy: I think that's people living a life of comparison. Like looking, if you're in fucking accounts and you're looking to the people on air at a radio station, slightly different. They've treaded a different path to you. You can't be that fucking sad that you haven't made the steps towards that.

Josh: Did you find that when you left, you had like a stage of like 6 months or something of like thinking about everyone and how you're positioned and what people thought of you?

Tommy: Are you irreplaceable?

Gemma: Well, a few people left.

Josh: Oh, that's a good sign. That's great. 'Cause the rose-colored glasses thing is like a serious thing where it's like when you're at a place, you can look at it with this light, but then as soon as you leave, your number one job is just to like throw shade or think about why it's shit.

Gemma: Yeah, I tried to not do that because within the company there's like people who are related and people who are best friends. So I was very careful.

Tommy: Blocked all of them so they couldn't see statuses.

Gemma: Yeah, I don't know. I think I just wasn't that salty because I knew it was for the best. Like I had my half hour of sadness, but then I just—

Josh: That's good that you can contain it to 30 minutes.

Tommy: You should take on this, Josh.

Gemma: I'm just not a super— like I'm not an emotional person.

Josh: Same.

Tommy: Shoulda.

Gemma: My girlfriends all know, like, don't come to me if you need someone to console you.

Josh: What do you reckon that comes from? What's the, like, is it, were you like that as a kid where you just like didn't really give?

Gemma: No, no, you know what it is? I was like, not to get all woe is me, I was bullied pretty bad in primary school and my parents were very much like, yeah, but they're all assholes. Like this is not a reflection on you. So I think from sort of the age of like 10 up, I've been.

Josh: So it's like a confidence.

Gemma: Yeah, yeah, my 21st birthday, every single speech started with like, if there's one word to describe Gemma, it's confident. Confident. And then the next speech they got up and did more or less the same thing. And I'm like, okay guys, everyone gets it. This is starting to sound like an insult.

Josh: And so what— so you were— you did 5 years working at another place. The third— what was the first year of freelance life like?

Gemma: Amazing, actually. Really, like, touch wood. The joys of self-employment is that—

Josh: yeah, it's good that you—

Gemma: yeah, so clean. Um, the joys of freelance life is that that could dry up at any minute, but I feel like it's been 2 years of, you know, it not blowing up in my face. So I'm happy to just ride this wave as long as I can.

Tommy: The thing about being by yourself though, that like slipping into comparison mode, especially in what you do, there's like a million people that probably don't have the skill set as you that are doing something of a similar vain putting on makeup, try, you know?

Gemma: A bit. I think I managed to, like, I don't compare what I'm doing to other people 'cause I think I have carved a bit of a niche for myself 'cause there's some very different camps in beauty. There's what I'm doing and then there's the real like makeup artisty YouTube type of thing, which is not me at all.

Josh: Did you try and do that?

Gemma: I did give YouTube a crack., but this is like, this is my voice. I'm very one note. And the YouTube community is like, hey guys, today we're unboxing my favourite things. And that's exhausting for me.

Josh: So that energy.

Gemma: Yeah.

Tommy: And have to say it everywhere like this.

Gemma: Yeah. And say everything like it's a question, which is not me at all.

Tommy: It's Australian. That's a really Australian thing.

Josh: We inflect everything. Yeah.

Tommy: Do we do that over here?

Josh: But Tommy's very present. You naturally do that a lot.

Tommy: I naturally go to the present. No, but the inflection bit. Yeah, is what we're talking about. Yeah, as much as I will present, um, it's just a different—

Gemma: I don't know.

Tommy: Who's that? Um, Chloe Morello, is it? Yes, she's huge.

Gemma: Yeah, yeah, massive. She's really nice, which is—

Tommy: well, I can just say, uh, her mum's really nice too, because Amy and I—

Josh: this is when, you know, Mike Larkin, right?

Tommy: Yeah, no, this ties back into—

Gemma: didn't he buy your house? Are you rich?

Tommy: No, no, I'm definitely not rich, and Mike Didn't buy the house. No, Amy and I, New Year's Eve, she was pregnant. Yeah. Big fat belly, not fat, but Bodhi was in his cave.

Gemma: Yeah, he had a child in there.

Tommy: This was New Year's Eve, so it was like 2 months out from the baby being born. And we drove and pulled into this motel in Batemans Bay, New South Wales. And I was just about to go fly my drone and the woman who owned the hotel, the motel, like full old school motel, it was great. And she's like, oh, what's that? And I told her it's my drone. She's, "Oh, my daughter's into some production stuff." And I told her that I do production. She's like, "Oh, she's got a YouTube channel, Chloe Morello." She's so famous. It was her mom. And she's like, "Yeah, she's over in LA at the moment." But her mom was a sweetheart.

Gemma: That's so nice.

Tommy: So if you're in Bateman's Bay, look for her.

Josh: So what was that? What did you actually do in the video front before you worked out it wasn't for you?

Gemma: Well, I was just talking. Showing people how to do things. I was just talking, which I think is why I'm now podcasting 'cause that's more my thing. That's great.

Josh: I'm gonna turn my computer off while you talk.

Gemma: And then people were commenting. My favourite comment, this was so long ago, but it has stuck with me. Someone was talking about how I sound like I hate everything. This is just my voice. She's gone, "You really are the Bernard Tomic of beauty." I'm like, "What do you mean?" She said, "'Cause you're very good at it, but you just obviously don't wanna be here." Is Bernard Tomic the— He's an asshole.

Tommy: Unlovable one, this player.

Gemma: Yeah, always good to hear from a fan. Thank you so much.

Tommy: He looks like Angry Cat. What's that? No, that Grumpy Cat.

Gemma: Grumpy Cat.

Tommy: Looks like Grumpy Cat, his face.

Gemma: Yeah, he did I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, and he left within, I wanna say 36 hours.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And so client, like freelance life, what I find interesting is there's so many ways that you can do the whole freelancing. So many ways that you can make money. I feel like most people who haven't done it it seems like this magic thing. How do you sort of like split it up? How do you see it? How do you look at income? What does that all mean to you?

Gemma: I think the way that I look at it is I'm very fortunate that I have my freelance business as well as the blog and the Instagram and stuff. 'Cause I know so many girls who, you know, work for themselves and call it freelancing, which it is, but they're just doing their Instagram, which makes me a bit nervous 'cause I'm like, what happens when the next, like hot thing comes along that can dress as the same as you, where's your money coming from? Whereas for me, if Instagram dried up tomorrow, I've still got a job 'cause people still need content.

