(loud clap)
- What it do, ballers?
Welcome to Real Mature.
It's a show we make about thing you do when you grow up.
One of the things you do when you grow up is
you become more cool with yourself.
So, today we have three different videos
about different people and how they
became cool with themselves.
The first one is about our friend Gaby right here.
- Hello! How was your walk?
- I'm like sweating.
- Yeah, you look incredibly sweaty.
- Please tell me we got it this time.
- [Voiceover] I think so.
- Okay, cool, get the fuck up here.
(down-tempo electronic music)
- Our first video is a video that Gaby made with Colin.
- Yeah, I've been in a lot of videos on Buzzfeed
and all over the internet
and I've been called a lot of mean things
cause I seem to be kind of polarizing.
But one word comes up all the time, and that is slut.
So I wanted to do an investigation
into what that word means and if I am one.
- That's cool, you guys ever get called a slut?
- No, I don't think I've ever been called a slut.
- [Gaby] Yeah, it's a real thing that
they only seem to call loud women.
- I've only been called a slut in like a positive way.
- That's fucked up.
- Can you elaborate on that, what do you mean by that?
- You know, like--
- [Gaby] Like Colin's slaying, he's a slut.
- Yeah, what a slut.
- That's gross.
- It is gross.
- So what's the first thing that you guys did?
- First thing that we did
is we took it to the streets.
What makes somebody a slut?
- It's the quantity, I think, that makes a person a slut.
Just the quantity.
- Five people in one night, you know.
Every day, all day, seven days a week.
- Sexy clothes, and by sexy clothes I mean just strings.
- Somebody that sleeps with a lot of people.
- Well, in my opinion, a slut is someone
who does not practice self-control, self-restraint.
- If you feel like that you've devalued yourself
then I would think that that's slutty.
- Am I a slut?
- How would I know?
- No, I would say not.
- No!
- No, you're not a slut.
- How do you know that, you don't know me!
- That's true but
I mean maybe, I don't know.
You don't seem like a slut.
- I don't seem like a slut.
Internet, now you know.
(down-tempo electronic music)
- [Henry] It's interesting that no one seemed to have
the same definition of what it was
but they all kind of agreed that it was bad.
- [Gaby] Yeah, and when pushed a little bit,
the definition falls apart.
- No!
- So what did you guys do next?
- [Gaby] We asked some lovely people to come in
and told them to draw what they think a slut looks like.
- All right. Let's watch that.
- Can you draw a slut please?
- Ohh okay, I'm a terrible drawer.
- A slut?
(sighs)
(laughs) - This is so bad.
- You guys are gonna hate this answer.
- Why don't you hold it up
and point to what's what to show us?
- Well, I have a girl with her legs open, big boobs,
and if I had more time and artistic ability
maybe I would draw a dick in her hand.
- Her mouth's open too!
- And her mouth's open waiting for a dick.
- It's Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoon
(Gaby laughs)
because I heard that the word slut used to mean just dirty?
- A slut doesn't exist in my mind
because I would never call anybody a slut.
- Years of television and media, I am assuming
this is what a hooker looks like.
- I just figured that the easiest way to convey slut
is a woman that says yes to all men?
- 'Cause she's got her legs wide open.
She's just a little bit of a slut.
- Why did you draw a woman?
- Because I've never seen on TV and movies
a male street worker.
- Okay, so what did we learn from the drawing?
- Well, mostly we learned that everybody's opinions
on what a slut looks like is different
and I was still pretty confused.
- I mean, It's a big word, it's--
- It's full of history, it's full of weight.
It's a lot, yeah, and I don't think
that anybody really knew what they were drawing.
- [Henry] Alright, so we're gonna get more
into Gaby's investigation in a second
but we have another video that was made
by the beautiful Shane, so I'mma run up and get him
and bring him back here
and he's gonna tell us about his video.
(down-tempo electronic music)
- [Henry] Hey, beautiful Shane.
- [Shane] How's it going?
- [Henry] Hi, Keith. - [Keith] Hey.
- [Henry] Remember that thing I told you you'd have to do?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, it's happening right now.
- Oh, great.
- You ready to go to your room chair?
- Yeah.
- Alright.
