Is Georgie turning into a content creator? Are the recent comments on her blog even legit? Are Geoff and Georgie even friends?
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
Is Georgie turning into a content creator? Are the recent comments on her blog even legit? Are Geoff and Georgie even friends?
Social media
Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:08
And welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I’m your co host, Geoff. And as always, I’m here with Georgie.
Georgie 0:16
Hello.
Geoff 0:18
I believe we’re, this is a part two. Let’s try continue from what we talked about?
Georgie 0:22
What did we even talk about?
Geoff 0:25
Um.
Georgie 0:25
Shades.
Geoff 0:26
I don’t know but I remember I remember something about—
Georgie 0:28
TikTok.
Geoff 0:29
Like social media TikTok. Oh, we were back on the social media grind. That’s because there’s like a couple that’s coming out, right, this thing called Blue Sky.
Georgie 0:39
Um, I have not heard about any new social media recently.
Geoff 0:45
Really?
Georgie 0:46
No, I haven’t. I don’t I don’t really keep up to date with these things. And I suppose people in my quote unquote circles haven’t really mentioned it either. So I am unfamiliar.
Geoff 0:58
Actually, before that, recently, you started doing videos?
Georgie 1:02
Oh, this is so funny. Okay—
Geoff 1:05
I’m gonna call you out.
Georgie 1:06
You gotta call me out—
Geoff 1:06
...on the videos.
Georgie 1:07
Okay. So like, I’m not even like updating our Instagram for this podcast. But I started making some videos. So I don’t really know where the quote unquote inspiration necessarily came from. But it sort of started when, I have these coloured changing nail stickers on. And it’s from a company called Personail, and I always buy their nail stickers, because they just, this is actually linking to the previous episode, talking about nails, I find them a lot easier to deal with than going to the salon, you can apply them yourself, they lost pretty much the same amount of time as like a manicure you get at the salon, and they come in funky designs. So you don’t have to pay $5 every nail to get some cool art. So I just wanted to show my friend a video of them changing colour, which happens in like hot water or cold water. So like right now they’re like kind of like a black purpley sort of color. And if I get in the shower and have a hot shower, they turned like purple. So it’s pretty cool. And I made a video and I don’t—I do not exactly know why—I think it was also because the day before I was messing around with iMovie on my phone. Because Nick said yeah, you can kind of put some clips together using iMovie on the iPhone. I’m like, oh, I don’t have to do it on the computer. Cool. I think it was for my powerlifting comp. I was trying to put some videos together. And so after I was showing my friend the colour changing nail stickers, I decided to just record a video that I would post on my Instagram story. Just of me, saying “look at these”, like I wasn’t trying to be an ad. It was so funny because (laughs)
Geoff 2:47
(laughs) Sure you’re not.
Georgie 2:48
My friend later responded, a couple of them, like, oh, she’s got influencer vibes, but without like the without the you know, the the fakeness, that’s what they say.
Geoff 2:58
Without the annoying female voice over that reads out the text on the screen.
Georgie 3:03
And I’m hyping up a brand that I’ve bought literally since like 2018 like—
Geoff 3:08
Incoming. Sponsorship?
Georgie 3:11
Look, I’m not even trying to get I’m not trying to get a deal or anything like that. It’s just like I genuinely recommend and like if if you’ve been reading my blog or people like on listening this podcast have known me for a while, like, you know, I only really talk online about like, I only recommend stuff that I would literally actually recommend. Not because somebody gave it to me and I would give my honest opinion. So yeah, anyway, this little short video—
Geoff 3:34
That’s how they all start. That’s what we think think.
Georgie 3:37
Nah, in well, in all honesty, I have sometimes had brands reach out to me and say, can we get you to write a blog post about this? I’m like, yeah, but if if I fucking hate your product, I’m gonna fucking say it. Anyway.
Geoff 3:48
Yeah.
Georgie 3:48
Posted that video. And it gave off those vibes. And then I somehow felt like because I’m pretty passionate about like, my personal style and clothes and things like that. And I can talk about, like my clothing decisions and things for a while.
Geoff 4:05
(laughs)
Georgie 4:05
I wanted to try a, I wanted to try a different medium. Like, I have my blog, I’ve got pictures, I post, like my outfit every day, just a picture on my Instagram story. And I was like, I do talk to my friends about my clothes in like voice messages and things like that. So I decided to just try making short videos about my outfits. Now the problem is, the first few videos I recorded, were fucking five minutes long, and I’m like, this isn’t fucking YouTube. Like, I just wanted to post like a short video, but I just kept talking and I was like, fuck my life.
Geoff 4:41
That’s that’s the whole thing. I think it was another episode where you weren’t sure how long these TikToks, or how long these Reels were.
Georgie 4:49
Yeah.
Geoff 4:49
And some of them are really long.
Georgie 4:51
Some of them you don’t see the UI to scrub the time, right, and I was like, I’m conscious of the people who follow me on social media, I don’t want to give them like, five minutes of me talking about my clothes when they’re not interested.
Geoff 5:06
Well, well, this sounds like you’re just optimising your your time, like communications because now you don’t have to tell your friends. Each individual you can literally say it once, then, like, give them the link.
Georgie 5:20
This is, this has been my life with my blog. I think like when I first met you, I was just like, “I’m not telling you this story, Geoff, read this blog post I wrote”.
Geoff 5:27
I refused. I remember that time, like, I’m not gonna read it.
Georgie 5:31
Yeah, no, yeah—
Geoff 5:32
Just tell me the story.
Georgie 5:33
It just started becoming like a flex after some point. And now we’re doing the same thing. Like when when we bring up something in the podcast, just listen to our other—
Geoff 5:42
Just listen to the other episode. But the difference is actually, I guess, with friends who ask me about something I’m like, oh, yeah, I probably would have, I probably have talked about it on this podcast. But I have no freaking clue what episode it is, so I just tell the story again.