Josh: So you separate those two things?

Gemma: Yeah, very much so.

Josh: Okay.

Gemma: Yeah.

Josh: So what does that actually, like, will you say I'm gonna spend X amount of time on my social media versus how much time you're writing? So you'll write copy for like cosmetics companies and—

Gemma: Yeah, so everything from their blog to their social stuff to then what's going on their packaging. So all of that. I don't like consciously separate the two. It's just I will do as much of my freelance work as I need to do. And then if there's time to Instagram, I'll do it. Like I haven't posted for a week, but that doesn't bother me too much.

Tommy: I was bothered.

Gemma: Really?

Josh: Yeah, I was really bothered. Well, the algorithm anyways, fucking all of that sort of stuff.

Gemma: I do not care about the algorithm. I see so many people posting on their storeys like, did this pop up in your feed?

Josh: Oh no, no.

Tommy: Well, that's when you don't have another way of making money.

Gemma: Yeah.

Tommy: Probably when you're relying on it. So you are very conscious. Is the money drying up, do you think, for people making on Instagram? Probably for that person that's saying, am I popping up in your feed?

Gemma: I don't think it's drying up, but I think brands are using it in different ways. So they're not going to, I spoke at Facebook head office, so I'm a pretty big deal. But something I was saying there was that not to minimise what fashion bloggers do, but you don't necessarily have to trust them. 'Cause if someone walked past here now wearing a dress I liked, I might go and buy it. I have no relationship with that person, I don't trust them. But if that same person walks in and goes, oh, I just use the best moisturizer, it's gonna change your life. I'd be like, okay, well, what's your skin like? What did it look like yesterday? Tell me about the product. So there needs to be, a dialogue. What brands were doing up until probably this year was going to beauty brands, sorry, were going to fashion bloggers with 200,000 followers and getting them to promote a product, but then not getting any sales from it because people aren't following, you know, such and such because they want their beauty routine, they're following them for their wardrobe. So now brands are being a bit smarter and they're going to the Gemmas and the ones that don't, like I don't have a massive following in the grand scheme of things,, but I know that if I recommend a product, they're gonna sell a few of it.

Josh: And so do you, what do you geek out at in the process? Do you like the writing copy that sells? Like what's the things that—

Gemma: I think my favourite thing is just tapping into different voices because the brands that I work with, like there's one where I have to write as though I'm a 35-year-old mother of 4, and then there's others where I'm like a 16-year-old, so I like just sitting down like, who am I today?

Josh: What is the process?

Tommy: She takes herself to Frankston. Yeah, goes to Maccas and sits with the other mothers.

Gemma: Exactly what I do. And I've got my pink Ugg boots on and my denim shorts and I just go for it.

Josh: How do you get into the mode?

Gemma: It comes pretty naturally. I think maybe because I'm a theatrical person. So I, yeah, it doesn't take, there's not like a ritual to it. I just am pretty Methodical.

Josh: Theatrical.

Tommy: He yells out mid-writing, "Brayden, settle down." Yeah.

Josh: Tyler's a great one. And what were you like? You were saying about being bullied and stuff. What were you like in school? What were you into?

Gemma: In primary school, early primary school, I was painfully shy for that reason. And then I snapped out of it. But when you were talking about this, when I walked in before, I was like primary school captain. Then in high school, I was junior school captain, middle school captain, vice school captain, missed out on school capitano, but I like to call it the people's captain.

Josh: Wow, I feel like it's amazing how similar. I was vice captain, but I had two cracks at it though, because year 10, like we go onto a new campus for year 11 and year 12. Year 10, I was stolt, like school captain was stolen.

Gemma: Year 10, I was middle school captain, so.

Tommy: Would you say you were bullied, Josh?

Josh: "Ah, yeah, but I didn't give a fuck." So when you don't care, I think that it's like, it's a little, it feels less like bullying and more like banter.

Tommy: I'm just seeing some correlation between people who ran for those kind of school roles and getting bullied.

Josh: Well, maybe it's because you're standing out.

Gemma: I didn't in high school. I had a really good time at high school. There were some girls in the year level above me. Now that I look back, I'm like, that is cyberbullying.

Tommy: Oh yeah.

Gemma: 'Cause they would post photos 'cause I was big on that pose that like with the hand on the hip and the very exaggerated lean. So then they would post photos doing the same thing and then like write something about me in the caption, but it didn't bother me.

Josh: Were you like full beauty blogger when you were younger? Did you ever do that?

Gemma: I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone 'cause I used to take a photo of myself in the mirror with my like big DSLR. I would take a mirror photo of my makeup and my outfit whenever I was going anywhere. And I would take my camera out with me and then, yeah.

Josh: So you're like, you're a couple of years younger than me. What was that like? I got the very tail end of Facebook. Was Instagram?

Gemma: Instagram was not, I finished school in 2010. So Instagram wasn't part of it. MySpace was, I was pumping. Yeah.

Josh: Yeah. That's what I was saying.

Tommy: MSN?

Gemma: Absolutely. And then sign, like appearing offline and then appearing online so that your crush would like see that Yeah, you could put like a status symbol.

Josh: I'd go to firehotquotes.com and just copy and paste your quote with all the characters because I didn't know how to do like the keyboard characters, but it's real.

Gemma: My girlfriends reminded me quite recently that in grade 6 I had in my MSN name Gemma Dilemma, I don't have a crush on Alistair anymore.

Josh: That should be your— can you change your Instagram bio?

Gemma: Yeah, I'm gonna change it.

Tommy: That would be What was the one before ICQ?

Josh: Did you ever get on that? It was ICQ, yeah. What is that?

Tommy: That was a bit creepy. I remember speaking to some random people, didn't even know who they were.

Josh: I never did the whole public chat stuff.

Gemma: No, neither.

Josh: The closest thing would have been like probably 2012 when Chat Roulette was a big thing.

Gemma: I never did that.

Josh: All your mates were dicks.

Gemma: Yeah, I'm just, I don't want dick pics. I constantly think someone's stalking me, so I'm just a bit careful.

Tommy: What do you mean? Have you had anyone stalking you?

Gemma: Yeah, this is another thing that at the time I sort of brushed it off, and then I was talking to someone about it a few weeks ago and they were like, no, that's fucked up. At one of my girlfriend's 21st, so this is 4 or 5 years ago, a kid who was a few years below me in school, and we live in the same area, There's so many pieces of this storey that I haven't put together. Tell me more. But he go—

Tommy: But the police are currently doing that.

