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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media joining.

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Speaker 2: The six.

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Speaker 3: Six Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we

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Speaker 3: talk to the Internet's characters of the day and see

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Speaker 3: how their fifteen minutes of fame affected them and what

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Speaker 3: it says about the Internet and us. But this week

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Speaker 3: we're taking a bit of a side quest to answer

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Speaker 3: a question I've been asked quite a bit lately, and

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Speaker 3: I didn't know how to answer, why are there so

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Speaker 3: many Mormon women at the top of the social media

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Speaker 3: influencing pile After a recent episode, I saw this question

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Speaker 3: in the comments everywhere. I saw it on the sixteenth

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Speaker 3: minute Reddit board, which, by the way, someone made if

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Speaker 3: you're interested or have thoughts after episodes, And while it

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Speaker 3: did resonate with me that the subject of the episode

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Speaker 3: had been raised Mormon, I didn't want to touch that

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Speaker 3: within the episode for a couple reasons. First because they

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Speaker 3: never talk about Mormonism in their content and have generally

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Speaker 3: avoided questions about it. And second, I didn't have a

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Speaker 3: fucking clue what the answer to this question was, even

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Speaker 3: though I understand why it was being asked. So this

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Speaker 3: week we're going to attempt to answer that question in

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Speaker 3: a two part deep dive series. The second of which

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Speaker 3: will release on Thursday. Because to understand the root of

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Speaker 3: why Mormonism and present day Mormon mommy influencers are so successful,

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Speaker 3: you've got to understand where the overlaps in their interests

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Speaker 3: are and how the values of both of these communities

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Speaker 3: line up. So this week we're going to get all

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Speaker 3: up to speed on that, and on Thursday, Alissa Grenfell

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Speaker 3: will unpack how Mormon mobs have stayed on top of

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Speaker 3: internet influencing for the last twenty years. All right, let's

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Speaker 3: jump in and take a brief God, I really hope,

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Speaker 3: actually brief look into the history of the Mormon Church

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Speaker 3: in America, and I'll link to some additional resources in

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Speaker 3: the description of the episode. Okay, let's learn about Mormons.

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Speaker 3: Mormonism is a nineteenth century religion, formally founded by Joseph

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Speaker 3: Smith in eighteen thirty. He was born squarely in the

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Speaker 3: middle of the Second Great Religious Awakening in the US,

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Speaker 3: a religious revival that would strengthen movements like Methodism, Presbyterianism,

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Speaker 3: and the Baptist Church and would birth a lot more

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Speaker 3: and Joseph Smith was a kid of this era. He

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Speaker 3: grew up without a firm religion, but was curious to

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Speaker 3: try things. The Mormon Faith, often called the LDS or

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Speaker 3: Latter day Saints, came up shortly after the Shaker's movement.

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Speaker 3: The LDS came to prominence around the same time as

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Speaker 3: a number of Black church movements like the African Methodist

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Speaker 3: Episcopal Church. The LDS shares a little bit of DNA

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Speaker 3: with Spiritualism, and you could listen to my limited series

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Speaker 3: Ghost Church for more about the history of that. The

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Speaker 3: mid nineteenth century was a big time of religious change

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Speaker 3: and upheaval in the US, and after Mormonism took off,

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Speaker 3: new religions continued to pop up. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses

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Speaker 3: and Christian Scientists weren't far behind Mormonism, but very few

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Speaker 3: specific movements from this time still have the cultural hold

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Speaker 3: on America that Mormonism does. So Joseph Smith releases the

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Speaker 3: Book of Mormon and the religion is formalized in eighteen thirty,

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Speaker 3: but the religion's or story connects to two incidents from

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Speaker 3: the previous ten years. One was from eighteen twenty, when

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Speaker 3: Joseph was fourteen and asked both Jesus and God which

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Speaker 3: religion to follow, and was told by them follow none

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Speaker 3: of them. It is your job to prepare the world

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Speaker 3: for the second coming of Jesus. The other incident was

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Speaker 3: in eighteen twenty three, when a seventeen year old Smith

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Speaker 3: is said to have been visited by the angel Morone

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Speaker 3: to repeat this calling, and was also told that there

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Speaker 3: was an ancient record regarding God's dealings with the quote

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Speaker 3: unquote American Continent that he needed to translate with a

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Speaker 3: series of tools when he was a little older. After

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Speaker 3: the Angel Moroni's visit, Joseph Smith says that he retrieved

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Speaker 3: and divinely translated the text of the Book of Mormon,

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Speaker 3: which was inscribed on thin gold plates. There is a

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Speaker 3: bit of a wizard of Ozzi equality to the way

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Speaker 3: that this translation is dictated. There's magic stones. He's going

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Speaker 3: behind curtains, and sometimes he wouldn't even use the gold plates.

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Speaker 3: He would instead put a special stone in a hat,

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Speaker 3: then bury his face and said hat. But if you're

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Speaker 3: a prophet that he explained, the stone lights up within

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Speaker 3: the hat and then you just dictate from there. This

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Speaker 3: whole mystical plates thing also comes up in modern scientology,

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Speaker 3: where members in Florida are engraving the words of l

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Speaker 3: Ron Hubburn on to titanium plates as we speak. It

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Speaker 3: also harkens back to Helena Blovotsky's notion of the Acaciic

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Speaker 3: records of the late nineteenth century, which were said to

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Speaker 3: be indestructible tablets of the astral light. So there's that.

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Speaker 3: A lot of this reminds me of spiritualism, which in

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Speaker 3: its early days was composed of a lot of practical magic.

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Speaker 3: Great movie. And if you're not familiar with the origins

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Speaker 3: of the Book of Mormon, to be fair, most religious

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Speaker 3: origin stories are not significantly wilder than this. Spiritualism has

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Speaker 3: a similarly mystical origin story as for its contents. The

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Speaker 3: Book of Mormon details the plight of a group of

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Speaker 3: Jewish people in Jerusalem who escaped the city before it's

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Speaker 3: destroyed in six hundred BC. They build a boat, sail

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Speaker 3: it to the America, and soon become embroiled in a

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Speaker 3: conflict within the group between two groups called the Neophytes

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Speaker 3: and the Lamanites. One of the big changes made to

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Speaker 3: the Book of Mormon later on is that the Lamanites

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Speaker 3: were ancestors of all indigenous Americans. This language would later

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Speaker 3: be softened to say that they were among the ancestors

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Speaker 3: of some indigenous people. So a group of Jewish people

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Speaker 3: migrate to the Americas and become indigenous Americans. Okay. Jesus

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Speaker 3: is a huge part of Mormonism, and the Book of

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Speaker 3: Mormon details that after Jesus is resurrected in thirty three AD,

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Speaker 3: he goes to visit the Americas, where he is hailed

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Speaker 3: as the pale Prophet because yes, Mormon Jesus is white.

