Shameless Podcast Success

Josh: The Daily Talk Show, episode 309.

Tommy: A little squished episode, this one.

Josh: Yeah, the first time we've got 4 people including us. We've got Shameless, Michelle and Zara.

Michelle: Thank you, so glad to be here.

Josh: Hello, how are we? For people who don't know Shameless, uh, the podcast for smart women who like dumb shit.

Michelle: Dumb stuff.

Tommy: Dumb stuff.

Zara: Just change the tagline.

Josh: Yeah, it's very close.

Tommy: And you guys are some of our internet friends. We've had so many internet friends on this show where we've, we've met online and now we're in the same room.

Zara: And none of us were catfished.

Tommy: Yes, exactly.

Michelle: Yes, I feel a little bit—

Tommy: well, Mr. 97 might be at some point, but you may have seen, um, the Shameless girls, uh, helping our mate Mr. 97 find love.

Michelle: And you're welcome, Mr. 97. I see you smirking across the room from us.

Tommy: Wowee, that was a, uh, how did you put it, the journey?

Michelle: Cyclone Shameless right here.

Tommy: Yeah, it definitely had that, uh, that vibe, but it feels like the beginning.

Josh: 97 doesn't have a mind the microphone because we're all mic'd up.

Michelle: Yeah, but sorry, buddy, the silent assassin.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. But he's, he's gone on 2 dates. We can, we can say that.

Michelle: I can't tell you how proud I am, Mason. I feel like we were inundated with hundreds and hundreds of women who wanted to go on dates with you. The problem was so many of them were too old. Yeah, I feel like our demo is slightly older than 19, but we did find a couple of gems. I feel like—

Zara: I think we did.

Tommy: Do you think there's like people are in relationships younger and then sort of slipping out at 24 because they're like, I need to develop myself, and I was in this young relationship and I—

Josh: what What does that mean? No, I just think that's happening with a lot of my friends for sure.

Tommy: Okay, so they've been in long-term, now they're breaking up.

Zara: Yes, I think a lot of people get to 24 or 25 and then sort of realise what's next.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, well my brother was, and you too Josh, my brother met his partner, his wife, who they've got 2 kids now, when they were like 17. And I feel like they weathered the storm of just growing up and finding yourself, career, and they got through it.

Josh: Yeah, well now different, like you are when you're like, what I looked like when I was 17 on an elephant. Actually, I was actually 21 on the elephant, so we need to post that photo again. But compared to now, like, it's crazy. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of— but you also become more similar, I reckon, too.

Michelle: I feel like as well, isn't there that theory of the 7-year itch?

Josh: Yeah.

Michelle: So if you're getting together at 17, so many people would be breaking up around 24 because it's that typical timeline where things get really tricky. And when you're that young, you're probably like, fuck it, I can't be bothered making this work. Whereas when you're older and you've got kids and and stuff, you just stick it out.

Zara: I hope we're not discouraging Mason from finding a wife now. You can find a wife now.

Josh: I think it'd be perfect. So it means 7 years. Yeah, so it'd be—

Tommy: it's more old school. It's commendable. Think about like our parents' generation. There was a lot more people who got together young and one love, uh, then they just went to One Love the nightclub and never found love.

Michelle: Good job, Mum and Dad.

Tommy: Uh, we want to, um, we were talking just before we started about, uh, some friction that people thought that they were seeing within your podcast.

Zara: Yeah, let's start there.

Tommy: And then we're talking about Josh and I, we've discussed in length the blowups we've had, but I think it is the fundamentals of, you know, our partnership where we have blowups, we get through them. But what's been said about you girls recently in some of the comment sections?

Zara: It's funny you ask this, 'cause we were gonna talk about catfights on this week's episode generally, like in the public eye and how when women are disagreeing with each other, they almost always are framed in the same way. And then most recently, we've had a lot of feedback from people who are very surprised that we disagree with each other on the show. Like overwhelming amount of feedback with people saying, it's amazing that you guys disagree with each other, which is so surprising to me that that is something to even comment on. And secondly, that when we disagree, some people find, find it very jarring to the point where they don't even know if we like each other.

Michelle: Yeah, because we have— I feel like we were very small at the beginning and we have been really lucky in that we've grown really quickly and that's amazing. The downfall of that is that proportionately as you grow, you also get more feedback. And a lot of that feedback, I think the bigger you get can be more critical and more harsh because they see you as a bigger fish that they can take aim at. And they feel like it's not as personal maybe that if you do have a big audience that it doesn't really matter. But yeah, the commentary, especially on Apple Podcasts has been quite tough, not toxic, but harsh.

Josh: But the thing is, the funny thing is I would clarify it that it's such a small, like you're talking about such a small—

Michelle: Exactly.

Tommy: And to be honest, guys, I'd be happy to have some commentary in our podcast subscriber section.

Michelle: So feel free, sound off.

Josh: I think that, that's— I think it happens with that scale that you're talking about, Michelle, where it's like when you actually start reaching critical mass, there all of a sudden is this new expectation that you're sort of fair game for people to, to say. And then also, by the design of talking about what you talk about, which is around reality and people's personal lives and all that sort of thing and celebrities. People are now seeing you guys, whether you like it or not, a bit like that. And so they're probably starting to say, okay, well, Michelle, Michelle is this type of character and Zara is this type of character, and that's what makes it magic. But that's also the thing that gives them the power to say, oh, Michelle was really pissed at Zara.

Zara: Yeah, it's funny that you do say that though, because I think we sort of have slipped into two like firm characters. Like, those are our personalities. Sorry, a little coffee. And then I was like, you guys don't cut anything out, so there you go, awkward gap. Um, we do have two firm sort of characters that we play, sort of that we accidentally fell into, that suits our personalities. But our personalities are far more layered than that. So you kind of get to this point a year into the podcast where you have built a following, and you get to the point where you say, okay, well, how do I sort of show the other sides of my personality without ruining the dynamic that they've come to expect?

Michelle: And also it's a bit of a, um, You've gotta weigh up what feedback is worth taking on and what feedback is just not productive at all. Like if someone's coming to us and saying, oh, Zara seems rude, or Michelle seems not funny, then is that actually worth taking on or should you be listening to the majority? It's very hard to be able to pick out pieces of feedback and figure out what's actually productive and what's just really nasty.

Josh: Yeah, well, there's a certain type of feedback too, which I saw a YouTuber talking about, which is the most painful, which is, when the commenter is implying that they're doing this for your best interest. Like, it's like, oh my goodness, like they'll frame it in a way which is like, hey, like, I love you guys, or I love what you've been doing, and that's exactly how they do it. Just as an observation, the last few episodes, and I reckon that's a mindfuck, and I, but I also don't think it's true. It's just someone's opinion around— they're probably— people feel uncomfortable when things go from a small thing to a, to a big— yeah.

Tommy: And I think you need to be on, not opposing sides. I think it needs to be genuine in your sort of clash of thoughts around something. Because if you're both the same, you probably wouldn't have—

Josh: It would be so boring. It would be super vanilla.

Zara: And then I don't think we'd have a following. But also it gets to the point when you're like, if I am overly sarcastic and dry, which is my sense of humor, at what point does that become jarring on a podcast that reaches a lot of people who might not sort of understand that? And then you actually do, I think you do have to take elements of that on and say, I'm not gonna dilute this in its entirety, but I do have to work out, you know, how people are gonna take this, I guess.

Josh: What does it actually look like? From the conversation that you were saying that you were speaking about it last night on the phone, what would the shift be?

Tommy: You mean you guys are friends?

Josh: You actually talk on the phone?

Michelle: We are not fighting at the moment, believe it or not.

Josh: Yeah, what was the conversation? How do you sort of work on that situation?

Michelle: The conversation from my end was that Zara called a little bit upset.

Zara: I think you're kind of missing that. I messaged Michelle and I said, I did a bad thing. So I get a phone call straight away.

Michelle: Which could mean a lot of things in Zara's world.

Zara: And I get a phone call straight away and I think, "Oh God, I've been a bit dramatic about this." And I said, "I read the Apple reviews and the last 3 are not good, like about me, not about you, but about me." And I think they are all focused on exactly the same thing, which is that they think that I don't like you. Quote unquote, "Zara hates Michelle." And I was like, "Oh my God, what have I done?" Because I think I give this illusion that I have quite a hard shell when in reality I'm sort of like, very sensitive on the inside.

