Unpacking your feedback

Hello, everyone. You are not used to hearing my voice in this feed. My name is Michelle Andrews. I am the co-founder of Shameless Media. I'm here with Zara, my fellow co-founder. We're not used to sharing a mic. We're sharing a mic today. We're very close to each other. And we have our three beautiful stylish hosts in the room as well, Joe, Anna, Karen, Mads, which we will get to in a moment. Let's explain why we're here first, because it might be a bit random. Yeah, so if you're not on TikTok, you probably have missed this over the weekend. But the stylish segment on where people find their inspiration and their taste from that dropped at the end of Wednesday's episode has received some backlash and some negative commentary. We feel as a company and as co-founders of that company, it's responsible for us to actually unpack that and address that commentary. Yeah, particularly when the creator at the centre of the segment, Tam's and Wong herself, has had her very fair issues with some of it and wanted to kind of have a dialogue with us about it. And there's so much to talk about in this that we thought, in many ways, it's impossible to capture in a snappy soundbitey social media post. I think we're big proponents in this business of kind of having proper mature conversations about things and being really honest and candid about that. So that's what we're going to do today with our hosts. Yeah, we're going to unpack it all together, because we think it's absolutely worthwhile doing Maddie, Joe, Anika, welcome. Where do you guys want to kick off? Where do you want us to start? I think, I mean, obviously, never-nice having commentary, like the commentary we've had. And I think it's been deeply reflective for all of us. Think one thing that we think about when we come into the podcast is that we want it to feel like a wine bar with friends. And when we saw that video, we did feel really strongly that taste is so subjective. And it was something that everyone can have a different feeling or viewpoint on. And I love Tamsen. I love her content. I've followed along. I've watched it. I thought that was an interesting take. I disagreed with it. And I came across on the podcast more aggressive than I would probably like. And I think one where we have, off my, in the studio is, how would we feel if that person that we're talking about was in the room with us. And I don't think that we got the tone right on that one. Because if she was here and chatted chair and a cup of tea with us, like we do every Monday when we record, I don't think that would have made her feel great. And I never want to make a woman and a woman in media in this space that we're in, feel that way. Yeah. I agree with you, Mards. I definitely made flippant and unnecessarily aggressive comments that were directed towards Tamsen. And I will say I didn't do my due diligence when it came to looking at the broader context of Tamsen's content and the other content that she creates. That was the first video I'd ever seen from her. So I also acknowledge I didn't do my due diligence in understanding her as a creator or as a person either before that segment. I agree. And I think as well as women, like, I don't think we've even realized just yet how powerful our influences and how powerful our platform is on the stylish podcast. And where I really feel badly about this is our intentions didn't land where I really had hoped because Tamsen, she has really thought about this. And I actually did agree with a lot of what she said, but it didn't really come through a lot. And so for that, I am sorry. And I thank when it comes to our learnings as, you know, three hosts in this room together, we have so much to take, when so much reflection and areas to grow. And I thank going forward. It would be so nice just to have more of their open discussion and actually think about Tamsen and what she would have said in this room. Mm-hmm. I love what you guys have said there. I think the main feedback I have seen is that the tone probably missed the mark. Yeah. That said, I feel like the message of your segment was something that a lot of people could say themselves in that maybe the original video, they had a similar emotional reaction to it. I think what's tricky as broadcasters is when there's three of you in a room, the tone can very, very quickly get away and you can't always have that bird's eye perspective in the moment to check that tone. And I think that's where it's our, and my responsibility in the shameless media team's responsibility to be that bird's eye perspective. And that's where we have potentially let the show down, but also let Tamsen down that that tone got away from us and we didn't maybe goal keep it as well as we should have. It's probably not as known outside of the four walls of shameless media that you three are external hosts. You are contractors to the company. You do not control the social media that comes out about the show. That is something we have a whole team for. I'm heavily involved personally in the social media content coming out of shameless and all of the podcasts that we represent. And I think it's a really interesting one for us as a company going forward. And so it's an opportunity for us to be better in that the cut downs we pick, the videos we pick from every podcast need to reflect the tone of a segment. And I think this is where it's tricky for you guys that the cut down we put up on social, it went up on TikTok, it went up on Instagram. Couldn't reflect the full nuance of that conversation you all had on Mike together. And if I had my time again as the co-founder of the business, I would take the lessons from that video and not put it up. But it did go up. And going forward, we will do cut downs differently as a