Unpacking Masculinity - with Sam O'Sullivan
I met today’s guest, Sam O’Sullivan, by chance. With his last name being O'Sullivan and mine being O'Connor, several years ago, we found ourselves sitting next to each other in a gigantic hall, and connected over feeling nervous about potentially tripping up while walking across a stage at some point in the next hour. We were both about to graduate with a psychology degree.
Since that fateful day we've kept in touch, and Sam went on to become a qualified clinical psychologist. Over the years has launched some wonderful initiatives, one of which is Tough Talk, a documentary series that focuses on men's mental well-being and offers practical tools for mental health.
In this episode, Sam and I discuss masculinity, the patriarchy and some of the trends that impact and affect men online, including gym culture and pornography. As a clinical psychologist, Sam also shares some of his general concerns about our social media landscape.
This is a beautiful discussion, and it really does have the vibe of sitting down to chat with an old friend - so grab yourself a cuppa, and settle in.
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Learn more about Sam and Tough Talk by visiting this website. Join the Tough Talk Facebook community here.
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Transcription:
Lucy O’Connor: I’m not sure how much you know about the podcast, but if you’d like the elevator pitch, I can give it to you now if you like?
Sam O’Sullivan: Do it! Do one of those awkward elevator rants.
Lucy: Yeah, exactly, no, it won’t be awkward; it’ll be like a friendly one.
Lucy (Introduction): You’re listening to Selfie Reflective, the podcast that scratches beneath the surface of social media. Each week you’ll hear from a new guest who presents us with a different perspective on the status update quo based on their background and experience. I’m your host, writer and creative, Lucy O’Connor. For three years I ran a personal brand which ended because of a conflicting love/hate relationship with social media.
After learning that I was not alone in that feeling, I launched Selfie Reflective, a space where we can explore, unpack and critically reflect on the technical and cultural issues that our social media landscape presents together. Selfie Reflective is brought to you with support from InternetNZ. I met today’s guest, Sam O’Sullivan by chance. With his last name being O’Sullivan and mine being O’Connor, several years ago we found ourselves sitting next to each other in a gigantic hall and connected over feeling nervous about potentially tripping up while walking across a stage at some point in the next hour.
We were both about to graduate with a psychology degree. Since that fateful day we’ve kept in touch and Sam went on to become a qualified clinical psychologist. Over the years Sam has launched some wonderful initiatives, one of which is Tough Talk, a documentary series that focuses on men’s mental wellbeing and offers practical tools for mental health.
This conversation builds on an earlier episode that was released with artist Jerry Park who spoke to his experience in regards to the construct of masculinity. Today Sam and I discuss masculinity a little more. We talk a lot about the patriarchy and how it affects all genders and we also discuss some of the trends that impact and affect men online, including gym culture and pornography. As a clinical psychologist Sam also shares some of his general concerns about our social media landscape. This is a beautiful discussion and it really does have the vibe of sitting down to chat with an old friend. So grab yourself a cuppa and settle in. Here is Sam O’Sullivan, enjoy the show.
Lucy: Sam O’Sullivan, welcome to the podcast, thanks for joining me today.
Sam: Thanks for having me Lucy.
Lucy: So Sam, would you mind just introducing yourself and telling the listeners a bit about your background and what you do today?
Sam: Sure thing. My stamp of ‘professionalhood’ is a clinical psychologist, which is very much, you know, I see as a stamp. More and more of what I’m learning is everyone is a psychologist in a sense, and everyone has incredible perspectives and actually mine are very biased and trapped within my own experience and culture worldview. So that’s kind of what I do.
I’ve done a number of projects in my life, from working in an in-patient hospital in [** 0.03.08], which was regional, so quite severe mental health, to working for the Mental Health Foundation and then doing my own project called Tough Talk, which focused on men’s wellbeing in New Zealand and I travelled across the country in my van talking to men and trying to understand, I guess modern masculinity and how that might contrast the past.