Michelle: Has a tendency to cry.

Zara: So it was Michelle just sort of like being, taking this very harsh motherly role saying like, you cannot take all of this on board.

Michelle: No, because I think if you did take it on board after everything we've been doing, it would be very silly for us to take a handful of people's opinion and change what we do when thousands of people like it. Like that would just be stupid, a stupid tactical decision. Like if thousands of people love what we do, then keep doing what we do. Maybe keep it in the back of your mind, but don't change. I think what I was worried about was Zara called me and basically said, fuck, I need to be nicer to you, or I need a joke writer full-time. And I don't want that. Like, this is actually no joke how we are on the podcast. And Ozara said that, yeah, we do play into roles a little bit, but it's very similar to how we are in everyday life. And we bicker and we rib each other back and forth all day, every day. And that's how we like each other.

Josh: Did you say I've never heard of it? I've heard rib each other. What does that mean?

Michelle: Like ribbing, like kind of in the ribs, just like joke Yeah, play fighting.

Zara: Okay, that's a rib.

Michelle: I wonder if I've got this completely wrong in my entire life.

Tommy: That's why we have Mr. 97 here.

Zara: Is it riff each other?

Tommy: No, no, it's definitely not the one ending with the M. Mr.

Michelle: 97 has currently got on his phone and he's gonna look up— we do, we get each other.

Zara: But in fairness, that's the relationship that I have with almost all of my close friends, um, and almost all of the people in my life. So it's not an anomaly for me at all, nor is it for you.

Michelle: No, I think I would be really bored if I had friendships where we didn't have that dialogue back and forth. 'Cause I think a lot of the commentary as well that comes to us saying that Zara's mean to me or vice versa is actually from people who are a little bit older who might not have that relationship with their friends where it is that really jokey, bantery kind of relationship. And so it's jarring for them to hear that.

Tommy: It is a unique relationship though. I think any combination, like Josh and I, like my friendship with Josh, I don't have another friend like him. I don't have another friend where we go as deep, where we, you know, have as much fun. Like, there is so many highs and lows of the friendship, which I think adds to what we're doing.

Josh: And the other thing I think that makes it hard is it's like when you're doing a show, there's content, you're doing stuff for content. So it actually, like, radio shows dream of people taking other sides. In fact, that was Tommy's frustration when he was in radio, which is like, hey, we've got this social issue that's on at the moment 'Your co-host believes this. Can you play the other side on it?' And when you're having to do that, it becomes really hard.

Tommy: It's manufactured, it's not authentic. And yeah, you get painted as a certain way. So we have the ability— this is what you girls have created, something amazing where you can— you're in control of what you're painting. And if people don't always like it, if you know you've been authentic with it, it's pretty good.

Michelle: And people won't always like it. I think we've just got to accept that. Like, they could The most successful movies in the world, there will be someone who hates that movie. There'll be someone who hates, I don't know, makeup, when I love makeup. Like, that doesn't mean anything. It just, we all have different opinions. I think we've really gotta filter out the ones that are just negative for no real productive reason.

Zara: Well, I think it's because we haven't been doing this for a particularly long time. But like, I think last night when I was mildly upset about it, I would say mildly, I didn't get to the, I just went for a run to like, chill out.

Michelle: I told her she wasn't allowed to cry because there was a crying quota per week and we'd already reached the quota.

Zara: I'd already reached the crying quota. I had reached the crying quota.

Michelle: Zara had single-handedly reached it.

Zara: And I don't even know.

Josh: Maybe if you didn't have a crying quota, you wouldn't be such an asshole on the show.

Zara: You're not wrong. And you have to come at it from a really pragmatic stance being like, it's actually not physically possible for every single person to like every single thing that you do. Like that's the thing you have to keep telling yourself over and over. In theory, that's good. In practice, it's a bit harder.

Tommy: All right, so what is one thing that you can't stand in Michelle.

Michelle: Oh, nothing to it.

Zara: Michelle is perfect.

Josh: Well, TJ, we did this. So Ryan John was on the show and he did a whole bit where it's like what we hated about each other.

Tommy: Yeah, when we had to say it at the exact same time.

Josh: The thing was that Tommy went soft on it and said drinking like my water bottle.

Tommy: He drinks this water bottle, it's so annoying.

Zara: Yeah, but that's the thing, when you spend so much time with someone, the tiniest quirks kill you.

Tommy: So on the count of 3, you have to both say one about each other.

Josh: I hated that shit though.

Tommy: I don't know what I'm gonna say about you.

Zara: You'll know what I'll say.

Tommy: You actually don't have—

Josh: oh, she's got one.

Michelle: I've got one, I've got one.

Tommy: All right, here we go. 3, 2, 1.

Michelle: What's your dream?

Josh: Being on— so Michelle said being on—

Michelle: not just being on time, she wants to be early everywhere that we go, and it's just not efficient.

Zara: I'm not, I'm not over the top about it. I'm actually very subtle in my desire to be on time.

Michelle: She's very annoyed if we're gonna be like slightly— if we're gonna be on time, she's annoyed. She wants to be early.

Josh: Did you find that, uh, when you were growing up, Zara, were you always on time? Like, was it I feel like families are either late families or early.

Zara: We were an on-time family.

Josh: What about you, Michelle?

Michelle: I'm here, but I like being on time. Like, get there a few minutes beforehand. Allow a little bit of time for traffic, but get there on time. Zara likes to be fucking early to the point where you could like sit in and have a full breakfast before you get in.

Zara: Which is what I often do.

Josh: That's a great idea. I do enjoy that though. Like, I like the idea.

Michelle: I need time to get ready in the morning. How often? Like shower.

Zara: You just get up earlier.

Josh: You're the type that goes like 4 hours early to a Sydney flight.

Michelle: No, Zara does wanna go ridiculously early to the airport.

Zara: It's such a dorky train as well.

Josh: It's great, like when you're going into the Virgin lounge, having a toasted sandwich.

Michelle: Oh, you're going to the lounge, are we?

Josh: I'm just a little bit worried. It's domestic.

Tommy: So I was reading a Guardian article that was written about you girls recently. You posted about it. It's like, I love it 'cause it was like a succinct version of your storey to date.

Zara: Yes.

Tommy: And there was some things in there that, like, that are a part of your storey that are so sort of so meaty and juicy with like building this thing when other people thought you couldn't. It's the underdog kind of storey here.

Josh: And as the gossip and scandal show we are, we thought it'd be good to go. No, so I mean what we, what we love about it, because the thing is we, like, I, uh, I think connected up with Shameless, I think it was after we met Gemma Gemma Watts, who we've had on the show.

Michelle: And she was like, love Gemma, friend of the show Gemma.

Josh: Yeah, and she was like, you've got to get into Shameless. And I remember early days being, it must have been like Logie, you were talking about Logies and stuff. And I was like in Europe and I was like getting my Australian fix through you guys. But what I love about the storey is that it is going like a bit of a fuck you to the man, as I like to put it, which is like the big corporations and how you're meant to be doing it. And then you've gone out and done this thing on your own. How did you get to that? To that point? How did you get to the point where saying, actually, we don't need permission to build this thing. We can just make it ourselves.

Michelle: I think for anyone who doesn't know the story, how dare you? We did pitch the storey to, pitch the podcast, sorry, to a media network. They said yes, and then pretty quickly turned around and said actually no. And obviously that was hard.

Zara: We were working there at the time.

Michelle: We were working there at the time. And obviously that was hard. And then there was a conversation that they might do the podcast in the future or the idea in the future, but we might not host it. So we kind of had a conversation back and forth with each other where we were really disappointed 'cause we believed in the idea so much. And we just thought, okay, well, we're writers and editors, but we have no idea about podcasts. We had no idea what podcast platforms were, how to edit, how to record, how to broadcast really. So I think we just looked at each other and we said, we believe in the idea so much. And I'm a person where I go by gut feel on everything. I feel like this is a really good idea. With content in myself that if my talent is anything, it would be that I think I know what ideas will work as content and what women want to consume. And it was both of our gut feel that we thought it would work. And we're like, okay, well, let's just make it happen. Like, let's just wing it and see if it pays off. And if it pays off, great. And if it doesn't, it's just extra experience. And we might know how to edit a programme and edit a piece of audio. I don't even know the correct terminology anymore. We might know the machinations of making a podcast and therefore we've upskilled anyway.