(down-tempo electronic music)
- You first.
- Thanks. - [Henry] After you, Shane.
- Welcome to my show.
- It's not your show.
- Dammit, you're back. (Henry laughs)
- So, what up, Shane?
- Not much, you know?
- Gaby, have you met beautiful Shane before?
- Yeah, we have, but never at this eye line
because I'm on an apple box now
so I can see into all your faces.
- [Shane] You're ruining the illusion. - Sorry, sorry.
- [Henry] Okay, so tell us about your video.
- It's a video about rejection.
I have always been kinda curious about it,
about the way people process it.
And this video is about rejection therapy,
which is where people dive right in.
The goal is to get rejected every day
in some way or another.
- So people were given prompts of
ways they would get rejected?
- [Shane] Correct. It's a social game.
- What is an example of a prompt, first of all?
- One of them is asking to trade parking spots with someone.
- What happens if somebody says yes?
- Then you find out that the world is
a little more malleable than you thought.
The goal, though, is to get rejected, so you've failed.
- Okay.
- [Colin] Is the goal to cry at the end of the day?
- [Shane] No! The goal at the end of the day
is to feel like you've put yourself out there
and you've been rejected by someone and you're still alive.
And, you know, take what you will from that.
- All right, let's check it out.
- Yeah.
- Hey!
Rejection's a big part of life, and it's the worst.
It's pretty easy to avoid, though,
if you just don't put yourself out there.
Hey, man.
(disappointed sigh)
But is there any value in it?
Is rejection good for something?
These are the questions Jia Jiang was asking himself
when he started 100 Days of Rejection Therapy.
- [Jia] I feel growing up, I was afraid
to step out and do things.
I was afraid to get rejected by my family and friends
and to fail, so I did this thing
called 100 Days of Rejection based on a game
called Rejection Therapy, where basically you go out
every day and look for rejection.
So I said, "I'm gonna do this for 100 days.
"I'll start a video blog about it."
After the first time I started, I went and talked to,
I found a stranger, and I said,
"Can I borrow $100 from you?"
That was one of the most awkward
and scary moments I feel almost in my life.
So, the next day I said, "I'm not gonna run.
"No matter what happens."
After the initial reaction, I didn't run.
I stayed engaged, and that made me feel
much more powerful, much more confident.
That life-and-death feeling was gone.
All right, I got a no, so Day 2 was a success.
So from there, I said my job is to putting myself out there.
Ask for things and see what happens.
I found out that rejection says much more
about the other person than me.
The fear of rejection's very sneaky.
It's the force at the back of your mind
that controls a lot of decision you're making.
- [Voiceover] Hi! How are you?
Sometimes people do say no.
It's still all right. It's a little awkward.
I asked for a discount at Starbucks.
The lady just thought I was crazy.
The most surprising thing to me was just
how nice it was to just talk to people.
A lot of times, I think if you preface like,
Sometimes if you do something weird and go out of your way
it opens up this human connection that I forget is there.
The FedEx guy just seems like the guy who's working there,
but you ask him a little question
something's that's kinda weird
and we immediately had this bond where he was like,
"Yeah, just take a pen."
And the guy behind me at Starbucks,
I never would think to talk to anyone like that.
I'm always on my phone, you know.
The worst, absolute worst thing that could've happened
was he was like, "No," and he found it kinda weird,
but instead I had this nice moment with this stranger
and as I was leaving we were just both smiling.
That really made my day.
I didn't think it was gonna happen like that.
I felt like the thing I learned most from this experience
was just that, you know, putting yourself out there
is kinda fun and it comes with rewards.
Sometimes people say no but no isn't a big deal.
Rejection is a good and normal part of life
and if anything, it just clarifies who you are.
So, don't be afraid to go out there and try something new.
You might hear no, but you might get a big old yes.
So, do it.
- Good lesson, right? - [Shane] Yeah!
- Yeah, if you're okay with yourself
then you don't make the rejection personal.
- No, and maybe there's not as much
to be afraid out in the world.
- Well, in that case,
you should get the heck out of here, Shane.
- Okay, cool.
- You're rejected, Shane!
- I get it.
- He took that pretty well.
- Yeah.