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Speaker 3: Some of their other beliefs, as expressed through Joseph Smith,

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Speaker 3: are that God is a flesh and blood being who

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Speaker 3: has a flesh and blood wife, his wife who lives

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Speaker 3: far away near a distant star. And God tells Joseph

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Speaker 3: Smith that we earthlings were brought into being to create

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Speaker 3: these nuclear families, to be closer to God, so that

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Speaker 3: one day we can live with God out of town

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Speaker 3: on the star where he lives. And to create these families.

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Speaker 3: You hear a lot of the classic signifiers of fundamentalist religions.

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Speaker 3: There is an emphasis on sacrifice, discipline, and suffering. There

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Speaker 3: are rigid gender roles. There's canonical homophobia. There's absurd racism

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Speaker 3: that was later scaled back in order to accommodate growth

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Speaker 3: in membership until a few decades ago. The Book of

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Speaker 3: Mormon described members as quote a white and delightsome people unquote.

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Speaker 3: To this day, there is still a tacit, don't ask,

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Speaker 3: don't tell policy within the church about queerness, and that's

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Speaker 3: an improvement from the mid twenty tens, when the children

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Speaker 3: of queer parents were still not allowed to be baptized

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Speaker 3: in the LDS. Anyways, in his time, Joseph Smith was,

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Speaker 3: for his account, declared a prophet by Jesus and genuinely

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Speaker 3: did face a great deal of persecution in the early

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Speaker 3: days where he was gathering followers in New York, he

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Speaker 3: was arrested and ejected from the state and took his

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Speaker 3: believers to Ohio to prepare for the Second Coming of

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Speaker 3: Jesus in Zion, a location TBD paradise where Smith envisioned

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Speaker 3: communities that would be governed by celestial laws as determined

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Speaker 3: by him. As it progresses, Mormonism grows further away from

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Speaker 3: traditional Christianity, and before you know it, the Mormons are

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Speaker 3: ousted from Ohio. Smith is tar and feathered. Before this,

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Speaker 3: the group then moves to Missouri, which is great because

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Speaker 3: the Lord just so happens to have told Joseph Smith

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Speaker 3: that that's actually where Zion is, but also where the

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Speaker 3: Garden of Eden was. So the Mormons start buying up

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Speaker 3: land in Missouri and to remind you of the era

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Speaker 3: of history we're in. This happened in eighteen thirty one,

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Speaker 3: just a year after the Indian Removal Act was passed

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Speaker 3: and brought about twenty years of brutal genocide of the

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Speaker 3: indigenous people. But once in Missouri, the Mormons are driven

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Speaker 3: out again, this time with increasing violence, and over the

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Speaker 3: next few years they head with Smith all over the Midwest,

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Speaker 3: where they're treated with similar hostility most places they go.

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Speaker 3: At one point, the governor of Missouri passed an extermination act.

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Speaker 3: Eventually they moved to Illinois, where they're permitted to set

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Speaker 3: up a city of their own called Nouvou basically Zion

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Speaker 3: two point zero, and it's here where Smith lightly militarizes

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Speaker 3: the group and increasingly sends out missionaries to continue to

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Speaker 3: grow the faith, and at the same time, Smith is

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Speaker 3: told by an angel to introduce one of the LDS's

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Speaker 3: most controversial policies, polygamy. And polygamy wasn't something that was

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Speaker 3: allowed to everyone in the faith at first, just the

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Speaker 3: powerful in the church, and during Smith's lifetime the practice

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Speaker 3: was kept fairly quiet. He married as many as forty women,

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Speaker 3: some of whom were under age. Women were expected to

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Speaker 3: remain in the home, have many children, and to this

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Speaker 3: day there is an early and intense emphasis on being

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Speaker 3: a wife and mother before all else. The end of

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Speaker 3: the line came for Joseph Smith in Illinois in eighteen

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Speaker 3: forty four, where non Mormon locals imprisoned and then killed

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Speaker 3: he and his brother. He's been hailed as an eternal

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Speaker 3: prophet in the Mormon Church ever since, and is still

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Speaker 3: an extremely prominent figure in the culture to this day.

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Speaker 3: And if you want this story told from the Mormon perspective,

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Speaker 3: there's a lot of LDS produced movies about it on

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Speaker 3: YouTube that are really well acted and actual.

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Speaker 4: Being from the unseen world, exerting all my strength to

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Speaker 4: call upon God, I saw a pillar.

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Speaker 3: Of line, all right, save it for the pulpit. After

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Speaker 3: Smith's death, a guy named Brigham Young takes over and

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Speaker 3: the Mormons leave Navoo in eighteen forty six, hiking pioneer

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Speaker 3: style to what is now present day Utah, where in

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Speaker 3: the next ten odd years they ignored the American government

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Speaker 3: and practice polygamy openly, that is, until this was going

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Speaker 3: to prevent Utah getting statehood. Polygamy would be in LDS

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Speaker 3: sanctioned practice until eighteen ninety, but it was technically discontinued

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Speaker 3: at that point to avoid clashing with existing laws around bigamy.

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Speaker 3: Pass in the eighteen sixties and seventies. However, a lot

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Speaker 3: of Mormons continued to practice polygamy quietly. In today's Mormon marriages,

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Speaker 3: more traditional fundamentalist monogamy is certainly the norm, and there's

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Speaker 3: a long complicated history with the Mormons, Utah and indigenous people, because,

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Speaker 3: unlike most accounts of a new American colony being founded,

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Speaker 3: there were Native Americans in Utah when they arrived, and

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Speaker 3: under Brigham Young LDS members are encouraged to purchase Native

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Speaker 3: children as slaves and raise them in their homes with

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Speaker 3: the hopes of assimilating them to the Mormon faith. It's

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Speaker 3: not too dissimilar from the residential schools that separated Native

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Speaker 3: families and erase their culture, often killing children all the

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Speaker 3: way into the nineteen nineties. Today, there is still a

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Speaker 3: very high number of Mormons in Utah, hovering somewhere around

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Speaker 3: forty percent In twenty twenty three. It's where Brigham Young

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Speaker 3: University is and where are some of the religion's most

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Speaker 3: prominent influencers live today. Ever heard of the Real Housewives

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Speaker 3: of Salt Lake City?

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Speaker 5: Salt Lake City, Utah, is known for its magnificent mountains

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Speaker 5: and world.

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Speaker 6: Class casetos, but what Salt Lake City is most known

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Speaker 6: for is the Mormon Church.

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Speaker 3: A quick lesson on how to be a good Mormon.

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Speaker 3: Don't drink, don't swear, treat your body like a temple.