Gemma: Yeah, they're working on that for me. He had a friend in Bendigo or somewhere that way who called him and said, I'm in Melbourne on a footy trip, are you at home? And he said, yeah, yeah, let's go for a drink. His mate picked him up in a van full of boys from the footy team who this guy had never met before. One of them goes, "Oh, you went to Coonong, you must know Gemma Watts." And he was like, "Oh, yeah." 'Cause we used to walk to and from school together. So he knows Gemma Watts. And then, so he was like, "Oh no, I don't know her well." His mate then said, "Oh yeah, you do. You used to walk home from school together." So then they said, "Where does she live?" And then he pointed them in the opposite direction. And then he reckons they drove around for an hour calling out my name. But that was before I was doing the Instagram thing. This was still Facebook.

Tommy: Why, why could have they been, why would they be doing that?

Gemma: I have absolutely no idea.

Josh: That's super spooky.

Gemma: Because I'm not someone that's posting like bikini photos. So I feel like that would be—

Tommy: Hey, listen, I mean, the tone of the van could have been completely different and they were all super makeup fans.

Gemma: Yeah, that could be.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Top 10 tips.

Gemma: Yeah.

Tommy: That's probably it. Before they hit the hit the town and get back to the footy club. Have you actually had people on Instagram though? Like sliding into your DMs?

Gemma: No, it doesn't happen to me. I think because of what I'm posting, I think something like 85% of my followers are women who just—

Josh: It's just women and me.

Gemma: Yeah, pretty much. But yeah, I don't think I'm a target for any of that. Again, that's good.

Tommy: What I love is people who just share them on Insta stories.

Josh: Like, just like creepers.

Tommy: Yeah, just how's this creep?

Gemma: Yeah, I've never received a dick pic, which now that I've said that, I'm sure the Daily Talk Show audience, I think, I think we're okay.

Josh: I think we're all right, hopefully. Um, Conspiracy Jimmy's not, not sending a dick pic.

Tommy: No, no one. Don't fucking send dick pics.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. Send them to HiTheDailyTalkShow and we'll filter them.

Tommy: Well, we had Ryan John, friend of ours, on on the show and he said that he went out and asked all these people in the street, he was doing vox pops, do you send dick pics? And he was like, yeah, we send them to the boys. It's like dudes sending each other dick pics. So that's where it really lies.

Josh: I've never had that. I've never had the boys sort of group. Are you, do you have a girl group?

Gemma: My friends and I aren't sending photos of our tits to each other.

Josh: Do you have a girl group?

Gemma: Well, one of them does 'cause she's recently had hers done.

Tommy: But other than that, Well, if she made them, show them off at least to you girls.

Gemma: And they look amazing, so I'm happy to receive that, but it's not something that we're sending around.

Tommy: It is a bizarre thing.

Gemma: Yeah.

Tommy: Sending a nude to a friend.

Josh: Also, fake tits are pretty bizarre too when you like break it down. Very bizarre. It's like silicone, like you are— like, did you know the most dangerous type of plastic surgery, do you know what it is? No, I don't. It was banned in the UK. Butt lifts. Yes.

Gemma: Oh. Okay.

Josh: I didn't even know that was a real, like that was actually a thing.

Gemma: Yeah, I mean, I assumed it was because the Kardashians exist, but—

Josh: But do you think the Kardashians are doing, like, do you really think that they're butchering?

Gemma: I've never watched an episode of the Kardashians, so I don't know, but they pop up on the explore page.

Josh: What's your vibe on like cosmetics, like cosmetic surgery and stuff? What would you do? Would you?

Tommy: What'd you get? What upgrade?

Gemma: I get asked all that. I haven't had anything done. I'm not against it. The second a wrinkle pops up here, I'm nipping that in the bud. But I feel like I'm 25. I'm safe. I get asked all the time. I lost a bit of weight from my face and people were like, oh, I see you've had your masseters done. Me squizzy.

Tommy: Masseters?

Gemma: You get You get Botox injected into like part of your jaw and it slims your face.

Josh: Tommy and I were talking about, we had a potential client that was like a dental cosmetic surgeon. And the question I asked TJ is if we had like an $8,000 quick job for him, and he said, look, let's do it as a contra deal, but I'll give you $30,000 worth of veneers.

Gemma: Oh my God, I want veneers so bad.

Josh: I don't know if they're like necessary. Like you've got fucking—

Gemma: I have a snaggle tooth, but also my wisdom teeth grew 8 years ago and they're still there.

Tommy: I haven't done it.

Gemma: Yeah, they don't hurt. They've pushed all my other teeth out of the way, but—

Josh: Don't you think it's so— like I saw Steph Clare Smith got hers done.

Gemma: Yeah, she did.

Josh: And the before and after, I'm like—

Gemma: She had beautiful teeth.

Tommy: Where are you seeing this?

Josh: Instagram.

Tommy: She posted it?

Gemma: Yeah.

Tommy: It's interesting that they lead with it. Oh, it's all these done.

Josh: Well, it's because like—

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Well, I mean, there's probably like, it's a contra deal probably.

Gemma: The issue that I have, 'cause I'm all like, do whatever you want. If that's gonna make you feel good, then all power to you. But my issue is when girls get their like their lips done, their boobs done, whatever for free, and then they'll post in the caption, I'm not saying that you all need to go and do this, but here is a discount code for if you do wanna go and get it done.

Tommy: What's the deal with asking somebody? I mean, what do you mean?

Josh: Like, if you're a surgeon, have you had your lips done?

Gemma: Like, what's it? I get asked that a bit, like, if I've got lippy on, and I've— there are ways to trick the eye.

Tommy: But some people are like, I've found, and I have asked somebody if they'd had some work done, and they were like, oh, you can't ask me that.

Gemma: I was like, oh, see, I think you can if you spent that much money on something.

Josh: You want people to be like, he'll ask how much your house is worth, he'll ask how much you earn.

Tommy: So what are you making?

Josh: What's your P&L?

Gemma: I'm very rich. Yeah, I actually bought your house in 2008 with Michael Arthur.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's sort of like a shared job.

Gemma: Mike and I are together, so there's a scoop.

Josh: It's come out. Scoopla.

Tommy: No, but yeah, and this person was offended but had clearly had it done So it's like a weird thing that you're getting something that everyone else sees, but you won't talk about it.

