Speaker 1: There are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
Speaker 1: is there are No Girls on the Internet. Have you
Speaker 1: been noticing that treadwife content is everywhere on social media lately?
Speaker 1: That is content that glamorizes and romanticizes women doing things
Speaker 1: like not working outside of the home or submitting to
Speaker 1: a man. I joined my friend Samantha and Annie over
Speaker 1: at the podcast Stuff. Mom never told you to dig
Speaker 1: into what exactly is going on here? Have you seen
Speaker 1: this kind of content all over your feeds like I have?
Speaker 2: Let me know.
Speaker 3: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 4: I'm welcome to Stuff. I've never told you a prediction
Speaker 4: of iHeart Radio and we are thrilled to once again
Speaker 4: be joined for the first time in twenty twenty four
Speaker 4: by the well traveled, the well rich bridge It Todd.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I mean not well traveled lately, but maybe over the
Speaker 1: course of my lifetime moderately travels.
Speaker 2: Although I can't really compete with you, Annie, you really
Speaker 2: get around.
Speaker 3: Here. Your Instagram's like took you all over the world.
Speaker 3: You are traveling, traveling for the podcast world, so I
Speaker 3: think you're that's understated.
Speaker 1: Okay, I guess, I guess the entire year of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. Maybe recently it feels like like the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, I've been traveling from my fridge to
Speaker 1: my bed to my couch for sure.
Speaker 4: But that's really the extent of it. That's about where
Speaker 4: we've been for a while. Yes, so what a journey
Speaker 4: it's done.
Speaker 3: Like you say, the last couple of weeks twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: that's been our journey backyard, couch bed.
Speaker 2: Where else do you need to go?
Speaker 4: Well, we haven't gotten to see you in this virtual way.
Speaker 4: We are working on some IRL hangout soon. Heince the
Speaker 4: discussion we had about traveling previous tour recording just now.
Speaker 4: But how was your Weirdo Christmas? Your New Year's, Bridget Grido.
Speaker 1: Christmas was fantastic, as always, Lots of bad movies were watched.
Speaker 1: We actually did a special thing to watch horror Christmas movies.
Speaker 1: I didn't know there were so many, but like ten
Speaker 1: out of ten yes, would recommend.
Speaker 2: New Year's was also fun. I feel like i'm a
Speaker 2: little I don't know.
Speaker 1: January is such a weird time of year because you
Speaker 1: kind of start and You're like, this is going to
Speaker 1: be new year, new me, and then by the second
Speaker 1: week of January you're like, oh, well, turns out it's
Speaker 1: still same old me, and maybe that's okay. Just feels
Speaker 1: like a little bit of a slow start. It's been
Speaker 1: really cold in DC, snowing. I'm doing dry January, so
Speaker 1: I'm sober. I broke from Christmas. I'm tired. Like January
Speaker 1: is just a slog.
Speaker 3: January is the hangover month. I mean essentially, whether it's
Speaker 3: from like spending too much money, being around too many people,
Speaker 3: all of those things just kind of recuperating and it
Speaker 3: does as any and I talked about early. I was like,
Speaker 3: I feel like January and February ends up being the
Speaker 3: longest months of the year. Like we did an episode
Speaker 3: and I was like, it's still January. I really thought
Speaker 3: we had topped into e least February and we're still
Speaker 3: nowhere near. And I'm like, why does it feel like
Speaker 3: we're in the middle of the year but we just started.
Speaker 2: It is dragging. Maybe it's a sobariety.
Speaker 3: I don't know about that life, so yes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, Well, we have done several episodes about how
Speaker 4: neither of us are big fans of New Year. So
Speaker 4: we're right there with you, cause I feel like it's
Speaker 4: so anti colimactic. You're like yes, and then you're like, ah,
Speaker 4: this is kind of depressing. You like look back on
Speaker 4: your past year and be like I gotta change all this.
Speaker 4: And then you're like, well, like can't really right totally.
Speaker 3: That takes money and time, yes, And then.
Speaker 1: Once the kind of so you have the holidays and
Speaker 1: you're kind of like, oh boy, I could really go
Speaker 1: for this being over the holidays end, and then you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I'm feeling back to the grind, like holidays are over.
Speaker 1: There's just a thing that happens after the holiday wind
Speaker 1: down kind of wears off that just is So it's
Speaker 1: just such a slog. It's a slog of a month,
Speaker 1: I think for everybody. So for folks who are listening
Speaker 1: and maybe feel like they're a little off, feeling a
Speaker 1: little weird z's, I think we're all in the same boat.
