Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2: I'm welcome to Stefane never told you a predictive of iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: and we are thrilled to once again be joined for
Speaker 2: the first time in twenty twenty four by the well traveled,
Speaker 2: the well Rid bridget Todd.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I mean, not well traveled lately, but maybe
Speaker 3: over the course of my lifetime moderately travels. Although I
Speaker 3: can't really compete with you, Annie, you really get around.
Speaker 1: Here. Your instagrams like took you all over the world.
Speaker 1: You were traveling, traveling for the podcast world, So I
Speaker 1: think you're that's understated.
Speaker 3: Okay, I guess, I guess the entire year of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three. Maybe recently, it feels like in like the
Speaker 3: last couple of weeks, I've been traveling from my fridge
Speaker 3: time bed to my couch for sure. But that's really
Speaker 3: the extent of it. That's about where we've been for
Speaker 3: a while. Yes, so what a journey.
Speaker 1: It's like you say, the last couple of weeks twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, that's been our journey, backyard, couch bed.
Speaker 3: Where else do you need to go?
Speaker 2: Well, we haven't gotten to see you in this virtual way.
Speaker 2: We are working on some IRL hangouts soon. Heince the
Speaker 2: discussion we had about traveling previous tour recording just now.
Speaker 2: But how was your your Weirdo Christmas?
Speaker 3: Your New Year's bridget Brido. Christmas was fantastic, as always,
Speaker 3: Lots of bad movies were watched. We actually did a
Speaker 3: special thing to watch horror Christmas movies. I didn't know
Speaker 3: there were so many, but like ten out of ten, yes,
Speaker 3: I would recommend. New Year's was also fun. I feel
Speaker 3: like i'm a little I don't know. January is such
Speaker 3: a weird time of year because you kind of start
Speaker 3: and you're like, this is gonna be New Year, New Me,
Speaker 3: and then but the second becomes January, you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: turns out it's still came old me, and maybe that's okay.
Speaker 3: It just feels like a little bit of a slow start.
Speaker 3: It's been really cold in DC, snowing. I'm doing dry January,
Speaker 3: so I'm sober. I broke from Christmas. I'm tired. Like
Speaker 3: January is just a slug.
Speaker 1: January is the hangover month. I mean essentially, whether it's
Speaker 1: from like spending too much money, being around too many people,
Speaker 1: all of those things just kind of recuperating, and it
Speaker 1: does as any and I talked about earlier. I was like,
Speaker 1: I feel like January and February ends up being the
Speaker 1: longest months of the year. Like we did an episode
Speaker 1: and I was like, it's still January. I really thought
Speaker 1: we had topped into at least February, and we're still
Speaker 1: nowhere near. And I'm like, why does it feel like
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of the year but we just started.
Speaker 3: It is dragging. Maybe it's a sobariety.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that life.
Speaker 2: So yes, yeah, no, Well, we have done several episodes
Speaker 2: about how neither of us are big fans of New
Speaker 2: Year's so we're right there with you because I feel
Speaker 2: like it's so anti climactic. You're like yes, and then
Speaker 2: you're like, ah, this is kind of impressing. Do you
Speaker 2: like look back on your past year and be like
Speaker 2: I gotta change all this?
Speaker 3: And then you're like, well, like can't really right totally?
Speaker 1: That takes money and time, yes.
Speaker 3: And then once the kind of so you have the
Speaker 3: holidays and you're kind of like, oh boy, I could
Speaker 3: really go for this being over the holidays end, and
Speaker 3: then you're like, Okay, now I'm feeling back to the grind,
Speaker 3: like holidays are over. There's just a thing that happens
Speaker 3: after the holiday wind down kind of wears off. That
Speaker 3: just is so, it's just such a slug. It's a
Speaker 3: slog of a month, I think for everybody. So for
Speaker 3: folks who are listening and maybe feel like they're a
Speaker 3: little off, feeling a little weird z's, I think we're
Speaker 3: all in the same boat.
Speaker 1: It's true. It's also dark and again, as you said, cold,
Speaker 1: and who likes the cold. It's not me Here in
Speaker 1: the South. I prefer gold to hot.
Speaker 3: But it is dreary.
Speaker 2: It's like a and there's not like anything really coming
Speaker 2: to look forward to. I don't look forward to like
Speaker 2: Valentine's Day, Like there's no it's just like, okay, I'll
Speaker 2: wait a couple months for something sunshine.
Speaker 3: Just hold on to St. Patrick's Day day? What is that?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm a huge celebrator of Arbor Day. Uh well,
Speaker 2: I have to say, you really came in swinging with
Speaker 2: this topic, and I have I have been thinking about
Speaker 2: this because I'm actually not on social media a lot,
Speaker 2: but I have seen I feel like I'm one of
Speaker 2: the only people I know and this I'm sure it's
Speaker 2: not true, but in my circle that watches a lot
Speaker 2: of YouTube and YouTube, there's something going on with YouTube
Speaker 2: ads that I've been trying to make into an episode,
Speaker 2: but I can't quite nail down what it is. But
Speaker 2: they've become so gendered in a way that like isn't new,
Speaker 2: but feels like, wow, we've gone this far back. But
Speaker 2: it'll be something like, especially around the holidays, like, well,
Speaker 2: my wife loves me, so she got me this thing
Speaker 2: that she can use to make my life better, or
Speaker 2: like it'll be from the wife's perspective and it'll be, oh,
Speaker 2: I got this because my husband's been so tired and
Speaker 2: I can make his life easier. So it's like gifts
Speaker 2: that are all about him, but it's painted as if
Speaker 2: she wants it too and she likes it too, And
Speaker 2: I'm just confused by the whole thing.
Speaker 3: I don't understand. I feel you. I feel like lately
Speaker 3: the Internet and social media has become this weird marriage
Speaker 3: of gender roles and gendered expectations and commerce and capitalism
Speaker 3: all kind of like blended into one where the only
Speaker 3: kind of online experience you could ever really hope to
Speaker 3: have around that is like buy this thing for your
Speaker 3: husband to be a good wife. It's very weird.