Gemma: Yeah, I have no shame in asking, but I have a girlfriend who, this was a couple of years ago, she had her lips done. I don't think you're meant to go out 2 hours later and have like a big night out, but she did. Her face looked like she was swollen. And then she'd had a few drinks and she's like, Gemma, don't tell anyone, but I had my lips done.

Josh: I'm like, oh, what? You're like, oh my God. No, but I am— the only exposure I have to cosmetic surgery is Brie loves watching Botched. It's the internet.

Gemma: No, Botched. I haven't watched it, but that appeals to everything that I like watching. I really like trash.

Tommy: So Botched is the—

Josh: It's two dudes. Yeah, it's two dudes who will— you have people come in and they're like, oh yeah, I only wore my compression bra for a day and now I've got six tits.

Gemma: Which also happened to it, like she didn't wear the thing for long enough and then her boobs started leaking.

Tommy: Yeah.

Gemma: Thailand will do that to you.

Tommy: Some people have allergic reactions to the silicone.

Gemma: Well, it's something foreign that you just—

Tommy: Yeah, it's so bizarre.

Gemma: Whacking in there.

Josh: Yeah, it's outrageous.

Tommy: I think mentally I couldn't handle—

Josh: Tommy just is grabbing his breast.

Tommy: I'm thinking like, I don't know if I could mentally handle the thought of something, but I don't know, maybe. I mean, none of us can speak from experience, so it's—

Josh: maybe I'll get like— I've got a pretty bad hairline. Maybe I could imagine doing plugs, you know, like that.

Gemma: Oh, I don't know that I've ever seen plugs go well.

Josh: I remember seeing a guy— I've only ever seen plugs early stage.

Tommy: I still feel like there's a bug on my head.

Josh: I keep feeling the, um, yeah, I remember years and years ago, this would have been probably early 2000s, maybe even '90s, being at like some It was at the car show or something, and my mum saying that.

Gemma: As you do.

Josh: Yeah, and mum was like, just the Bogan family having a good weekend, and mum's like, that guy's got plugs. I just remember it looked like early stages of if you're like seeding for grass. It's just like quite insane.

Tommy: A guy at the gym had it done. He was always bald and he was a footy player. He played for like Richmond, and then he played for VFL, but he was bald in the VFL and AFL, and then started growing at the side. So it was like a bit George Costanza-esque. And then all of a sudden walks in full head of hair and he'd had it done.

Josh: But then like the glue thing, is that like a glue job if he's had it done?

Tommy: Well, I think you can get it like surgically sort of installed so it's not just like a glue job where it'll come off at night. And so then you get a haircut to blend it into the head of hair at the top. He ended up taking it off and he's bald because he looked great. He looked fucking like an absolute legend. And he, um, but you could always tell he was funny. He used to always tell us at the back of his mind, it's like if I've ever got a cold sore and it's— you just think everyone's fucking looking at you.

Gemma: Oh yeah, me when I have a pimple, I'm like, I can't leave.

Tommy: Yeah, everyone's fucking looking at it. I bet you he had that feeling perpetually. This guy is looking at my fucking hair. Yeah, he's looking at my bald head.

Josh: Like, Toupee, your toupees are a bit bad as well. Yeah, but do you— have you become at all disenfranchised by the industry and just focusing on and how you look?

Gemma: Yeah, a bit. I mean, I think it surprises people to find that I'm not, I'm pretty low maintenance, sort of low maintenance, but I'll go and get like, I will have my eyebrows tinted so I don't have to like do anything to them for 6 weeks and I'll go and get a spray tan so I don't have to. But yeah, I don't know, I don't care. That obviously I do care about what I look like, but I, you know, it's not my be-all and end-all. I would rather someone tell me I'm like smart or funny.

Josh: Yeah, that's—

Gemma: yeah.

Josh: And so if you— would you be self-conscious if someone's like, hey, we've got an event tomorrow night and your spray tan lady wasn't available?

Gemma: No, I would just do it myself.

Josh: Um, please.

Gemma: Um, yeah, not really. Like, I've done events and stuff before where I've had to have my makeup done on the stage. So being without makeup doesn't bother me.

Josh: Do you think any— there's any— because I feel like if I was in any sort of industry that was even us doing like YouTube videos or whatever, you start thinking about the way you look a little bit more.

Gemma: Yeah, I have, I have a complicated relationship with my body from like the neck down. The face, I'm like, I'm fine, but in the club Yeah. I mean, I think that's probably why fashion wasn't for me because when I first started working as a fashion editor, it was all about interviewing people and reviewing collections. Now it is styling. So it's like personal style and taking outfit photos. I don't like doing that because A, I don't think I'm offering anything different to what is, you know, already out there, but also because I'm not a size 6. So I think that, But are you okay with that?

Josh: Like, what's the actual, how do you feel about it?

Gemma: I am now. Of course, I think it's human to sometimes be like, ugh, but most of the time I'm like, oh, whatever, this is my body. I could starve myself and I still wouldn't, like this is just the way that I'm built. So I'm pretty fine with it.

Josh: Have you done the starving thing?

Gemma: No, I was a ballerina for 18 years. So that sort of fucked me up.

Josh: So you did 18 years of starving? Yeah.

Gemma: Starving, but yeah, I definitely did some stupid stuff, but you know.

Josh: What about your girlfriends? Like, I feel like I've got the quality of a lot of female traits, and one of them is my obsession with weight and just doing dumb shit to, like, I've done everything from like juice fasting to—

Gemma: Really? See, I just don't care, lazy, don't care enough.

Josh: But do you have like, are you, What's your approach to, 'cause Bree and I talk about it all the time and she'll then have girlfriends, like it's not just her, she has to then worry about her girlfriends will then like send her pictures of being like, "Oh, look at how this person looks," and like feeds that.

Gemma: My friends, I don't know. I pretty much have a blanket rule with my girlfriends. I'm like, if you feel like you're fat, I don't wanna hear it. Like I just don't wanna hear it. If you feel like shit about yourself, you know, if you're coming to me, of course I'm gonna tell you you look beautiful. So I think, I don't know, I don't talk about weight with my friends. If there's anything involving numbers, I'm like, nah. But I've got friends who've had eating disorders, which is so rough. And then I sound really selfish, but that then makes me feel like crap because I'm looking at these girls and I'm like, if they think they look fat, what do they think of me? Which of course they're not thinking of me 'cause it's a mental thing, but it's still, yeah, irks me a bit.

Tommy: How young is too young to actually—

Josh: To start an eating disorder? Yeah, to start sort of not eating.