I teach mindfulness, I’m working on a school for regenerative education, so education focused on life, like wellbeing and growing food and community and fixing up forests. And I work on artificial intelligence as well, so making a therapist in your pocket, it’s one of my big projects at the moment, among living on a farm in [** 0.03.55] and looking after animals and food just being a human.
Lucy: Amazing, you’re in the mix of many things, it’s really wonderful to hear. Sam, I want to go back to something you said about how you compare masculinity in the past to masculinity in the present day. Is there a succinct way that you could give us an overview of that?
Sam: I feel like there’s a message, and it’s in the name Tough Talk and it’s in a lot of the masculine projects that are going around. I feel like it’s actually probably well understood now and that’s that there is this very much like, you know, you’ve got to be tough to be a man and being a man means not talking about your feelings. And being a man means providing and it means conforming to this idea of what being a male means in terms of your gender role and performing as if that was who you are.
You don’t really have feelings, you’re blunt and yeah, and you talk about [** 0.04.53.] subjects and lots of things like that, which I don’t think is true of any men. That said, there are biological and evolutionary differences, I think in male and females, but there’s the generalisations. But I can certainly speak to those.
I think that was this kind of older, let’s say traditional masculine way of being, which we all inherited and still influences us all today and we’re all unpacking that. Including either male or female, this affects everyone, that’s definitely something I’ve learnt. It’s just a more readily applied to men in terms of like in trying to perform into the social or they’re expected to be in, which is the masculine one.
And then for someone who is female and who wants to be masculine, that can be tough too. But I think more modern masculinity is, we’re still trying to take, hold onto aspects of that kind of manhood or that kind of traditional masculinity, like strength, like courage, which can e applied to being feminine as well. But I think it’s trying to hold onto a lot of those positive aspects and bringing that into a way of being that is, you can still provide for someone, but you don’t have to.
And in a lot of ways masculinity is just dropping the dichotomy of what it means to be male or female, masculine or feminine, it’s just trying to be like, well, I want to bring forward some of those traits that I really respect and some of those more traditional masculine figures, but actually I’m just going to walk across my farm and the Piwakawaka’s are going to dance around me. I’m going to think I’m a Disney princess for all I care, that happened today (laughs).
Lucy: That’s so glorious!
Sam: Yeah, but just being who you are. I think yeah, what is modern masculinity? I don’t know (laughs).
Lucy: Whatever a person who identifies as a man wants it to be, I guess.
Sam: Having the strength to do that.
Lucy: Sam, Tough Talk is so cool. I remember seeing it from its infancy and you were asking people about what the name of this amazing venture should be called. So it’s been really cool to follow along. What have you learnt through having these very personal conversations with men who arguably are kind of at the other end of their mental health struggles? As in they are able to talk about it? What have been some reoccurring trends with people who have been able to come to terms with grappling with their masculinity and confronting that and working through some of that?
Sam: The most straightforward part and men say it in their own way, is to feel your emotions. To actually let those emotions come up, to cry, to fully connect with them. Not to fight them, I think men, a lot of men are taught to wrestle, almost like more physical strength, you know, if you’re wrestling something or physical strength, you do actually succeed through being tough but applying that kind of listen to emotions, this doesn’t work.
So a lot of men, I think as they understand that and start to surrender, and just feel like something that might have been considered feminine, that that’s a really big part of their journey. Among so many other things, like starting to open up, they’re like, wow, when I tell the truth about how I’m feeling, people respect that.
Lucy: Yeah.
Sam: They look up to me and I form community and other people start opening up and that’s incredible. So actually having that first step to start to be vulnerable and realise actually, there’s no shame in it and you’re not going to be rejected from your social group. That can be quite a big experience. And actually in saying that, some people do find that there is some rejection and shame from their social group and then they change social groups because they realise that’s kind of toxic for them.