Speaker 2: It's bizarre, like and I've I've had moments where I'm like,
Speaker 2: is this generated by AI? There's like the voices are strange,
Speaker 2: it's very strange.
Speaker 3: It might be AI.
Speaker 2: It could be like there's one in particular.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I need to look into that.
Speaker 2: I've I want to investigate what is going on here?
Speaker 2: But yeah, I've just sort of seen it. And so
Speaker 2: when I saw this topic, I was like, oh, maybe
Speaker 2: Bridget can illuminate something that I'm seeing in my specific space.
Speaker 2: But from what you're seeing on social media? So what
Speaker 2: are we talking about today?
Speaker 3: So, if you've spent any time at all on social media,
Speaker 3: you have probably seen what is called trad wives contact,
Speaker 3: right have you? I guess any You're not really on
Speaker 3: social media, but it does sound like you're getting a
Speaker 3: little of this on YouTube. Sam, have you encountered any
Speaker 3: of this in your time on TikTok So?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we've had many conversations on the show about
Speaker 1: the crunchy oh yes wives movement that quickly kind of
Speaker 1: devolves into being a trad wife, as well as talking
Speaker 1: about religious trauma and the how that plays into the
Speaker 1: tradwife culture as well as the red Pill episode that
Speaker 1: we talked about, because that actually jumps into tradwives as well.
Speaker 1: Of course white supremacists and white feminist culture also goes
Speaker 1: into that. There's so much to this, So definitely had
Speaker 1: a little bit of research beforehand, and I definitely get it,
Speaker 1: of course because of my for you page f yp
Speaker 1: any just in case you needed to know, it does
Speaker 1: made me the satire of tradwives and or stitching the
Speaker 1: problematic things with tradwives. I don't follow any and I
Speaker 1: would not recognize any by name necessarily, and I know
Speaker 1: you're going to talk a little bit, but like Joe
Speaker 1: Piazza actually was on the show and we talked very
Speaker 1: briefly with her about some of the things that she
Speaker 1: has seen and she is addressed also her because she
Speaker 1: was coming around like Halloween after Halloween, and her just
Speaker 1: amazing costume of playing tradwife as well. But yeah, there's
Speaker 1: definitely a lot of content. I get a lot And
Speaker 1: we've talked about the family content stuff, which again aligns
Speaker 1: with that when a lot of moms of TikTok used
Speaker 1: their family content as moneymakers and to get to get viral,
Speaker 1: and then of course the Ruby Frank case, which is,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, Annie, Just so you know, just recently
Speaker 1: a woman was convicted for child abuse and so much
Speaker 1: more after it was released that she was abusing her
Speaker 1: kids and she was using that content with somewhat a
Speaker 1: business partner to make money off on TikTok and she
Speaker 1: was severely abusing her kids.
Speaker 3: So horrible, and she's just I think she might have,
Speaker 3: like I know, she was in prison or in jail
Speaker 3: for a while and then she was released and I
Speaker 3: think flipped on her business partner and was like, oh,
Speaker 3: she was the mastermind.
Speaker 1: Yes, they flipped on each other obviously, but it was intense,
Speaker 1: and the whole content is about how she is very
Speaker 1: cruel to our children and how she punishes them by
Speaker 1: not letting them have dinner. Was the beginning of everything.
Speaker 1: But this type of content, which you have talked about before,
Speaker 1: using children as moneymakers for content creation, but on that
Speaker 1: same line with tradwives that have been popping up so
Speaker 1: much totally.
Speaker 3: So it is interesting that I think that you know,
Speaker 3: we're talking about this mix of gender and commerce that
Speaker 3: is so ubiquitous on social media, and I think You've
Speaker 3: really nailed something that the depiction of motherhood and romantic
Speaker 3: partnership that were shown as women on social media is
Speaker 3: highly commercial, Like, somebody is probably making money from that
Speaker 3: depiction in some capacity. So, for folks who don't know,
Speaker 3: trad wives is short for traditional wives, and it's these
Speaker 3: content creators who make content about ostensibly about the bliss
Speaker 3: that they find in doing traditional domestic labor, you know, cooking, cleaning, sewing,
Speaker 3: running a household. So I should say right off the
Speaker 3: bat that like not all tread wife content it's created equal.
Speaker 3: Some tread wife content creators just seem to be sort
Speaker 3: of showcasing their lives. We'll talk about some of those,
Speaker 3: but others seem to be more directly and explicitly romanticizing
Speaker 3: and advocating for like this bygone time when women were
Speaker 3: happier primarily in the home. So I did an interview
Speaker 3: with Joe Piazza, who I'm so glad that she stopped
Speaker 3: over on on y'all's pod too, because she is incredible
Speaker 3: and hilarious. She has a podcast called Under the Influence,
Speaker 3: all about influencing and women. So Joe actually makes it
Speaker 3: very clear that this bygone era where women were so
Speaker 3: happy to be staying in the home. Actually kind of
Speaker 3: does not exist, right, It's like a throwback and a
Speaker 3: romanticization of a time period that like did not actually
Speaker 3: really exist for women, because truly, can you really romanticize
Speaker 3: the choices made by white women at a time when
Speaker 3: they could not even own bank accounts? Right, Like, it's
Speaker 3: a little hard to be like, oh, well, our grandmothers
Speaker 3: were just choosing to be in the household because that
Speaker 3: was what was better. And it's like, well, she couldn't
Speaker 3: have her own money legally, so maybe choice isn't the
Speaker 3: right word. So I say white women because I'm a
Speaker 3: Black woman, and we are explicitly not talking about Black
Speaker 3: women like myself. Black women historically pretty much have always
Speaker 3: done wage earning work outside of the home. Even if
Speaker 3: we wanted to stay in our homes and not do that,
Speaker 3: that really wasn't an option for us. Rose M. Krider
Speaker 3: and Diana B. Elliott note in their report called Historical
Speaker 3: Changes in Stay at Home Mothers nineteen sixty nine to
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine that even black mothers with young
Speaker 3: children were in the workforce following World War Two, when
Speaker 3: many of their white counterparts had withdrawn from a labor force,
Speaker 3: and in places like South Carolina, they even had on
Speaker 3: the books that were requiring black women to have consistent
Speaker 3: employment outside of the home. So I just wanted to
Speaker 3: say that because I feel like when we talk about
Speaker 3: conversations about who works and who didn't work and what
Speaker 3: it's a throwback to you. I just think it's important
Speaker 3: to note that we are talking about like one specific
Speaker 3: subset of women, not all women. So I should say
Speaker 3: I'm not an expert on tradwise. I did do a
Speaker 3: lot of reading for this episode. However, I do consider
Speaker 3: myself a bit of an expert on the internet and
Speaker 3: social media, and I think there are a few key
Speaker 3: parts of the conversation around trad wives and that kind
Speaker 3: of online content that get a little overlooked that I
Speaker 3: just want to make sure that we are all keeping
Speaker 3: in mind when we're consuming this content and talking and
Speaker 3: thinking about this content.