Georgie 5:56
(laughs)
Geoff 5:58
But, and even, even though maybe it’s very rare, but one person has heard this story before I, the person listening to this, you know who you are.
Georgie 6:10
(laughs)
Geoff 6:10
And we’d be, we’d be in a situation where I’m going to tell the story.
Georgie 6:14
And they’ll be like, you told this before?
Geoff 6:16
Like a minute, like a minute into the story, I can see that they recognise, they recognise, I’m like, oh, I probably told it isn’t like podcast, or mentioned that it’s in my podcast, and then continue telling the story anyways, because obviously not everybody there listens to my podcast, or our podcast, sorry, I’m really claiming ownership of because I’m the most famous.
Georgie 6:35
(laughs) No one knows you Geoff.
Geoff 6:40
Reference to a different episode of this podcast. But yeah, you’ve optimised it. So I mean, I looked, I looked at one of the videos that you made, I obviously didn’t listen to it, because—
Georgie 6:53
But I put the captions on it.
Geoff 6:54
You talked about it for five minutes, I can’t be bothered.
Georgie 6:57
Nah, nah, the first one, I ended up cutting, I ended up re-recording it to like, two, I think I know under two minutes. And then the second one, I made it even shorter. And then the last one I posted was 30, like 37 seconds. So I was like, yes.
Geoff 7:10
Yeah.
Georgie 7:11
But you know what, I actually cut it. Like I decided, You know what, I don’t need to talk about the whole thing. Let’s just get some people’s attention very quickly. And I’ll just cut a small bit.
Geoff 7:19
Oh. You’re just playing into the to the short, short attention span. Today’s—
Georgie 7:25
No, it sucks though, right? Because it’s like, I should just post whatever I want. But then I’m semi influenced by the way that people use social media, even the way that I use social media.
Geoff 7:37
Exactly, like your expectations of this stuff that you’ve seen. It weighs on the expectations that you put on what you’re going to produce. That makes kind of sense.
Georgie 7:47
Yeah. It’s been interesting.
Geoff 7:50
Have you seen more engagement? I assume that you got more you’ve seen more engaging, because I just looked at one of your things. And I’m like, whoa, it’s got a few more comments.
Georgie 7:59
There’s more comments, right? I’ve noticed on the videos, there’s more comments, I still kind of tagged them with the same things. I don’t think there’s as many likes, but there’s, I think 100, there’s, you can’t tell how many views you get on like a picture but you can see like views on like a video. So I noticed that the first one I posted I think had like 400 last time I looked, and I was like that’s okay. I think it depends on what’s trending as well, because I did like a video. I jumped on the, what do you call it like the Taylor Swift trend of, there’s a lyric
Geoff 8:38
Oh is that what that was about, yeah.
Georgie 8:39
“Do you really know”—?
Geoff 8:40
Explain this one to me. Because I just looked at it. I’m like, I don’t know what bandwagon she’s jumping on. That she mentioned.
Georgie 8:46
I jumped on a bandwagon. And there’s a Taylor Swift song that says, “Do you really want to know where I was April 29”. And it just so happened that was when I was at my powerlifting competition. So I was like, cool. I’ll just jump on this bloody bandwagon. And that video got like over 1000 views and I thought maybe it’s because I tagged it with like, April 29, Taylor Swift or something. And other people just saw it because it was a trend.
Geoff 9:12
This song is not new.
Georgie 9:15
It’s relatively new, latest album, from last year, so.
Geoff 9:20
Yeah. So that was that was pretty timely, then. That sounds good. But what was it? Yeah, right. Right. Back to the—
Georgie 9:29
More comments, right?
Geoff 9:30
Yeah, more comments.
Georgie 9:31
More comments, like not as many likes and views. I don’t know how they compare to other people’s views. But you know.
Geoff 9:40
I wonder if it’s pretty, it would be pretty interesting to see like views of your photos. Like how many views your photos have got. I don’t see the difference between a video and a photo.
Georgie 9:51
Because video I think it counts if you watch the whole thing maybe.
Geoff 9:57
Oh OK.
Georgie 9:57
Or if you actually open it, I’m not sure but the photos one would be interesting—
Geoff 10:01
How long you stare at a photo. If you stare at a photo for more than ten seconds. Bing.
Georgie 10:06
When I use the in—use the Instagram? I was gonna say the platform, when I use the platform, sometimes I realise I’m actually reading, looking at someone’s picture, engaging with the caption, like I read it, because maybe it’s a little bit long and tells a story, but I don’t like the photo. I just don’t press the button. And I just keep scrolling. Because maybe I didn’t like it. I’m like, that was thought provoking, but I just didn’t think to like it or comment on it. But there is appreciation there, you know?
Geoff 10:34
Yeah, there’s, there’s a semi related acquaintance friend, I guess. My definition of friend is complex, and I won’t go into—
Georgie 10:44
Have you updated, can I just ask, have you updated your definition of friend? As you, as you’ve gotten older?
Geoff 10:49
Err, not really, not really, okay. I guess I can go into a little bit. But essentially—
Georgie 10:54
Are they listening?
Geoff 10:55
I think a lot of it was a lot earlier. I was like, okay, so the difference between an acquaintance and a friend is actually quite, I think it used to be quite a wide gap. Like, I don’t have best friends. I literally like the friends are friends—
Georgie 11:09
Am I your friend, Geoff? (laughs)
Geoff 11:11
Yeah, maybe, we’re getting there. (laughs) But then like, but for everybody else. It’s, it’s their acquaintances, and I realised that this was a bit of a different, different definition for most people.
Georgie 11:27
Okay.