(down-tempo electronic music)
- Okay, so the next thing you guys did is
you went and found an expert to explain the word slut?
- Yeah, I went and talked to Emily Lindin
who's the founder of the Unslut Project
which is a project that's anti-bullying
and anti-slut-shaming.
- Awesome. - [Gaby] Yeah!
- Let's check it out.
- What is slut shaming?
- I define it as implying that a girl or a woman should feel
guilty or inferior
for real or perceived sexual behavior.
- What have you seen in your research
has been reasons that women have been called sluts?
- The better question is what are some reasons
that a woman would not be called a slut?
I mean, really it's anything.
Literally any woman at any time can be deemed a slut.
It's in the eye of the beholder.
- So you're a slut if someone else thinks you're a slut?
- Yeah, at any point in time (Gaby sighs)
or if someone spreads a rumor about you
you can't prevent anyone from calling you a slut
by how you dress or how you act or where you are
or who you hang out with, it doesn't matter.
- So, there's nothing I can do.
(both laugh)
I went and asked people on the street, right?
and they had all kinds of different answers
from girls who go to the club too much,
then also the typical, you know, girl who has a lot of sex
but they couldn't really quantify what a lot is.
- Yeah, how much sex?
- Yeah, how much is too much?
So there were not a lot of real answers.
And then when I would ask them, "Am I a slut?"
without knowing me at all, they would say,
"No, no, no, no, no! Of course not!"
My takeaway is like, is it such a bad thing?
- Yeah, or even that it's not a thing
- [Gaby] Yeah. - that slut can't be defined
really because it's whatever anyone wants to use
to keep a woman in a place that they think she belongs in.
So, when you're saying that people call you a slut
in the comments, it might be because the way
that you come across in your videos or the way
that you talk or the way that you look is something
that makes that commenter feel like they want to
put you back in a place where you belong, I guess.
I guess that one way you could personally avoid it is
to stop speaking, is to stop making videos.
- That's not gonna work.
I'm very loud. - [Emily] And you shouldn't have to!
Please don't.
(down-tempo electronic music)
- [Keith] What it do, everybody?
We're back.
I don't know what we're doing.
Henry was supposed to be hosting, but I guess
he's in a meeting, so the crew called me up here
to host interim halfway through the video.
What did we just watch?
- We watched an interview with Emily Lindin
from the Unslut Project.
So, as you can see, there are a lot of ways
in which "slut" is used to demean women.
- Clearly, but, (nervous laughter)
- Yeah, I really threw you in the deep end there, Keith!
Maybe don't come up here pretending like
you can host videos you don't know what they're about.
- Hey, look, I'm just doing what people told me to do.
So, the next video I actually made
and admittedly it's actually a little bit weird
but it fits in this realm of being cool with yourself.
It's a theater project called Living Canvas.
You'd probably be into it.
It's a bunch of people getting naked
and projections are sort of shot on them?
- I'd probably be into it?
- Yeah, I mean, at least watching it.
You'd be all about cultural exploration and opening oneself
up to judgment. - [Gaby] Do you want a shovel
for this entire conversation? - [Keith] I'm just trying
to host the video, Gabs! - [Ryan] Let's just,
let's just watch the video.
- [Keith] Gaby gab gab.
- [Keith and Gaby] Let's just watch the video.
- What really started to affect me
was the first show that I did, the second night,
a women came up to me and said, "I saw your show last night
"and I went home, took off my clothes, stood in front
"of a mirror, and felt better about myself."
When that happened, then I knew
that I had to keep doing this because
it was not only having an effect on the people in the show,
but on audiences feeling better about themselves.
And that's just too important to pass up.
(midtempo rhythmic music)
- I'm Jake Giszczynski, I'm 24 years old.
- I'm Dominique Jackson, I'm 22,
and we're gonna be naked.
They're gonna be projecting images and textures
onto our naked bodies while we tell a theatrical story.
- [Pete] Living canvas is essentially an art form
that uses the amazing, expressive capabilities
of the human body, combined with imagery
to make a change in people
whether it's the performers or the audience.
And that to me is very exciting.
- [Dominique] Being here with the way that my body is
and not being afraid to show that,
I think is really important.