Speaker 2: Okay, for listeners maybe like me who have seen some
Speaker 2: weird YouTube ads but maybe don't know what is happening
Speaker 2: on social media specifically, what kind of content are we
Speaker 2: talking about here?
Speaker 3: So, as I said, it is content that is like
Speaker 3: women baking or sewing, you know, sometimes it's just like
Speaker 3: a woman demonstrating what her life is like. So it's
Speaker 3: like her with her kids making food, Da da da,
Speaker 3: But some of that content is a little bit more sinister.
Speaker 3: In this kind of treadwive content, women are exublicitly comparing
Speaker 3: their lives and their choices to the lives and choices
Speaker 3: of other women. I transcribed a TikTok that I think
Speaker 3: demonstrates what I am talking about. So this is from
Speaker 3: influencer Emily Allison, who describes herself on Instagram as counterculture
Speaker 3: thinking child raising. I just want my kids to grow
Speaker 3: up in a free country. So I'm going to read
Speaker 3: what she says in her TikTok and just kind of
Speaker 3: imagine that, like they're sort of cute, smarmy guitar music
Speaker 3: playing under this, because that's what the TikTok is like,
Speaker 3: and that my narration is synced up to videos of
Speaker 3: me wearing prairie dresses and like cooking and playing with
Speaker 3: my kids. Okay, here we go. Our culture tells women
Speaker 3: that it's honorable to sacrifice everything for your job, but
Speaker 3: it's unfair to sacrifice everything for your family. That it's
Speaker 3: liberating to be sexually used by men who are not
Speaker 3: committed to you. But it's oppressive to love and respect
Speaker 3: a man who is that it's somehow empowering to rely
Speaker 3: on the system to educate your kids, feed your family,
Speaker 3: and keep you alive rather than have the skills to
Speaker 3: do it yourself. I say that culture is full of lies.
Speaker 3: So that's just me like reading a word for word
Speaker 3: transcript of what this person has to say. First of all,
Speaker 3: you might think from that transcript that this person does
Speaker 3: not do wage earning work because she is too busy
Speaker 3: like focusing on her family. However, according to her Instagram bio,
Speaker 3: it says that she is a writer for the far
Speaker 3: right website Epo Times, so she actually does have a job,
Speaker 3: but she just wants to let us know that she
Speaker 3: has a job in a way that is like different
Speaker 3: and better than everybody else who has a job. Like
Speaker 3: I don't know what y'all are doing, but like when
Speaker 3: I have a job, it's better. When you have a job,
Speaker 3: you are making a mistake and turning your back on
Speaker 3: your family. So just so you know I'm doing it right,
Speaker 3: y'all are doing it wrong. So I think this content
Speaker 3: is a good example of what I'm talking about. Right Like,
Speaker 3: if Emily is so content with her with her life,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't think that somebody who is super
Speaker 3: content would feel the need to really compare their choices
Speaker 3: and their life to the choices in life of somebody
Speaker 3: that they don't even necessarily know, right Like, there is
Speaker 3: something about the content that I think is meant to enrage,
Speaker 3: meant to make people feel a certain kind of way.
Speaker 3: Do you all see this? Or am I way off basier?
Speaker 1: Well, the minute you said that she was for a
Speaker 1: writer for the far right news article, I think that
Speaker 1: again kind of coming back to what we were talking about
Speaker 1: with red pill slash white supremacy. This level of indoctrination
Speaker 1: is the Maga world. And I doubt we have any
Speaker 1: Maga listeners. But if you're offended, you essentially like if
Speaker 1: it sounds offensive, but it's actually true because there's this
Speaker 1: whole underlying level of creating more white babies. And I'm
Speaker 1: assuming this one woman is a white woman and in
Speaker 1: this whole culture of go against the zeit guys, which
Speaker 1: now the Zeit guys is too liberal, which is that
Speaker 1: you know, in their in their mind of course, in
Speaker 1: this conversation, which is again what we were really like
Speaker 1: every time I would go down this rabbit hole of
Speaker 1: anything tradwives, anything crunchy moms situation, it gets very succinct
Speaker 1: to this ideal of moms protecting white children or the
Speaker 1: white community in itself. In this level of that has
Speaker 1: to be also meaning that we're rebellious against the norm
Speaker 1: and those are the devils who you know, this level
Speaker 1: of conversation, it's like, yeah, this makes perfect sense, and
Speaker 1: that guitar playing is you're supposed to think this is
Speaker 1: a Midwestern family out in the cornfields in their dresses,
Speaker 1: having the perfect little like dinner at the tables, but
Speaker 1: that they have obviously gardened themselves because they don't trust
Speaker 1: the government or the fertilizer and you know, wore these
Speaker 1: clothes that they have made themselves, as well as the
Speaker 1: fact that you know they don't do doctors, none of that.