Geoff 11:27
If people were on a friendly basis, like they could say hi to them, when they’re walking across, like walking past each other on the street, or in an office or something like that. They would consider them like a friend. And I was like, that seems—
Georgie 11:41
Everyone—
Geoff 11:41
That to me, to me, it wasn’t, it wasn’t an accurate definition for me, in which case, like, if I were, if I was happy to, I guess lunch is okay?
Georgie 11:54
Different?
Geoff 11:55
If I see them outside the office, would I hang out with them? If the answer is no, then they are not, they’re not a friend.
Georgie 12:02
Okay, no, that’s yeah, that one is a good example. That one you just gave about, like someone at work? Would you hang out with them outside of work?
Geoff 12:11
Yeah.
Georgie 12:12
I would usually say work friend. Like—
Geoff 12:15
Ah, work friend, yeah.
Georgie 12:16
For people who are work. And then I drop the “work” if they are someone I am, like, closer with or who I would hang out with outside of work. As for the word acquaintance, I don’t really use that, I often say, “this person I know”. So like, you know, someone like at the gym, who I might like wave at, say hi to, make small talk. I’ll say—
Geoff 12:40
Yeah.
Georgie 12:40
Or I’ll address them by name, if I’m talking about them, to someone who like also knows them. I actually used to use friend for just anybody. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised I can’t just be friendly with everybody, there are some bitches out there. So I just say I often say “someone I know” if I’m not that close to them. Like if they’re an online friend, or someone I know online, who I might talk to every now and then but I’m not like close to, and obviously there’s that like, barrier barrier country—what do you call it, sea—the barrier of the sea, like I can’t, like they’re so far away anyway. It’s sort of it may be a little bit like it’s a bit weird to call them a friend.
Geoff 13:24
I can’t remember where I saw this, but there was a video where I think it’s Gwyneth Paltrow. Yeah, Gwyneth Paltrow she was on she was on the stand, right. She was like giving a testimony, I believe. Oh, now it’s coming back to me. So for those who don’t know, the, Gwyneth Paltrow was being sued by this nobody, or I think yeah, by this nobody about a ski accident that happened in 2019.
Georgie 13:51
Okay.
Geoff 13:52
So the the guy’s claim is that Gwyneth Paltrow maliciously, like skied into him, like caused an accident, attacked him, essentially. And obviously like that, that seems ridiculous. Why would someone attack this guy? That’s the court case. Now, their, their lawyers. arguably the worst lawyers I have ever heard of even worse than the one that I experienced myself. But when when Gwyneth Paltrow was on the stand, giving some kind of testimony or being like, examined or whatever, the opposition’s, or the, the guy who’s suing her that his lawyer wouldn’t shut up about Taylor Swift. So—
Georgie 14:40
Wh... okay?
Geoff 14:41
She kept, like the lawyer kept asking Gwyneth Paltrow If she knows Taylor Swift, are you friends with Taylor Swift?
Georgie 14:48
Like, oh, they’re trying to get something out of her or something? Yeah?
Geoff 14:52
That’s the problem. It was so irrelevant, like they were like being held in contempt of court because they wouldn’t be they wouldn’t get to the point about why Taylor Swift was at all relevant to this.
Georgie 15:02
But she was refusing to answer the question?
Geoff 15:05
No, but I mean, Gwyneth was just sort of like, well, yes, I know her. Like, would you say you’re on good terms with her? Yes, we like exchange pleasantries? I don’t believe we’re overly friendly. I’m like, see, this is this is a problem. Like, are you friends? Are you not? And if everyone’s definition of friends is like, so different—
Georgie 15:26
Would you say it’s mutual, also, like, you got to, like the other person has to also say, “Yeah, they’re my friend”.
Yeah. Yeah, you don’t know.
Well, what if I thought you were a friend, and you didn’t think I was a friend? That means we’re not friends.
Geoff 15:39
Yes, that’s like the awkward moment where it’s just sort of like, it happens on all the movies, right? It’s like, oh, yeah, this is my girlfriend. And she’s like, “nooo”.
Georgie 15:48
But movies are exaggerated, right.
Geoff 15:50
“No, we’re friends”. Yeah.
Georgie 15:52
But you know, when you’re like, I don’t know, if you ever get introduced to someone. Have you ever been introduced? If someone says, this is my friend, Geoff, and you’re a bit like, oh, you think I’m your friend?
Geoff 16:03
Didn’t know we were friends!
Georgie 16:04
That’s so nice of you. Or you go, what the fuck?
Geoff 16:06
Well. This is this is the point right? That at some point, I realised that everyone’s definition of friend is like different. And they are—
Georgie 16:16
And what you going to do about it Geoff? What are you going to do?
Geoff 16:18
Nothing, nothing, they just call me a friend. And I’m like, okay, yeah, so they’re definitely like, I don’t, I don’t assume that they define friend the same way as me. So I just let it go. It’s like, they probably just say “someone I know”. And I’m someone they know. And they call me a friend. We are friendly. Sure. But would I introduce them as their friend, that’s when the awkward thing comes in, right? I just don’t, I just go, oh, this is—
Georgie 16:40
“This is Georgie”.
Geoff 16:40
This is Georgie.
Georgie 16:44
You could also, you could also fully avoid saying that right? And you can just be like, this is this is Georgie, like, we do a podcast together? You can you can still tell that introduce me to someone and say things about me? Or how you know me without actually defining quote, unquote—
Geoff 17:01
You can define the relationship?
Georgie 17:03
Yeah. Oh my god, is anyone actually doing this? And they’re like dating and they’re just like, beating around the bush.
Geoff 17:11
Ignore the, the definitions.
Georgie 17:14
I mean, like, you don’t have to label stuff.
Geoff 17:16
Well, some people force you, right? Some people like, “Oh, is she like your friend?”
Georgie 17:21
Oh no. Have you ever—yeah.
Geoff 17:24
“No? Yeah?”
Georgie 17:25
Have you ever been in a situation where someone’s asked you?