Josh: That's a good word as well, machinations.

Tommy: Tell their journey.

Josh: Well, this is the thing that I like, early days I also looked at your LinkedIn and I saw your ATAR scores which you've since taken off.

Zara: Yeah, because you bagged us for having them on there.

Josh: I didn't bag you, I was saying, oh, the guys did not help us. I was very impressed, but because I really like, you guys have such a good vocabulary. Anyway, it's very interesting.

Tommy: So you're working at this place, you've started the podcast.

Josh: And then—

Zara: To be honest, I think it also worked because we started it from a standpoint of let's teach ourselves how to do this so we can put it on a resume and find another job. Because most of our anxiety in our early 20s came from not knowing what our next job was gonna be and what it was gonna look like and that we were never gonna be employed again. Because there was no work in Melbourne and the industry was changing completely. So we were very stressed about that. And so we just started it thinking, well, it can't be bad to have on your resume that you've started to try and do this. Like it can't be a bad thing. And then we started doing it and it took, It took a little bit. Those first few episodes would have been a bit dodgy.

Michelle: We had so many meetings with each other where we're like, how do we get people to actually listen to this? And we had to think super strategically. Like we were going around to universities, printing off hundreds and hundreds of posters about Shameless and sticking them on the back door of women's bathrooms. 'Cause we thought— Guerrilla. Yeah, guerrilla marketing. We thought if you can ever access young women, go to the bathrooms where only young women are.

Josh: That's not for you, Miss Anais Abaddon. Specifically for a podcasting project.

Tommy: You'd be prosecuted if we entered the grounds of a university.

Michelle: You guys don't do that.

Zara: And rightly so too.

Tommy: Definitely not the female toilets, we won't be doing that.

Josh: And so what was the, where was it that you saw the difference, the jump from, ah, this was something that's fun to it started to get momentum?

Michelle: We covered an influencer called Sarah's Day who I guess was heading into Belle Gibson territory where she was giving out health advice of how to treat precancerous cells naturally and how to heal herself, both in inverted commas. And we covered that. And that was probably the biggest response we'd got to a segment because I think it was something that a lot of young people were talking about, but no mainstream media publications were actually covering it. So we were kind of the first to cover it. We spoke to the Cancer Council. We put a blog up on the blog that I then had, which then that got a few, I think it was like 20,000 reads or something like that. And I think that was kind of our first episode where we branched outside of our circles and other people started to find us And from then, I think that's when we had a really tough conversation with the company where we were working for that said, you know what, this isn't tenable probably for you guys to keep doing both things at once.

Tommy: Well, the juicy part of the article was that it felt too uncomfortable to be there. What was that? What's the wording?

Zara: I won't put words in your mouth. I said it felt untenable to be working there because it was, I think the wording that we've used and I think that the most accurate wording to use is that it was weird for us to have a podcast that was gaining traction inside inside a company that was running the biggest women's media podcast network in the country.

Tommy: And they've said you can't host it?

Zara: Well, there was sort of no conversation about whether this podcast would ever be taken on board by them. And then it was when this— when push came to shove, I guess, when it was like we either have to choose basically between this podcast and our jobs. That's the point I think where we needed to work out, do we jump with this or do we let it go? And that's the point that we decided to jump with it.

Michelle: And I mean, now I look back and like, oh, well, obviously we'd choose to go with the podcast, but at the time the podcast was getting a couple of thousand downloads per episode. It wasn't like something where we could just jump out and that would be my full-time job and Zara would be sorted and it wasn't that easy at all. I think again, it was just gut feel that we thought, okay, yeah, it's getting traction, but in the next year or so it might get a lot of traction if we invest a lot more time into it, so.

Josh: 'Cause there was a time where that media company you were working at were positioned as the new age digital movement.

Tommy: Mm.

Josh: Uh, what do you think that they may have overlooked in regards to how they built the business to become— it almost feels like you start off like this small little jet ski and you can do all these things you make and you're enabling things and making things happen. How do you think they ended up as this big ship that couldn't see the talent inside it?

Zara: I think it was a couple of things. Firstly, I actually think it was geography. The fact that we were based—

Michelle: yeah, invisibility.

Zara: We were in Melbourne and we weren't particularly visible in that company, which was kind of nice. You can work under the radar, and I've always loved sort of falling under the radar and just putting my head down and working.

Michelle: So, for context, that doesn't mean we were being lazy.

Zara: No, no, no, but I mean, I kind of like the idea that because you're not as visible, maybe you're a little underestimated, and I think there's huge power in that. I think that was for one. I think our age, we were really young. I think we were 22 when we pitched this, and rightly so. The conversation was, why would people listen to you 'Not in those words, but why would people listen to two 22-year-olds talk about this?' And that was very legitimate. I didn't know.

Tommy: I should have just said, 'Cause a kid's making $20 million a year reviewing lollies and toys.' Maybe that. But no, they're a business, so they need to hit a few strategic points for it to make sense on their end, which is why, like you said, Josh, you built your jet ski, you're throwing it around, and then I don't know. I don't know any more jet ski knowledge.

Josh: You do a backflip on the thing, you're like, 'What Tommy took from that was there was a jet ski involved.' Yeah, and all he's doing now is imagining it.

Michelle: 'How do we go on the jet ski today?' Yeah.

Tommy: Can we get a shot on a jet ski of the four of us?

Josh: When you guys leave, Tommy's gonna say, "Man, I can't believe they ride jet skis. How cool is that?" What is the expectation being journos versus what Tommy and I do, which is just being a couple of gronks talking? Are there extra sensitivities that you have to worry about?

Michelle: Or when it's the podcast, you sort of strip that back and it's just like, "Hey, this is my opinion." I think this is something that we're grappling with at the moment, that we introduced the podcasters Welcome to Shane's hosted by two Melbourne journos for so long. We've introduced that for over a year now as two Melbourne journalists, and I think at the moment we're grappling with whether or not that's the correct label. Um, I— we have been journos in the past. Some of the storeys we've both worked on have been pretty serious or, uh, very investigative in different areas, but it probably doesn't describe anymore what we actually do. I think more than anything, we're columnists journalists and broadcasters and writers. I think we don't do much journalistic work as far as covering segments. We always make an effort to make sure that we're covering both sides of the story, that our facts are correct, that we're going to experts to get the right opinions that we need or the right information that we need to form our opinion. But yeah, it has definitely been something that we're grappling with at the moment.

Zara: I don't think there'll ever be a point where like our background in journalism will never not sort of inform how we approach the podcast, which is what Michelle said, like showing both sides and things like that. But, and sort of putting trigger warnings in front of segments, you know what I mean? Like doing the things, doing the checklist of things that we think we need to do. But Michelle is right, I think we will stop introducing ourselves as journalists because we are editorialising the news cycle far too much to be seen as people that are unbiased.

Tommy: What's the word? What are you gonna choose?

Michelle: Probably writers. Just something simple because we are writers and like we still write online, but a lot of it is opinion-based. Like I have a column with News Corp where it's just me trying things from pop culture and writing funny storeys about it. So I don't think you can call that journalism.

Tommy: It's the craft of what you're doing, writing. Yeah, it's great. We've talked a lot about the words and you've gotta, takes time. You've gotta pick one almost like.

Josh: Well, yeah, well it feels like sometimes we can get obsessed with that type of thing and it can lead us in one direction as well. If we're saying, you know, I'm a journalist, it does set a certain expectation or sort of like a posture in the way that you approach things.

Tommy: Well, you are research and it's the opposite of what we are.

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. We'll go Mr. 97.

Tommy: Did you find out? Oh, you were looking?

Josh: What was he even looking for?

Michelle: Also, ribbing someone isn't a thing.

Tommy: He couldn't find what ribbing meant.

Zara: Have we made this up?

Josh: Shit.

Michelle: I have said that in so many interviews.

Tommy: It's okay, it's now your thing.

Josh: It's a thing. It is a thing. Can we get it on Urban Dictionary?

Tommy: You are your own media brand and you can—

Michelle: I'm the new Shakespeare just inventing words left, right and center.