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Speaker 3: To be Mormon, we are taught honesty and integrity, and

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Speaker 3: most importantly, to watch for sue you're gonna go with

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Speaker 3: Mary your grandfather, Well, there you go. On the other

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Speaker 3: end of that, about a third of people raised in

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Speaker 3: the LDS today end up leaving the religion, as opposed

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Speaker 3: to the ninety five percent retention rate of the late

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Speaker 3: nineteen eighties. So it's important to note the Internet age

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Speaker 3: has made a difference in how Mormonism is perceived by

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Speaker 3: its own members. And if you're Mormon or ex Mormon,

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Speaker 3: you know that I am barely scratching the surface here.

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Speaker 3: It's an extremely complicated religion that's been around for nearly

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Speaker 3: two hundred years. Things I didn't mention include rituals, observances,

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Speaker 3: restrictive religious underwear, and for the very devout missions, which

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Speaker 3: are eighteen to twenty four month assignments where LDS officials

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Speaker 3: determine a location for a young person to go and

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Speaker 3: their job is to recruit people into the church. As

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Speaker 3: it pertains to today's episode, it's important to note that

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Speaker 3: Mormonism is a fundamentalist religion that has been historically hostile

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Speaker 3: to women, to queer people, and to anyone who isn't white.

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Speaker 3: What is also important is that the Mormon Church has

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Speaker 3: a shitload of money, A shitload I had no idea.

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Speaker 3: At present, the Mormon churches net worth is estimated to

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Speaker 3: be two hundred and sixty five billion dollars. For context,

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Speaker 3: Disney is valued at one hundred and sixty one billion dollars.

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Speaker 3: Much of this has to do with mandatory tithing, where

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Speaker 3: church members are required to give ten percent of their

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Speaker 3: income back to the LDS. As for pop culture, Mormonism

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Speaker 3: has been portrayed negatively a lot. Think HBO show Bis

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Speaker 3: Love and still running Broadway musical The Book of Mormon,

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Speaker 3: which of course the LDS condemned.

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Speaker 5: Hello, my Name is Elder Price, and I would like

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Speaker 5: to share with you the most amazing book.

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Speaker 3: Hello, my name is Elder Grant.

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Speaker 5: It's a book about America a long, long time ago.

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Speaker 3: It has well, I wonder why they didn't like that.

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Speaker 3: But the LDS has also produced its fair share of

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Speaker 3: successful entertainment acts. There no scientology, but Mitt Romney, David Archiletta,

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Speaker 3: Donnie and Marie Osmond and Gladys Knight is still a

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Speaker 3: pretty impressive roster. The aquabats are Mormon? Really think about that?

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Speaker 3: And of course a ton of currently successful influencers more

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Speaker 3: when we come back. The prevalence of Mormon influencers has

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Speaker 3: been an increasing point of speculation in the last few months,

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Speaker 3: mostly in connection to two stories that have broken through

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Speaker 3: to the mainstream. The first story, as I write this,

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Speaker 3: a new Hulu reality show that is about to debut

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Speaker 3: about Mormon wife influencers.

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Speaker 1: I love the Mormon Church, but there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of rules that we have to follow. We were raised

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Speaker 1: to be these housewives for the men, serving their every desires.

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Speaker 1: Have kids by the time you're twenty one or in

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Speaker 1: my case at sixteen, Well, I'm like this.

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Speaker 2: We are trying to change the stigma of gender roles

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Speaker 2: in the Mormon culture.

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Speaker 3: The central characters of this show are existing successful Mormon

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Speaker 3: mommy TikTokers, and if the comments on virtually every video

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Speaker 3: of these women is to be believed, they are very

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Speaker 3: controversial within the Latter day Saint community, and most would

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Speaker 3: say they do not represent Mormonism in spite of the

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Speaker 3: fact that they live in Salt Lake City, where the

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Speaker 3: LDS is headquartered. Most of them grew up Mormon, and

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Speaker 3: part of why they became so popular on TikTok was

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Speaker 3: because they were referencing the tenants and values of the church.

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Speaker 7: Have you talked to your bishop or the church about anything? No?

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Speaker 1: No, how come I don't know? Because like what if

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Speaker 1: they're going to like excommunicate me.

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Speaker 3: This content got really popular under the hashtag mom talk

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Speaker 3: on TikTok in the early twenty twenties, and while this

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Speaker 3: content promotes fundamentalist values around gender rules, due to their popularity,

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Speaker 3: the mom talkers were also becoming primary breadwinners for their family.

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Speaker 3: The women of mom Talk look very modern. They're usually

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Speaker 3: wearing Kardashian adjacent athleteture, but the reason they have a

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Speaker 3: TV show, in my opinion, is not because they blew

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Speaker 3: up on TikTok or even really because they're Mormon. It's

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Speaker 3: because they were perceived as being bad at being Mormon.

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Speaker 3: In two to mom Talk influencer Taylor, Frankie Paul announced

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Speaker 3: that she and her husband would be getting a divorce

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Speaker 3: because of her violation of the terms of their soft

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Speaker 3: swinging within their Mormon friend group. And soft swinging is

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Speaker 3: not sanctioned by the LDS in no small part because

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Speaker 3: that might actually be fun for women.

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Speaker 1: Soft swinging, again, is when you like, just hug up,

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Speaker 1: but you don't go.

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Speaker 5: All the way.

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Speaker 3: It's a huge source of controversy among very online Mormons,

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Speaker 3: if the comment section is to be believed, and it's

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Speaker 3: not hard to understand why. Add this to the fact

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Speaker 3: that mom talkers were regularly breaking core tenants of the faith.

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Speaker 3: They did things like drink caffeine, they didn't wear their

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Speaker 3: religious garments beneath their clothes all the time. This soft

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Speaker 3: swinging incident might cause a scandal in your average suburban community,

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Speaker 3: but Paul's disclosure that there were multiple Mormon couples involved

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Speaker 3: caused to stir within the community. So presented with this

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Speaker 3: public scandal and subsequent high profile influencer's decision to remain

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Speaker 3: within the church. Is this bad for the Mormon pr

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Speaker 3: team or is all press good press? They haven't been

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Speaker 3: excommunicated or anything like that. But the Mormon Church has

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Speaker 3: issued the rare condemnation of this upcoming Hulu show. And

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Speaker 3: this is rare because the LDS hasn't commented on how

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Speaker 3: Mormons are portrayed in pop culture in a while. But

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Speaker 3: when the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives trailer dropped, the

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Speaker 3: LDS released the following statement.

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Speaker 5: The portrayal is a gross misrepresentation that could have real

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Speaker 5: life consequences for people of faith. A statement by the

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Speaker 5: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints reads it

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Speaker 5: depicts lifestyles and practices blatantly inconsistent with the teachings of

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Speaker 5: the Church and irresponsibly mischaracterizes the safety and conduct of

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Speaker 5: our volunteer missionaries. We understand the fascinations some in the

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Speaker 5: media have with the church, but regret that portrayals often

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Speaker 5: rely on sensationalism and inaccuracies that do not fairly and

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Speaker 5: fully reflect the lives of our church members or these

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Speaker 5: sacred beliefs that they hold.