Tommy: No, what was the question? How young is too young to actually start doing makeup and all of that stuff?

Gemma: Oh God, this is my, I had anything before, 16, even then I didn't wear makeup. We weren't allowed to wear makeup to school, which I'm really thankful for. But young girls are so good at makeup now because of YouTube. Like they just have to watch videos and they're amazing at it. But I just, the thing that worries me with young girls doing makeup is that they will get more likes or more views if they're doing YouTube or whatever it, you know, the currency may be. The more different they make themselves look. So then if they're getting likes based on looking like a completely different person, there's something in their head that's going, oh, I need to make myself look more different.

Tommy: Yeah, you're talking about that on your podcast with Rae Morris.

Gemma: Yeah, yeah, and she's spot on. Yeah, yeah, she's spot on. That scares me a bit. And now I've got girlfriends now that are primary school teachers and high school teachers. There are kids for grade 6 graduation that are rocking up with a full face of makeup, which—

Josh: Yeah, that's—

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, it's just even the fashion of young girls, it's like sexualized.

Gemma: Very much so. I think I went the other way because I started dancing when I was 3. So to me, makeup was for stage. And it was so heavy and like green eyeshadow.

Josh: But isn't life just a big stage, Gemma?

Gemma: Oh my God. That's why I can't do YouTube. But I think for me, I was like, why would you wanna paint yourself to be something else to go to school?

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: It's a lot of work, but that's how I feel about my hair. Like that's one of the things that I'm like quite ashamed of is my hair. And the thing is that it's, I mean, that sounds quite dramatic. No, but it's that thing of like maintenance. Like I'm worried that like I had a moment of maybe I'll, be a curly head guy. Maybe I start like some sort of conditioning treatment. Um, no.

Tommy: Well, I think it's just too much thought.

Josh: How much do you think about your hair?

Gemma: A lot. Yeah, my hair is my, like, the thing that I care the least about because I have naturally very good hair. Like, very—

Josh: How often do you cut your hair? Get your hair cut?

Gemma: Pretty often. It grows really quickly. Um, but I just—

Tommy: Oh my gosh, she's Like legitimately fascinated.

Gemma: But that's another thing I get asked all the time. Like, where did you get your hair extensions from?

Josh: Do you have foils or something?

Gemma: This is, I normally get it done darker and then this is just it fading. So it's lighter at the ends.

Josh: Do you like it the day that it gets done? Because Bree, she only gets her hair cut maybe once every year because the thing is I was just so, well, both over every single time she had her hair done, she would cry.

Gemma: Oh, see, all of my friends are like that. I don't care, as long as the face looks good, whatever else is happening.

Tommy: Your reassurance is at least you got some. At least it's not going.

Josh: Have you seen my hairline?

Tommy: No, but I think there's definitely too much thought to it, Josh. But what about the—

Josh: we're talking about the style. What about the— we were listening to some YouTubers talking on a podcast and they were talking about they wanted to be more intentional.

Gemma: Yeah.

Josh: And then all of a sudden they're like, yeah, I just don't like how my hair isn't intentional. And these guys had better hair than Tommy, like just like slicked, like not slicked, slick sounds sort of sleazy and a bit like Wolf of Wall Street, but just like really—

Gemma: I see, I was immediately thinking John Travolta and Grease.

Josh: That's all I think Grease is.

Tommy: Well, I think there's a scale, right? Because I walk into the bathroom at Fitness First and I see the bloke with his top off in the mirror.

Josh: Here we go.

Tommy: And he's got his— it's Michael Larkin's son, buff. I'm joking. There's a guy in there that's got his pack, he's got his face moisturizer.

Gemma: Good.

Tommy: Like he's got a bunch of these things.

Gemma: Everyone should be moisturizing.

Tommy: I look over, I'm just fucking stuffing the clothes into my bag, like have got nothing with me, didn't even bring deodorant. And I look over and think, fuck me, that guy thinks about this a lot. But that's probably the norm for him.

Gemma: Yeah, 'cause my routine is extensive, but I'm not thinking about it, it's just like, second nature.

Tommy: Which is probably how these guys— and I just, I think about like where I am and what you are. I think we're all just on these scales.

Josh: Yeah, I'm on the serum scale. I do a little bit. Well, only when I— like, only from sun damage. Like when I was travelling with Bree, I was just like, oh, can I have a little bit of the serum?

Gemma: Oh, you did get super burnt.

Josh: It was pretty— and the serum, the serum would just, would just stay like it was I was so dry.

Tommy: Bubble like schnitzel.

Josh: It was an absolute nightmare. The podcasting, what's your vibe on podcasting?

Gemma: Mad for it.

Josh: Yeah.

Gemma: Mad for it. I wanted to do it for so, so long 'cause like all I do all day is listen to podcasts 'cause I, like if I was listening to music, I would go, like I'd start choreographing in my head, which is not super productive.

Josh: It's just the big stage.

Gemma: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, I was just listening to all of— with beauty podcasts, there's a few good ones in Australia, but not the kind of content that I wanted to cover. And then the stuff that I really liked was coming out of the US and the UK. So I just did my classic, like, there's the gap, I'm just gonna slot myself into it.

Josh: How do you find listening to podcasts while you work? 'Cause if you're— I know that like I can't listen when I'm editing. Like I've actually started a rule literally 3 hours ago, so it's very early days. Early days. I was sitting in the car and there was a 40-minute podcast and I'd arrived at the office and I was like, if I'm gonna listen to a podcast, I can't be doing it seated. I need to be like going around and walking. But I can't listen while I'm writing. I can't listen while I'm editing. What's your?

Gemma: I think maybe 'cause I'm a woman so I can do 2 things at once.

Josh: Do you really listen to podcasts while you write?

Gemma: Yeah, big time. Especially music and songs.

Josh: I can't listen to music with lyrics. Like just music with like, all of a sudden I'll be writing like, "I kissed a girl," just like back, you know? I can put, throw on some Katy Perry.

Gemma: Which I mean, depending on the client, that could be quite good. Yeah, I listen to a lot of business one. I can't listen to like true crime while I'm working 'cause then I'd get hooked, but business ones 'cause then I'm like, work harder, what? Earn more money. But like I'm already super rich, so it's fine.

Josh: And so do you, like what is, is how regimented are you with all your work stuff?

Gemma: Very. I like routine, I like order, I like having structure, everything's—

Josh: So what is it? Describe that routine.

Gemma: Well, I'm like a morning person. I hate when people say they're a morning person. I think it sounds really— 6:00?