I mean, I feel like it will instill a sense of
acceptance, and just what I've gone through
and what I've taken my body through thus far.
- What we really strove for was body positivity.
Accepting our flaws for what they are,
and we tried in various ways
through movement exploration, as we said earlier,
to encompass that sort of emotion in what we were bringing
to the stage, and in the end we brought it together
with this really nice piece with colors that matched
our personalities and little voiceover statements
about us accepting who we are.
- [Dominique] I am scarred and whole.
I am assertive and strong.
I am just right.
- [Jake] I am ripped with creativity.
- [Dominique] Nature's passion is my mirror.
I've earned my marks. These are my tiger stripes.
- [Jake] I've embraced my unwashed masses.
- [Dominique] I was built to be me.
- [Jake] Just being part of that group,
and seeing people be that comfortable and vulnerable
with each other was enlightening.
It was really enlightening and refreshing,
and it made me feel a lot more comfortable with who I am.
It's an equalizer.
- Yeah! It's the great equalizer.
You realize that everyone's equal
and everyone has the same hang-ups
and it's nice to recognize that in other people.
- [Keith] So that video was obviously perfect, I made it.
It was perfect, it was great,
and it was just a classic what it do.
- [Gaby] Uh-huh, okay. - So, um...
- [Henry] What the fuck is this shit?
- You were gone, so I started hosting the show.
- They made me do it!
- My video happened already.
- Okay, what did we learn here?
- Guys, please be friends.
- [Keith] I don't know where we are to be honest.
I was really thrown into this by these guys.
(laughing off camera)
- [Henry] All right, dude. - You wanna take over?
- I don't know, what are you gonna be doing?
(group mumbles)
(down-tempo electronic music)
- So I'm a little confused, what the fuck just happened?
- They made Keith host!
I just wanna say I don't support Keith as host.
I fully support Henry.
I'm sorry.
- That's not what you said 10 minutes ago, Gaby.
- We love Keith.
He's a valuable member of the IRL team
and he made an awesome video.
It's fine.
Let's talk about your video.
- Yeah!
- What's the last part of your slut journey?
- So, we got a lot of opinions about what it means
to be a slut, but we needed to go to the source.
- Hi, honey. - [Gaby] Hello.
This is my mom.
- Hi, this is Mom.
- What is your opinion on how I...
- Of you?
So, do I think you're a slut?
I wouldn't use that word.
I'm proud, I guess?
Your ability to have so much confidence
and the fact that you say whatever you wanna say,
I don't know many women who could do that.
But sometimes it's just a little too much.
You just bring it out.
You just do it!
And so sometimes (both laughing)
sometimes I hear your grandmother on my shoulder
you know like, "Oh my god!"
No, I don't think you're a slut!
I think you're a light for everybody else
who is free sexually.
You've opened my eyes to look
at women differently and less judgmental.
- Aw! Thanks so much!
- [Mom] You're welcome.
You slut.
(Mom laughs) - [Gaby] Mom!
- [Henry] I guess the question is do you feel like
you understand what a slut means and whether it's you?
Like you are a slut?
- My takeaway is, so what if I am?
Doesn't matter, I'm me.
I'm cool with me, I'm happy.
And it's nobody's business.
- Is that what you're takeaway of the video is, Colin?
- You know, the word slut doesn't really mean anything
and if you wanna be a slut, go for it.
If you don't, hey, don't worry about it.
- And if I am one, oh well, then it's not a bad thing.
- All right, fuck it then.
- Be who you are. - [Gaby] Fuck it then!
(Gaby laughs)
- And with that we sign off of What It Do.
Say "what it do."
- I'm not gonna say--
- Colin, say "what it do."
- You almost got me to say it by saying I wouldn't say it.
- [Henry] Just say it!
Why won't you say it, it's fine. (Gaby sighs)
- What it do, sluts?
(both laugh)
- Alright, that's it.
Thank you for watching Real Mature.
- [Voiceover] This episode of Real Mature was produced
by the Buzzfeed IRL team.
They're the literal best.
A special thanks to Birocratic for some of the beats,
Gaby, Jia Jiang, and the Living Canvas.
See you next time.
(down-tempo electronic music)
(swelling music)
(modem sounds)