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Speaker 3: Dear, there are a lot of Mormon rituals that aren't

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Speaker 3: often referenced in this kind of content, but is addressed

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Speaker 3: a lot in ex Mormon content. There is rituals like

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Speaker 3: the washing and anointing. There's endowment ceremonies and esthetics that

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Speaker 3: are all but directly pulled from Joseph Smith's interactions with

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Speaker 3: the American Freemasons. But whether the LDS likes it or not,

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Speaker 3: this is the latest step that actively Mormon influencers have

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Speaker 3: made into mainstream culture. Again, I haven't seen an episode

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Speaker 3: of this show yet, but it looks like the wives

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Speaker 3: are going to be centered in the story here, which

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Speaker 3: would have been unheard of in Mormonism at one time.

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Speaker 3: But what I've learned is that part of why Mormon

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Speaker 3: influencers are more successful than other trad wife Okay, let's

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Speaker 3: define tradwife.

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Speaker 5: A trad wife is a woman who believes in and

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Speaker 5: pctices traditional gender roles and marriages. Some may choose to

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Speaker 5: take a homemaking role within their marriage, and others leave

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Speaker 5: their careers to focus on meeting their families' needs in

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Speaker 5: the home.

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Speaker 3: Part of why Mormon influencers are more successful than other

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Speaker 3: tradwife influencers of other religions is because the Mormon Church

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Speaker 3: has been unusually good at adapting to the Internet and

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Speaker 3: always has been. That's not the only reason, but we'll

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Speaker 3: get there. If you've managed to make it to Fall

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty four without having the word tradwife shoved in

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Speaker 3: your face, congratulations and sorry, because I am going to

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Speaker 3: tell you what it is. Tradwife content is a social

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Speaker 3: media trend from about the last half decade where women

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Speaker 3: create lifestyle content and make lifestyle changes, the more closely

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Speaker 3: aligned with traditional gender roles, with an emphasis on the

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Speaker 3: beauty of a return to old time values. So TikTok's

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Speaker 3: about making meals from scratch for five hours, defining oneself

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Speaker 3: primarily as a wife and a mother, rejecting or abandoning

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Speaker 3: a career outside the home, and being generally deferential to

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Speaker 3: the patriarch, whether that's a husband or father or priest.

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Speaker 3: Not all tradwives are Mormons hashtag not all tradwives, not

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Speaker 3: even close. And I'm not going to tackle the topic

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Speaker 3: of tradwive content wholesale in this episode. What you need

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Speaker 3: to know is the term tradwife shouldn't be conflated with

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Speaker 3: staying at home moms because while tradwife creators are moms

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Speaker 3: and at home with the children. Making tradwife content is,

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Speaker 3: for my money, a separate job from the actual parenting,

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Speaker 3: because being a stay at home parent is a job,

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Speaker 3: although most cultures are not conditioned to view that labor

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Speaker 3: as valid. Tradwife content looks beautiful, high on aesthetic and

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Speaker 3: low on practicality, showing only the esthetically pleasing parts of

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Speaker 3: the nuclear family and rarely any of the struggle or mess.

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Speaker 3: There's a sense of self surveillance to this content, an

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Speaker 3: appearance of perfection in the home and family that's projected

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Speaker 3: to the public, and often visual signifiers that harken back

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Speaker 3: to mid twentieth century America. So, if this makes sense,

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Speaker 3: tradwives don't look like stay at home moms. They look

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Speaker 3: like the advertisements of stay at home moms. And so

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Speaker 3: much of what makes their content appealing is that an

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Speaker 3: incredibly difficult lifestyle to achieve is made to seem easy, attractive,

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Speaker 3: and morally correct. Because if you're making lifestyle content of

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Speaker 3: any kind, whether you personally or morally endorse the lifestyle,

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Speaker 3: you're working in sales. I hate to break it to you,

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Speaker 3: how many hot dogs have I sold by accident incalculable,

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Speaker 3: just not. The trad live space is predominantly white, but

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Speaker 3: possibly more diverse than you might expect. There is an

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Speaker 3: active Black trat life community who, according to a Refinery

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Speaker 3: twenty nine piece by Nyla Burton in late twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 3: believe that quote traditional marriage is the key to Black

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Speaker 3: women's liberation from being overworked, economic insecurity, and the stress

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Speaker 3: of trying to survive in a world hostile to our

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Speaker 3: survival and existence. Cradwife content is popular across a lot

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Speaker 3: of religions, but what's consistent across these communities is a

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Speaker 3: feeling of performance, and this aesthetic of either mid century

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Speaker 3: housewives or cottage core. In my opinion, there's very little

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Speaker 3: intimacy to these posts, in spite of the fact that

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Speaker 3: we're seeing inside of a family's home and usually seeing

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Speaker 3: their children, who are, make no mistake, a part of

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Speaker 3: the business model. While I totally get why the content

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Speaker 3: is so appealing, it does feel like a performance, and

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Speaker 3: a very effective one. I mean, I'm like a militant feminist,

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Speaker 3: and I would be lying if I said I hadn't

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Speaker 3: seen a few trildwife posts that made me feel like

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Speaker 3: I was living my life the wrong way, but neutral statement.

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Speaker 3: These posts are a performance.

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Speaker 4: Think of it like this.

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Speaker 3: The Donna Reed Show very effectively sold the idea of

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Speaker 3: Donna Red as a nuclear housewife and mother that lived

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Speaker 3: in this effortless way, and in reality was a television

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Speaker 3: show that was produced by its star, and that the

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Speaker 3: real Donna Reed was a multi hyphenic creative and a

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Speaker 3: TV pioneer who was selling the idea of this housewife

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Speaker 3: rather than actually living that life herself. Well, would you say,

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Speaker 3: missus Johnson, that Donna worked hard in college?

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Speaker 7: She worked hard up at seven in the morning, all

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Speaker 7: day in school and jobs between classes to earn a

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Speaker 7: little extra money, and then home to earn a roman

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Speaker 7: board to help me cooking dishes and a little ironing,

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Speaker 7: and men stud until midnight. I don't think she ever

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Speaker 7: had more than six hours.

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Speaker 3: To me from a social media perspective, the trad life

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Speaker 3: phenomenon has a lot in common with a pattern that

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Speaker 3: we talk about on this show all the time. A

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Speaker 3: lot of the reason we're still talking about this content

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Speaker 3: is because there's been so much backlash and outrage toward

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Speaker 3: it since it became popular in the early twenty twenties.