Not to say people are inherently toxic, it’s just that there’s a group of people banding around, connecting around something that’s probably some sort of trauma that they’re all experiencing, playing out in their dynamic. And so a lot of men, through being vulnerable, it catalyses into all of this growth. There’s so much more, like the mindfulness piece of men finding how to connect and get into a flow and just be and doing that through things like hunting and that’s a really interesting one.
Because that’s something actually men, like males have traditionally done for a long time, so long that it’s actually affected us biologically, so that men communicate a lot more silently.
Lucy: Interesting.
Sam: So you use words a lot less and in fact males in general, the verbal comprehension aspect, the brain is a lot smaller than women, but there are visual spatial skills that are involved [** 0.09.18] and much larger. And this is a generalisation, so some women are better at some stuff and some men aren’t going to be. But in general that’s quite a big difference because men had to be silent for long periods of time and communicate non-verbally. So a lot of men I’ve talked to actually really enjoy connecting with other men or women, or whoever, through situations where they’re doing something.
Where there’s a medium which might represent hunting and where they don’t have to talk all the time. They’re not forced to have to articulate things. And a lot of conversations I have with males, so much that that happens just in the eye gaze, in little eye movements. A guy can talk a lot about (laughs) stuff [** 0.10.00] things I’ve discovered among so many others and they certainly don’t just apply to males. Like I said, I can sit in a room with 30 plumbers, like I’ve talked sometimes and you know, there is something in common.
We’ve all been brought up as males and we all have a certain experience that you as a female might not understand or fully empathise with because you haven’t had all the environment around you and people around you who think you’re a certain way. So we can bond over that and they can say, “Wow, it was really useful having you come talk to us because it’s almost always women who we don’t feel like we fully relate to.” And I can joke, I was like okay, we’re gonna go around the circle and share about our feelings and they all go silent (laughter) and I’m like, I’m just messing with you!
They all cracked up and then we’re like, you know, we’re like boys, because that’s how they do it. It’s almost sad that it [takes them out to do that 0.10.53] but I do understand that and hopefully that social experience changes so it’s not necessary anymore.
Lucy: There is an interesting dynamic happening where there’s definitely an uprising of women, they’re taking stage on platforms that we didn’t use to have, which is incredible. Currently men kind of feel like the rugs been pulled out under them, that’s something that Jerry Park spoke to because it’s a learning process to work out where society is going next and none of us have the answers. And no one gender, no one person has the answers for how everyone in society can feel free to be themselves and just show up as the people that they are.
In lieu of any of those gendered constructs because that’s what we’ve grown up with, that’s what still currently exists, so it’s a really difficult challenge. And so I guess in saying that, you know, of course there are going to be differences in how that’s communicated and how people relate to each other. But what you were saying as well about doing something and being able to talk openly, I think I often have the most deep conversations while I’m driving.
Sam: Totally, just having that space to sit and pause and process something can work wonders and it’s just a great tip for if you want to have deep conversations with people, is don’t make it about the conversation. Hey, I need to talk to you about something a bit challenging. It’s like, why don’t we go for a walk and just start talking about it, it will probably go a lot better.
Lucy: Definitely.
Sam: And just respect those pauses, you know? But I want to pick up on something you said and that was around the social phenomenon of some degree of power change happening. We’re certainly starting to see more female leadership and men being like, oh, I can’t get away with some of this stuff I’m saying. And that’s fantastic and I’m really grateful for it, being in New Zealand with Jacinda taking us through these difficult times.
Showing some beautiful examples of female leadership and masculine qualities as well, like [** 0.12.52] just shut people down sometimes (laughter). I think this is really important and regardless of your biological sex, what we’re all trying to do is smash essentially patriarchy, smash that influence, that gendered influence that affects all of us.
Lucy: Yeah.