Geoff 17:27
I don’t think so.
Georgie 17:29
Just interrogated.
Geoff 17:29
I don’t think someone outright, like just asked me, “So they’re your friend?” I’m like, if they did, then maybe I just go, yeah, sure. Whatever. Like it doesn’t, doesn’t worry me.
Georgie 17:40
It’s when they go ooh, are they your partner? Are they your...
Geoff 17:43
Yeah, exactly. Like are you like, more than friends?
Georgie 17:46
Are you an item? (laughs)
Geoff 17:49
That’s the old, that’s actually a weird phrase. Right? Why would you call a relationship? An item?
Georgie 17:53
Ooh, can I tell you a story—
Geoff 17:54
Itemising?
Georgie 17:54
...about item. Yes. So when Nick and I started going out—
Geoff 17:57
Becoming an item.
Georgie 17:59
Becoming an item. A fellow colleague of ours, I don’t know if I’d call them a friend. (laughs) I don’t keep in touch with them anymore.
Geoff 18:07
Ooh... are they gonna listen to this?
Georgie 18:09
I don’t know. If they do, I’ll, I’m sure they’re not offended. But they invited us to their wedding. And then I messaged them, and I said yeah, Nick and I are coming to your wedding. And then they’re like, Oh, thanks for letting me know. And then later, they were like, are you and Nick an item now? This is like through work chat or something. And so I was like, oh, yeah. Like, I think, I think that kind of people kind of knew, but it was probably just a confirmation question, rather than one of those, “ooh are you an item?”
Geoff 18:40
It’s like a reactionary question. Right. Sort of like reconfirming, you’re not just coming as friends.
Georgie 18:47
Yeah.
Geoff 18:47
That was a really interesting thing. Because I had friends who had a wedding and they invited me and I was like, Oh, can I like plus one my, my female friend. And they’re like, “no”. I’m like, wait, what? They have to be your partner. Or no, go. I’m like, wait, I can’t even invite a friend. So I couldn’t plus one the friend and I believe the, the the groom. He was, I think it was the groom that said this, he’s like, if you, if you’re not fucking you’re not inviting them.
Georgie 19:20
(laughs)
Geoff 19:21
That’s it.
Georgie 19:21
That’s so funny though.
Geoff 19:23
Wow.
Georgie 19:24
I mean, I kind of I kind of, I kind of get it for weddings, because—
Geoff 19:28
Er, yeah. You’ve had one.
Georgie 19:30
Why, I dunno, I—Yeah, I guess if someone did ask me, can I invite my mum or something, I dunno. (laughs) But it would be a bit odd, I feel like, I don’t know if it’s just because weddings are like where couples like get together or whatever. Or like as in the wedding event is a couple coming together.
Geoff 19:50
Yeah.
Georgie 19:51
In union or whatever.
Geoff 19:52
And I suppose if you do photos, well, the thing is, even if you bring your partner isn’t that a little bit risk, more risky for photos like they could like someone that you’ve known for like a week is in wedding photos.
Georgie 20:07
Okay, so my, my sister in law—
Geoff 20:09
A friend is more solid.
Georgie 20:11
My sister in law, so Nick’s sister, she was with a guy who she brought to our wedding, which is fair enough, they were together for a while. But then they broke up, which which happens. And his parents were putting together some photos to put around the house. And so they had to kind of strategically place them so that he wasn’t really in, or, he was kind of covered, some of the photos overlaid over parts that had him.
Geoff 20:40
Oh wow, see.
Georgie 20:41
But yeah, also, I think this, I think I’ve seen something on Instagram where I don’t like this. So I’m not going to go into detail. But a photographer or someone Photoshops people into wedding photos or like, because they didn’t, they didn’t get a photo with just their mum or something like that. So I guess I would recommend if you’re getting married, or having some kind of event like that, that you make sure the photographer gets photos of you with like people individually or like people, with and without other people.
Geoff 21:15
Fallbacks and contingencies.
Georgie 21:16
So you have photos, yeah. Honestly, like, I don’t actually have too many pictures with my mum at my wedding, which is a bit of a regret, I guess. Because like, my dad walked me down the aisle and stuff, which is, you know, customary and traditional. But I just I—
Geoff 21:31
I think.
Georgie 21:31
There weren’t a lot of photos with me and just my mum, so yeah.
Geoff 21:36
Do they normally have both parents walk you up nowadays? I don’t know.
Georgie 21:40
It depends. I think. Yeah. Weddings, kind of anything goes I think. Some people might not even have a father figure. So they will pick the mother or someone else.
Geoff 21:52
Or their friend.
Georgie 21:53
Yeah. Yeah. Or they, you know, depends on the I guess the type quote unquote, of wedding that you have. I think some people choose for both their parents to walk them down. So it doesn’t really matter. Like whatever you want.
Geoff 22:05
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where the, was it Robin, she started dating a, someone in Japan when she was there. And like, she got brought brought to a wedding.
Georgie 22:23
Yeah.
Geoff 22:24
So she’s like a super tall white girl—
Georgie 22:26
White woman, yeah.
Geoff 22:28
Amongst a bunch of short, Asian people. And it’s just so many photos of her at the wedding, and the wedding family.
Georgie 22:35
And it looks awkward.
Geoff 22:36
...and stuff, like it was super awkward. But, yeah, actually, on that note, about social network and stuff and friends, remember when I think I think was Myspace—
Georgie 22:52
Top 8.
Geoff 22:52
Or early time Facebook, it’s, so MySpace at the top 8, but the early time Facebook, I think you had to do friend, I think you still do a friend request and then friend accept, right.
Georgie 23:02
Okay. Yeah. Like as in to add somebody, you have—
Geoff 23:04
To add someone they had to actually accept it. Like, it’s not like a follow. It’s actually like a—
Georgie 23:09
Yeah, yeah it is.