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Speaker 3: Left leaning feminists who believe that the tradwife trend hearkens

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Speaker 3: a dangerous period of regression as the American people's right

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Speaker 3: to bodily autonomy slowly and surely slips into the very

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Speaker 3: mid century timeframe that tradwives so often portray. And this

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Speaker 3: outrage does help to fuel the success of the influencers,

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Speaker 3: because yes, they have millions of followers, but the snart

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Speaker 3: reddit boards and hate comments saying that tradwives are self

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Speaker 3: hating and glamorizing oppression have engagement in the hundreds of

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Speaker 3: thousands as well. And as far as the algorithm is concerned,

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Speaker 3: engagement is engagement, whether it's positive or negative. You're remind

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Speaker 3: finds me a lot of friend of the pod Max

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Speaker 3: Fisher's book A Chaos Machine, in which he fully illustrates

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Speaker 3: the ways in which modern algorithms are designed to enrage.

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Speaker 3: That's why we have so many social media stories that

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Speaker 3: are rooted in backlash and then backlash to the backlash.

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Speaker 3: Prod wife narratives fall neatly into this pattern because for

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Speaker 3: every bit of praise, there's an essay that's written in

433
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 3: stark disagreement. So why is this content so popular in

434
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 3: the last few years friend of the pod Brigid Todd

435
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:33,359
Speaker 3: of there are no girls on the internet sets.

436
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:38,159
Speaker 8: During uncertain times, people sell easy solutions because our brains

437
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 8: in times of precarity crave simple solutions. But often those comforting,

438
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 8: simple solutions are just placeholders for the reality, which is

439
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 8: that the problem is actually systemic and institutional. You're not

440
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 8: going to dismantle it in your specific nuclear household and family.

441
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:55,920
Speaker 8: If you're only looking within your own family, you're not

442
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,360
Speaker 8: looking hard enough at the larger issues at play.

443
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 3: While these as have millions upon millions of followers who

444
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:07,160
Speaker 3: view the content as soothing or aspirational, there are plenty

445
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 3: of modern moms who were completely fucking baffled by it.

446
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 3: Because I've engaged with so much of this content that

447
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 3: my algorithm will never bounce back, I feel comfortable saying

448
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 3: that tradwife content is often a lot about subtext, right

449
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 3: projecting a message without explicitly stating it. Maybe the fifties

450
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 3: were a great time for women, Maybe we need to

451
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 3: bring it back, but there's a sense of encouraging to

452
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 3: submit to the status quo, a status quo that existed

453
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:38,119
Speaker 3: before a lot of necessary civil rights were fought for,

454
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:43,400
Speaker 3: But online now tradwives man. But let's bring it back

455
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,919
Speaker 3: to the Mormon's side of this content specifically, because as

456
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 3: we're trying to get to the bottom of Mormons have

457
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:53,160
Speaker 3: found a lot of success in this space. Mom Talkers

458
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 3: are far from the only prominent Mormon content creators dominating

459
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 3: social media today. The most popular, and so by extension,

460
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:05,439
Speaker 3: the most embroiled in controversy is the second major Mormon

461
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:12,639
Speaker 3: influencer story of the summer, Ballerina Farm. More when we

462
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:29,399
Speaker 3: come back, welcome back to sixteenth minute. The more I

463
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,359
Speaker 3: learned about tradwives, the more it became obvious that they

464
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:35,720
Speaker 3: developed in response to the capitalism is for girls to

465
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 3: actually slay rhetoric of the mid twenty tens. But like,

466
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 3: is it that different when you're a tradwife entrepreneur? It

467
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 3: kind of seems like you're doing the same thing, but

468
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 3: the thing that you're selling is that you're not actually

469
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,959
Speaker 3: doing the thing that I'm watching you doing. And when

470
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:55,479
Speaker 3: we left off, we were talking about the most famous

471
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 3: Mormon influencer on the scene today, Ballerina Farm. Where do

472
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 3: we again? All my male listeners are getting like a

473
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 3: noseblade Mallerina Farm is the user name for a Mormon

474
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 3: woman named Hannah Neielman, whose follower count on Instagram currently

475
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,560
Speaker 3: sits at ten million. She was raised in the LDS

476
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 3: and was a tremendously talented ballerina who got into and

477
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 3: graduated from Juilliard. And she cited over and over that

478
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 3: she was the first undergrad in modern history to be

479
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 3: pregnant while still at Juilliard because while there she got

480
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 3: married to fellow Mormon Daniel Nielman in twenty eleven, the

481
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 3: year before she graduated.

482
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 9: So both the.

483
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 3: Neielmans grew up in big, devout Utah Mormon families. Hannah

484
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:40,959
Speaker 3: was one of nine, Daniel was one of ten. They

485
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 3: got engaged after only three weeks, and while Hannah was

486
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 3: still in college, she also started competing in beauty pageants.

487
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 3: She started with Miss New York and then re entered

488
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 3: the space after getting married and having kids, because Hannah

489
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 3: does not stay a ballerina. After graduation, Hannah and Daniel

490
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 3: moved to England for a semester at Cambridge, then Utah

491
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 3: so Daniel could finish his degree at Brigham Young University,

492
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 3: and then to Brazil, where Daniel worked as the director

493
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 3: of his father's security company for a few years, because

494
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 3: it must be said financially, these are incredibly privileged people.

495
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 3: Daniel's father founded Jet Blue. Dude, They've got money, and

496
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 3: he's so Mormon that he worked on Mitt Romney's failed

497
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 3: presidential campaign in twenty twelve. But Daniel's dream is to

498
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 3: move back to Utah and live on a farm, and

499
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 3: they finally do so in twenty seventeen, buying the eponymous

500
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 3: Ballerina Farm in twenty eighteen. By the time they moved

501
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 3: on to the three hundred and twenty eight acre farm,

502
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 3: they had four kids, and when they moved onto the farm,

503
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 3: Hannah Nielman's online brand as a Mormon wife was well established,

504
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 3: but significantly less successful. Hannah started her social media journey

505
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 3: as a mom influencer on a blog called We Took

506
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 3: the Train in early twenty thirteen, shortly after the birth

507
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 3: of her first child, Henry, and her college graduation. And

508
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 3: it's interesting that she in with a completely different era

509
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 3: of successful Mormon online influencers because in the two thousands

510
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 3: into the early twenty tens, Mormon mommy blogs were a thing.

511
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,160
Speaker 3: The Mormon mommy blogger pipeline was popular for as long

512
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 3: as blogs were popular and mommy bloggers in general have

513
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 3: always enjoyed massive success and usually adapt to new social

514
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 3: media platforms pretty easily. I'd recommend Sarah Peterson's book mom

515
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 3: Fluenced for more on this topic because mommy blogging was

516
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 3: popular from the very dawn of social media, but it

517
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 3: was very different than the tradwive content that we see today.

518
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 3: There was a lot more emphasis on writing over visuals,

519
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 3: and the writing tended to be more confessional. Writer Catherine

520
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 3: Jeezer Morton has been covering this space for a long time.