Speaker 1: Like this level of ideal of the perfect life that
Speaker 1: kind of also insinuates by the perfect light means you
Speaker 1: have to be white.
Speaker 3: A thousand percent. And something that you picked up on
Speaker 3: that I really want to pull out is how so
Speaker 3: much of this content also sort of has this almost
Speaker 3: like faux persecution angle to it, like they don't want
Speaker 3: me to be submissive to my husband, who like they
Speaker 3: don't want me making homemade meals. It's like, who are
Speaker 3: you talking about that is preventing you from doing this?
Speaker 3: This is something that I've noticed a lot. It's almost
Speaker 3: like these people want to be persecuted or like victimized
Speaker 3: in some way, and they really they're so committed to
Speaker 3: wanting to feel like they're going against the grain and
Speaker 3: challenging norms that they have made that into an identity
Speaker 3: and they've kind of like built it up that everything
Speaker 3: they do is like being challenged. Everything they do, like
Speaker 3: they don't want me to grow my own food, And
Speaker 3: it's like who, Like who is preventing you from doing
Speaker 3: this if that's what you want to do, right, I've
Speaker 3: seen so many people say like make it seem as
Speaker 3: though there's some sort of feminist conspiracy to keep women
Speaker 3: from staying at home and not doing way durning work.
Speaker 3: And I, I mean I would if I could afford
Speaker 3: to comfortably do that. I think I would love to
Speaker 3: do it, right. I think a lot of people would
Speaker 3: love to do that. But like what people are saying
Speaker 3: is like, yeah, you should have choice to do what
Speaker 3: you do whatever you want to do, and what they're
Speaker 3: hearing is like, they're not letting me stay at home.
Speaker 3: Where where are these people who are preventing women from
Speaker 3: like staying at home with their families. That that's what
Speaker 3: they want to do.
Speaker 1: That's called capitalism, babe in it. This sucks for everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're all we're all dealing with the same we're
Speaker 3: all suffering.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think that's that conversation again, this
Speaker 1: whole like they won't let me do this thing, or
Speaker 1: they won't let me do that thing. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of that conversation you were talking about earlier where black
Speaker 1: women were pretty much excluded from the white feminist movement
Speaker 1: because they did not listen to the fact that black
Speaker 1: women have been working, Women of color have been working
Speaker 1: the entirety of their existence from jump because they had
Speaker 1: no other choice, that the fact that they want to
Speaker 1: go to work and women should be they're not listening
Speaker 1: to the other side of what feminism should look like.
Speaker 1: And that conversation is that it's the choice right, the
Speaker 1: choice to do what you whether it is to be
Speaker 1: a stay at home mom and to have whatever balanced
Speaker 1: life that you want. If you agreed upon it and
Speaker 1: everything is fair for you too, and there's respect, then wonderful.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that's the choice to have. That choice
Speaker 1: is the feminist ideal. But yeah, the more I see,
Speaker 1: like again with the tradwise, they're going to a nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies tactic of the fear mongering of feminism, right, they
Speaker 1: want to take away men they hate oh man, they
Speaker 1: want to kill men.
Speaker 2: A B.
Speaker 1: The fact that they can't wear You can't wear bras
Speaker 1: because if you do, you're not a feminist and you
Speaker 1: can't wear like who ever said these things? Who said this?
Speaker 1: What is happening this fear mongering that has come back,
Speaker 1: and that they have not only taken this on, they're
Speaker 1: pushing it so hard that those who always hated the
Speaker 1: ideal of something absolutely are gripping to this. It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: they are trying to take away these things from me
Speaker 1: or make me do these things, and I hate the feminists.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is such a for aw man. Absolutely, And
Speaker 3: so this actually is one of the three major points
Speaker 3: that I want folks to think about and really know
Speaker 3: in terms of coming to this content with a critical
Speaker 3: eye and with with a little bit of media literacy,
Speaker 3: is that this kind of content is often specifically engineered
Speaker 3: to make us have a big reaction. Right, So, in
Speaker 3: the example that we were just talking about, you know
Speaker 3: that influencer does not have a huge following. She has
Speaker 3: like twenty k on Instagram and I think or on
Speaker 3: forty k on TikTok, which is pretty small in the
Speaker 3: ecosystem of trad wife influencers. And so you know, because
Speaker 3: some of these people have like millions and millions of followers.
Speaker 3: So I suspect the reason that she has to frame
Speaker 3: her video in such a smug way where it's like
Speaker 3: my choices are good, other women's choices not good, is
Speaker 3: because she is trafficking on our big reaction to get engagement.
Speaker 3: If she just said I like to homeschool my kids,
Speaker 3: I like to play with my kids, I like to
Speaker 3: cook for my husband. I have a relationship where I
Speaker 3: rested back to my husband, who would care. Nobody would
Speaker 3: care because it's like, oh, good for you. She has
Speaker 3: to tweak it to be like I'm doing it in
Speaker 3: a good way and everybody else is doing it wrong
Speaker 3: intentionally because it gets our blood boiling to get more engagement,
Speaker 3: to get more views, and to ultimately boost her profile.
Speaker 3: Where it's very clear she wants to have a big one, right,
Speaker 3: And so in some ways this is just a good
Speaker 3: old fashioned engagement grift where you say things in a
Speaker 3: way that is intentionally said to be a little bit
Speaker 3: inflammatory to get more engagement. Right.
Speaker 2: Gosh, that took me on a rabbit hole of like
Speaker 2: a dark time in her company where that was like
Speaker 2: you should make people mad, they'll engage with you.