Zara: I cannot believe that's not on Urban Dictionary.

Michelle: Okay, wait, I don't trust Mr. 97 Justin.

Josh: Can you relook it again? Thank you.

Tommy: And so you've started this thing and you've left.

Michelle: Yes.

Tommy: Like, I've made so many stupid decisions in my life that I have— that I thought was stupid in the moment, but I've given them a crack and then I've gone, eh, wasn't that stupid. How stupid did you think it was or were you totally backing yourself?

Zara: I didn't think it was that stupid. Granted, I went straight into another job. Michelle went freelance, but even still I didn't think it was stupid. I thought in the short term there wasn't gonna be much to come from it, but I had a pretty strong feeling, and I think so did Michelle, that in a year this could have been, this was gonna be a good investment.

Michelle: I think as well our two personalities is that I'm very emotional, so I'll jump into things quicker than Zara will. Zara's very logical, and I think that makes us a good team because we balance each other out, and it means that when we make decisions we have both both like gut feel but also reason.

Josh: But the cry quota is used more with Zara.

Zara: Yes, which makes it all the more confusing. Okay, sure.

Michelle: Yeah, I think Zara frustrated cries. Like, yeah, sure, maybe unable to show her full emotion, whereas all my emotion kind of eeks out of me all day every day, just on a smaller level.

Josh: Yeah, it's like a constant slow drip of a tear all day every day. And so When you decided to actually, Zara, make the jump from the employment that you had to go into full-time freelance, who did you have to reach out to from the conversation? Like, I know when I decided to quit my job, I said to my mum, I said, ah, Mum, I've got some news. I've decided to leave Envato. I'm starting my own thing. And she said, well, this is something I don't want to hear. And then so I hung up and then I went on a rampage. I called Bray and I said, "She's done." I'm not saying like, I just need people who are supportive in my life. And I'm like, "I'm gonna make this." And it actually gave me a lot of fuel. I said, "I'm gonna add it to the fuel of fire and watch it burn." It was quite okay.

Michelle: Wow, I've never seen this side of you, James.

Zara: You're not a very emotional one, are you?

Josh: No, I'm really tweaked. Yeah, so what did that look like for you?

Zara: Not quite as bad. Dramatic, if I'm honest.

Josh: I can give you my mum's number.

Zara: I am like quite a— I have quite a cautious personality and I'm like very risk-averse. So I remember being in the job that I was in, the second job that I was in, and I was about a month in messaging Michelle thinking I've made a massive mistake, like I shouldn't have taken this job, we have too much work on. So for about 6 months I was working that job, working through my weekends, working after work. So I think by the time it came to January when I needed to to quit. Everyone in my life knew that there was no other option. Literally everything was set up for us. We knew exactly what we were gonna do the minute I was full-time.

Michelle: Zara's transition into full-time work was much simpler and calmer than mine was.

Zara: Everything was set up. And I think because I had so much time.

Josh: So annoying.

Zara: But it was annoying for Michelle and I because I was so cautious about it. And I had just started that job and I liked the job and I didn't wanna quit and leave them. I just felt awkward about it all and I am a bit of a people pleaser, so I didn't want to muck them around. I didn't want to muck Michelle around. I just didn't know what to do.

Josh: How'd you feel, Michelle, at that time?

Michelle: When Zara went into—

Josh: Well, when Zara was sort of fucking around doing her—

Tommy: What was he got to do?

Josh: Like, come on board.

Michelle: Well, yeah, I think it's funny because I was totally fine with it. I think if anything, it was the reverse, that Zara did feel a bit of guilt over that time, that if I was working working more on the podcast during the day, doing more of the behind the scenes admin stuff, potentially more of the editing during that time or whatever, Zara did feel this growing sense of guilt that she then had to step up when she did step away from her job and almost had to make up for the last few months, which I didn't feel that at all. Like she's offered so many times to do more work than what I'm doing at the moment just so she can make up for it. But I don't think we want that at all because to me, we described this the other day to, someone else who was interviewing us that the podcast is like our baby. So it was almost like I was the stay-at-home mom for a time. And now we're both stay-at-home moms and it's still the same baby. Like no matter what, if I worked on it a little bit more, that doesn't matter to me because it's the same end goal. And our, like my wins are her wins and vice versa. So I think if anything, it was more difficult for Zara that she had to carry on this like emotional load of feeling like she didn't have enough energy and time to dedicate to all her different projects. Whereas I was just at home, like writing my column and doing some podcast stuff. Like, it was pretty easy on me.

Zara: And the other thing that— the other thing we said in another interview a couple of days ago is I— my other concern is that I was getting home from work and wanting desperately to do this podcast work, which was what I would go and do. And then I would get to 10 o'clock at night and think, well, if I burn out, that's not going to be good for either of us as well. So at what point do I step away and actually not do this work for the benefit of the podcast? Or at what point do— like, what point do I keep taking stuff on? It was a weird balance.

Michelle: It was almost I think financially it was more tricky on me because I made the choice to go into full freelance without anything set up or any life raft to jump onto, but physically it was more taxing on Zara.

Josh: We had the jet ski anyway.

Michelle: Yeah, well I jumped onto the jet ski anyway.

Tommy: The podcast is the fun thing. I think we look at it and go, how do you not burn out on the fun thing? The thing that we actually love doing. What do you guys think about that?

Zara: I think if we had burnt out, it would have happened already. I think if I would have burnt out on the podcast, it would have been 4 months ago.

Tommy: There's still time.

Zara: You're not wrong. I think we keep it to, I mean, the podcast is still fun and it actually still is one of my favourite parts of my week, but it is framed very much in a work sense to the point where I don't wanna talk about what we're gonna do in the podcast all day, every day. Like we have very set times of the week where we're gonna talk about what segments we're gonna do, how we're gonna approach it, and then we kind of just drop it.

Josh: It.

Zara: It's very hard when the podcast comes with a community that sort of infiltrates all parts of social media that you need to then moderate.

Josh: Like, you've got thousands of producers all telling you what to cover.

Zara: Well, exactly. And a Facebook group that wants to talk about what you're talking about, and that is so wonderful and so rare.

Michelle: But you're still in that Facebook group, Mr. 97?

Josh: He's—

Tommy: oh yeah, his mum's on the group.

Zara: Yeah, that's amazing.

Michelle: Mrs. 97.

Tommy: I wonder if your mum got an idea. I know that Maybe New Zealand, not sure what they—

Michelle: But we do have to moderate that group a lot.

Zara: Yeah, and that is hard to not burn out when you're waking up at whatever time you wake up in the morning and moderating that and then to the moment you go to bed. There's sort of no point where you're not thinking about it. And I don't think I've met, either of us have reached a point now where we're balancing that well.

Michelle: And it's also that like, we've got a lot on our plates at the moment. Like we're doing a lot of different things outside of Shameless that will like be in the next few months. But above anything, we constantly say to each other when we are really busy and we're doing lots of meetings or whatever, we constantly look at each other, we're like, Shameless comes first, like no matter what. Shameless has to be priority. We have to make sure on Friday that we have basically a clear day where we're not doing anything really intensive. Sorry guys, you're just fun. This is fun. But we wanna make sure that on Friday that we kind of have that day to focus on content prep and being in the right headspace for the podcast. Because above anything, we don't wanna let the main project that has given us a little bit of success or a great audience or whatever, we don't want that to slide. And I think some people can sometimes get lost in that you create something that's really good. And then when you start getting paid for it, the content slips away. But above anything, we wanna make sure that the content is great and therefore the money will come later.

Josh: I wanna ask you about social media in a second, but it's Fat Fridays.

Tommy: Today is Fat Fridays.

Josh: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy: Hang on, I gotta get something.

Zara: I forgot that's why we're here.

Josh: Yeah, and so Mr. 97. Oh, wow. He's cooked for both the dates that he's been on.

Zara: He's a cook?

Josh: Yeah, both times.

Tommy: That's the kind of man he is.

Michelle: Didn't you cook Mexican? And then it didn't work out?

Josh: Pizzas and wraps. Pizzas and wraps.

Tommy: So anyway, we've got to just come over and let Michelle put this chef's hat on you.

Zara: Is this for me?