Geoff 23:10
Two port person thing.
Georgie 23:11
It’s kind of like LinkedIn as well. I think you can’t connect with someone unless they’re like, oh, yeah, I accept, yeah.
Geoff 23:17
So like, accept and stuff like that. So it’s kind of like, super awkward. So at some point, you know, when LinkedIn came about, I had made that I made the rule. And I think quite a few people do this. Like, unless you’ve actually worked with someone who can vouch for them.
Georgie 23:33
Yeah.
Geoff 23:34
And you wouldn’t accept them on LinkedIn.
Georgie 23:35
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I went in there recently, and I started rejecting people who I just didn’t, I was only accepting people I did know. Like, know at work.
Geoff 23:44
Yeah. And I remember when I met one of your friends, at one of the meetups, they wanted to connect on LinkedIn, but I was like, ooh, (inhales), I don’t—
Georgie 23:54
I don’t actually like work with—I can’t remember, who was it?
Geoff 24:00
It was Pauline. No, it wasn’t Pauline. Pauline was the person were making fun off. Not making fun of, but referencing, crap. I know her name, but I can’t remember.
Georgie 24:13
You’re not talking about Monica?
Geoff 24:14
Not Monica. The other one?
Georgie 24:16
Rosie?
Geoff 24:18
Yes. Rosie.
Georgie 24:19
Yeah. Cuz like we, we saw her, met her at codebar, or I think I met her and then I invited her to codebar.
Geoff 24:26
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I remember that time when she was like, let’s let’s connect on LinkedIn. And I was like, (inhales) look, I’ve got a bit of a thing with LinkedIn.
Georgie 24:34
My rules.
Geoff 24:36
Rules. And so but it seems, and I was reading some tweets from people who do lots of talks at conferences. And it seems like the newer generation actually don’t do Twitter. They do LinkedIn. They...
Georgie 24:54
Oh OK, that’s interesting.
Geoff 24:54
They find that most people are connecting up on LinkedIn and apparently the feed is getting better and...
Georgie 25:00
I don’t believe...
Geoff 25:01
And I was like what? Yeah. Woah.
Georgie 25:03
But, but but like to that point, Twitter is kind of, sadly a dumpster fire at the moment. I feel like.
Geoff 25:09
Yeah.
Georgie 25:10
I don’t even go on there apart from to self promote these days.
Geoff 25:16
But the thing is like they were, they were discussing their rules, like they usually only connect with people that they’ve worked for vouch for, vouch for, and some of them only connect with people who have who’ve had at least a conversation with at some point.
Georgie 25:33
Yeah.
Geoff 25:34
They don’t just connect with random people. But then one of the things that was a little bit interesting was that people like connecting and to, like, expand their network to try at least, like, somehow get some advice, perhaps some mentorship or, or to understand, I don’t know, the industry they are trying to enter. And I was like, oh yeah. So if we have these rules, are we gatekeeping? This is my thought. Because these are more prominent people. These are these are people with thousands and thousands of people like on their network. And—
Georgie 26:15
Are you talking about the younger generation?
Geoff 26:17
No, as in, like the people who are more popular.
Georgie 26:20
Yeah.
Geoff 26:21
A little bit more like on the circuit, much more well known in the space.
Georgie 26:25
Okay. Yeah.
Geoff 26:26
And they’re essentially saying, I’m not going to help somebody who isn’t so prominent in the space by rejecting—
Georgie 26:34
Ah, yeah yeah.
Geoff 26:36
...the connection. Right. So, I mean, I know we can’t help everybody.
Georgie 26:41
Yeah.
Geoff 26:43
But there’s like, they said that, some of them one of them was like, well, I have to at least have a conversation with the but if you don’t connect, then you can’t have a conversation with them. So are you limiting your connections to literally people who can afford, or, and or, have the ability to meet you in real life?
Georgie 27:02
Yeah, I sort of can try to understand this from when I used to do like online mentorship. And I started by not being very selective about the people I took on for mentorship. And I did have a lot of people waste my time. And they were very beginner level. And I feel like I wasn’t really the right person to help them, which is fair enough. And then I started being more selective. And I would reject anyone who just really didn’t know what, what they wanted out of their career. And like, politely decline, basically. And as I was doing this, I started to wonder what you were saying, like am, am I just blocking out the potential, you know, younger, more junior people who could be, like really able to kickstart their career, but I’m just like, not willing to help. But then I thought, well, my time is valuable. And if it’s not gonna work out, and I feel like we could just be wasting each other’s time as well, because we’re not a good match, then I think that’s fair enough. But...
Geoff 28:10
Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s a good point. Like, if you if you connect with random people who are, I guess, not too serious about it. And they’re literally just spamming everybody, just to see which what sticks. And I think from a recruiters perspective, I think I hide whoever I’m connected to anyways, I don’t think I show who I connect to. Like, I just have a number.
Georgie 28:42
Yeah. I can’t remember if I do that or not.
Geoff 28:46
Yeah, so there’s a lot of little things here and there. It’s sort of like, well, if I connect with this random person, then they essentially can see my entire network, and then they can go bother those people as well. Like, oh, I know, Geoff, or whatever.
Georgie 28:58
Yeah.
Geoff 28:58
Or like, like, take advantage. But—
Georgie 29:02
The other thing I’m looking at is, it makes me think of the whole rich people hang out with rich people sort of story.
Geoff 29:09
Yeah.
Georgie 29:10
And that I feel like it’s different because it’s a little bit maybe more personal. And that’s something that I kind of maybe see problems with, like, oh, okay, you have a lot of money, and you don’t want to talk to me because I don’t have as much money as you and there’s like a whole status thing. But I think in a professional context, it doesn’t hurt to be a bit more selective about who you might connect with. Because maybe you kind of want to be focused in your career or something. Or—
Geoff 29:40
Yeah.