Sam: And really what it is, is a controlling force. It’s shaping the world through control and power over others as opposed to letting go and surrendering and kind of like, you know, acting with compassion and empathy. We’re all trying to smash that force, which is like essentially, you can see it playing out on the earth, we’re essentially controlling like an abusive relationship, just messing it up and that kind of dominant traditional masculine patriarchal approach is affecting us all and affects men and women differently because of those different social realities.
Like a friend of mine is transgender and he was female and just talking to how that kind of influence affected him as a female based on appearance and the way people would treat him differently, or maybe support or be okay to be vulnerable and then becoming a man and then placing a whole other line of problems that people are not even caring how he felt (laughs). You know, not noticing that he was upset, and just being shocked that, like he was so alone and -
Lucy: Wow.
Sam: Yeah, not expected to be emotional and expected to do all these physical things and take risks and survive and no one help you. It was just interesting to hear both sides, that that phenomenon of patriarch, that dominant kind of competitive behaviour that is sometimes considered masculine isn’t great for males or females or anyone. So I think that’s what we should be rallying against -
Lucy: Yeah.
Sam: Not the other gender or biological sex.
Lucy: You’re exactly right Sam, that’s fascinating about your friend. I’d love to maybe talk to him on the podcast. One of the worrying things that I think about social media is that it is very much a bubble that only you exist in and that only you’ll experience. And no one can kind of be a part of that bubble, you know? Like we’re all carrying our own universes around in our pockets effectively and it’s a really interesting paradigm that we exist in where we have the real world, but our online world sometimes feels viscerally more a part of us, or like it understands us than the real world sometimes.
Sam: I mean that’s super problematic, I think. The fact that we get put in these bubbles and it’s out of our control and then there are biases and our in-group cultures just get reinforced because that leads to prejudice and it leads to dominance of being like my way of knowing is better than others and everyone I know is talking about it (laughs). We really need to start integrating different ways of knowing and world views and frameworks within the world because I think it’s ridiculous.
People are just like, my more atheist friends are just like, you know, lie atheism is right, like all religions are stupid, believe in it. And I’m like, well, you want me to believe in your atheism and they’re like, it’s different and I’m like, what, should I just believe it on blind faith? And they’re, the science, and like, well, you can have a different perspective and be scientific, you’re just discounting you know, [tell Marty 0.16.15] or you know, an entire another, like group of people that see the world utterly different to you.
And I think that’s sad, like more and more I’ve tried to actively do things, like take advice from decolonization groups and join lots of [** 0.16.32] groups in New Zealand and it’s just wildly different and sometimes hard. It’s hard to see some of those conversations. There’s a lot of anger towards [**] and it doesn’t make you feel pretty good. So sometimes I just think [age?] because it’s too hard, which is a little bit, I don’t know, self-protective and maybe, I don’t know, it’s hard, it’s just there’s a lot of pain there.
So yeah, I think what you’re saying is actually, it’s not good, it’s not good. People talk about social media being an addiction; it’s not even really an addiction, like it is, so an addiction works by something you do reduces the emotional pain you’re in. So if you’ve had a difficult upbringing and there’s a lot of trauma and you’re feeling that pain, it gets triggered a lot [** 0.17.11] that makes you feel bitter, it takes away the pain.
But social media is not even just about taking away the pain, but I think most of the time it takes away just like discomfort. It’s like, I don’t know what to do now, maybe I should be working, oh, I’d better scroll my Facebook and get some dopamine and that’ll make me feel good, it’ll validate me, I’ll make a post and a bunch of people will like it and I’ll feel better about myself. But really all we’re doing is avoiding discomfort or we’re like socialising, we’re out at a restaurant and rather than talking to the person serving us, oh, I’m feeling uncomfortable by this person, I haven’t even tried talking to them yet.
I think I’ll go on my phone and that’s, and get connection that way, which is sad because it’s not a thing to, like social media is about connection, but it’s almost like, when you’re thirsty, so thirsty and seeking connection, but you’re drinking a fizzy drink to quench your thirst.
Lucy: Right, interesting analogy Sam, I like that one a lot!
