Epitome Anatomy: IRL
EPISODE SUMMARY:
"The real world probably would have people shut the fuck up, and they won't say everything that's on their mind."
Wish probes (and rants) into the concept of "In Real Life" (IRL) and the challenges of navigating a world increasingly dominated by digital interactions. Let's explore how our online personas often overshadow our real-world experiences, leading to a disconnect from reality, through Wish's personal reflections and cultural observations. This episode also invites listeners to reflect on their own balance between online and offline life, from the pressures of social media validation to the dangers of overconsumption and the loss of genuine human connection. Tune in to discover how embracing the present moment can lead to a more fulfilling and authentic existence.
Reference from this episode:
Aaron Paul Quote on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQsKU4EDUha/?igsh=ZWU4NXNheDFod2J3
Bean Soup Theory by tiffany.jmarie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQCEBt2jtTi/?igsh=MWpzbTdodGlmanl3Ng==
Listen to the Episode
MAIN TOPICS:
Introduction to IRL - 02:00
The Influence of Social Media - 29:07
Defining Reality vs. Online Life - 57:41
Personal Reflections on Being Present - 01:38:16
The Impact of Validation Addiction - 02:25:38
Overconsumption and Its Consequences - 03:23:23
The Beauty of Real-Life Interactions - 04:18:14
The Dangers of Polarisation - 05:44:27
Balancing Online and Offline Worlds - 07:40:79
Conclusion and Call to Action - 10:01:18
LISTEN, RATE, REVIEW, SUBSCRIBE & SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS!
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Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (00:00.12)
How much do you think in a day in reality? How much of the information do you gather because you're scrolling on social media or the internet? How much do you literally wake up and smell the flowers instead of looking at your phone first thing in the morning? How much influence do the hearsay absorb to what you believe in? Are you living the moment or you have the idea
how time passes by in front of your screen. What's your reality? Welcome to Human Thesaurus Presents Epitome Anatomy. My name is Wish and I talk about something, somehow today's sector word, relevant from my life to yours.
Ready for the epitome of IRL? Let's go!
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (01:08.962)
Our keyword is IRL. It is an abbreviation of in real life. According to Grammarly, IRL is when we're talking about our normal everyday life and not the digital lives we lead online. The phrase IRL emerged in the early days of the internet when people saw a need to distinguish things that were happening online from things that were happening offline.
As people found ways to present an alternate picture of themselves online, IRL became a shorthand for distinguishing between how things appear online and how they are in reality.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (01:57.538)
This is another loaded episode. I've been thinking about this the past few weeks, but I've been really, really busy. But I am trying to kind of package this to bring to you in a nutshell. I've been noticing this topic of reality, like in real life. Since I'm using social media lesser and lesser every day, I get...
One major topic on my feed nowadays, it's about being present, IRL and such. One time, just recently, a quote from the Breaking Bad star, Aaron Paul at WSJ Tech Live. It's like a little clip of him giving, telling everyone about giving his kids a promise of not using his phone in front of them anymore.
and they were so happy about it. Or also the bean soup theory from at Tiffany.JMaree regarding pretty much in a nutshell, what about isms on social media, making everything about them, every single post they think that it's about them. Or also just yesterday, my best friend Anne, forwarding me a quote about genetics and millennial.
They don't know whether it's this generational thing about experiencing non-digital life and now the digital life as well and grieving for a slower, more reality-based life because it's too fast for them. It's getting to be too much. There are too many things to unpack here. It's quite a very broad kind of topic, but at the same time,
It still needs to be said and I'm trying to kind of put them into one perspective for now. And I could probably do more episodes when it comes to this. It's about humanity online, right? Online and how does this affect us offline? So I'll try to keep this episode as simple as I can so I could
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (04:18.954)
Open this, can of worms a little bit. Probably I'm just going to wrap this episode about my irks about people in relation to IRL or people not living IRL. I have this little list here. One is the desire to get validation addiction from strangers. I think a lot of depression and a lot of people are unhappy with their lives.
And it becomes also to the point of being dangerous to themselves or others because everybody thinks that the number of likes or the number of views that you get online is as valuable as who you are as a person, IRL. So I think these validation from strangers that you don't know seems to be highly sought by a lot of people not realizing that
is very unhealthy. It's sad. I'm gonna make it simple as that. I just feel sad for people who would go online to get validation from others, others that they don't even know. Sometimes they even crave for the negativity online to justify their insecurities offline. That's really unhealthy. All the gazes and the eras and...