Josh: No, this is for—

Tommy: No, we don't make our guests cook.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. So this is great. This is too much.

Zara: He's not a pet.

Josh: Come on, he's a—

Tommy: he's found ribbing mean.

Zara: I don't think Mason gets paid enough to do this.

Tommy: It's under ribbing.

Josh: Yeah, the act of teasing. The act of teasing. Okay, great. Are we ribbing 97 right now, making him wear this? Yes.

Michelle: Yeah, we're ribbing him.

Zara: Ribbing slash bullying.

Josh: It's a horrendous hat, by the way.

Tommy: We said to Mr. 97, we've made him cook once before for us, and we thought, okay, maybe he can cook again.

Michelle: Yeah, great.

Tommy: It's amazing that we throw things at him and he just never has once ever said no.

Michelle: How far did they go?

Zara: Do we need to teach Mason how to say no?

Michelle: Yeah, Mason, I can step in as an HR manager.

Zara: Someone clearly needs to.

Tommy: Would be done if you did. But so what Mason has done has, uh, Mr. 97, he's, he's, uh, done some prep work at home and he's brought in his waffle machine.

Michelle: Stop it.

Josh: Because what I, because what I'd said was, uh, Mr. 97 makes waffles at home. I've had some of his savoury waffles, right? And I said, can you make them on the show? He said they take 15 minutes to make each one. It's too long. I'm like, I like the pressure. I think you should do it anyway. He went behind my back and pre— 97, can you come here and explain on my microphone what— why you're not doing the whole thing from scratch now?

Tommy: Look at his hat, it's so good.

Josh: Yeah, I had to clarify with Mum, but apparently the eggs, when you, uh, whip them up and they go fluffy, apparently, apparently you can't leave leave them for a long period of time.

Michelle: You're such a scientist.

Zara: Well, I think mum's around.

Tommy: Hey, yeah, Sam, Sam, my brother as well, he helped out doing them all.

Michelle: So my boyfriend literally can't cook toast.

Josh: Well, so the thing is, he's, uh, so what he's ended up doing, because 97 was going to bring the batter, like I said, bring it, and then you can prepare that, but you've got to, um, it would have gone rock. Yeah.

Tommy: And so he's pre-made the waffles, he's going to make the waffles and then present them.

Josh: So he just needs to heat that. So he's basically got the waffle in its sort of a form that you would assume is a waffle, but he's using the waffle maker to heat up, to reheat, to re-waffle the waffles.

Michelle: Not say reheat, to heat up.

Josh: No, reheat. It sounds like you're toasting them.

Michelle: That sounds fancy.

Zara: I mean, I'm looking at it from over here and you're going to tell me that's not left out.

Tommy: I'm hoping that he has this done by the time the show's kind of wrapping up, we can see them. Because I'm always apprehensive about eating on the show.

Josh: Any dietary requirements?

Michelle: Uh, no fruit for me. I'm intolerant of fruit.

Zara: I just don't want to—

Michelle: it sounds fake, but it's 100%. I'm intolerant. I'm intolerant to salicylates, which is a chemical in most fruits and vegetables. So I have the diet of a 14-year-old boy.

Tommy: Yeah, which is what?

Michelle: Like, uh, pasta. Oh yeah, carbs. Just full-on carbs. Hardly any vegetables. Meals.

Josh: Yeah, that sounds awesome.

Michelle: Yeah, lots of people think it is, but I, I used to love like, uh, avocado is a big one for me, but also like dried fruits. Um, I can have avocado but like minimally, once a week maybe.

Josh: When did you find this out? Is this like— because there seems to be a millennial trend that we all are intolerant to things and it's a great excuse to not eat.

Michelle: No, this is bad. Zara's seen the photo, so I broke out. This was when I was I was maybe 20, like a full-on neck rash right around, like bleeding every day. It was gross.

Josh: Wow, great, nasty.

Michelle: But also my asthma was horrible. Like I was admitted to hospital multiple times that year with really bad asthma attacks. I started having like really low depressive moods and I went to a dietitian and I had been salicylate intolerant when I was a kid. So I'd had all these like skin allergies and asthma and everything as a kid. And my parents had just kind of, I think they thought I had grown out of it.

Josh: That's why I think with asthma, like I, I used to get asthma really bad, but I haven't had a puffer for like 10 years. Really?

Michelle: I wish I was like you.

Josh: I'm 3. But there's gonna be a day where the asthma storm comes and I'm gonna collapse.

Zara: I'll give you one.

Michelle: I've got like 4 in my bag. Wow.

Josh: It gets real, real quick.

Michelle: Yeah, it was just really, really bad. So I guess when I was a kid, maybe my parents were feeding me certain types of food, but when I reached 19, 20, I was going out and eating my own food and buying my own stuff to make. And I must've just, tilted really far towards, I had bad eating at the time, really far towards like an orthorexic kind of diet where it was basically only fruits and vegetables. Yeah, super healthy to a fault where it was all I was eating.

Josh: Just watching a bit of Sarah's Day.

Michelle: Yeah, a little bit too much Sarah's Day inspired.

Tommy: 27 bananas today.

Josh: The thing with all those vloggers is I get into them. The thing is that I take part of, so I'll take the bit from their vegan, like when it's a vegan for instance, I'll take the bit where they eat a lot a lot of fruit, but then I'll watch a paleo person and then I'll eat a lot of meat. It turns out I'm just eating a lot of everything. So it's like, oh, you can't get fat from 40 bananas. You can if you combine it with also peanut butter.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, 20 kilos of peanut butter. What was your request, Zahra?

Zara: For dietary?

Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

Zara: No food poisoning.

Tommy: Oh, no food poisoning. No, I think we can, yeah, I think we're—

Josh: if we can get through the show without hitting our pants, that would be—

Tommy: no, I think that's fine. Social media, I saw, uh, Michelle, you you posted something about how you took some time off from social media.

Michelle: Did I?

Tommy: Yeah, I saw that somewhere. Or you've written an article. I know you wrote a blog post.

Josh: Well, the thing is that I find it interesting, like, to extend that, I was listening last night to your latest episode and you both have a very positive outlook on social media compared to them, compared to what TJ's describing, because I feel like I'm still in the the stage of like, fuck social, like I'm scrolling just going, fuck this, I hate this, I hate social media, I hate myself.

Michelle: So I think what happened was late last year I took like a significant amount of time off social media just because I was— I started tracking it first of all on my iPhone. I had that little app up where it would tell you how much time you spend on your phone every single day, and it was alarming.

Josh: You say 5 hours? Was there a time where it was 5 hours?

Michelle: Yeah, 5 hours a day, which some people I would say say that to, and they'd be like, oh, that's nothing. Also, your work is on social media.

Josh: Who the fuck saying that's nothing? Is that Gemma Watts?

Michelle: People that were on like 8 hours a day.

Zara: That was the thing for me when I was working that full-time job and I was basically talking to Michelle the entire day because we were working on the side. I would look at my screen time and be like, I've just worked 2 work days because I've spent 8 hours on social media.

Tommy: Do you think there'd be something in employees and social media viewing way up? I reckon there would be like an average higher in person, people that work for other people.

Josh: Well, there's, there's also something like about writing and what you're doing. You can do a lot of it on your phone as well, which is cool. Do you find that part of the, the tool being something that can be used for good, but it's also—

Michelle: well, I think I did go through that period last year where I was really negative about social media, but now I feel like I've let go of the guilt. I think I was tracking it and taking time off of but because everyone continually says, "Oh, like, don't be on your phone too much and make sure that you go and see the world," which of course I agree with. But at the same time, it is a part of our job. And I think in the past few months, I've just come to the realisation that if I'm content and I'm happy and I'm fine, and I'm still exercising and I'm still enjoying life, then I don't need to have this negative feeling towards social media. 'Cause I feel like we do, we're almost told that being on your phone all the time is really, really bad and you should feel really guilty about it. And we're always putting labels like you're addicted, we're all addicted to our phones. I don't know.

Tommy: I think if you do, if you're not doing the shit you want to be doing and it's taking up time being spent on that and you're complaining to your partner about wanting to excel in your career or go travelling or, you know, earn enough money to do something, I think then it's like it's a unique problem.