521
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 3: I'm quoting here from a New York Times column called

522
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 3: Did Moms Exist Before Social Media? From twenty twenty, where

523
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 3: she mentions how Mormon women entering the mommy blog space

524
00:31:57,840 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 3: changed it.

525
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 8: To overlook the influence of Mormon and other Christian mommy

526
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 8: bloggers on this ship would be a huge oversight. Mormon

527
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 8: mommy bloggers in particular, were enormously influential in establishing the

528
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 8: esthetic and tone that came to characterize influencer era online motherhood.

529
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 8: Mormonism encourages the careful documentation of family life, and Mormon

530
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 8: mothers were among blogging's earliest and most enthusiastic adopters. Unlike

531
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 8: the confessional. Early mommy blogs, Mormon mother's blogs broadcast a

532
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 8: clean and chipper vision of motherhood, replete with DIY crafting

533
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 8: projects and coordinated family photoshoots. Many of the most successful

534
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 8: Mormon bloggers from the mid auts, like Amber Phillerup Clark,

535
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 8: and Naomi Davis, went on to become mainstream lifestyle bloggers,

536
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 8: and although their Mormon faith is no secret, its prominence

537
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 8: were seated as the years passed.

538
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 3: Early successful Mormon or ex Mormon mommy bloggers included how

539
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 3: the Armstrong of Deucey, Amber Phillarup Davis, and love Taza

540
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 3: aka Naomi Davis. Around this same time, successful family bloggers

541
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 3: like Dade Carl and his family only become really popular

542
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 3: on YouTube and the late oughts into the early twenty tens.

543
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 3: In fact, Carl's child, Brock, was considered to be the

544
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 3: first Truman baby, as in The Truman Show, as in

545
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 3: a child whose life was documented from moment one to

546
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 3: a massive social media audience. Scary, This hyper vulnerable mommy

547
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 3: blog stuff is considered pretty old school now. At the time,

548
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 3: Mormon mommy bloggers were a part of the coined blogger

549
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 3: nackle community, with personalities like Stephanie Nielsen of the Nine

550
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 3: Dialogues and see Jane Kendrick of c Jane Enjoyett serving

551
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 3: as early examples for their crossover appeal outside of the religion.

552
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 3: There was even an award system developed for successful blogger

553
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 3: Nacle publications called the Niblets. This went from twenty five

554
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 3: to twenty seventeen, and bloggers who were particularly good at

555
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 3: spreading Mormon values online got a trophy. And I don't

556
00:33:57,280 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 3: know if you feel the same way, but I was

557
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 3: really surprised because because I thought of Mormon culture as

558
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 3: so conservative in its gender roles that actively encouraging women

559
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 3: to speak at all would be a non starter. But

560
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 3: that's not true at all, if talks given by Mormon

561
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 3: leaders during the early blogging era are to be believed.

562
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 3: These blogs, blogs, et cetera were viewed to be an

563
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 3: extension of the Mormon mission and a way to get

564
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 3: the word out. I'm pulling this from an LDS news

565
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 3: post from two thousand and seven.

566
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 5: Apostle urges students to use new media. Two hundred graduating

567
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 5: students at Brigham Young University, Hawaii were urged today to

568
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 5: use the Internet, including blogs and other forms of new

569
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 5: media to contribute to a national conversation about the Church

570
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:48,360
Speaker 5: of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Elder M Russell Ballard,

571
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 5: an apostle in the church, told the mostly Mormon student

572
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 5: body that conversations about the church would take place whether

573
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 5: or not church members decided to participate in them. We

574
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 5: cannot stand on in the sidelines while others, including our critics,

575
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,280
Speaker 5: attempt to define what the church teaches.

576
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:06,120
Speaker 2: He said.

577
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 5: While some conversations have audiences in the thousands or even millions,

578
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:17,359
Speaker 5: most are much much smaller, but all conversations have an

579
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 5: impact on those who participate in them. Perceptions of the

580
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 5: Church are established one conversation at a time. Church leaders

581
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 5: have publicly expressed concern that while much of the recent

582
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:32,720
Speaker 5: extensive news reporting on the church has been balanced and accurate,

583
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 5: some has been trivial, distorted, or without context. Elder Ballard

584
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 5: said there were too many conversations going on about the

585
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 5: church for church representatives to respond to each individually, and

586
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:51,760
Speaker 5: that church leaders can't answer every question, satisfy every inquiry,

587
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:56,320
Speaker 5: and respond to every inaccuracy that exists. He said students

588
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 5: should consider sharing their views on blogs, responding to anna

589
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 5: line news reports, and using the new media in other ways,

590
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 5: but he cautioned against arguing with others about their beliefs.

591
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 5: There is no need to become defensive or belligerent, he said.

592
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 3: This feels like a skeleton key to a lot of

593
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 3: Mormon content to why Mormons are so online, whether they

594
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 3: are overtly discussing their religion or not. Modern Mormon missionaries

595
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 3: will very often vlog their experiences. This is from a

596
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,399
Speaker 3: missionary named Grayson Hardman from last year.

597
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,399
Speaker 5: All right, we're all proselyting through it in the heat.

598
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 5: We just had our very first contact really of the

599
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 5: day in person. What happens not interesting.

600
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 3: Posting is all but baked into the religion in the

601
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 3: modern day, probably in a sour dough that took five

602
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,760
Speaker 3: hours to make. By the time Mormon tradwives and mommy

603
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 3: bloggers become mainstream famous, they're not wearing their religion on

604
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 3: their sleeve as much. It's more of a soft pitch.

605
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 3: You usually find out their Mormon whereas if you scroll

606
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 3: all the way down to the beginning of their profile,

607
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 3: they often used to be more overt about the values

608
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:13,359
Speaker 3: they held. But again, to connect it back to that piece,

609
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:16,760
Speaker 3: this heating to a spouse a vision of an ideal

610
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 3: Mormon family without defensiveness or belligerence. It kind of makes sense. Okay,

611
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 3: back to Ballerina Farm. Because Hannah Nielman starts in the

612
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 3: waning days of mommy blogging, she kind of straddles different

613
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 3: eras of social media and Mormons online. She starts mommy

614
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 3: blogging on we took the Train in the twenty tens,

615
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 3: at the end of the mommy blogging trend, and then

616
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 3: is at the forefront of the Instagram and TikTok Mormon

617
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 3: mommy blogs, which are wildly different in tone. They're not

618
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:48,239
Speaker 3: at all confessional and are far more defined by their

619
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:52,799
Speaker 3: esthetic and this sense of ferial certainty. So to give

620
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,439
Speaker 3: you an idea of how her narrative voice shifts, here's

621
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 3: an example of how Hannah would speak in her early

622
00:37:58,160 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 3: blogging days in twenty thirteen.