Speaker 3: Like, please don't do that. This is a bit of
Speaker 3: a side note, but this is my new media literacy
Speaker 3: battle cry, which is that we should understand how many
Speaker 3: places on the Internet and how many places and influencers
Speaker 3: and people and content creators that make up our internet
Speaker 3: discourse are doing that They are trying to get one
Speaker 3: over on us because it is effective. We already know
Speaker 3: that social media platforms intentionally boost content that gets a
Speaker 3: lot of engagement that makes us angry or gets our
Speaker 3: hearts racing because it is better for their platforms. And
Speaker 3: so the dynamic where anybody who says something that is
Speaker 3: inflammatory that gets people upset that they are rewarded with engagement,
Speaker 3: that is a bad system and we need to be
Speaker 3: looking at it like I can't tell you how many
Speaker 3: stupid TikTok skits. I have gotten sucked into where I'm like,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, why do I care? Like what this
Speaker 3: fake scenario says. It's happening like the story time of
Speaker 3: a woman doing her makeup telling me a made up
Speaker 3: story about a friend that doesn't exist. Like why am
Speaker 3: I giving this my attention? And we need to put
Speaker 3: a wrench in that entire system, that entire machine that
Speaker 3: continues to crank out content like that, because it's not
Speaker 3: good for us.
Speaker 2: No, and I think a lot of it is so
Speaker 2: And I know you're going to talk about this a
Speaker 2: little bit, but it's so dishonest and the time it
Speaker 2: takes and perhaps the production it takes to just make
Speaker 2: these videos. I always kind of laugh when I see
Speaker 2: like ring lights in their eyes and it's clearly supposed
Speaker 2: to be like, oh I just woke up.
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, you did it.
Speaker 2: But you do have another example of somebody who has
Speaker 2: a lot of engagement, yes.
Speaker 3: Yes, and that is Ballerina Farms. So if you don't
Speaker 3: know who Ballerina Farms is, her name is Hannah Neeliman
Speaker 3: and she is a follower of the Church of Latter
Speaker 3: day Saints Akaam ormon. She married into the family that
Speaker 3: owns the airline that Jet Blue, So girl married very well.
Speaker 3: She is probably not living like a rule kind of
Speaker 3: dependent on the land lifestyle. However, if you looked at
Speaker 3: her content, you might think like, oh, she's living a
Speaker 3: very humble rule existence, because that's what she wants you
Speaker 3: to think. She spends a lot of time on TikTok,
Speaker 3: cooking with her eight kids on her farm, and when
Speaker 3: she's not doing that, she is competing in a beauty
Speaker 3: passiont She has almost ten million followers, so a huge,
Speaker 3: huge footprint in the landscape. I would say Ballerina Farms,
Speaker 3: I would describe her as like a source of a
Speaker 3: lot of skepticism and frustration. Like she competed in a
Speaker 3: beauty pageant just I think a few days after she
Speaker 3: gave birth, for instance, and people were like, you know, like,
Speaker 3: you're probably not in your best shape when you just
Speaker 3: have given birth. What it like. People felt some kind
Speaker 3: of way about the fact that she was, you know,
Speaker 3: competing in a beauty pageant. But as a recent piece
Speaker 3: in Glamour points out, you really would never know that
Speaker 3: her content is like controversial or is a source of
Speaker 3: frustration or skepticism for people. The piece reads, neely Man
Speaker 3: has never wavered. She doesn't publicly address her haters, she
Speaker 3: doesn't engage with the discourse, and she doesn't try to
Speaker 3: clear the air on, for instance, whether her wealthy father
Speaker 3: in law bought her ranch for her family. She just
Speaker 3: continues to make bread, post videos of her dancing, and
Speaker 3: lift her life. She seems to be, at least online,
Speaker 3: completely unbothered and content, which of course is its own
Speaker 3: kind of privilege when you have eight kids. But on
Speaker 3: the other hand, we have no idea what her reality
Speaker 3: really looks like, do we, And so she does not
Speaker 3: have to engage in the kind of rage baiting that
Speaker 3: somebody who might be a less successful Tradwives influencer might
Speaker 3: have to write, like her thing is like I just
Speaker 3: make my bread and like smile weird and like pretend
Speaker 3: to be living a rural, rustic life even though I'm
Speaker 3: very wealthy, right right.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of romanticizing of like that kind
Speaker 2: of work and that kind of life that I think
Speaker 2: I see happen a lot in general conservative movements, where
Speaker 2: like let's get back to the land of like do
Speaker 2: you know how to get back to.
Speaker 3: The life yeah, I was talking to So my partner
Speaker 3: grew up on a farm in rural upstate New York.
Speaker 3: When I say a farm, I don't know, Like I'm
Speaker 3: not a country girl. So when he was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I grew up on a farm. My parents will on
Speaker 3: a farm. The first time I went to visit his parents,
Speaker 3: who still live on that farm, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't know what I had been envisioning, but like
Speaker 3: it is a farm farm, like a real farm. And
Speaker 3: so he grew up like tending to animals as part
Speaker 3: of his chores, and they would, you know, butcher and
Speaker 3: package steaks, you know, for to eat and to sell,
Speaker 3: so like a real farm. And it's always so funny
Speaker 3: to him and his family. How people online have convinced
Speaker 3: themselves that farm life is this like route to a soft,
Speaker 3: slow life. That is only true for people who are wealthy,
Speaker 3: who are not actually farming as a source of their existence,
Speaker 3: as a source of sustenance, as a source of their
Speaker 3: financial security. Anybody who actually lives on a farm, a
Speaker 3: real farm, where that farm where like you live or die,
Speaker 3: or you eat or don't eat based on how that
Speaker 3: farm is doing, will tell you that it is a
Speaker 3: ton of work. People who have farms are always tired.
Speaker 3: Their schedules are wild. Like this idea that that oh,
Speaker 3: you know, we're just gonna buy a land and start
Speaker 3: a farm, and that that's gonna be an easy, slow life.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. That is just a fiction, a fantasy. Talk
Speaker 3: to anybody who's ever done farming. That's not true.
Speaker 1: Have they not seen a little house on the prairie.
Speaker 1: They're waking up at four am and going to bed
Speaker 1: at nine and they're I know, that's that's my reference,
Speaker 1: But no like to know that they actually have to
Speaker 1: wake up at the crack of dawn to make sure
Speaker 1: whether it's snowing or raining and all of that, to
Speaker 1: make sure they have to take care and tend to
Speaker 1: all the things, the living things that are on there,
Speaker 1: including any crops, and if they have like workers on there.