Josh: If it's being used as a pacifier for other issues, that's where it's an issue. But if it's just like there is something in that, like I know a friend who went on that like like a diet which was essentially like eat what you want when you want. Like, it was like, it was a whole book on it, and it was like, I never even thought of it. Like, what about a whole book?

Michelle: That could just be like a sentence. Yeah, whatever.

Josh: Yeah, but the thing is, we're so fucked up that it requires like all this training around like how we look at food.

Michelle: Yeah, um, I think we can pretend as well that like giving up social media will be like the panacea for all your problems in life when that's just so not the Like, I don't know. I think we can be super negative, but recently I'm like, what? Like social media is such a huge part of my connection with other people. And when Facebook and Instagram went down a week and a half ago, I spent the day being like, oh fuck, I really enjoy the communities that I've got online. And I enjoy the group chats with my friends on WhatsApp. And without that, I'd be really lost and isolated.

Zara: I still think though, I feel better about myself when I'm not on my phone. And I think bottom line, that is the case for a lot of people. I have fantasies. I've had fantasies in the last week of like having a week off Facebook. I actually even haven't had this conversation with Michelle yet.

Michelle: Oh my God, I thought we had every conversation.

Josh: The hard bit about what you're saying, Zara, is I announced to Tommy, hey, I'm getting off social media.

Zara: You can't.

Josh: Well, the thing is, it's like, then Tommy's like, well, who the fuck is doing all the updates? I'm like, that's why I'm talking to you.

Zara: But this is what I was actually having this fantasy all for the last week and trying to work out how we would do it.

Josh: Some crazy fantasies happening.

Zara: If we go on holidays, like if we wanna take a break this year, it's a break from the podcast, but it's a break from nothing else. Like we're still working. And I was thinking, how do we do it if one of us, like we have 2 weeks off, one of us deletes the Facebook app for a week, the other person just moderates the groups and stuff for a week, and then vice versa. I don't even think that's realistic, but for the first time ever, I really did have this dream that maybe I could completely disconnect for a certain amount of time. Time just to see what life was like without it. But you can kind of— all-consuming.

Tommy: You can. You've built your own beast and you're in control of it. Our friend Matt D'Avella, who's a YouTuber— Josh was talking to him online, another online friend that we've actually met, um, when he had, you know, a few hundred, 500, yeah, 1,000 subscribers.

Josh: Yeah, it was when he first started.

Tommy: Now he's got 1.1 million. But so he releases a video, and he used to release it on a Monday, which meant he was anxious across the weekend and having to work, going, "Fuck, I need this out." And so what he did was Tuesday. Which meant he got his weekends back, but it was, he thought he was in a trap and then he decided something else. So it is, I think we are in control.

Zara: Well, the other thing I thought is at what point, so we have one of the biggest sort of takers of our time is our Facebook community, which we love.

Tommy: It's also a taker of my time. The amount of things that come up in my feed.

Michelle: You can leave.

Zara: You don't have to stay.

Josh: How do you leave? How does the notifications work on—

Tommy: There's no notifications. They just come up. It's just so, I don't know, shameless.

Josh: It's a little bit sticky. It's the shameless part because I don't have Facebook now, but I added the group from Bree. 'Cause the other thing is when I started listening to the show, I was like, ah, I wonder what's happening in the Facebook group. The podcast is very much positioned to women. And so I, and it was like, hey girl, like I feel like at the end it's like, so ladies, if you wanna go onto the Facebook group, I was like, I'm just— It's the equivalent of like, it felt like a women's bathroom.

Tommy: I know your audience. I feel like I'm in a huddle. I feel like I'm in a huddle.

Josh: Yeah, well, I did have a friend, uh, there was a book club that was getting started at one of my old jobs, and the first book was Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, right? Yeah, great book. Anyway, my friend came up to me and they said, hey, we're doing this book club, it's gonna be a great time to like chat about the book and all that sort of thing. Anyway, sign up here. And I signed up, and she came up to me, she said, I'm only saying this because you're like a really good friend and I know it's maybe not PC, but you're the only dude in the whole company that's put their name down.

Zara: Oh honey.

Josh: And so, and because of that, like—

Tommy: That's what he said to her.

Josh: Oh honey, I understand. So I said, I was like, she said, do you mind? Like, 'cause then people might be able to be more open. And I was like, oh, that's cool. I was fine with it.

Zara: So you didn't go into the book club?

Josh: I didn't go into the book club.

Zara: Oh, that's so sad.

Josh: Yeah, it's fine. It's all right.

Michelle: Jobs and stuff.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. Oh, I definitely— well, that's why I felt— I was like, oh, I like— the reason that I wanted to read it and stuff was to understand and to be like part of the cause. So it was like, oh well, if that's— if all I have to do— if I don't have to fucking read it, that's part of the cause. I mean, that's a win, isn't it?

Zara: Yeah, that's a good point. I don't know, with our Facebook group, I wonder if one day this year, if we went on holidays, if we could post in there. I don't know if this is like too radical an idea to be like the Facebook group's taking a break for a week. Like, we're not posting, we're not—

Michelle: I think it would be that we'd have to pay someone to moderate.

Tommy: Do you know what you need? A Mrs. 97.

Josh: Miss 97.

Tommy: Oh, it could actually be his wife.

Zara: Yeah, if you don't mind finding a wife soon.

Josh: Yeah, maybe she won't take his name and she'll be Mrs. 99 or something.

Michelle: Oh, very nice.

Zara: That would be such a Shameless Listener thing to do as well.

Tommy: The, the group like that, what's the pressure that to respond to all these people? 'Cause I know one of our, you got this period of building your page and your brand and your business and your following. And you're like, the good strategy is to reply to every single person. When does that stop?

Michelle: I think it has stopped.

Zara: Yeah, I don't think the pressure for us is to reply to everything. It's keeping our eye on everything, but it's keeping the tone in line with the podcast. Because I think if the tone of the Facebook group goes a bit rogue, it becomes maybe nasty or like a cesspit of bitchiness. Then I think it directly undermines what we do in the podcast. So that's kind of the overarching aim for us with the Facebook group is making sure that the conversations are productive and smart and playing the issue, not the woman. And that's kind of hard to do keeping your eye on that all the time. 'Cause it's not just the posts that you're approving that you're making sure are fine, it's the conversations that exist underneath them, which can go on for hundreds of comments.

Michelle: And if you get 11,000 people together to discuss anything, eventually without moderating it, it's gonna go down one path, which is—

Josh: There's a great— yeah, 11,000 people. There's probably, what, 1,000 Gronks?

Zara: It's not in ours, thanks.

Tommy: It's great to know. It's great to know that, uh, some journos or some people with experience around, you know, fact-checking actually are running a page like that, because you could see how it could go rogue, right? You could just, you know, dump something in there and create—

Zara: it did for a time. So it did for a time before we started approving every post. When we let everything in 'cause we wanted it to have this sort of like real-time vibe when people were watching television or—

Tommy: Is that why my post hasn't gone up? You guys, no, I'm joking.

Zara: Probably. I don't know why we'd let through anything you posted.

Michelle: Kidding. I don't think too many of us like dick pic on television.

Josh: It's a Facebook level. That's where your shit's getting deleted from. It's not even getting to Shameless.

Zara: That's true.

Michelle: That's Zuckerberg.

Josh: Yeah. What were you just saying, Zara?

Tommy: Michelle fell apart at dick pic.

Josh: The funny thing is Michelle said, said it before I could say it, and I feel happy about that.

Michelle: Sorry.

Josh: No, but I mean, we are in the game, and like, don't mind me aligning with you guys for a second, but we're all in the game of like talking as a main thing that we do, right?

Zara: And so we're all very self-indulgent.

Josh: Yeah. And so do you find though that there is that— especially you guys have this massive audience now— the pressure of saying the right thing? And also like the fact that that we could say something now and then we read something and our whole view on it could shift, right?

Michelle: Yeah.

Josh: How do you— how have you reconciled the fact that you said something last week and you might not believe it now?

Michelle: Well, I think we always try at the end of every segment when it's particularly contentious to say something like, we might be wrong, or maybe you guys have different feelings about this, come tell us. Yeah. So if we always have that attitude of maybe we haven't gotten it right 'Come discuss this, we're open to discussion.' I feel like that's the main point, so that if you do get something wrong, then people do feel like they can come to you and have a legitimate conversation without actually attacking you or being quite violent in their language, I guess.

