Video summary
In this discussion, Douglas Murray critiques Victoria's Secret for abandoning its recent strategy of featuring plus-sized models and other diverse bodies in favor of returning to using attractive women to sell underwear again. He argues that while body positivity is a noble concept, it has been taken too far by celebrating individuals at morbidly obese levels where they face significant health risks like heart failure, suggesting there should be a limit before crossing into harmful territory. Murray points out the commercial reality behind this shift, noting his friend's experience with split-testing models showed that "big girls" do not sell clothes effectively; advertising executives often fail to understand that sticking sexy people on merchandise is what drives sales and profits. He emphasizes that while starting from a good place like inclusivity is commendable, companies must eventually prioritize their bottom line over performative empathy when shareholder meetings reveal declining revenue due to these strategies. Murray expands his critique by introducing the concept of "short-term empathy" or a "shallow pond," describing how modern culture optimizes for immediate signals of being good rather than long-term beneficial outcomes. He uses the analogy of giving children ice cream, noting that while it pleases them in the moment and makes the giver look empathetic, it is detrimental to their health over time; similarly, society now lacks countervailing forces like traditional institutions (e.g., the church) or economic realities to push back against short-term gratification. This cultural shift explains why people are increasingly avoiding responsibility-heavy choices such as having children or maintaining a healthy weight, viewing them through the lens of immediate cost and joy rather than future stability, leaving society in an unappealing position where long-term consequences like diabetes or demographic crises go unchecked by moral judgment. The conversation then shifts to broader economic factors influencing societal trends, specifically why Western countries are facing terrible replacement birth rates despite simple solutions being available. Murray attributes this decline largely to the high cost of housing and property ladders that young people feel they must choose between owning a home or starting a family, noting that governments have failed for years to build affordable housing under consecutive administrations. He references the "Mexican fisherman parable," where an American businessman tries to convince a local fisher to maximize profits through industrialization only to realize it leads back to the same lifestyle of fishing and spending time with children; Murray uses this story to illustrate that while economic optimization is logical, ignoring human happiness and stability can lead to unintended negative outcomes for future generations. Addressing intergenerational competition, Murray discusses the narrative among Millennials and Gen Z regarding their parents having had it easier than they do today. He challenges the notion that previous generations faced an easy life by highlighting extreme taxation rates in the 1960s and 70s, where top-rate taxpayers paid up to 99% or even over 100%, alongside other hardships like World War II which affected earlier cohorts significantly more than current ones. He argues that while Millennials may have managed slightly better on average compared to their parents' material struggles with the property ladder, they still face unique challenges such as inflation and high housing prices that make starting a family difficult without government intervention. Ultimately, he concludes that once society identifies these structural problems—whether in body image standards or economic barriers—it is puzzling why governments do not implement straightforward solutions to address them before demographic crises deepen.
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did you have Victoria Secrets planned to
bring sexy back on your 2023 bingo card
why Victoria Secrets bringing sexy back
after experimenting with 300 mannequins
plus-sized models disabled models trans
models a male model and a 38-year-old
football player Victoria Secrets have
made the controversial decision to
switch strategy and start using hot
women to model their underwear again
that makes commercial sense to my mind
um yeah it is quite E I I'm always
amazed that advertising Executives find
it complex this stuff I mean all you
need to do is stick sexy guys on stuff
and stick sexy girls on stuff and you
can sell the merchandise which pretty
much wres itself um yeah I'm I'm I'm not
particularly surprised that if you stick
lizo in a bikini it's not as appealing
as a bit of sales merchandise but you
know live and learn I suppose Liz and
learn Li and learn uh one of my friends
owns a a very big clothing company and
for a while they
tried plus-sized models yeah uh mostly
for women there's not much of a body
positivity movement for men no not like
a beer gut movement the skinny fat
Revolution uh and uh he said we've split
tested this into Oblivion Big Girls
Don't sell clothes right so when you see
that when you see a company you know and
summers are making double plus-sized
dildos or whatever
uh the the company is actively hurting
the top line and bottom line to be able
to send the right message and that's all
well and good up until some shareholder
meeting where some 70s year-old guy
looks at the far right column of an
Excel sheet and
goes what the [ __ ] this yes and they
go no no you don't understand it's this
really cool New Movement uh it's very
Progressive and he goes I don't care
right I want more money than we had last
year and this is less money than we had
last year yeah yeah they um well I mean
I suppose it all starts off from a good
place like some or many things but uh
look if you you might agree that you
know it's not a good thing to sell
anorexic looking models to young women
that's yeah okay let's all agree on that
but you can you can stop somewhere
before morbidly obese you know that's
where the whole thing goes wrong on the
body positivity thing plus there's a
place where body positivity shouldn't
occur it should be I mean if somebody is
so morbidly obese that they're at
significant risk of heart failure you
shouldn't celebrate them you should say
hang on a minute steady on the donuts
but they don't say that they just do
they they they they they run all way I
wish you could just have sort of healthy
looking women uh on the ads and and just
draw the line there but as as ever they
they sort of don't know where the line
is until he just say something wrenches
them back and I think wrenches them back
is is normally as you say the bottom
line yeah I uh I've been thinking about
this sort of performative empathy point
for a while got this idea I need to meme
it better but I think something like um
short-term empathy or the shallow Pond
of empathy I've been thinking
about what is most popular in culture at
the moment is something that optimizes
for its immediately to signal that you