business. And that's what we not only owe you guys, that's what we owe Tamsen. And it's what we owe everyone on socials. How can we expect people to come to us with nuanced thoughts if the cut down we're putting out there is not fully nuanced. And it's very, very hard to capture nuance in a 90 second video. Yeah, I think that's bang on. I think in many ways that's one thing we speak about a lot. It's like you can't be surprised about the mood with which the room meets you up with the segment or with the video. If that's the tone you're setting, I will say though, just to be really clear, the cut down is in many ways not just the feedback we're getting. Like the segment itself to your guys's point. It's like, oh, there are ways we would have done that differently. The tone would have changed. Slightly. It would have been less aggressive. Perhaps there would have been less geeky in many ways more you guys said before. Yeah. I think it's important, though, to say, I don't think you guys would have changed your opinion, per se. No, I don't think I would change my opinion on that segment as a whole. And honestly, I think I kind of projected my feelings about that entire segment in its entirety on to Tamsen as a creator because her video was put into our notes as an example. The three of us actually didn't source that video ourselves. It was popped in by the production team as an example of a way to expand on this whole topic of where people are getting their inspiration from. And in our web, I remember kind of being like, I don't really have anything to add to this conversation, to be honest, because it just kind of feels like a bit above me. I don't feel like I'm a tastemaker. I don't feel like I'm super tasteful, I guess. That's not how I would position myself. So this kind of felt like a bit beyond me. And I think I projected a bit of that onto Tamsen. And I absolutely think that my language and the way I came into it a bit aggressively towards Tamsen was completely uncalled for. And I apologise to her for that. I think that was just unwarranted. I think here it's also important to acknowledge another key thread I'm seeing online is about the deletion of that TikTok. And I think that's really fair. If you guys don't mind, do you mind if I take this? Because I don't think that has any bearing on you guys. I think as Timish's point before, it is a really interesting dynamic behind the scenes where you guys come in and host the show as external contractors. But there is a whole internal production team that edit the show, put the videos together around the social media accounts. And when that video was deleted, a natural level of emotion that drove that decision rather than pragmatism. Anxiety, dare I say. And to let everyone into the kind of machinations of what goes into the decision to delete. Anika, you're 39 weeks pregnant. I think naturally as well, it was the decision to protect you and the team from a certain level of anxiety. Again, if I had my time again or if the social team had their time again, would it be deleted? Probably not. I think eventually that ends up looking like we're willing to have the big girl opinion without copying the big girl feedback. Yeah. And I think that's a huge one for shameless media. I remember early days of shameless podcasts, we would do the delete. And I don't think we can or should going forward. We will, as a media company, get things wrong. That is part of analyzing culture. The difficult, but honest reality of that is if you're going to have opinions, you've got to cop them in return. And we shouldn't have deleted it. There is a rhetoric online that shameless media is deleting everything. I just want to be really clear with the listeners. We deleted the TikTok video. The Instagram cut down is still live. We have not been deleting comments. I know that is commentary that we are getting back. I have spoken to the team. Apparently no one has done that. I don't know if they're being hidden or what is going on. But just as a bit of a fact check on that, the TikTok was deleted. It probably shouldn't have been. And we probably wouldn't. Again, how does that feel to you guys? Because I can imagine as hosts of a show, it can be anxiety-inducing to they not have full control over the socials. We sit in a very unique situation where we are three individuals who have businesses and we do our thing. And then we come here and we are the faces of the content for the stylish pillar or a lot one part of the ecosystem. And I guess that is sometimes fantastic. We have the privilege of being in a production business and a media business where we work on our scripts. We know we have the editorial conversations and we come in and then we get to record. We don't have to edit the episodes. We don't have to do the social cut downs. We don't have to stitch and clip. That's the shameless media teams. Peace. They're the perks. It's low touch in that regard. I'm like the amount of people that think we work here full-time. We do not. Sure, it's very fun off the site, can it? But yeah, that is anxiety-rideling sometimes. And as I said, 99% of the time I think we get it right. There's a lot of things. one we didn't. And scenarios like this can become a little bit more distressing when it's went not in control of what's happening on socials and it's not up to us. And I think some of the discourse online was kind of insinuating that we were in control of this and we were the three people that deleted the TikTok and we weren't. And so that can be really tricky to navigate as well. And transparently the three of us have stayed off socials, to be honest. And I think that's probably been the best thing for us to stay away from that ongoing conversation. We're still very much aware of what is what the sentiment is