Tommy: What about just saying stupid shit? Like earlier we were talking about that ribbing thing and I said the one with the M, which is rimming.

Zara: Yeah.

Tommy: Yeah.

Zara: I'm not as rogue as you.

Tommy: That's it. I mean, that's our show. We've got you like, you have sensibility in a lot of things, that you can go back on and fix on.

Michelle: We make mistakes for sure. Like a couple of weeks ago, I used the word transsexual instead of transgender, which we were pulled up on. So I do need to—

Tommy: You can't use transsexual.

Michelle: The funny thing is— Transsexual is not the preferred term, and I should have known that. I don't know why it even came out of my mouth, but yeah.

Josh: The funny thing is we've got a listener in the UK who is— and she associates with being transsexual. So she's an older school. Yeah, so she's old school.

Michelle: So it does describe as a minority of the transgender community, which I think is what some people are upset about because we were discussing transgenderism. So then to use transsexual is kind of a little bit ignorant and a little bit uneducated. So yeah, that's something that I need to apologize.

Josh: Definitely. It's definitely hard because the thing is, like, even Michelle, the lady in the UK, she spent the '90s, like, working on internet forums to help people who were going through all that sort of stuff. And and her whole thing was, it was like she found the transgender— the transgender term was one that was, um, started being used by journalists or people outside of that community. That's how she felt about it. And she was like— I think we even spoke about it when we had her on the podcast. I think she was ep 40 or something. And, um, yeah, she was sort of saying, oh no, like, transsexual. So I think the interesting thing is, it's like some of these things, there's no right or wrong answer if we know our intentions. It's like, hey, I'm just trying to get this thing.

Michelle: We always intend to do with compassion and—

Zara: Intention is one thing for sure, making sure your intention is good, but it's also being able to recognise when you do muck up. And I would like to think that if we do say something that a couple of weeks later we actually don't agree with, or we've changed our mind, or we've come, we would say it. Like, I think I will probably do it in this week's episode about Ricky Gervais. I mean, I wanna sort of like reintroduce some new points on a segment we did weeks ago because I think it's important to make it look like you can change your mind because then it's easy for us if we come out and say that we change our minds all the time, to be honest.

Tommy: That's human, right?

Zara: Yeah, exactly.

Tommy: People aren't gonna— We think the same shit and then we think different stuff and then—

Josh: I have a huge amount of scepticism to anyone that's like adamant on their opinion on everything, right? Because it's like, well, there's gotta be room to move. The most powerful thing, and Sian talked about it yesterday on the show, she was like, if she doesn't know something as well, if she's on a panel and a journalist asks a question she doesn't know, at the beginning she felt like she needed to give an answer and now she's like, oh, I don't know.

Michelle: There's so much in that. I feel like there's so much arrogance arrogance and feeling like you can answer every single thing, and there's a lot of power in actually acknowledging where you have knowledge gaps.

Tommy: But the arrogance can come across from an insecurity, right? Oh yeah, you have to—

Zara: really fine line.

Michelle: But oh yeah, that woman's not arrogant, I swear to God.

Tommy: No, that's not what I was—

Zara: but for us, I think there's— it's, it's sort of a hard line to walk because nobody's going to want to listen to a conversation where you seem, um, very unsure of yourself.

Josh: Yeah.

Zara: So you have to seem very confident in the research that you've done and the points that you have while while also saying this might not be completely correct and also I could change my mind on this. And so that's sort of like a hard game to play.

Josh: What's the, your old employers, what have they taught you in a positive way where it's like, you know what, as if you'd just gone out to freelance, you know, you wouldn't have gained all the knowledge.

Michelle: What were the main things? Oh, we learned so much there, like actually so much. So I feel like when we do talk about the podcast and how things went then, it can kind cast this semi-negative light on our experience, but I did learn a heap there, particularly about what women are interested in and how to have a— even construct an opinion piece. Some of the women that I worked with at that organisation were super influential on us and our careers and great mentors. So I feel like without our time there, we would absolutely not be able to do what we do now.

Zara: And I think the reason that we work so well together is we were taught how to be quite decisive in our decisions very quickly. Like, we make decisions really quickly and we're pretty confident on them. And I think when you're working in a very fast-paced environment where the news is never stopping and you kind of have to make those decisions and be confident in them, um, it's kind of a unique skill to accrue. And that's one we definitely accrued there that's been super beneficial for us now.

Josh: Yeah, Mr. 9787, did you put fucking fruit on both of them? Have you got a non-fruit one as well?

Michelle: This is like, okay, very aggressive for someone who's getting free food.

Tommy: Oh wow, he's hungry, he's hungry.

Michelle: Did you put fucking fruit on all of them? Oh, uh, can I— is that maple syrup that I spot? That's just— that's fine.

Josh: Yeah, that's perfect.

Tommy: I like a couple of forks or something as well, or no? All right, we're gonna let the process unfold.

Michelle: Thank you.

Josh: I am micromanaging.

Tommy: Okay, look at those.

Josh: They sort of look like when you go to like a real cheap hotel in the US, they always have like a waffle Oh yeah, I go straight to it.

Michelle: I'm not gonna lie, it is hard being allergic to fruit and vegetables.

Zara: That's fine. Yeah, this is proper.

Tommy: Yeah, so, um, dream big, guys. This is what you can do on your podcast.

Josh: You've warmed up the, uh, this is great. What's this? Com— berry compote?

Zara: I mean, if he doesn't have a wife in the last two dates, he'll certainly get one soon.

Tommy: Uh, Mr. 97, can you come over and just sort of give us the, you know, the chef's spiel about what you've presented?

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: To, uh, the girls in MKR style.

Josh: You know, um, they're sort of losing viewers, so this could replace it potentially.

Michelle: Channel 10, if you're watching.

Tommy: Yeah, so we've got a bunch of, uh, sugary sweet waffles and a bunch of fruit on top.

Josh: You don't have to say sugary. I think that's bury the lead. So anyway, savory. So no, it's not savory, it's just like they're delicious.

Michelle: Yeah, Josh, can you just—

Josh: okay, sorry, micromanaging.

Tommy: With a bunch of yogurt, maple syrup, and berry compote.

Josh: Oh, lovely.

Michelle: If you weren't eligible before, what the fuck?

Josh: I know.

Tommy: Can I just say, I mean, narcissists, we're all— we're all— this gave me shivers when we were doing a talk around at a college, it's called CollArts, in front of a group of students that are, you know, becoming content creators. A girl came up to ask a question and she said to her I know where I know you guys from now. They— she recognised Mr. 97 from the dating Shameless dating show.

Michelle: What can we say?

Josh: Not only that, but I was at a surprise birthday party on Wednesday night, which was a surprise birthday party.

Zara: I know.

Josh: Well, she didn't plan it, you see, because it's a surprise.

Michelle: But a man, yeah, exactly.

Josh: Yeah, it definitely was the boyfriend. But it would— TJ, that's too much.

Tommy: No, mate, my wife gets into me about it.

Josh: What is the— too much maple syrup? Is it maple syrup Is it like flavoured maple syrup?

Tommy: No, it's not the hotcake syrup. It's legit maple syrup. 100%.

Josh: It's got the Canadian flag. Would you like some?

Tommy: Anyway, you were at that party. What happened?

Josh: Yeah, I was at the party and I was just having a conversation with someone else. I said, oh yeah, we've got Cyan on Thursday and then Friday Shameless. And then all of a sudden, like the other side of the room had taken no interest and all of a sudden they said, Shameless?

Michelle: Shameless?

Josh: Shameless? And I was like—

Tommy: Goosebumps.

Josh: Exactly, yeah. Narcissistic goosebumps. We all do. We all get them.

Michelle: I think people still confuse us with the TV show.

Josh: Yeah, that's right.

Michelle: You know how you're sure they meant Shameless Podcast?

Josh: Absolutely. They're like, she's like, I love those girls. And then I quickly aligned where I'm like, yes, they're very good internet friends of mine. And it was great.

Tommy: All right, before we get into this, what's next for you girls?

Zara: What is this? Hopefully no burnout. We have Oh, I hate people that do this, but we have like other podcasts that we're working on. Projects, is that what we would say?