Speaker 1: And I'm assuming, because I don't know anything about this
Speaker 1: Ballerina farmer, that if they're that wealthy and they do
Speaker 1: actually own a farm, that they do hire workers, and
Speaker 1: how the little she's active on that farm. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: just static, you know, speaking up too much, but just
Speaker 1: like that doesn't seem like a thing that she would
Speaker 1: be doing. Now she's also posting pretty little pictures of
Speaker 1: herself dancing with our kids.
Speaker 3: I can confirm that they have like a pretty big staff,
Speaker 3: like a paid employees to work for them. I should
Speaker 3: also say, like, side note, I have heard some horror
Speaker 3: stories about what is actually like going down on that farm.
Speaker 3: If you were interested, there are Reddit rabbit holes, but like,
Speaker 3: I cannot confirm any of that myself, so like, don't
Speaker 3: have anything to say about it. But that is out
Speaker 3: there about some of the allegations of how the animals
Speaker 3: are treated on that farm, but like, do your own
Speaker 3: research there because I don't know either way. But yes,
Speaker 3: she definitely has paid staff to do the actual labor,
Speaker 3: and again there's something wrong with that. That's like, if
Speaker 3: that's how you're going to do it, but then don't
Speaker 3: go on TikTok and make it seem like you are
Speaker 3: doing this work yourself and it's actually not that hard
Speaker 3: and you actually have a slow life, soft life, because
Speaker 3: that's not true, right, And so I think that's sort
Speaker 3: of like my biggest point is that I think that
Speaker 3: some of these creators are just not being totally honest
Speaker 3: in the way that we understand that most online content
Speaker 3: is probably not honest in some way. But there's something
Speaker 3: about the like trad wife, slow life, rustic vibes content
Speaker 3: creators that I think makes it harder to see when
Speaker 3: someone is basically lying to you on the Internet about
Speaker 3: what their life actually looks like. And so Ballerina Farms
Speaker 3: might not have to like Engagement Farm the way that
Speaker 3: the other influencer does, but that doesn't mean that she's
Speaker 3: being totally honest about what is going down in her life,
Speaker 3: or that we're getting an honest view of it, because
Speaker 3: you know, what do you call somebody who makes content
Speaker 3: to make their life look a certain way, maybe not
Speaker 3: totally accurately to sell commercial products a marketer? Right? Like
Speaker 3: that is marketing. Ballerina Farms, i would argue, is a business,
Speaker 3: and her social media stick is just part of the
Speaker 3: marketing arm of this business. Like their farm is a
Speaker 3: farm where you can buy boxes of meats from it online,
Speaker 3: like it is a it is a corporate entity, and
Speaker 3: so she is just a like marketing her consumer goods
Speaker 3: to try to get us to buy not just the product,
Speaker 3: but into the whole lifestyle that her that her product
Speaker 3: is kind of revolves around. And what's also kind of
Speaker 3: interesting is there's this creator, Carol Claire Burkie on TikTok,
Speaker 3: who is really made a thing out of doing some
Speaker 3: media analysis around Ballerina Farms as a brand, and she
Speaker 3: basically is like, we don't actually know or see the
Speaker 3: actual real person behind Ballerina Farms, Hannah. We don't really
Speaker 3: see a real view of her life. What we're seeing
Speaker 3: is the way that her corporation or her company wants
Speaker 3: us to see her for marketing purposes. She compares it
Speaker 3: to the Kardashians, who you know, we know have become
Speaker 3: literal billionaires from leveraging a highly curated peace into their
Speaker 3: personal lives to get us to buy into them as
Speaker 3: a brand. But the difference is, she says that the
Speaker 3: Kardashians are maybe even more upfront about this dynamic than
Speaker 3: these trad wife influencers. I don't think anybody would be like, oh,
Speaker 3: the Kardashians are just trying to give us an honest
Speaker 3: look into the lives of billionaires and like they're just
Speaker 3: being so authentic. I don't think anybody would say that.
Speaker 3: Anybody would know like, oh, they want you to buy
Speaker 3: the makeup, the lip kit, the skims, the whatever, this that,
Speaker 3: and they're leveraging showing a curated look at their lives
Speaker 3: to do that. I think with these trad wife influencers,
Speaker 3: they're just not being honest about what the dynamic is.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's going backwards, gonna because for a
Speaker 1: long while, there was a lot of parents who are
Speaker 1: truly honest, like this is what it looks like to
Speaker 1: get to our videos here where they're doing the video
Speaker 1: and doing it behind the scene, and they're being more
Speaker 1: open and transparent. It feels like it's going back to
Speaker 1: again where Instagram started and everything was so pretty. Now
Speaker 1: all the pictures were so perfect and they had to
Speaker 1: show the perfect life in order to get the more
Speaker 1: ads and more views. So it feels like it's going
Speaker 1: backwards again, just like our society in how they are
Speaker 1: trying to romanticize, as you were saying, a lifestyle.
Speaker 3: I think that's a really good point, and I do
Speaker 3: think that that this has something to do with that.
Speaker 3: I think for a while, what popped on social media
Speaker 3: when it came to making content about motherhood was authenticity, like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm a mess just like you, Like my kids are filthy,
Speaker 3: and I'm exhausted and i haven't washed my hair just
Speaker 3: like you. And I think that that authenticity maybe became
Speaker 3: leveraged where like that it almost felt like a curated authenticity.
Speaker 3: And so I almost wonder if this trad wives kind
Speaker 3: of perfection is a response to this authenticity that kind
Speaker 3: of typified motherhood content on the Internet of a certain era.
Speaker 3: Like if it was cool to be authentic, then now
Speaker 3: what's cool is like being being like, isn't my life perfect?
Speaker 3: Like we're just coming back around.