Speaker 3: It's true. It's also dark and again, as you said, cold,
Speaker 3: and who likes the cold. It's not me here in
Speaker 3: the South.
Speaker 4: I prefer gold to hot. But it is dreary, it's
Speaker 4: like a and there's not like anything really coming to
Speaker 4: look forward to. I don't look forward to like balent
Speaker 4: Time's Day, Like there's no it's just like, okay, I'll
Speaker 4: wait a couple months for something sunshine.
Speaker 2: Just hold on to Saint Patrick's Day every day.
Speaker 1: When is that?
Speaker 4: I don't know, because I'm a huge celebrator of Arbor Day.
Speaker 4: Uh well, I have to say, you really came in
Speaker 4: swinging with this topic, and I have. I have been
Speaker 4: thinking about this because I'm actually not on social media
Speaker 4: a lot, but I have seen I feel like I'm
Speaker 4: one of the only people I know and this I'm
Speaker 4: sure it's not true, but I in my circle that
Speaker 4: watches a lot of YouTube and YouTube there's something going
Speaker 4: on with YouTube ads that I've been trying to make
Speaker 4: into an episode, but I can't quite nail down what
Speaker 4: it is. But they've become so gendered in a way
Speaker 4: that like isn't new but feels like, wow, we've gone
Speaker 4: this far back. But it'll be something like especially around
Speaker 4: the holidays, like, well, my wife loves me, so she
Speaker 4: got me this thing that she can use to make
Speaker 4: my life better, or like it'll be from the white's
Speaker 4: perspective and it'll be oh, I've got this because my
Speaker 4: husband's been so tired and I can make his life easier.
Speaker 4: So it's like gifts that are all about him, but
Speaker 4: it's painted as if she wants it too and she
Speaker 4: likes it too, and I'm just confused by the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I don't understand. I feel you.
Speaker 1: I feel like lately the Internet and social media has
Speaker 1: become this weird marriage of gender roles and gendered expectations
Speaker 1: and commerce and capitalism all kind of like blended into
Speaker 1: one where the only kind of online experience you could
Speaker 1: ever really hope to have around that is like buy
Speaker 1: this thing for your husband to like be a good wife.
Speaker 2: It's very weird.
Speaker 4: It's bizarre, like and I've I've had moments where I'm like,
Speaker 4: is this generated by AI? There's like the voices are strange,
Speaker 4: it's very strange.
Speaker 2: It might be AI.
Speaker 4: It could be like there's one in particular. I'm like,
Speaker 4: I need to look into that. I've I want to
Speaker 4: investigate what going on here, But yeah, I've just sort
Speaker 4: of seen it. And so when I saw this topic,
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, maybe bridget can illuminate something that
Speaker 4: I'm seeing in my specific space. But from what you're
Speaker 4: seeing on social media? So what are we talking about today?
Speaker 1: So, if you've spent any time at all on social media,
Speaker 1: you have probably seen what is called trad wives contact, right,
Speaker 1: have you? I guess any you're not really on social media,
Speaker 1: but it does sound like you're getting a little of
Speaker 1: this on YouTube, Sam, have you encountered any of this
Speaker 1: in your time on TikTok so?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we've had many conversations on the show about
Speaker 3: the crunchy oh Yes wives movement that quickly kind of
Speaker 3: devolves into being a trad wife, as well as talking
Speaker 3: about religious trauma and the how that plays into the
Speaker 3: tradwive culture, as well as a red Pill episode that
Speaker 3: we talked about because that actually jumps into tradwives as well.
Speaker 3: Of course, white supremacists and white feminist culture also goes
Speaker 3: into that. There's so much to this, So definitely had
Speaker 3: a little bit of research beforehand, and I definitely get it,
Speaker 3: of course because of my for you page fyp any,
Speaker 3: just in case you needed to know, it does feed
Speaker 3: me the satire of trad wives and or stitching the
Speaker 3: problematic things with tradwives. I don't follow any and I
Speaker 3: would not recognize any by name necessarily, and I know
Speaker 3: you're going to talk a little bit, but like Joe
Speaker 3: Piazza actually was on the show and we talked very
Speaker 3: briefly with her about some of the things that she
Speaker 3: has seen and she is addressed also her because she
Speaker 3: was coming around like Halloween after Halloween, and her precious,
Speaker 3: amazing costume of playing tradwife as well. But yeah, there's
Speaker 3: definitely a lot of content. I get a lot, And
Speaker 3: we've talked about the family content stuff, which again aligns
Speaker 3: with that when a lot of moms of TikTok use
Speaker 3: their family content as moneymakers and to get to get viral.