what do call it? The influencer accent. All of these. It's just being a sheep amongst the herd and still trying to have this behavior to think, pick me, like me, and who the fuck are these people, right? Who fucking cares? I just wish that some people would realize how beautiful they are or how unique they are and they could just present themselves and don't care about
the external output versus the way they need to build confidence internally. But of course, that's not the reality, but I'm just putting it out there because I'm probably offending a lot of people right now. Okay, moving on. I also listed here what irks me about people. All topics are too internalized to tailor fit them. Again, it's the bean soup.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (06:43.448)
theory wherein when someone just posted a bean soup, making bean soup, and everybody jumps into the comments saying that, I don't eat beans, I don't like beans, can you use something else and whatever. It's like that person is just showing how she cook her bean soup. It's not everything is about you, not everything evolves around you. I miss those days wherein you post these things, you post an ubiquitous.
ice cream that you got from nowhere. Nobody knows where it came from, but it's your own joy and you're just sharing it with your friends or you're sharing it with your miniscule followers and that's okay. But we've gone so far from being like that nowadays. Everything is so intentional. Every single scroll is, how does that affect me? Everything is about me.
How does this relate to me? Like, not everything should relate about you. You're not omnipresent for every single thing, you know, that has to do with you. It doesn't. The next irk that I have about people is the cowardice to say things online that you won't ever have the courage to say to anyone in real life. There are a lot of people this...
That's why I kind of veered away a little bit more. I don't really scroll too much, especially nowadays. I only have a handful of posts and I try to curate the algorithm as much as I can for me not to have any stray random posts that I see on my feed. It's because it's getting worse that there's so many cowards out there that put a
attack anyone who's got sometimes the most simple, simple post that was just random or normal in real life, or it's really something that's non-dramatic and everybody would attack the poster about something, about what they see in the background, about how they talk, about their appearance and all of these.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (09:02.478)
There are so many fucking cowards that would say hurtful things to people. Get off your fucking phone and go somewhere else and live a different life. You know, most of these people are hurt. So they hurt other people. They inflict pain online. Why? Because there are no repercussions. They don't need to be accountable to the things that they're saying. And that's bad. To put it very simply, that's
Horrendous. These are the things that probably most of us should think of. If it's getting too negative for us, if looking at our phones on social media would make you feel negative or bad or it ruins your entire day, probably you need to get off it. Because what? You're not really missing anything. Actually, what you're missing is the real world. The real world probably would have
People would shut the fuck up and they won't say everything that's on their mind. They would curate it and whatever, but that's humanity for you in real life. It's a different, it's a wild west out there on social media. In real life, yes, there are care-ins, there are annoying people, there are people who are unhinged, but at the same time, there's a balance there. It's just not online. We see so many negative things that we think that the world is so fucked up.
It is, in a way, but there are still lots of good out there. It's just, if you don't go out there, walk out there, you wouldn't really know that. Even online, you have to make a conscious decision to look for these good news. If not, you're not gonna find them. You really just need to look for them. And next, the doom-scrawling. And the doom-scrawlers. We've all been here. Most of us, I think all of us had...
dug a lot of rabbit holes looking into a topic and we get into deep look at everything and then in the end it gets us depressed or even enlightened in a good way or in a bad way. So these doom scrolling sometimes we don't really need to know too much of nothing. Yes.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (11:23.476)
It's very important that we research and we know things and we keep on learning throughout the course of our lives. It's a very healthy thing to do. But sometimes doom-scrawling is about nothing, about something that would not even have to apply to us. It's mostly rubber-necking or really it's just sense of dread all the time. Yes, there are things that are dreadful in this world right now, but again,
How would you balance that? How would you balance that to take care of your mental well-being? How much of that doomscrawling will make you either take action and be part of the solution instead of being part of the problem or are you just getting yourself educated and it will strengthen your knowledge about something? But most of these doomscrawls are shit. So yeah, be mindful just to save yourself out of this doomscrawl.
And then the next would be the overconsumption. This is becoming a little bit more prominent because, you know, the tariffs and the trade and the wars and climate change and all of these factors. And social media is putting more, is inflicting more wounds to all of us when it comes to need versus want. There is so much overconsumption nowadays, it's crazy.
We're harming the earth and most of them, they don't really make sense. Like how many labubus do you really need? How many eyelashes would you really, need in your entire lifetime? How much makeup do you really use? Well, I'm guilty of trying a lot of makeup because it's fun for me. But when you consume, is it really that it's your joy and you have a budget for it?
or you're just doing it because of an audience online because you want to do unboxing or you want to show off that you're well off, but you're not in real life. Again, it's just striking a balance, right? But there's so much over consumption over there. It's like, oh, come with me shopping at XXX and YYY. I bought 10 different colors of nail polish that you use in your eyes. Something like that.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (13:50.754)
come with me with my $30 toenail clippings from a movie star. Like, gosh, come on, give yourself a break. There are better ways to earn and to spend that money. So really, there's so much over consumption. It's crazy. Everything that you see, the ads, it's like, you're just looking, it's like, what is that woman online wearing? let me check that out.
without any intentions of buying it and then your entire feed is just full of that after you go old it. It's greedy, greedy as fuck. It's so shallow. gosh, wow. Okay, next. This is gonna offend, but I don't give a shit. If again, if you have the white aboutism or if you get hit by these things that I'm saying, then you're guilty.