Georgie 29:40
You might have no reason to connect with someone, like I don’t have any reason to connect with someone who’s like, I don’t know, an AWS specialist or something or who just writes like C sharp unless I work with them, you know.
Geoff 29:51
Yeah, that but what did they want it to become a front-ender?
Georgie 29:55
Okay, can we can we go into this for a sec. So this guy that I used to like, see, he, apart from the fact that like, he keeps stalking me on social media and trying to get in touch with me. The last time he contacted me, like, I have I have, there’s a whole story behind this. I won’t get into it now, right. But basically, like, things ended between us for reasons. And we don’t talk anymore—
Geoff 30:20
As in you were an item, and then you ended, or—
Georgie 30:23
(laughs) I wouldn’t say we’re an item, see that’s the thing. I don’t even want to define it. I just I always say personally, I used to see, so I never even called it anything. Anyway—
Geoff 30:31
I mean, seeing it is an item. You’re seeing somebody.
Georgie 30:36
Well—
Geoff 30:36
Across the room. (laughs)
Georgie 30:39
(laughs) Yeah it’s funny. We can get into this but no. But he messaged me, like, I don’t know, several months ago. And I ignored it. But he was asking me, oh, like, how’s work, whatever. Don’t even get me started. But he was saying, do you know what I can do? Or like how I can find a job similar to yours?
Geoff 30:58
Oh no.
Georgie 30:59
Like in front end, or like whatever software engineering? Do you think someone would, like, take me on for an internship? With like, no experience, basically.
Geoff 31:13
Right? Do you know if they’re trying to—so now you have to figure out if... I mean, if you actually said yes to this request.
Georgie 31:22
I didn’t, no. No, I ignored it.
Geoff 31:24
If you did.
Georgie 31:25
Yeah.
Geoff 31:25
If you did, then I guess you’d now be vouching for someone that you have ended it with. In this case, that’s—
Georgie 31:34
(laughs)
Geoff 31:34
...very awkward.
Georgie 31:34
Yeah. It’s like putting that aside, though. I’m like, what am I going to do to help someone who knows nothing, but wants to basically have a job? Like mine? You’re starting from scratch? And their background is in more of like mechanical engineering? And I’m like, fair enough. And I’m like, surely there’s something in what robots, AI, that you can do? Why are you, why do you want what I, like what made you decide to like, apart from like, maybe are you just trying to get back in touch with me? But from a professional standpoint, what firstly, why are you messaging me on Instagram, contact me on LinkedIn, please. But when you can see that someone doesn’t really know what’s out there, or they’re dabbling in something?
Geoff 32:18
Yeah.
Georgie 32:19
They need to be speaking to maybe people in the community of, you know, like other people, not to directly like one person, unless you’re specifically looking for mentorship from that person. Because you know, that what you know, exactly like, what they’re maybe working on that you really want their help or whatever.
Geoff 32:37
Yeah, I guess it’s kind of strange. Like, if... it’s, it’s more like, we like to help those who help themselves. Generally—
Georgie 32:48
Because it’s like a two, mentorship is like a two way street. It’s not like a, like a teacher student thing, like some people are sort of led to believe.
Geoff 32:56
Yeah. And it shouldn’t be like, “yo, could you put in a good word for me at this place, so that I can get your salary now”, kind of like, it’s like a shortcut, trying to treat us like a shortcut into our industry. Which, I guess is kind of just lazy, right? We don’t like lazy people, people that work hard. Actually. We’re quite lazy ourselves. But that’s a topic for another day. I think I was saying the other day that actually a lot of things that we we enjoy now is out of people’s pure laziness.
Georgie 33:32
What do you mean? Like what?
Geoff 33:33
Like, I’m too, I’m too lazy to walk. So of course, I hop on this horse. And then, hey, there’s lots of people who are lazy to walk. So I just put a cart on this horse, and then I’ll carry them. And then at this point, you’re too lazy to wait that long for a car ride. So you built the car?
Georgie 33:50
Yeah.
Geoff 33:51
You drive the car instead.
Georgie 33:52
Oh, yeah. But you, I think you did talk about this. In an episode.
Geoff 33:55
I dunno about that, have we done an episode? But yeah, it’s like a lot of things get born out of laziness. I don’t want to turn on my lights. Like I don’t go to a switch. That’s, that’s stupid. I can just use my phone now.
Georgie 34:05
You also don’t want to install your blinds. You’re gonna pay someone else to do it.
Geoff 34:07
Yeah, exactly. I’m lazy. And then that’s a job, right? So we’ve got we’ve got a whole... we don’t want to cut my nails. So, just pay someone to do it.
Georgie 34:07
Haha exactly, exactly.
Geoff 34:10
Like...
Georgie 34:10
Wait. So the question is, why haven’t we paid anybody to edit the podcast?
Geoff 34:21
(laughs) Because we’re not lazy enough yet. I mean, it takes like five minutes.
Georgie 34:24
(laughs) One day.
Geoff 34:28
I mean, to be honest, I reckon if I were really bothered, and if I were really lazy enough, I could write a script that would literally take like the first five, five, ten seconds off the start of our episodes and then like insert some some quote unquote music maybe. And then, and then upload it and like, hey.
Georgie 34:51
You just need to figure out how to detect the clap. Oh, wait, we can’t tell people that.
Geoff 34:58
I mean, this is not a secret, everybody, everybody knows how to time their audio. I mean, if you didn’t know and you want to start a podcast, clapping is important. So—
Georgie 35:11
On the topic of AI though, cuz like, man, okay, this is not a secret either, but like we use like Otter to transcribe stuff. But I have not, and I don’t really want to jump on like some AI bandwagon thing. But it occurred to me the other day, I’m like, why is it, well, everyone is talking about this for various reasons. They’re like, oh, yeah, ChatGPT can do this or whatever. And I’m just so well, firstly, I’m anti that for now, because I don’t want to put in—
Geoff 35:39
Heh. You hate automation.