Josh: Yeah, that's a morning. I heard someone, like I think even Tim Ferriss has talked about he's wanting to start doing mornings and it's like 8:00 AM. That's like, no, that's a joke.

Tommy: They've both always slept in. It's because he works late, writes late.

Gemma: See, Chris is a carpenter, my partner's a chippy, so he's always up early. So that's kind of changed my body clock. It's not me being like, I love getting up in the morning and this, this, and this. It's just that is the time that I'm up. And then I don't know, I like working from home because if I'm wide awake at 6:30 and I want to start working, I can just do it.

Josh: And so what does it look like? So you'll— you have like a laptop?

Gemma: Yeah, I've got a separate kitchen.

Josh: Where do you actually—

Gemma: I've got a separate office out, right? Because I still mooch off my parents.

Josh: Perfect. I did that for a long time.

Gemma: Never moved. We're trying to buy a house.

Josh: So, and how is the vibe on that? Do you— what, you being at home still versus having friends that are away from home?

Gemma: They're all still— most of them are still at home.

Tommy: Yeah. Howdy.

Gemma: 25, 26 in 2 weeks.

Tommy: So exciting time to get out.

Gemma: Well, we want to buy in the next 12 months.

Josh: That's exciting.

Gemma: Yeah, yeah, for me it didn't make sense, um, to rent because I would need a separate office and then I'm paying like twice as much as I need to.

Josh: So Chris lives at your parents' place?

Gemma: No, he lives with his best mate down the road. Okay, um, but his family lives in Rosebud, so he used to commute back and forth every day.

Josh: Yeah, geez. Yeah. And so what do you think?

Gemma: We did that for so long.

Tommy: Well, you could live down there. No, you want to live city?

Gemma: Nah, I only learned how to drive probably 3, less than 3 months ago.

Tommy: So for the first time, you hadn't even got your L's?

Gemma: I had my L's, but I just kind of—

Josh: what is it like? Bree was late, but when I say late, she was 19.

Tommy: 25.

Josh: 25 is pretty— what was the, uh, What was the psychology behind the driving thing?

Gemma: I like to be the best at everything, and I got behind the wheel of a car and I was like, oh, I'm not the best at this, so I'll let someone else do it and I'll just focus on things that I am the best at.

Tommy: It is the funniest approach.

Gemma: But yeah, as much as I would love to say, oh, because I care so much about the environment— no, I would— lazy again. It's just too much.

Josh: I don't reckon you are. Like, I reckon to be able to be successful in your freelancing and stuff, the lazy thing, do you catch yourself saying it and realising that you're like bullshitting a little bit?

Gemma: Yeah, definitely, I'm trying to make myself relatable. But truly I am the best at everything. So I worked out driving a car was actually not so bad and I don't know how I went so long without doing it.

Josh: What was the first lesson like?

Gemma: Well, I had driven before and I hadn't, asshole teacher when I was 18, and I was like, no, no, no, this is not for me. And then one of my girlfriends who has really, really bad anxiety recommended her driving instructor, and even her mum said, if she can do it, anyone can learn how to drive. And he was a legend.

Josh: What was he like?

Gemma: He was Greek, so he was very like, just, I feel like a relaxed dude.

Josh: She did something with her hands there, so like very Greek.

Tommy: Very handsy.

Josh: No, he was just super chill.

Gemma: Super relaxed and made it seem like not a big deal. Yeah, I like what I need.

Tommy: Did you have a driving instructor?

Josh: I had an old guy named Dennis and he would always say, 'At the roundabout.' Oh, like, that's how it— but what, he didn't have an accent?

Gemma: Only when he would say, 'At the roundabout.' Every time I did something well, he'd be like, 'Beautiful.' So I think that's what I need, a certain type.

Tommy: I was driving behind one the other day and I was like, 'Oh, this L-plated.' It was like a driving instructor, and I was like, oh, this guy.

Gemma: It was me.

Tommy: It wasn't you, uh, because I went up beside them. I was looking, instructor, I saw Mike in there. No, um, a certain type of person that takes on that role, that would give me the most anxiety ever, just being in a car with someone who's shit at driving. Yeah, it's like I couldn't help myself. I had an instructor once and I had to switch him because he was an idiot, and then I got another one who then was like, I can get some ecstasy if you need it.

Josh: Oh wow, it was a legend.

Tommy: That was great ecstasy.

Josh: Outrageous. Bree always— he didn't get it for you.

Tommy: Did I?

Gemma: Can't wait until after the lesson, I would imagine.

Tommy: I didn't think I got it.

Josh: Gives you the—

Tommy: he was a tripper. He was like ex-party dude. He was nice. But we all had it, like a bunch of our mates had him.

Josh: How loose is— he's our dealer and our listener.

Gemma: That's so good. My assessor when I went for my licence had a hangover. So, I don't know that I should have passed, but—

Josh: What suburb did you go to? Which VicRoads? You don't want to say?

Gemma: One of the ones that starts with a B. So, it could be one of two.

Josh: Brunswick.

Gemma: Brunswick.

Tommy: Brunswick.

Josh: I don't know.

Tommy: Right near here.

Josh: I just know, see, I'm more like Dandenong or Warragul.

Tommy: Well, it was always the thing of like, you can go to the outer suburb ones because—

Josh: Warragul's fucking easy. 'Cause there's like—

Gemma: Yes, you can.

Josh: There's a huge delay. To be able to get, because the year that I got my licence was the year they toughened things up. I failed the first time. So annoying. Tried to fucking change lanes in a roundabout. Annoying. They tricked me though. I was in the left lane and they asked me to go on the right, but it was at Pride. Anyway, it doesn't matter. It's all good. So are you driving a bit then or no?

Gemma: Yeah. I caught the bus here because I didn't wanna find a car park. But also 'cause the bus goes like from my house to here.

Josh: So much respect about the bus thing.

Gemma: I love it. It's very humbling.

Josh: Didn't you— because you actually sat in piss and had to go home.

Gemma: Oh yes, I did. I was vocal about this on Instagram. I don't know that it was piss, but I'm—

Josh: it's a good story.

Gemma: Pretty sure it was. I got on the bus and I was going to like an important meeting and I was wearing a light denim, so that'll show anything. Sat down and felt like a squelch, for lack of a better word.

Josh: Yeah.

Gemma: Jumped up, sort of did a little, you know, and then had to get off the bus, take, I had like a blazer on, had to tie that around my waist and call my mom. Can you come up the road?

Tommy: All I can say is better than a syringe.