Sam: You’re just like, yeah, it’ll quench your thirst but it’s gonna not be good for you and you’ll only get thirsty again and you know -
Lucy: You might feel a bit average afterwards too.
Sam: Yeah, exactly and I think that opportunities are all around us to connect and we’re missing them. I don’t know what’s going to happen but I don’t think it’s good for us finding unity and a system that’ll work and making ourselves resilient for the next crisis, which is going to happen.
Lucy: I spoke to an interviewee called Kaila Tova and she is amazing. She’s done a lot of work around particularly the wellness industry but she brought something up about social media being a parasocial relationship whereby say an influencer has 100,000 followers, those 100,000 followers might see that influencer every single day, know exactly what they’re doing, what they’re eating, who they’re with but that relationship is very much one way.
So I think that’s another interesting element is that when you’re on social media you’re generally having a one way conversation. Even if you’re getting responses, it’s still not a real time interaction and one entity in that parasocial relationship, you know, at least feels like they’ve got a lot of power. Yeah, I just think it’s really interesting that we build communities around these exceptional individuals, or who we see to be exceptional because they have that numerical number attached to their name or whatever.
I just think that’s kind of an interesting thing to percolate over as well, those parasocial relationships that we put so much value into.
Sam: They are powerful, they have social capital. I don’t like to even think about social capital because I think it’s kind of yuck, to consciously think about your social capital and I try not to do that but I think a lot of those people do have real power and it is messed up. It feeds into, anyone feels not good enough, it’s going to feed into that belief, that deep rooted belief that shapes the way you think and feel every day and if you see someone up there who is more popular, they’re getting more likes, you know, and new following, it’s feeling that.
I noticed a lot of my, particularly female friends actually struggle with that belief quite a lot, and male, but I think more so my female friends. And then the ones that are interested in, that have been really involved in social media and Instagram, that it comes out really strongly and suddenly we’ve got, doing all these things themselves on social media, or be more beautiful or have some beautiful videos or something, even if it’s not to that extent, that they’re well produced.
It’s just messed, like what, like how is that collaborative, how is that installing a way of being in society that’s actually going to benefit us all, which is learning to see each other’s strengths and work with each other and get out of our own way, which is like our ego, which is just fully inflating (laughs).
Lucy: Yeah.
Sam: And actually that takes, it’s hard to work with other people because you’ve got to learn your own issues that are actually getting in the way and take ownership of them, which is interesting. Another big finding for Tough Talk was men taking ownership for this stuff, it really helped.
Lucy: I think it’s kind of interesting what you were saying about women feeling that comparison trap more viscerally and you know, craving that type of image focused feedback. I mean it kind of seems like that is the patriarchy still playing out online right? Women are valued for their appearance and their being visible and being attractive and that comes from both women who desire to be attractive because then they get feedback and traditionally that’s been what has deemed women successful in the past, and still arguably does, although hopefully that’s changing.
But also you know, there’s feedback from men as well, I think we still all are having a hangover from, you know, craving the male gaze, I guess, because that’s the type of validation that a lot of women, speaking from my own personal experience and my peers, you know, we still feel that pressure every single day. And online we see that hyper visual attractive, conventionally attractive, imagery all day. It’s endless and there’s so many people (laughs), so you know, that inadequacy really [stems 0.22.18] and I wonder if there’s a similar thing for men?
I was talking to my boyfriend and he was saying when he used to be on social media he felt a really strong inadequacy because of gym culture. I guess that same patriarchal hangover for them, maybe that’s the equivalent of that string, of that ownership, of that dominance.
Sam: I think body image for males is actually really quite a big one. It’s different, but pretty much what you’re saying. I know a lot of male friends who are super hung up on their weight and their body and shame around it. You’re totally right, that’s a thing. And patriarchy is alive and well, affecting all genders. I spoke with this [** 0.23.03] in Christchurch and then I went to the [Quarter Club?] with him and he was like, look around, who do you see?