Speaker 1: Coming back in that circle. And just as a reminder,
Speaker 1: with her having that many followers and that many views,
Speaker 1: she's making lots of money just off of her tiktoks.
Speaker 1: Lots of money.
Speaker 3: Yes, like that is my thing, there's no shame in it,
Speaker 3: but like this is a business. And in my interview
Speaker 3: with Joe, she puts it really well that if you're
Speaker 3: somebody who is setting up a tripod, setting up lighting,
Speaker 3: putting on a face of makeup, putting on a particular outfit,
Speaker 3: to film content that you then edit published to millions
Speaker 3: of your followers, and have built up a social media
Speaker 3: platform that might involve navigating like brand deals or sponsored posts,
Speaker 3: you have a job that is employment, that is labor.
Speaker 3: So you have a situation where some of these women
Speaker 3: are making content about how they do not do wage
Speaker 3: earning work, but the strategy that in which they are
Speaker 3: doing that is work. It's like a mind.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like they forgot the mom blogs, which
Speaker 1: was the beginning honestly of all of this and the
Speaker 1: way that it was created. It was stay at home
Speaker 1: moms trying to figure out how to make money to
Speaker 1: help assist and figuring out this is this is profitable
Speaker 1: and has now ventured into this and as where the
Speaker 1: blogs were curated in a way that it was written
Speaker 1: and entertaining. This is an entertainment on a different level,
Speaker 1: which is a show? Is a show pretty much?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like in some ways this is just like entertainment,
Speaker 3: Like it's like using curating a version of your life
Speaker 3: for entertainment value, right. And I've actually even heard the
Speaker 3: theory that at least some of this content is fetish content,
Speaker 3: like sexual fetish content that are not actually meant to
Speaker 3: be speaking to women at all or saying anything or
Speaker 3: making any kind of comment about women and what we
Speaker 3: should be doing with our lives or not doing with
Speaker 3: our lives. That it's meant to appeal to horny men
Speaker 3: and their submissive wife, sexual fantasies, and that these creators
Speaker 3: have just sort of found a way to make fetish
Speaker 3: content in a way that does not trigger you know,
Speaker 3: TikTok or whatever is not safe for work content sensors,
Speaker 3: and so like, if that's what's going on, like, more
Speaker 3: power to you, you know, do your thing, But we
Speaker 3: need to come at this content with a little bit
Speaker 3: of like media literacy and criticism, because people would then
Speaker 3: take that content and then use it to make some
Speaker 3: kind of a point or a statement or turn it
Speaker 3: into a way to understand our own lives. And it's like, well,
Speaker 3: why would you be doing that with fetish content, Like
Speaker 3: I don't think it's I don't think it's meant to
Speaker 3: help you understand how you should be living your life
Speaker 3: or making your choices.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be accidentally fetish, right, Well, there's a
Speaker 1: we passed over it.
Speaker 2: But there was a note you had in your outline
Speaker 2: that I was I thought was interesting. Was the sort
Speaker 2: of like cause playing a certain type of life. Right
Speaker 2: after the insurrection happened on January sixth, I wrote this
Speaker 2: really long article about like a lot of people there
Speaker 2: were couse playing, like the idea of Okay, I'm going
Speaker 2: to take back our country, and then they get into
Speaker 2: trouble and all of a sudden they're in court and
Speaker 2: they're like, oh God, well, like the consequence has come
Speaker 2: and it just falls apart. So it does have these
Speaker 2: sort of implications that I don't think people think about
Speaker 2: when people watch that and it gets in their head
Speaker 2: and they get this idea of like, oh, I can
Speaker 2: live that life, I can live off the land, or
Speaker 2: I can do all these things, but the reality is
Speaker 2: not there, and it can become a really toxic soup
Speaker 2: that infects all of us. And it sounds like, based
Speaker 2: on my experience and what you're saying, that we're getting
Speaker 2: a lot more of this content right now.
Speaker 3: That is such a good way to put it, and
Speaker 3: something that I didn't have. But I just want to
Speaker 3: say is that I want to make it clear that
Speaker 3: I think that everybody should be able to do what
Speaker 3: they want to do. Like my feminism is about letting
Speaker 3: people make choices for themselves. If that choice is to
Speaker 3: like rage bait other women online for their choices, I
Speaker 3: don't love that, but you know, in terms of if
Speaker 3: you want to stay at home or work, that should
Speaker 3: be your choice. However, one thing I will say is
Speaker 3: that I have definitely seen an uptick in people giving
Speaker 3: younger women the advice that they should just marry and
Speaker 3: start having kids really young. And I don't generally get
Speaker 3: down for one size fits all advice, but for someone
Speaker 3: really young to tell them that they should not know
Speaker 3: anything about having their own money or managing their own money,
Speaker 3: that they should not try to have any kind of
Speaker 3: employment history, should this marriage fall apart, should there something
Speaker 3: happen to their partner, whatever, I think that is really
Speaker 3: dangerous advice. Even if you're somebody who wants to get
Speaker 3: married young, wants to have kids young, wants to have
Speaker 3: a submissive traditional marriage, do all of those things, but
Speaker 3: make sure that you know how to take care of
Speaker 3: yourself and live your own life, because nothing in life
Speaker 3: is guaranteed, Like you could be happily married forever and
Speaker 3: get married very young and then have your partner die
Speaker 3: unexpectedly or something right. And so I think that we're
Speaker 3: giving young women advice based on a fantasy that does
Speaker 3: not come to fruition in reality. And I think you're right, Annie,
Speaker 3: that we are seeing more and more of this kind
Speaker 3: of content. And I just don't think we can talk
Speaker 3: about the rise of this kind of online treadwife content
Speaker 3: without looking at where we are as women right now,
Speaker 3: which is not great. You know, we've experienced this major
Speaker 3: rollback of our rights. The Journal of the American Medical
Speaker 3: Association actually put out a report just this week that
Speaker 3: found that since Roe fell, rape has led to an
Speaker 3: estimated fifty eight, nine hundred and seventy nine pregnancies in
Speaker 3: states that ban abortion without exception for rape. That is staggering.