are a good guy or good girl right even
if that's at the expense of the ultimate
outcome for the person so let's say
you're able to do something giving the
child ice cream it may be what it wants
right now it may be bad for it long term
but if you're the ice cream promoter for
the young children you will be seen as a
good person uh and if you're the person
who's saying hang on a second yeah
that's not what you want longterm maybe
responsibility in Peterson language
maybe not casual sex in Louis Perry
language maybe you know not as much food
as you want in body positivity language
uh you're seen
as bigoted or judgmental or that's
because there's no countervailing force
in the culture the the the unlimited
empathy people have run along way very
fast because as you say there's a
short-term gain to be seen to be being
empathetic you know let's celebrate
yourself um but ordinarily you would
have some other counterforce in the
society and different for different
forces have provided that in history
including the church but if there is no
counterforce to say for instance you
know uh long-term gratification better
than short-term or you know whatever
don't then then yeah and and and then
that's a sort of unappealing position in
our society now there's there's plenty
of room for people to be in that space
but it's still you're still on the
defensive you know we still live in in a
society where effectively to own an ice
cream truck you know in the sort of
language of a child would seem to be a
great thing they have the short-term
thing um yeah not many people want that
role it's sort of uncool in some way it
might become cool at some point in the
future when more people realize that the
short-term gratification thing was
leading to diabetes or whatever but it's
the same as one of the justifications I
think for why people aren't having
children that upfront children you just
see a very very large cost on all of the
joy and and stuff well the economist put
it as the the child tax the amount of
money you have less if you have a child
very weird way around to look at the
future of the species isn't it if only I
died with more money in my bank
account life of
regret I death of regret perhaps yeah
well you know it's kind of the uh as
well the the Mexican fisherman story you
familiar with that the parable of the
Mexican fisherman no I don't think I am
this is cool you'll like this
so an American businessman goes on
holiday to Mexico and while he's there
is a true story it's a parable right
okay got it [ __ ] hell
he goes on holiday he gets taken out uh
fishing by a local Mexican and he asks
the Mexican how he spends his time the
Mexican says I fish a little on the
morning I catch enough for my family we
go back we cook we laugh around the fire
and I spend time with my children and
the American businessman goes that's
stupid here's a better idea what you
should do is actually spend most of your
day fishing and then with the Surplus
fish you could sell them at the market
and the Mexican fisherman says why would
I do that so well once you've got the
additional money you could start to
employ some of your friends and they
could come out fishing with you too and
you could catch more fish which you
could sell at the market for more money
he say why would I do that he says well
once you've done that you would be able
to incorporate in America and you would
maybe be able to start a canning Factory
so that you could own the entire
production process and you could then
sell the company for a lot of money he
said why would I do that he said because
once you'd done that you'd be able to
fish a little on a morning and then go
back and spend time with your children
around the fire very good and I often
think about that as a much more direct
route to to happiness you know yeah um
well that's that's the classic thing
that you the place you uh end up is the
place you started from but yes um there
are lots of reasons why people aren't
having children um and a lot of them are
simple e economic things I mean all of
the Western countries that have terrible
replacement birth rate figures are
because of very easy things to solve
like cost of housing and things like
that it's not hard to build affordable
housing we just proved being capable of
doing so so young people wanting to
wanting to both get on the property
ladder and have a and start a family
think they have to do either or and
they're not entirely wrong but that's
something the governments could have
sorted out and none of them do they're
so hopeless at it and they have been for
years under consecutive government they
never build enough housing so young
people don't see a future don't feel
hopeless and then don't have kids and
then everyone wonders why there's a
demographic
crisis intergenerational competition the
the is something I learned about a
couple of weeks ago you familiar with
this yeah yeah I didn't know about it
before but it makes complete sense you
know there was always this talk of
Millennials are the first generation to
have done worse than their parents and
it seems if well they're not the first
first in a little while yes first in two
generations yeah long um and it seems
like Millennials actually probably just
about managed to get over on average uh
but Jen Z materially yeah difficulty in
getting in the property ladder the most
common living arrangement for men under
35 is still at home with their parents
awful um and uh yeah you know it it
bakes in this sort
of
intergenerational
competitiveness and a dissatisfaction
when you look at where your parents were
and this sure you know felt sense that
your parents got advantages that you
never did which is usually not true I
mean they didn't suffer inflation at the
same rates but they suffered very high
taxation the postwar period um we
haven't had taxation as the levels it
was at in the 1960s and70s for instance
in the UK um uh there was a time when
people were top rate taxpayers were
paying 99% tax a friend who once in that
period paid over 100% tax one year for
reasons he could possible it'll be back
tax and that sort of thing so I mean we
there's a tendency particular among uh
Millennials and after to think that
their parents had it very easy and my
experience of people from that
generation the boomer generation it
didn't feel easy at the
time and yeah there were certain things
getting on the property housing ladder
was a little bit easier than it is or
significantly easier once you have what
is it five times average earnings being
you know the inadequate to to get to the
average property price you see the a
split go on but you you always have to
factor I like if you say you know the
millennial the first ones or gen Z were
the first ones in said whoever to have a
better standard of living you have to
bake in things like oh yeah well they
had a World War you know so that's quite
a big PS well that's a big footnote um
so yeah everyone everyone has their
challenges I just don't see why why once
you've identified them and know the way
out of them you don't do them but in
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