Gemma: Yeah, that is true.

Josh: Is that a bus thing? Is that a?

Tommy: Well, no, I remember a guy who sat on a syringe when we were young.

Gemma: Oh my God, that doesn't happen in my area.

Tommy: It's pretty clean now. Yeah. That's disgusting. Gusting though.

Gemma: Oh yeah, it wasn't great.

Tommy: Did you sniff it?

Gemma: Yeah, I did.

Tommy: A little bit. Okay, it's piss. Yeah.

Josh: And so would you— so you're not driving? Yeah. Are you not driving to clients and stuff yet? Like, are you—

Gemma: no, I do that.

Josh: Oh really?

Gemma: Yeah.

Josh: But I've got good parking.

Gemma: Yeah, yeah. If I've— yeah.

Josh: Drive into the city?

Gemma: No, no, please. I drove to— I drove to the showgrounds. That was fun.

Josh: Flemington? Oh great.

Gemma: Yeah, we are really good at driving.

Josh: Oh, you went to the race?

Gemma: No, I didn't drive to the races.

Josh: You're plastered. Was there some sort of conference? Why did you go to the—

Gemma: Oh yeah, I was speaking at Business Cheeks and it was like 3 days after I got my licence and everyone was saying, don't drive there.

Josh: I'd be so nervy. Have you had a car crash yet?

Gemma: Not yet.

Josh: Touch wood. Good quality wood too.

Gemma: No, I haven't. I've only had one person wind the window down and abuse me. And then I pointed out that they were driving the wrong way down a one-way. One-way street.

Josh: And what did they say?

Gemma: I win.

Josh: But it's a lot of yelling to have to like to explain that.

Gemma: I just sort of sat there and just sort of like nodded and waited until he was done, and then you fucking gave it to him.

Tommy: What has your boyfriend said about you not having a license?

Gemma: He said a lot. Uh, he, bless him, he was, um, he had— he's a big fan of that show Entourage, so he's— the way he kind of rationalised driving me everywhere was that he was my turtle. So that's funny. Yeah, so he did that for a while.

Tommy: He was driving a ute.

Gemma: Yeah, that's correct. Um, yeah, but he's a bit pissed off that I got my licence now that he lives two suburbs away and not while he was living in Rosebud.

Josh: It's a good relationship builder.

Tommy: A lot of time, it saves money for petrol, on petrol going down to Rosebud. Did he make you kick in money for petrol? Never. No, that's not right.

Josh: Bree and I were talking about she used to catch a lift when she was doing a TAFE course. She hates when I say that, but it was a TAFE course.

Gemma: I did a TAFE course.

Tommy: What did she hate about it?

Josh: Huh? I don't know.

Tommy: Don't hate what you're doing.

Josh: I know. So she got a diploma in comms or whatever the fuck it was. But she used to get a lift. Oh, that's right. Because it was the, you know, when you didn't get the enter score you wanted and you'll go to like an middle, like it's like an inter sort of thing. It was that sort of deal.

Tommy: And now we've done a whole segment on it.

Josh: Exactly. No, it was like, um, for Deakin they had their one. And, uh, I was a Cert 3 PT, did it in 8 weeks.

Gemma: I did a TAFE course first before I moved over to journalism because the NTER when I— or ATAR or whatever it's called— was like 99.

Josh: I got 46 on my NTER.

Tommy: The thing is we're all defending ourselves against the wankers who got better actually. And we've got Mr. 97 in the room.

Josh: Yeah, that's true.

Tommy: He got 97 on his ATAR.

Gemma: Yeah, I did hear that.

Josh: He's already trolling for us. As soon as I said TAFE, he was panicked about what's going on here.

Tommy: Gemma mentioned you don't look as smart as you are.

Gemma: I didn't say that.

Tommy: No, she didn't.

Josh: No, but Bree would get caught. She didn't have her licence for the first year and she'd catch a lift with a guy. And the weirdness of it was, I don't think, like nowadays I would be like, pay for petrol or whatever. But there was this weird thing at the end of like the semester, he was sort of like asking her to cough up. So Bree ended up giving, uh, where's this going? Yeah, giving him a present.

Tommy: He realised that you were fucking stealing a picture.

Josh: No, the Blackberry. Bree's old Blackberry. She gave, Bree gave him her old Blackberry.

Tommy: Oh, she's a weird unit for taking it.

Josh: It was all about her Blackberry.

Tommy: I can remember being young when we had our licence licences at 18.

Gemma: What was that like?

Tommy: It was great.

Josh: It was crazy.

Tommy: It was great. But we all used to chip in for petrol because you're young and got no cash.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: So everyone's like, oh, chuck us a fiver when we're at the petrol station. But as you get older, I've never asked people.

Gemma: I do that with my girlfriends if we're doing like a girls weekend, but yeah.

Josh: Splitting shit is so difficult.

Gemma: Yeah, it is. I was having this conversation last week when we were at dinner and we had all ordered.

Tommy: Split the bill?

Gemma: Yeah, we'd all ordered different things, but the 3 of us were like, no, we'll just split it. Evenly and not fazed. But I've got friends who will go, yes, but, um, Gemma, you actually had one more glass of wine than I did.

Tommy: So my bet would be there are other people who live at home as well.

Gemma: Yes.

Tommy: And so they're just frugal and wanting to hold on.

Gemma: I have no understanding of the value of money, so I'll like, I'll have two drinks and I'll get everyone around, and then I wake up the next morning and be like, you were trying to buy a house. You can't keep doing this.

Tommy: Have you read The Barefoot Investor?

Gemma: I started reading it and because Chris was like, it's amazing. I mean, I read it.

Josh: Have you got the ING? Have you got the ING account?

Gemma: Yeah, so I went to my accountant the other week and he's gone, oh, I see you have an ING account for like GST, for your tax, for this. You've obviously read The Barefoot Investor. No, that's just common sense. Like of course I have separate accounts for those things.

Josh: A lot of it is just common sense. Common sense. I think that's like the—

Tommy: So what you're saying is a lot of people lack common sense.

Josh: Yes.

Gemma: My Bible is Unfuck Your Finances. That's like the female.

Josh: Oh, interesting.

Gemma: It's very good. Melissa Brown.

Tommy: Is she Aussie?

Gemma: Yeah, she's amazing.

Tommy: Unfuck Your Finances.

Josh: Yeah. Give us one other tip of podcasts if we were to listen to one other podcast.

Gemma: Shameless.