623
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:02,800
Speaker 8: I've been thinking a lot lately about my life and

624
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 8: just how grateful I really am that I am right

625
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:10,319
Speaker 8: here right now. Two people. One was a past pageant coach,

626
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 8: the other a fellow dancer I want to dance with.

627
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:15,759
Speaker 8: Ask me if I was really happy to have given

628
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 8: up those dreams for where I am today.

629
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 3: Ha, I am so happy.

630
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 8: I am so at peace. I have a husband who

631
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:25,400
Speaker 8: is mine forever.

632
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 3: Together.

633
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 8: We have a beautiful baby boy who is full of

634
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 8: purity and joy. I get to dance and teach as

635
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 8: much as possible, and I love that, of course, but

636
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 8: there is nothing more rewarding than seeing my family here

637
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 8: right now. I really feel like the luckiest girl in

638
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 8: the world. So yep, I am happy. Goal for the

639
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:50,800
Speaker 8: week only eat out once.

640
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 3: It's still praising the lifestyle, but even acknowledging her own

641
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 3: insecurity or the doubt that people in her life had

642
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 3: about her religion, is not something you would see today.

643
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 3: In these early posts, you can really feel Hannah grappling

644
00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:08,640
Speaker 3: with I love dance, but I love my husband and motherhood.

645
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:11,799
Speaker 3: Am I doing the right thing? She also talks about

646
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:15,720
Speaker 3: going to McDonald's and loving it, something that wildly differs

647
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 3: from her current dance as a tradwive slash farmed table influencer.

648
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 3: In these early days, she's working part time teaching dance

649
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 3: while raising her eldest son, trying to sort of find

650
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 3: a balance between traditional values and what her passions are.

651
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 3: This is not at all what Ballerina Farm content sounds like.

652
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 3: Here's a post from this year.

653
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,879
Speaker 9: Today, we're making some Turkish eggs. So I started off

654
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 9: by straining some of Daniel's homemade yogurt in a cheesecloth

655
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:47,320
Speaker 9: and hung that so it could get a bit thicker.

656
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 9: Can I wash my butter? I also like to run

657
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,319
Speaker 9: under some cold water to get it really nice and washed.

658
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 3: So Hannah starts as a completely different kind of Mormon influencer.

659
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 3: When I started looking looking for an answer to this

660
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:03,880
Speaker 3: question why there are so many Mormon women that are

661
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 3: successful online, I was seeing the same answer over and over. Well,

662
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:10,839
Speaker 3: it's because Mormon women are taught to journal a lot.

663
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 3: The Instagram and TikTok content on the farm is wildly successful,

664
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 3: and Hannah and Daniel continue to grow their family that

665
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 3: now consists of eight children, and they quickly expand this

666
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 3: success to start a series of businesses. They start a

667
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:29,359
Speaker 3: beef farm, they start a lifestyle brand, and Hannah goes

668
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:33,800
Speaker 3: from a middling blogger to a leading TikTok and Instagram creator,

669
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:37,320
Speaker 3: racking up millions of views on her videos of making

670
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 3: meals from scratch, talking about the advantages of her farm

671
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 3: to table and family first lifestyle, and doing it all

672
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,919
Speaker 3: in full makeup. And these cottage core flowy dresses. There's

673
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 3: also quiet advertisements in Ballerina Farm content for most of

674
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 3: her videos. You can find affiliate codes on her website

675
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 3: for basically anything you saw her use in the course

676
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:01,239
Speaker 3: of the video. In twenty two every One, Hannah had

677
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 3: two hundred thousand Instagram followers. Now she has ten million.

678
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 3: So the days where Hannah was teaching Dan's part time

679
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 3: are long gone. Now she's a farmer who isn't just

680
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 3: running a business and making meals. And as these responsibilities

681
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:19,879
Speaker 3: pile up, viewers began to question how she was doing

682
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 3: all of this, like, surely someone is helping with the

683
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:26,919
Speaker 3: kids and the business, right because the kids are homeschooled

684
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 3: and the meals took hours, and Hannah appeared to be

685
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:34,040
Speaker 3: making content and co running multiple businesses while also upholding

686
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 3: conservative values. That's a lot of jobs, but we're not

687
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 3: really allowed behind the curtain. Part of the content's appeal

688
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 3: is that Hannah made this all look so easy, and

689
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 3: as she was doing all of this, she continued to

690
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,960
Speaker 3: compete in the occasional pageant, winning the title of missus

691
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 3: America in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty three.

692
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:58,000
Speaker 10: What You're all Flipping out about is her looking smoke

693
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 10: and hot and participating in miss world right after she

694
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 10: gave birth. I mean, like, I think the placenta probably

695
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 10: hadn't even come out when she was putting on her

696
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 10: ball gown.

697
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:12,000
Speaker 3: I mean she is. That was quick.

698
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 10: That was a quick turnaround. So she's in your head

699
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 10: about that. But why was she not in your head before?

700
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:20,719
Speaker 10: I think you guys just haven't been following her closely enough.

701
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 3: She's projecting the super mom image right. It's unclear to

702
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:27,880
Speaker 3: viewers how it's attained, and you get the feeling that

703
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:31,319
Speaker 3: it either requires a lot of personal sacrifice, a lot

704
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,720
Speaker 3: of other people working just outside the frame, or both,

705
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 3: because the alternative is, well, what the fuck is wrong

706
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 3: with me? But this virtuousness, this emphasis on disciplining the body,

707
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 3: the emphasis that ball gowns aside my marriage and family

708
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 3: are the most important thing. That's a solid ad for Mormonism.

709
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 3: And even so the Ballerina farm family doesn't often reference

710
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 3: the Mormon Church online, it's implied they get ready for

711
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 3: church on camera. There's extreme emphasis placed on the gender

712
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 3: roles in nuclear families. But for someone who comes across

713
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:09,000
Speaker 3: their content by chance, there's nothing that screams, these are

714
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 3: Mormons unless you know what to look for in terms

715
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 3: of home decor, and this feels by design. You don't

716
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,840
Speaker 3: build an empire with the ninth most popular religion in

717
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:22,800
Speaker 3: the US according to Pew research, behind dominant Protestant and

718
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 3: Catholic practices, behind Judaism, and behind other subcategories like atheist,

719
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:32,799
Speaker 3: agnostic end quote nothing in particular, unquote. If you're six

720
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 3: places behind Nothing in Particular and want to keep growing

721
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 3: your business, it makes sense that they avoid endorsing their

722
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 3: often controversial religion. So in most places, I've seen Ballerina

723
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:48,360
Speaker 3: Farm classified as a soft advertisement for the church and

724
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 3: for feminists with careers who openly advocate on issues like

725
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:55,240
Speaker 3: queer and trans rites and open abortion access. I understand

726
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 3: why Ballerina Farm's success is triggering, and for people who