Michelle: Yeah, projects. We want to become a media company.

Tommy: Yeah, you are a media company.

Zara: Yeah, you're—

Michelle: oh, not yet, we're just a podcast at the moment.

Zara: Yeah, we're somewhere.

Michelle: Do you know how much it costs to set up an actual legit company?

Tommy: $650.

Josh: $650.

Tommy: And then $250 every year for your ASIC fee. Yeah, it's not cheap. And then your trusts, if you—

Michelle: we're setting up trust. Yeah, we're setting up a whole structure.

Zara: I just don't know if it's really that appropriate.

Josh: Oh no, we spent literally yesterday 10 minutes talking about business structures.

Tommy: So yeah, look at that, I'm so annoyed.

Zara: I don't know if it's that appropriate.

Josh: It makes sense. But, uh, domain names, you guys have got to get on the domain names and stuff because— are you calling it Shameless Media?

Zara: We don't know yet. This is—

Josh: these are all the conversations that we're having because shameless.media— because when I— I think I saw—

Michelle: I've looked into it. You're trying to buy our domain name.

Josh: I did.

Zara: You did?

Josh: Yeah, I did.

Tommy: And he hasn't given it back. Well, Hamish—

Josh: no, I said to Hamish—

Zara: this weird— okay, how's that? There it was. I said, was this sort of just like a subtle drop? Like, I bought Hamish's domain name and then I said to Hamish—

Josh: oh no, no, I see what you're doing.

Michelle: You have friends in high places.

Josh: I was, I was trying to make it very clear. I bought the domain name because I, I constantly—

Zara: and then I said to Hamish—

Josh: I said to Hamish, no, I'm a little bit neurotic, so I'll look up domain names constantly. Constantly. So I'll like, I probably searched all of your names or whatever, Mr. 90, like everyone, right?

Tommy: It's nice.

Josh: I owned 131060.com back in the day, which was the radio station, Fox FM's radio thing. So I had a huge amount of domain names. I had one that was— how about this? I got offthegrid.com, right?

Zara: Are you taking questions?

Josh: Uh, yes.

Zara: Yeah, can I ask why?

Josh: Well, I think it's because when I was— I got joshjanson.com in 2005 Thank you.

Michelle: Is this something we're supposed to be impressed by?

Tommy: All right, good job.

Josh: It's fucking amazing, right? And I'm obsessed with search engine optimization. So if like someone searches you, how do people find you? What do they see? How can we sort of control all that sort of thing? And so, no, so I do buy a lot of domain names.

Michelle: Is that as a side hustle so that eventually you'll buy one?

Josh: I've never sold one. Yeah, and so my whole thing is like, it's not for me to make money on off, but I see it as like everyone should have their own domain name, and I'm pretty evangelical about it.

Michelle: So you're kind of like collecting stamps, but like the 21st century.

Tommy: It is, it's the modern day collecting stamps, but you gotta pay $20 a month, $20 a year.

Zara: When you're dead.

Josh: Yeah, well, I thought I'd bought offthegrid.com, right? And it was like my heart was racing, it was crazy, right?

Tommy: 'Cause they're saying like the more generic, the harder they are to buy.

Josh: We've got thedailytalkshow.com, we've got bigmediacompany.com. Clearly there's someone in the business who knows domain names. And this— and so anyway, am I missing something?

Zara: Where are we going with this?

Tommy: Yeah, yeah.

Josh: So I ended up— I didn't actually buy offthegrid.com, I bought offthegird.com.

Tommy: Spelled it wrong.

Josh: Spelled it wrong.

Michelle: So I'll buy that off you.

Josh: How much do you want for it? No, I ended up—

Zara: so how are we doing?

Tommy: Buy michelleandrews.com. No, I'm joking.

Michelle: Do you just like identify anyone who you think think might go somewhere someday and just buy their domain.

Zara: Like, Hamish Blake, he might go somewhere one day.

Josh: No, I was so surprised. Like, the Hamish one only happened like 2 years, 2 years ago, where I was like— because there was actually— there's a— there's domain trolls, domain name trolls, where they'll hold on.

Tommy: Yeah, a guy bought Jules.

Josh: No, I'm not the troll though, because I'll straight away be like, hey, I actually don't want— like, I'll just transfer it to you.

Tommy: Julesland.com was bought by some other guy.

Josh: It was like a full trip.

Tommy: I actually said I'll give it to you. So it was this way.

Josh: He did.

Tommy: What are you doing?

Josh: So that, that, that does happen as well. But the thing is, I think like a really cool one, like if you did go Shameless Media, you could get shameless.media, which would be like a cool URL.

Michelle: I've seen that a lot lately where people are putting dots in URLs.

Josh: What do you do? Would you prefer shamelessmedia.com?

Zara: Yeah, yeah.

Josh: I don't know if that— I don't think that was available.

Michelle: We are talking to the domain name expert.

Tommy: Yeah, he knows all the ones you want.

Josh: Well, I think it's all about like search engine optimization. If you type in bigmediacouple—

Michelle: How many listeners have we lost in this space?

Josh: Exactly what people want.

Zara: There's literally nobody left.

Josh: All of the shameless ones have gone. No, but domain name, it's fun.

Michelle: Tech chat.

Josh: But the thing is too—

Zara: Okay, Josh, we need some hobbies.

Josh: Exactly. But the thing is, this is the hobby. The thing is that the domain name is actually like all this branding stuff. That's all you guys have, right? So it's like rather than being on, like, fuck Facebook and all that sort of thing, it's gonna be at a time where you're like, we actually, Being a media brand, we want to own all of this stuff.

Tommy: So when you guys say you're not a media brand, well, you're on someone else's land at the moment. That's what Josh is saying. If you can build out your own, you've got your mailing list, which is essentially building your media brand. But you've got it. You just need to build a bigger media brand.

Zara: Everything just needs to be sort of like formalised a little bit. We're a bit fast and loose at the moment.

Josh: You need to work out the trustees of the trust and all that sort of stuff.

Michelle: Zara and Zara.

Tommy: Hey, um, thank you for coming on.

Zara: Thank you for having us, and thank you, Mr. 97, for the waffles, of which we haven't yet started.

Josh: Isn't that nice though? Well, Tommy was like, he's like, we're not eating the waffles on the show.

Michelle: Oh my God, that is like Zara. If I ever drink or eat anything, what annoys you the most?

Zara: I said when she, when she drinks on mine.

Tommy: What I've realised from this episode is I'm more like Zara and you're more like Michelle.

Michelle: Emotional people.

Josh: Yeah, but, uh, who cries Cries more.

Zara: Yeah, you.

Michelle: Who would cry the most?

Tommy: Do you cry much?

Zara: I've cried more since becoming a dad because the classic excuse, that's what they all say.

Tommy: No, no, like I just feel like I'm in touch, like I care more about everything.

Michelle: So you two are the non-emotional ones who weirdly cry the most?

Tommy: No, I'm not afraid of crying.

Josh: I'm the always-on emotional one.

Tommy: Anyway, yeah, um, thank you for, um, giving us a shout out too on your newsletter. There's a—

Michelle: oh, we did?

Tommy: Yeah, of course.

Zara: Please.

Josh: Very, very quickly, what is— do you know the themes of what the new podcasts are going to be, or are you—

Michelle: we can't say because contracts haven't been signed yet.

Zara: So we've got to like—

Tommy: you've got contracts? You're a bigger media company than us.

Michelle: Yeah, we've got to lock shit down.

Zara: Yeah, we do. Um, so no, we can't say, and that's like very annoying.

Josh: Yeah, that's right.

Zara: I hate when people do that.

Josh: That's okay.

Michelle: So that's more information than we've given anyone else.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. And the media brand— I think the media brand stuff is, is big. Like, that's where we are wanting to take all of our stuff, which is like then you've got this like hub to build upon.

Tommy: Does it include jet skis? That's what I'm still waiting for.

Michelle: Yeah, there is a Jet Ski Podcast and you guys are hosting it.

Josh: That's how we know. Sponsored by Yamaha, guys. It's a daily talk show. Hi@thedailytalkshow.com if you want to tell us what we said wrong during the show. Otherwise, we'll see you Monday. Catch you guys.

Tommy: See you guys.

Josh: Bye.