Josh: Shameless. Yeah. Fucking love Shameless.

Gemma: They're my mates, but also—

Josh: Every Monday they're all— It's good. They're on a schedule. Every Monday, you know, you're gonna get it. Yeah, yeah, great. Anything else? What else is going— what's on for the rest of your day?

Tommy: Bus ride, just chilling.

Josh: Are you really gonna take the bus home?

Gemma: Probably.

Tommy: Well, she's got to get home.

Gemma: It's good though, I sit on emails.

Josh: Could you walk home from here?

Gemma: Absolutely not.

Josh: You'd have to walk up like Mont Albert. Please, I don't even know where that is.

Tommy: Isn't that where you live, Mr. 97? Out that way?

Josh: Mont Albert?

Tommy: Yeah, maybe you could get the bus home.

Josh: Where'd you go to school? Um, oh, maybe.

Tommy: Oh, you're kidding.

Gemma: I went to Coonagh. What year did you finish?

Josh: Last year. Maybe you cuties could catch the bus home.

Tommy: And he'll cheque the seat for piss.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. He was sort of all that.

Gemma: All my friends went to Balwyn.

Tommy: He also doesn't have his licence yet, do you?

Josh: But he's also just finished high school.

Gemma: Why drive when you can get driven is my philosophy. But then my friends were like, that doesn't count if you're being driven by the bus driver.

Josh: It sounds like some sort of Mikey campaign. But what is the company that does the buses? Like, it's not like, you know how you got like Metro? Ah, do you remember Grenders? Was that like the big—

Gemma: No, but I heard you guys are talking about like Connex and—

Tommy: Oh, Connex, yeah.

Gemma: I remember that. Yeah, I have no idea who the buses are.

Josh: And they all nice now or no? Have they all like the electric type of deal or no?

Gemma: Yeah, well, maybe that's just in the eastern suburbs.

Josh: And is it busy? I'm just trying to get a sense of it.

Gemma: Yeah, it was today.

Josh: Okay. Yeah, that's why I don't want busy. I just want like small amount of people.

Tommy: Move to the country, move to the bush.

Josh: Yeah, but then I probably— it'd be easy enough to drive.

Tommy: Yeah, everything, it's a country mile.

Josh: It's a Daily Talk Show. We got, um, our emails. We're trying to do a better job with our emails because it's, uh—

Gemma: I sent an email once and you guys read it out. Yeah, yeah, Gemma's the dick girl. Yeah, Gemma's the dick girl. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that.

Josh: No, you sent us a photo of your old school. Yeah, and they did that in 2008 and they burnt in into the grass using like weed killer.

Gemma: Big DNV. The principal knows who it was as well.

Tommy: And Mr. 97's nodding. Yeah, he remembers it. Well, was it your year? What did the— what's the video that they got and those kids got suspended for? Yeah, they had a, um a porn star intro to our—

Josh: what do you mean? What is a porn star? Khalifa. Oh, so they had—

Tommy: they reached out to her and said, can you do an intro for our end of year video? And she wrote back, she sent one back. He showed me it. Yeah, she had clothes on.

Gemma: I was about to say, what was she wearing?

Tommy: No, she has clothes on. Hi boys.

Gemma: Oh my God.

Tommy: And they got suspended. Ah, expelled or suspended? It's suspended.

Josh: That's all right. It's The Daily Talk Show, everyone. Hi@thedailytalkshow.com. The email that I was going to mention was about this, uh, we had an email from someone who their name is just S— sorry, CY, right? And so they were asking— we did a call out last week about stickers and said if you want we can give you some. I know you didn't—

Gemma: a few callouts about stickers.

Josh: You know, this is why we can give you some right now. Oh my God, thank you so much. Happy that I could save on mailing.

Gemma: Thank you so much.

Josh: Yeah, they're transparent, so they're perfect. Don't have to worry about that yellow bit. But no, we got an email.

Gemma: Hospitality.

Josh: I know, it's outrageous between that and the chocolate. Um, the— no, we received an email from someone who said, hello, I was wondering if there are any stickers still available, thank you. And my vibe on it was that I think that this person may have been searching the internet for free stickers.

Gemma: Yeah, definitely.

Josh: And doesn't actually listen to the show. Don't you think? Yeah.

Tommy: And so I automatically went, that's fucking elaborate just to get stickers.

Josh: Yeah, but people would do it.

Gemma: People like free shit.

Josh: So anyway, I put a call out, I think it was on Thursday of last week and said, if CY can email me, I would give $50 cold hard cash.

Gemma: He's so rich.

Josh: I know, this is crazy. It's Tommy's money from Mike. No, but got nothing from them. However, just to seal the deal, on Saturday I emailed and said, "Hey, yep, what's your address?" And they said, "Nice, thanks so much, here's my address." And they gave me their address. So I don't know what to do. I guess I just send the stickers.

Gemma: Are they in this country?

Josh: No, they're in the US.

Gemma: Oh yeah, they're not listening.

Josh: I don't think they were listening. If you are in Chicago and you asked for stickers and your name is CY on the email. Michelle wrote to us and said, "Catching up, still catching up slowly. Stickers thing, some people like me might not know whether the stickers thing is still on if we're behind on episodes." And she said, "But the main reason I'm writing this, did Josh lose his $50?" Well, we still don't know because I think it still applies if they're behind and they're just catching up now.

Tommy: And they get to—

Josh: Well, the office closes. I just can't keep $50 just hanging around until CY. Like we're sending CY stickers, so that's good enough.

Tommy: I'm super fascinated. CY, if you are listening.

Josh: So Glow Journal, I understand the podcast stuff. Do you do a regular blog as well or no?

Gemma: Yeah, I got a bit slack on the blog for a bit, but now I just transcribe all of the podcast content and whack it on there.

Josh: Oh yeah, great. And you had the interview I really liked was with the dude who started Rational.

Gemma: Richard Parker, he's a genius. Yeah, I could have sat there for the whole day.

Josh: I didn't realise it was so old, like 1992.

Gemma: Yeah, but it's only exploded recently, and they're in like Richmond/Cromorne or something. Yeah, the building looks like nothing from outside, and then you go in and it's like a lab. Yeah, yes, yeah, really cool. It's amazing.

Josh: Awesome.

Gemma: I love science.

Josh: Thanks, mate. Thanks for coming in.

Gemma: Thanks for having me.

Josh: The Daily Talk Show, hypethedailytalkshow.com if you want to send us an email. Otherwise, we'll see you tomorrow.

Tommy: See you guys.