727
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:02,279
Speaker 3: work on farms that are not banngrolled by JetBlue, the

728
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 3: account scans as even more of a performance. And then

729
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 3: this past summer, Vallerina Farm has been a popular point

730
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 3: of discussion for years with evangelizing followers and snark blogs

731
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 3: with readership in the six figures, but she comes to

732
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 3: widespread mainstream attention this past summer when a Times profile

733
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 3: written by Megan Agnew suggested that beneath this content was

734
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 3: a very disturbing dynamic. Main takeaways from the article include

735
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:32,920
Speaker 3: Hannah and Daniel said they met on a plane. It

736
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:35,760
Speaker 3: turns out this was a plane that Daniel's father owned,

737
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 3: and he specifically requested to be set on seid plane

738
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:42,439
Speaker 3: beside Hannah, making it the most expensive predatory meet cute

739
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,320
Speaker 3: I've ever heard of. Hannah wanted to date for a

740
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:48,239
Speaker 3: year in order to maintain her education at Juilliard, but

741
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:51,799
Speaker 3: was overruled by Daniel. She was engaged a month later

742
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:55,360
Speaker 3: and was married and pregnant soon after that, all before graduation.

743
00:44:56,719 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 3: There are, of course people working on Vallerina farm and

744
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 3: for their company, they were just never acknowledged as existing

745
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 3: in the content. However, Hannah is not allowed to have

746
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 3: nanny's to help her at home, and the article implies

747
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 3: that this is Daniel's choice, and he describes Hannah as

748
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 3: becoming so exhausted by caring for the eight children that

749
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:21,479
Speaker 3: she will sometimes collapse for a week at a time,

750
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 3: which plays into the Mormon and just generally fundamentalist belief

751
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 3: that women's suffering is virtuous, but to a modern audience

752
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 3: hearing this dynamic within such a wealthy family felt fucked up.

753
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 3: Hannah and Daniel did not believe involuntary abortion, something their

754
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 3: content suggested but never stated, and that Hannah's identity prior

755
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,399
Speaker 3: to their marriage and especially her relationship with Dance, had

756
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 3: been slowly choked out by Ballerina Farm and the Mormon lifestyle.

757
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:56,720
Speaker 3: And this story had reach not only because it was upsetting,

758
00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 3: but because it seemed to vindicate and sadden a lot

759
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 3: of the people who had been asking how Ballerina Farm

760
00:46:03,280 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 3: quote unquote did it all. The article suggests that the

761
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:10,520
Speaker 3: answer is by sacrificing parts of herself and being exhausted

762
00:46:10,600 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 3: to the point of not being able to function. Something

763
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 3: I thought was interesting while examining the reaction to this

764
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:19,840
Speaker 3: story was that non Mormons tended to find Daniel Nielman

765
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:22,879
Speaker 3: as the villain of this story because it's him who

766
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 3: is constantly correcting, negging, and suppressing Hannah throughout the profile

767
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:30,919
Speaker 3: as written. But X Mormon influencers are careful to add

768
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 3: a little bit of nuance to this. Their suggestion is more,

769
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,600
Speaker 3: does Daniel come off as an entitled asshole? Yes, but

770
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:40,840
Speaker 3: both Daniel and Hannah are playing their role here. It

771
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 3: doesn't excuse the behavior, but x Mormon YouTubers like Jordan

772
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 3: and Mackay note that Daniel was playing the part of

773
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:49,880
Speaker 3: the devout Mormon husband to the hilt here. And what

774
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:52,600
Speaker 3: I'll say in Ballerina Farm's defense, While I find the

775
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:55,800
Speaker 3: details of this story really dark, I do believe Hannah

776
00:46:55,840 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 3: Nielman when she says that she believes this is the

777
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 3: correct way to live, and the rest of us can

778
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:03,759
Speaker 3: make of it what we will. Hannah has of course

779
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 3: condemned this piece in a recent post.

780
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:09,879
Speaker 6: A couple of weeks ago, we had a reporter come

781
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 6: into our home to learn more about our family and business.

782
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 6: We thought the interview went really well, very similar to

783
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:19,760
Speaker 6: the dozens of interviews we had done in recent memory.

784
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 6: We were taken back, however, when we saw the printed article,

785
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 6: which shocked us and shocked the world by being an

786
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,360
Speaker 6: attack on our family and my marriage.

787
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 3: And her audience has only continued to grow. Honestly, I

788
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:37,279
Speaker 3: think this article might have helped her in the long run.

789
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:42,440
Speaker 3: But all this, while fascinating, does not answer my question,

790
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 3: why is this a ten million follower account? Hannah Nielman

791
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 3: has not been acknowledged by the LDS as a remarkable asset,

792
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 3: and she doesn't emphasize her religion as she once did,

793
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 3: So is she an asset to the Mormon Church? The

794
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:02,840
Speaker 3: answer becomes clearer if you start to follow the money.

795
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 3: It's impossible to get meaningful insight into this issue without

796
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:10,320
Speaker 3: talking to people who have been Mormons themselves who intimately

797
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 3: understand the culture. There is a thriving corner of the

798
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 3: Internet that is built around x Mormon content, primarily on

799
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 3: YouTube and TikTok. As I'm writing this, there are plenty

800
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 3: of creators who have left the church explaining their personal

801
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:29,280
Speaker 3: experience with the various indoctrinations, cultural stigmas, and oppression experience

802
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 3: within the LDS. Often accounts of their childhood and their

803
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:36,360
Speaker 3: mission and why they ultimately left. Like pro Mormon content,

804
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:39,879
Speaker 3: ex Mormon creators appear to be very successful, and I've

805
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 3: watched quite a bit of it in preparation for this episode.

806
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 3: Some resources I've used are the long running Mormon Stories podcast,

807
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 3: which has been going since two thousand and five, and

808
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 3: a number of YouTubers, especially Alyssa Grenfell, who I'll be

809
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 3: talking to in the next part of this episode. Here's

810
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 3: what I'll leave you with. If Mormonism is nowhere near

811
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:05,920
Speaker 3: the country's most popular religion but is disproportionately represented on

812
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 3: our social media, then what is there left to look to?

813
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 1: Then?

814
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:17,439
Speaker 3: Money? Any algorithm, Alyssa Grenfell explains in Part two via Then.

815
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:25,880
Speaker 2: Sixteenth Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio.

816
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 2: Itias written, posted, and produced by me Jamie Loftus. Our

817
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:32,920
Speaker 2: executive producers are so Ghy Lickerman and Robert Evans.

818
00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:37,280
Speaker 3: The amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.

819
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:41,960
Speaker 3: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen and Pet. Shoutouts

820
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 3: to our dog producer Anderson, my Kat's Flee and Casper

821
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:47,279
Speaker 3: and my pet Rockbord, who will outlive us all.

822
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 7: Bye.