And I was just like, mainly white men, Asian men, wealthy people [**], so it’s not just about gender, it’s about racism in New Zealand. But I was like, wow, you’re in a place where it literally divides people and you can see who the privileged are and maybe in front of us we see the likes of [** 0.23.30], which is awesome and we see some power change but I think where the money is at, which really influences the whole distribution of the world’s resources and all sorts of things, I think that’s still very much run by very wealthy males, mainly, [** 0.23.45].
Lucy: I’m thinking Mark Zuckerberg who built (laughs) the very platforms, or a couple of the platforms that we’re discussing right now.
Sam: Yeah, exactly and the way they’re built and the way they work. Like getting ads on Messenger now, that’s just annoying -
Lucy: Yeah! I’ve changed my own gender on my social platforms to male, just to see if it’s had any influence on my advertising. Unfortunately I think they know too much about me now (laughs) -
Sam: Yeah, they have a whole profile -
Lucy: Yeah, exactly, but if it did shift it would probably happen over time and I probably wouldn’t even notice because it would be the water I’m swimming in. What do you think, Sam, I guess if we’re talking about image, if we’re talking about gym culture, have you seen any concerning trends come up about pornography, in porn culture online? How does that affect these ideas of masculinity for men and for women?
Sam: Yeah, porn, it’s not good hey? I think just especially like you look at my generation, my peers, and all of us, I think, particularly how we view sex and how we view getting to that point, which is so messed up, you know? It was taught to us, it goes beyond porn, but it was also like, you know, ha-ha, you give a woman a drink, I mean that’s kind of conveyed in movies, it’s in a lot of media. Look like Han Solo or like Harrison Ford and pretty much all those movies, very dominant and that seems attractive.
I mean porn just displays sex as, I mean all sorts of things, but I don’t think in a very healthy way and that’s your basis for learning how to do it. You know it’s all men telling you fake stories [** 0.25.29] that aren’t real and then you’re just literally getting into the situation and harming someone because you didn’t recognise the power or you didn’t see the no and then also then sex is not the safe, beautiful ultimate connection that can form life, which is incredible.
And it could be considered more of a sacred thing, it’s just like performative, test of your ego almost, I don’t know, it’s not good and that [** 0.25.58].Then I work privately with people and it’s definitely something that affects people and it affects their pleasure in sex and even affects masturbation, rather than really connecting with yourself and learning to kind of love yourself and know yourself and pleasure yourself.
A lot of men are needing porn and needing this really highly stimulating unhealthy, I don’t know, it’s getting more and more extreme in order to feel any sort of pleasure to get off. Yeah, porn is very problematic and not something I engage in personally, I just hear second-hand stories.
Lucy: We’re all kind of on our own on the internet. I guess pornography is an extension of that. It doesn’t exist in real space, so it’s incredibly hard to feel a connection to that through a screen. It’s definitely a half-baked idea and I think that’s what keeps us coming back to the screen because it’s kind of that thing that we’re craving, but also very much not. So we try and, oh, you’re taking me back to my psychology degree now Sam.
The rats on the [lever 0.27.07] getting the intermittent reinforcement. Sometimes you get something that’s interesting or engaging or entertaining, but most of the time it’s just very much nothing.
Sam: And that’s the ultimate, I think of my own Facebook experience, like I use Facebook more intentionally now. I go, okay, it’s time to do my com stuff, like go on and that might involve, hey, I’ll just check my feed, but I’m also going to send out messages to the posts, go on my email, whatever, [** 0.27.34], have it finished. Most of the time I go on Facebook it’s like that.
But every now and then, I don’t know if they rig it, I’m like, oh, that friend is getting married, oh, there’s a baby, oh there’s this and that and I’m like, that’s really cool, like I’m really glad I know that, I can now message that person, I can go see them or I can congratulate them. And sometimes it all just happens at once and I’m like, bomb, dopamine, Facebook is amazing, it’s keeping me connected, I feel so good, wow.