Georgie 35:40
But I don’t want to put any personal data into that. That’s also my concern, right? I do not want to use an AI like, and have to kind of give up privacy. And so that’s something I’m just really cautious of. But some people have, I guess, touted it as being able to help them with things. And I guess I just have not had anything that I’ve really been able to get like, for it, to gain something from it. I haven’t nothing’s come up. Like, it’s not going to do my dishes for me.
Geoff 36:11
(laughs)
Georgie 36:11
You know, and obviously, I would never get it to write my blog posts. Like never, I would always write my blog posts. I can see people using it to generate ideas and stuff. But I don’t want to ask it to generate blog post ideas, I can do that myself. So I haven’t found anything that would actually be useful for me.
Geoff 36:27
I mean, we could ask it to write a podcast script.
Georgie 36:31
No!
Geoff 36:32
We could, we could ask it to summarize a podcast. Like we could give it the Otter.
Georgie 36:36
See. That’s what I thought. But then I was like, Geoff, you can write a sentence in like two seconds.
Geoff 36:43
Yeah, but I don’t remember what we talked about in every podcast—
Georgie 36:46
But then Otter does that anyway.
Geoff 36:48
Yeah, the Otter thing. So I was actually talking about this the other day as well about how like, I just don’t think about using ChatGPT. When I have a problem, like—
Georgie 37:00
Yeah, me neither.
Geoff 37:01
I mean, I have a problem. And I know how to solve my problems. So why do I need to ask ChatGPT to solve them for me. And it’s dubious. For those who don’t know, ChatGPT is notoriously good at making wrong things sound correct. With his absolute phrasing so. So yeah, when we asked it to develop a button with five different variants, that includes, I don’t know, icons, left icons, right, with three different sizes, and five different colours with all those variants interchangeable. It will give us crap, it has given me crap. So it can’t really do our jobs. And it confidently, confidently confidently tells you that it can’t do your job. In which may seem like to, I guess, the layman that it knows what it’s talking about.
Georgie 38:05
I have to show you something. Okay, I’m gonna send it to you. So the other day I went on my blog. And I wen andt looked at some pending comments. And there were like five of them. And I thought these were kind of legit. They’re pretty wordy, they’re sentences. But the URLs that this person had put down, were all like some weird Indonesian university and all linking to different pages. The email address for all these comments were the same. But the name was not even a real name. And then I started reading some of the comments, and I’ll try and like I’ll try to like read one of them, for example, about my first powerlifting competition. I wrote a blog post about that, and they said, “Congratulations on your first powerlifting competition. It’s inspiring to see how you pushed yourself to prepare to overcome the nerves”. Okay, and then on another post about going to Queenstown, New Zealand, they said “Queenstown seems like a charming city, with its hilly terrain and waterfront views”. And then I thought, hang on a minute, this must be spam, because of the links that are put there. It’s like someone puts backlinks, they want to get the comment approved. So there’s a backlink to this site, from my blog.
Geoff 39:20
Yeah.
Georgie 39:21
And then I was like, shit, did someone use an AI to write these comments? And then I sort of sat on it for a minute and then just to just to double check, I went and checked the timestamp of all of these comments and they were between one and three minutes apart. And I was like, there is no way a human could have posted like read my blog post and then actually read the comment and then posted unless you know, they copied it and then pasted it, and then pressed Enter across different tabs, like in succession, you know, but—
Geoff 39:53
Yeah, but they’re supposedly different people. So there’s like—
Georgie 39:58
But the same email address!
Geoff 40:00
...strange. Yeah, the same email address. So it’s kind of like really strange, right? Even if it was, if they’re trying to act like different people. So different people posting in that quick succession across multiple blog posts in that time period is kind of unlikely unless you have millions of people coming through.
Georgie 40:18
Yeah. And it’s like my five most recent blog posts, but I was just so weirded out by it, because—
Geoff 40:23
Let’s ask ChatGPT if they can do that for us—
Georgie 40:25
No don’t! Don’t do it! That’s exactly what this person did. Or at least to generate the content. But the thing that really like, bothers me about it is when I read it, it sounds overly positive, like hyper positive. Like, and I was saying to Nick, it was kind of the best way I can describe it is one of those generic lifestyle blog vibes.
Geoff 40:48
Yeah.
Georgie 40:48
So like this. I’ll read this and I quote, “Wow, your cooking journey is truly inspiring. It’s amazing to see how you’ve gained confidence and overcome your fears and insecurities in the kitchen”. Thanks. “Cooking is all about experimenting, learning and finding joy in the meals you create”. Now, I’m just gonna stop you right there. How do you know this? Are you a chef? “Whether it’s assembling ingredients, or preparing from scratch”. This is the, this is the kicker, this is because this is actually something that I cooked, “your rice bowls with pan fried salmon and kimchi look absolutely delicious. Keep exploring, trying new things and enjoying the process”. I’m like who are you, are you like my mentor?
Geoff 41:28
A motivational comment.
Georgie 41:31
This is too much. I can’t—
Geoff 41:32
Even the second sentence. It’s a bit strange, right? Like you said, it’s um, let me just pull it up. So cooking journey, it’s amazing to see how blah, blah, blah insecurities, kitchen. The second one is “cooking is all about experimenting”. It’s like, it’s a, now, yeah, like you said, you know, you’re trying to mentor me, on cooking?
Georgie 41:51
The other one is the power, the powerlifting comp one, “your comparison between lifting weights and public speaking is spot on”. And I’m like, Who are you? My teacher? Like? What?