Speaker 3: And then of course the Ruby Frank case, which is,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, Annie, just so you know, just recently
Speaker 3: a woman was convicted for child abuse and so much
Speaker 3: more after it was released that she was abusing her
Speaker 3: kids and she was using that content with somewhat a
Speaker 3: business partner to make money off on TikTok and she
Speaker 3: was severely abusing her kids.
Speaker 1: So horrible, and she's just I think she might have,
Speaker 1: like I know, she was in prison or in jail
Speaker 1: for a while and then she was released and I
Speaker 1: think flipped on her business partner and was like, oh,
Speaker 1: she was the mastermind.
Speaker 3: Yes, they flipped on each other obviously, but it was intense,
Speaker 3: and the whole content is about how she is very
Speaker 3: cruel to her children and how she punishes them by
Speaker 3: not letting them have dinner. Was the beginning of everything.
Speaker 3: But this type of content, which you have talked about before,
Speaker 3: using children as moneymakers for content creation, but on that
Speaker 3: same line with tradwives that have been popping up so
Speaker 3: much totally.
Speaker 1: So it is interesting that I think that you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking about this mix of gender and commerce that
Speaker 1: is so ubiquitous on social media, and I think you've
Speaker 1: really nailed something that the depiction of motherhood and romantic
Speaker 1: partnership that we're shown as women on social media is
Speaker 1: highly commercial, Like somebody is probably making money from that
Speaker 1: depiction in some capacity.
Speaker 2: So for folks who.
Speaker 1: Don't know, trad wives is short for traditional wives, and
Speaker 1: it's these content creators who make content about ostensibly about
Speaker 1: the bliss that they find in doing traditional domestic labor,
Speaker 1: you know, cooking, cleaning, sewing, running a household. So I
Speaker 1: should say right off the bat that like, not all
Speaker 1: trad wife content is created equal, Some tradwife content creators
Speaker 1: just seem to be sort of showcasing their lives.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about some of those.
Speaker 1: Others seemed to be more directly and explicitly romanticizing and
Speaker 1: advocating for like this bygone time when women were happier
Speaker 1: primarily in the home. So I did an interview with
Speaker 1: Joe Piazza, who I'm so glad that she stopped over
Speaker 1: on y'all's pod too, because she is incredible and hilarious.
Speaker 1: She has a podcast called Under the Influence, all about
Speaker 1: influencing and women. So Joe actually makes it very clear
Speaker 1: that this bygone era where women were so happy to
Speaker 1: be staying in the home actually kind of does not exist, right,
Speaker 1: It's like a throwback and a romanticization of a time
Speaker 1: period that like did not actually really exist for women.
Speaker 2: Because truly, can you really.
Speaker 1: Romanticize the choices made by white women at a time
Speaker 1: when they like could not even own bank accounts, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's a little hard to be like, oh, well, our
Speaker 1: grandmothers were just choosing to be in the household because
Speaker 1: that was what was better, And it's like, well, she
Speaker 1: couldn't have our own money legally, so maybe choice isn't
Speaker 1: the right word. So I say white women because I'm
Speaker 1: a Black woman and we are explicitly not talking about
Speaker 1: Black women like myself. Black women historically pretty much have
Speaker 1: always done wage earning work outside of the home. Even
Speaker 1: if we wanted to stay in our homes and not
Speaker 1: do that, that really wasn't an option for us.
Speaker 2: Rose M.
Speaker 1: Krider and Diana B. Elliott note in their report called
Speaker 1: Historical Changes in Stay at Home Mothers nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 1: to two thousand and nine that even black mothers with
Speaker 1: young children were in the workforce following World War Two,
Speaker 1: when many of their white counterparts had withdrawn from a
Speaker 1: labor force, and in places like South Carolina, they even
Speaker 1: had laws on the books that were requiring black women
Speaker 1: to have consistent employment outside of the home. So I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say that because I feel like when
Speaker 1: we talk about conversations about who works and who didn't
Speaker 1: work and what it's a throwback to you. I just
Speaker 1: think it's important to note that we are talking about
Speaker 1: like one specific subset of women, not all women. So
Speaker 1: I should say I'm not an expert on trad wise.