And I also saw this great video that someone posted that was really funny and insightful and I’m just like yeah! Got like the slot machine win! Like wow, it’s so good! And then just like nothing and just misery and probably just feeding into all these problematic beliefs about myself, like most of the time. That’s really powerful. Like you said with the rat, it’s the most powerful form, like the steepest form of behaviour; increasing behaviour is when it’s intermittent. So we don’t know what’s going to happen, and it happens randomly rather than constantly or we can kind of predict it, if we know every 10 times we’re going to get a good Facebook experience.
It’s like, it’s not like that and I don’t know if they rig that or if that’s just how socialising works anyway or something? But it’s a really good point you made.
Lucy: Without being overly cynical, I think that they rig it. (Laughs)
Sam: Yeah, I was like, how do you like, there’s all this stuff happening at once -
Lucy: Yeah, yeah, I always come back to this idea, how confusing it is to have your most loved people and occasions, you mentioned births and engagements and things, and then you’ve got advertisers who know you better than you know yourself. And you’ve got algorithms that are trying to outrage you and you’ve got people who are just vying to make their voices and their opinions and whatever subject of the day, is heard.
It’s just a really interesting paradigm and it’s kind of just incredibly confusing. You kind of leave and it really just is all of these fragments of bitsy stuffy information that doesn’t really accumulate to anything.
Sam: Yeah, like we’re just staring out this thing where it’s made from a bunch of plants mostly, minerals, somehow like connects us like a little bit visually and through audio, without most of the other senses. That’s crazy! That’s messed up! And it’s so addictive and you know, in both the way it numbs the pain or the discomfort or it gives us that hit of enjoyment. If it just all went away, oh well, I’d just start being like, hey, who is around, who is in the neighbourhood, what’s going on?
Like do you wanna come grow some food, you know, and that’s something, a lot of people go, social media is the problem and I do think the way social media is designed, Mark Zuckerberg, it is problematic, it preys on certain aspects of people’s psychology. But it’s not just social media. Social media is not the root cause. The root cause is actually who is driving social media? These big companies trying to sell you stuff, trying to get your data, that are paying for it.
The way it works is all about selling you stuff you don’t need. It’s not from around you, not from the people around you. And why aren’t we challenging that? Why are we still living the way we do? We just went through this pandemic and we just [** 0.31.02] the life as normal and that makes me sad. We’re not, why aren’t we all grouping together and going more rural and growing food and learning to live together and taking power up from being a centralised system and moving into more smaller groups so we can actually like…
Because that’s what resilience is you know, a centralised system is so prone to disruption. We can just be hit again, pandemics have waves, you know, like the climate is still a thing that’s changing (laughs). And I just can’t believe, we’re just being so influenced and social media is playing a role in that media in general, that’s just making us overlook the obvious truth which is the way we’re living is bad for us.
I love living on this farm, I get to connect with the diversity of animals. I’m growing food. Spending one day in the garden, god, I feel good, so, so good. I mean I’m a therapist and I deal with some tough stuff sometimes, just go walk around the land and that’s a privileged thing. Like I’m so lucky and a lot of farmers, it’s difficult. Like a lot of farmers don’t work with lots of other people because they’ve got to pay them and it’s not possible to make money, that’s the problem with capitalism and the way our system works.
But it wouldn’t be that hard to all just go walk out (laughter) and do it, like physically, we know, everyone is like no, that’s not possible, be realistic. You’re like, okay, can we be realistic, like we just saw the whole world change in like a matter of weeks, or even a matter of days, we can do that. We can totally change and that’s what we need to change, like what’s happening around us and what we’re actually doing.
And stop blaming social media and the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and just step into your own power and change your own life.
Lucy: I love it! Oh my goodness, yes! That is a great… I should send that to you in a Russian format, so you can stand on a stage and speak that truth Sam, it was amazing.