Geoff 42:01
Like thank you for grading my blog post. (laughs)
Georgie 42:03
Yeah. This reminds me of I think I might have mentioned this before, but like my friend slash manager, Chris on at work, he tried to get ChatGPT to write something like based on my blog post and my blog was was about internalised racism, you know, very personal, very whatever. And just the thing that it came back with, I wouldn’t say it was overly positive. But the tone of it was just like an eighth grader wrote this to define racism, like an essay and all of this kind of stuff. And—
Geoff 42:34
Yeah.
Georgie 42:35
And when you try to ask ChatGPT to write something with a tone. They’re like, I can’t do this, because I’m not a human. And I’m like, but the things that you write, like what you’re saying, like it says things that are false with almost like such like conv—
Geoff 42:49
Certainty.
Georgie 42:50
Like it’s convincing. It’s, this kind of reminds me of that, so this, I reckon these comments were written by an AI and the overall like, the hyper positivity is just ew.
Geoff 43:03
Just bums you out.
Georgie 43:04
It just makes me feel gross. Like, I almost want to millennial vomit in my mouth kind of vibe.
Geoff 43:10
Alright. Here’s a blog post.
Georgie 43:17
Oh, yeah, here’s a funny one, the one that you just, the one that you just put there is one about, like some songs in my life that like conjure up specific memories. And the comment that the person wrote was just like, this weird, like, inspirational thing. Let me just, I’m just trying to pull it up. It’s like “music holds within it, the power of transport us to cherish moments of our past evoking emotions that words alone cannot express”. I’m like, what does that have to do with me writing a list of songs?
Geoff 43:47
Yeah, here we go, so I put your blog post into ChatGPT.
Georgie 43:50
Yeah.
Geoff 43:51
And I asked it to write me a positive comment referencing Taylor Swift—
Georgie 43:54
The point I think is,Taylor Swift’s not even in the blog post.
Geoff 43:57
Exactly. Taylor’s Swift’s not in the blog post, but okay. Taylor Swift, so here chat says, “Taylor Swift is an incredible artist, touched hearts of millions of millions with her music, her talent for storytelling is unparalleled, ability to connect with listeners”, yada, yada, yada, “whether it’s her catchy pop anthems, yeah, make you feel”—what, this has nothing to do with your blog post. “Thank you, Taylor, for sharing your gift with the world”.
Georgie 44:18
It’s because it doesn’t understand the context, right? But the funny thing is, right, the first sentence, for example. “Taylor Swift is an incredible artist who has touched the hearts of millions with her music”. I almost feel like doing a Wikipedia and going, cite? Cite? Where’s this information from?
Geoff 44:36
“Please write a comment about the blog post, praising it... And reference Rocky”.
Georgie 44:47
Who’s Rocky, like as in like the—
Geoff 44:49
Yeah, the movie—
Georgie 44:51
What’s the song?
Geoff 44:51
The movie?
Georgie 44:52
Oh my god. Yeah here we go.
Geoff 44:53
“This blog post is a knockout!”
Georgie 44:54
(laughs) I can’t stand it.
Geoff 44:55
“This blog post is a knockout! Just like Rocky Balboa, it packs a powerful punch that leaves me inspired and motivated. The writer expertly weaves together engaging storytelling and insightful analysis making a true champion among blog posts. Much like Rocky’s determination and grit. This article pushes the boundaries—
Georgie 45:13
(laughs)
Geoff 45:13
“...and encourages readers to conquer their own challenges. It’s a real knockout combination of entertainment and inspiration, keep up the great work and remember, it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward”. By Rocky. As in a quote from Rocky, proper.
Georgie 45:29
Okay, like, okay, I’m impressed that he came up with that, but the cheesiness is like, off the charts, like the—
Geoff 45:35
Yeah.
Georgie 45:36
And it makes me wonder why like what how does it gather that? Is that because there’s so many like cheesy ghost written like articles out there, that that is all it like knows how to—
Geoff 45:49
Yeah.
Georgie 45:50
“Write it again like an emo”! (laughs)
Geoff 45:54
“This blog post hits me right in the feels, just like Rocky Bobo’s emotional journey. It captures a row vulnerability and inner struggle as well, we all face leaving me leaving me in awe of its profound depth. Writers poignant words pierce through the darkness, shining a light on the complexities of life. Like Rocky relentless spirit, this post embraces pain channelled through cathartic experience...” but I’m not gonna read out—
Georgie 46:23
Okay, but the last sentence—
Geoff 46:24
Georgie’s blog post—oh, yeah, “it’s bittersweet—”
Georgie 46:26
No, truly...
Geoff 46:27
“...darkness. Hats off to the writer for crafting such an emotionally charged masterpiece. Truly captivating!”
Georgie 46:33
Exclamation mark, truly captivating, exclamation mark. That’s just too joyous for this shit, man.
Geoff 46:39
With, with responses like this. You should read Georgie’s blog post on music.
Georgie 46:44
(laughs) Yeah, that it’s just like oh, like I’ll take that as a compliment. But honestly, seriously, I don’t know. I... I said to Nick, my writing is like, better than better than these comments. I mean, that like 100%.
Geoff 47:00
You know what isn’t written by the ChatGPT.
Georgie 47:03
This podcast.
Geoff 47:03
The ending for this podcast. So we’ve wasted enough of your time. So you can follow us on @toastroastpod on Twitter for any new episodes, announcements, etc.
Georgie 47:19
And you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you find podcasts and the big LinkedIn connection. We’re not on there.
Geoff 47:29
Yeah. Imagine, oh, we should advertise our podcast on LinkedIn.
Georgie 47:36
(laughs) So all the kids will listen to it.
Geoff 47:38
It’s a, it’s a what do you call it, like a work related thing? Right? Actually really not.
Georgie 47:46
Side project.
Geoff 47:47
Side project, hustle. And new episodes every week. So see you next week.
Georgie 47:54
Bye.