Speaker 3: You know, we also are facing rising costs of things
Speaker 3: like groceries and housing. Bloomberg found that on average, US
Speaker 3: households want to spend an extra five two hundred dollars
Speaker 3: this year just to be able to enjoy the exact
Speaker 3: same standard of living that they did last year. Add
Speaker 3: to that, things like climate instability, political instability, all things
Speaker 3: that historically women have really for the burden of. And
Speaker 3: so I just can't help but think that we're seeing
Speaker 3: this rise in content that romanticizes and glorifies times when
Speaker 3: women had even less rights than we do right now
Speaker 3: is related to what's happening currently, which brings me to
Speaker 3: the last thing that I want people to really keep
Speaker 3: in mind when they encounter this content online. Is that
Speaker 3: I believe that tradwife content is responding, albeit oftentimes in
Speaker 3: a very distorted way, to very very real issues that
Speaker 3: we're facing as women. You know, we're kind of being
Speaker 3: served a crap sandwich right now from being honest with you, Like,
Speaker 3: we don't have paid leave, we don't have affordable childcare,
Speaker 3: we don't have any real social safety net. Women are
Speaker 3: burdened with more and more of the labor that it
Speaker 3: takes to keep a family stable with very little social
Speaker 3: or institutional help. And it just doesn't surprise me that
Speaker 3: we're seeing this online glorification of stay at home parenthood
Speaker 3: in a particular kind of way right now as a
Speaker 3: reaction to it. And I think that something that gets
Speaker 3: left out of the discourse is that the reasons that
Speaker 3: women are staying home are not necessarily like to deprogram
Speaker 3: their kids from government instruction or whatever. The A lot
Speaker 3: of times it's because childcare is so being expensive that
Speaker 3: it does not make financial sense to work outside of
Speaker 3: the home anymore. Or maybe on the flip side, both
Speaker 3: parents are working and they're just like figuring it out
Speaker 3: and just squeezing by a lot of people are just
Speaker 3: doing what they have to do based on financial circumstances
Speaker 3: that are not great, and so that is a very
Speaker 3: different thing from choosing to work because feminism and like
Speaker 3: woke society says that you have to. It is like
Speaker 3: some of these creators are creating a straw man for
Speaker 3: why women either work outside of the home or don't,
Speaker 3: and that's actually not a reflection of the reality that
Speaker 3: most parents are facing right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, especially during the beginning of the pandemic,
Speaker 2: there were so many articles about that of like women
Speaker 2: were being forced out of the workforce, like all of
Speaker 2: the scientific papers from women decreased. And I think it's
Speaker 2: interesting a lot of content like this immediately out the
Speaker 2: gate feels defensive for whatever lifestyle. And I could see
Speaker 2: it being defensive from like women judging you, But I
Speaker 2: can also see it being maybe trying to find like
Speaker 2: a reason that it's okay that you didn't have the choice,
Speaker 2: and so let me make this look prettier. And I no,
Speaker 2: I definitely like it, and this is definitely what I want,
Speaker 2: so I can. I think that totally makes sense, Bridget.
Speaker 1: And I think people are picking up on it because
Speaker 1: women are tired. I would just love someone to do it, like, yes,
Speaker 1: you go out and work and let me just chill here,
Speaker 1: which is not the truth at all, but the way
Speaker 1: they make it look like, while I sit here with
Speaker 1: these pretty little kids and tell them to go take
Speaker 1: a nap like would if you've been any childcare, you
Speaker 1: know that's not the thing. And everything's a mess and
Speaker 1: everything's a disaster, and cooking is hard, and being a
Speaker 1: stay at home mom is a time job in itself
Speaker 1: and deserves pay, which is the other conversation that they
Speaker 1: don't want to have chidwise, is that a lot of
Speaker 1: those stay at home moms who love it also are like,
Speaker 1: but we should be paid. Yeah, absolutely should.
Speaker 3: It's labor. I mean absolutely exactly. So I think you're right.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of these influencers can really oversimplify
Speaker 3: and glamorize what is ultimately a dynamic that does not
Speaker 3: allow for women to make the choices they want to make,
Speaker 3: Because being a stay at home mom because you cannot
Speaker 3: afford daycare is not the same thing as choosing it
Speaker 3: for yourself because it's what you want to do, and
Speaker 3: it's because you can't afford to do it. And I
Speaker 3: think that ultimately women deserve to have choices. You deserve
Speaker 3: to have better choices to be able to do what
Speaker 3: we want to do with our lives.
Speaker 2: Yep, women do women Yes, women, Yes, agreed, agreed one
Speaker 2: thousand percent. Well, thanks as always, Bridget. Again, I feel
Speaker 2: like we could go on and on and on, but
Speaker 2: we will let you go for now.
Speaker 1: Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 3: Well? You can listen to my podcast. There are no
Speaker 3: girls on the internet. If you want to hear my
Speaker 3: full conversation with Joe Piazza, we put it out as recently.
Speaker 3: She's hilarious. Definitely recommend. Can find me on Instagram at
Speaker 3: Bridget Marie in DC, or on TikTok at Bridget max Pods.
Speaker 2: Yes, and hopefully we'll be able to do some irl
Speaker 2: things and maybe we can see some.
Speaker 3: Of you all there. Listeners. Let's hope. So TVD stay tuned.
Speaker 2: Yes, stay tuned well, Thanks as always Bridget and listeners.
Speaker 2: If you would like to contact us, you can our
Speaker 2: email Stephania mom stuff atiheartmea dot com. You can find
Speaker 2: us on Twitter at most of the podcast, or on TikTok,
Speaker 2: which we don't post very often, but we might start
Speaker 2: posting more. It's Stia Graham at Stuff Mom Never Told You.
Speaker 2: We have a tea public store, and we have a
Speaker 2: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
Speaker 2: as always to our super producer Christina, executive producer Maya, and.
Speaker 1: Our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
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