Sam: I mean you did it -
Lucy: You’re so right. Yeah, I did it, I did, but you know, I was still kind of lurking, it wasn’t like I left social media, I was still kind of there, but I think there’s, you know, yes, I am so with you and in fact one of my goals is to not have a smart phone by the end of the year and ideally be off social media. So yeah, but I think there’s this fear and that goes kind of back to what we were saying before, that we are so used to getting A, information, from these things, all the time, updates-updates-updates, so there’s a fear of not knowing, a fear of missing out.
Our peers all exist on these platforms, so all of a sudden it feels so hard to get someone’s cellphone number and send a text message. Which might actually cost you 20c again; you know (laughs) because data is the most common way to connect. I mean we caught up via Messenger, so it’s how do you kind of take all the good stuff that we’ve been afforded, make it, kind of maybe ease out of the social media platforms as they exist and reverse engineer where we are now to keep the good stuff, but get rid of the need to be always there and numbing those uncomfortable moments where you might be thinking, I’d love to go and start my own garden but I’ve got to go and get the seeds and I’ve got to… Oh no, I’ll just go on and scram, it’s a bit easier. How do we get rid of that?
Sam: I wish it was designed better and like the event side, that’s a big reason I use it too, what’s to party, you’re invited to whatever is happening. So those are totally, and I’m on it for that reason, so I can’t really talk. And I wish something else could take over, but I’m not convinced, I think it’s really difficult actually. Like I think a lot of, it’s not that hard to build the new thing, it’s just like, well, it is hard to build it, but you know, it’s hard to make it better and compete with something that’s so dominant and has everyone’s attention, people just can’t be bothered moving to something new, unless it was really, really good, which hopefully happens.
But one thing, and I think this is what I was trying to get to before with that kind of empowerment is actually you can learn to manage, just like you can learn to manage your emotions that seem like they’re almost impossible, like you’re a highly anxious person who has panic attacks, like myself and then suddenly you can speak on camera and not worry at all, have any anxiety. You can learn to manage your social media use and I just try my best to do that now.
Like I said, I don’t just go on it randomly. Sometimes I do, but I really try to use it intentionally. Like I’m going to go on, this is my Facebook time to catch up on things like my friends and events and then I turn it off and I don’t use it. I use Messenger, like you said; just use it as a separate app for messaging. It’s annoying they put ads in it, cause that’s like the main thing I use.
So I think you can learn to, you don’t need to be consumed by it, you can become more conscious of what you’re doing and be more intentional about it. The internet really messes with that skill and I feel like I’ve cultivated that school through my mindfulness practice, which is to me just learning to intentionally focus my attention to where I want it to be. And where it brings me wellbeing, which isn’t always in my head, it isn’t always in my body and it isn’t always on what’s around me. But it’s usually one of those three things.
Lucy: Sam O’Sullivan, I think that’s a beautiful place to wrap up this conversation. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your thoughts and perspectives on this very strange and complex landscape (laughter), I really appreciate it.
Sam: Thank you Lucy, I enjoyed your questions and what you had to say as well.
Lucy: Thank you.
Lucy outro: That was Sam O’Sullivan on Selfie Reflective. If you’re interested in learning more about Sam’s work and Tough Talk, the men’s mental health initiative that Sam founded and operates, I’ve left links to the website and the private Facebook page in the show notes. If you have any reflections on any of the ideas that were presented today, whether they’re to do with masculinity online, the patriarchy or on culture, gym culture or another issue that impacts men online that we didn’t touch on today, feel free to email me, selfiereflective@gmail.com any time.
Otherwise, if you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, or share it with a friend. This helps people like you discover that this show is a thing. Until next Tuesday, I’m Lucy O’Connor, thank you so much for listening. Selfie Reflective is written, hosted and produced by me, Lucy O’Connor, final episode audio and quality control is all thanks to Tom Frankish.
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