The frozen faces, the beauty communities, the toxic beauty communities, the fat shamers, the skewed standards of beauty that everybody looks the same and looks plasticky and no forehead is expressive anymore. Like, what the hell is that? Aging gracefully does not mean that you need a babooned lips and an immovable face. Okay, if you're happy with it, go ahead. That's fine.
But everybody's looking the same now. I miss this age where we are all unique by ourselves and some people would do some work like a little nose job, a little boob job here and it's being kept private. It's like, okay, they're toy, fine, no problem. But now it's just, it's so generalized and it's like so needed that it's sad to see. But that's the impression.
If you're overexposed looking online on social media, this is what you see. But you know, lately, when I'm walking down the street, just doing my groceries or just literally just going from A to B walking, I look at people's faces. More often than not, they all look unique to me. They're all natural beauties, men and women and...
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (16:10.282)
Everyone, all humans walking around in their daily lives carrying on, they're all beautiful. They're all natural, different ages, different smiles, different frowns, different worries, different worry lines, different smile lines, different ethnicities, different colors. It's wow. So I'm just happy to go back there. I normally don't look.
people's faces when I'm walking. It's like I'm always on the survival mode. I think it's just my default trying to, you know, protect myself as a woman in public. But, you know, recently I've been looking more into people's faces IRL because I really just wanted a little dose of reality. And really...
There are more people out there who never touched their face, probably had a tiny botox here and there or in their 60s. But if you see out there, young women and men and gay people, they're just walking as normal. They've got unique beauties. Beautiful!
So I'm just going to negate myself here that what irks me are the frozen faces and the toxic beauty communities. I needed to stop myself from saying this, although I need to kind of tell you that it irks me, but I have to correct myself. Recently, just the past two weeks of walking in London and walking in Manila and walking in Singapore, it brought me back to this reality that not everybody has frozen faces or
or a bleak view of what beauty is about. It's just all in the media. You know what I'm saying? Do you get this? Just go out there, have a jog, have a walk, and look around people's faces. They're not plastic. Around 99 % of people out there are not plastic. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. So the last thing.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (18:21.718)
Well, it's not really the last thing, but it's just on my list for now for this episode. What worries me about people is the polarization of everything. Everything, all opinions are questioned and polarized because of the, again, like people behind their screens are just blurting out nonsense because there's no accountability. Nobody's going to get jailed. So they will say all bullshit in their, in their minds, the sickest things.
because they know that nobody can catch them, nobody can cancel them. They're just covered like that. But if you see them in real life, ask them what they think, they will never ever say it. Only rare, confident people would do that in real life. When it comes to a simple ass, the apple is red and then other people say, there are green apples too, you know? It's like, yeah, and there's green and red and I saw a purple apple and...
And then younger people or impressionable people would think, gosh, is there really a purple, glowy apple there? So instead of just knowing what's simple, we complicate and convolute things to polarize people and make them either A, not have an opinion, or number two, have a skewed sense of reality. horrendous.
Anyway, I could go on and on and this will keep popping up again on my podcast because there's so much more to what irks me about people. And I think it will be great for me to keep on trying to touch grass and look at reality better. Cause I was part of the problem. I was in the tech business and
I was in the business of the beginnings of social media, how to get people addicted and all of these. I was part of that problem and I could see that now, how it affects us and how we're overusing or over consuming this form of media. Ultimately, there's only one person who could touch grass and wake up and smell the flowers or go out and smell fresh air. You. Please.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (20:38.718)
Get off that phone once in a while. Go out, look at people's faces. Or scream. Or just do something without your phone. There's a world. There's a better sense of world out there that will form your own opinion. Opinion that is not influenced by anyone but your observation of the real life out there.
I think it's just important. You balance your online life with your real life. Sometimes real life is painful. That's why there's a lot of escapism that is being seen. That's why everybody's chronically online. But I think that's part of it, right? Part of the human experience is feeling. Feeling the fear, feeling hurt.
Feeling the pain and feeling the joy and the resolve and the happiness and the depression, everything. And hopefully that will create more relationships for us. Real relationships. IRL. So what's your online to real life balance that you have? When was the last time you encountered reality, whether it hurts or not? And most importantly, what is reality for you? Please share your views with me.
while you go out and get some fresh air if available. Until next time, ciao.
Wish Ronquillo Peacocke (22:19.096)
Human Thesaurus podcast is produced by me and Jeremiah Ronquillo. All rights reserved via Wishblizz Media.
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