online. And thanks to you two missions are for filling us in on all of that. But also we really wanted to regroup in here on a Sunday all together the fight. How many? One, two, three, four, five. We're going around. We're going to mess. To really talk about this thoughtfully and not just diminish it to a reply in a TikTok comment or a story phrase. We wanted to really chat about this more extensively so that we could highlight that we do regret our tone of that segment. And we do regret how we addressed Hamzen and the way that we went about that bit missed the mark. And we apologise to her for that. I think we stand by our opinions about that whole segment in its totality that maybe we feel like people should be able to get inspiration wherever they want to get it essentially. Yeah, completely. And I think just to reiterate that point, I think an unfavorable interpretation of what you said in that like you're getting off TikTok would be, oh, so you want to ignore the feedback? And I really want to remind people that when the feedback in your DMs looks how it does right now, it is actually not helpful. Yeah. And it is more helpful as a team and as a business. What the best way for it is is for us to have multiple people behind the scenes tracking it, packaging it, and feeding it back to you. So you understand what's being said without the abuse that's coming with it too, just to be really clear as well. The funny thing about this and I guess the opportunity for all of us not to zyronise the co-founders of the business, but the three of you as stylish hosts is that this is not the last time we will be unpacking a creator's TikTok videos, right? It is the content remit of stylish that you guys will be considering what is trending on social media and having honest opinions about this. I think the worst case scenario off the back of this particular instance is that you will all not be honest and you'll just say the the easy palatable thing. I don't want that. I want your honest opinions. I want to know how you feel, but of course tone is equally important as part of that. I want to know what do you all think will be the tweaks that are made off the back of this. The next time we talk about a viral TikTok video, what will we do differently as a business and what will you three do differently as hosts? Because that's just part of the job. I think hindsight is such a beautiful thing and I think something we've talked about a lot is vulnerability and actually putting our hands up and saying when we got it wrong and I think the discourse that we obviously have created here, I have no shame in being like, you know what? You sometimes we can come across a little bit flippant, but I've taken the time to reflect. I can see your opinion. I respect your opinion and I really want to make sure that like we are trading like the creators or whoever we're speaking about on this podcast as if that in the room. I want them to feel like they're included in this conversation so it's not just like the three of us piling on to somebody or just having a really strong opinion because we did have a strong opinion. We did say what we said and I think we need to now take accountability for what was said in this room. We also need to give terms in the space to respond how she has responded and I thank for me. There's just so many learnings. We're going to get it wrong sometimes. We will make mistakes and it's just the nature of having an opinion. And that's why it's important to get in rooms like this and just cop to it. Big girl opinion, big girl response. I think as well and I wonder if Madsen Joe you can speak to this. I think a lot of people see the dynamic of three women unpacking one woman and they feel inherently uncomfortable. What would you say to that? Yeah, I mean, I think it feels it feels high schooly. I think just by nature having three people unpack something that someone isn't there to talk about or defend or be interviewed on. Which will I say be an inevitability of any show going forward. But like, 1000% that will it's not like we can sit here and say, or we'll just never talk about a single creator again. That will happen, but I think to what you're saying, it's keeping that type of mind. And look, one of the interesting things I found from Thames and was the commentary of will tag me in the video. If you're going to post it and it's about me and it's not behind my back, if you are not speaking behind my back, quote unquote in that high school style Mads tag me in the video. And to be honest, that's not feedback for the three of you to consider. That's feedback for Zaren. I actually consider with the processes of the company that should that be part of cut downs when they go up on social media. Should that be part of the social media process? I'm not going to sit here and pretend I have a cut and dry answer for that right now. But it is absolutely a conversation to be heard. Any final thoughts or comments? I think it's been really helpful to all get in a room and toss it around. A lot of these conversations happen behind closed doors often. It's been really refreshing even to sit with these microphones. And look, I feel like we can probably wrap it up there. I think an opportunity for us to do better, assess how we're doing things at the moment and make a great show. And just to give you a heads up, we will be back on Wednesday. That episode on Wednesday was pre-recorded because Annika is technically on maternity leave right now. So you will have us back in your ears then, but just be aware that we did record that separately. Thank you for talking about it with us guys. Thank you for coming in and being vulnerable and being honest and we're really a grateful for you all doing that and to Thameson, thank you as well for the conversation.