Speaker 2: I did do a lot of reading for this episode.
Speaker 1: However, I do consider myself a bit of an expert
Speaker 1: on the Internet and social media, and I think there
Speaker 1: are a few key parts of the conversation around trad
Speaker 1: wives and that kind of online content that get a
Speaker 1: little overlooked that I just want to make sure that
Speaker 1: we are all keeping in mind when we're consuming this
Speaker 1: content and talking and thinking about this content.
Speaker 4: Okay, for listeners maybe like me who have seen some
Speaker 4: weird YouTube ads but maybe don't know what is happening
Speaker 4: on social media specifically, what kind of content are we
Speaker 4: talking about here?
Speaker 1: So, as I said, it is content that is like
Speaker 1: women baking or sewing. You know, sometimes it's just like
Speaker 1: a woman demonstrating what her life is like. So it's
Speaker 1: like her with her kids making food, da da da.
Speaker 1: But some of that content is a little bit more sinister.
Speaker 1: In this kind of treadwive content, women are exublicitly comparing
Speaker 1: their lives and their choices to the lives and choices
Speaker 1: of other women. I transcribed a TikTok that I think
Speaker 1: demonstrates what I am talking about. So this is from
Speaker 1: influencer Emily Allison, who describes herself on Instagram as counterculture
Speaker 1: thinking child raising. I just want my kids to grow
Speaker 1: up in a free country. So I'm going to read
Speaker 1: what she says in her TikTok and just kind of
Speaker 1: imagine that, like they're sort of cute, smarmy guitar music
Speaker 1: playing under this, because that's what the TikTok is like,
Speaker 1: and that my narration is synced up to videos of
Speaker 1: me wearing prairie dresses and like cooking and playing with
Speaker 1: my kids.
Speaker 2: Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: Our culture tells women that it's honorable to sacrifice everything
Speaker 1: for your job, but it's unfair to sacrific everything for
Speaker 1: your family. That it's liberating to be sexually used by
Speaker 1: men who are not committed to you, but it's oppressive
Speaker 1: to love and respect a man who is. That it's
Speaker 1: somehow empowering to rely on the system to educate your kids,
Speaker 1: feed your family, and keep you alive, rather than have
Speaker 1: the skills to do it yourself.
Speaker 2: I say that culture is full of lies.
Speaker 1: So that's just me like reading a word for word
Speaker 1: transcript of what this person has to say. First of all,
Speaker 1: you might think from that transcript that this person does
Speaker 1: not do wage earning work because she is too busy
Speaker 1: like focusing on her family. However, according to her Instagram bio.
Speaker 1: It says that she is a writer for the far
Speaker 1: right website Epoch Times, So she actually does have a job,
Speaker 1: but she just wants to let us know that she
Speaker 1: has a job in a way that is like different
Speaker 1: and better than everybody else who has a job. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what y'all are doing, but like when
Speaker 1: I have a job, it's better. When you have a job,
Speaker 1: you are making a mistake and turning your back on
Speaker 1: your family.
Speaker 2: So you know I'm doing it right, y'all are doing
Speaker 2: it wrong.
Speaker 1: So I think this content is a good example of
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, right, Like, if Emily is so
Speaker 1: content with her with her life, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think that somebody who is super content would feel the
Speaker 1: need to really compare their choices and their life to
Speaker 1: the choices in life of somebody that they don't even
Speaker 1: necessarily know, right, Like, there is something about the content
Speaker 1: that I think is meant to enrage, meant to make
Speaker 1: people feel a.
Speaker 2: Certain kind of way. Do you do you all see this?
Speaker 2: Or am I way off basier?
Speaker 3: Well, the minute you said that she was for a
Speaker 3: writer for the far right news article, I think that
Speaker 3: again kind of coming back to what we were talking about
Speaker 3: with red pill slash white supremacy. This level of indoctrination
Speaker 3: is the Maga world, and uh, I doubt we have
Speaker 3: any Magia listeners. But if you're offended, you essentially like
Speaker 3: if it sounds offensive, but it's actually true because there's
Speaker 3: this whole underlying level of creating more white babies. And
Speaker 3: I'm assuming this one woman is a white woman and
Speaker 3: in this whole culture of go against the Zeit guys,
Speaker 3: which now the Zeit guys is too liberal, which is
Speaker 3: that you know, in their in their mind of course,
Speaker 3: in this conversation, which is again what we were really
Speaker 3: like every time I would go down this rabbit hole
Speaker 3: of anything tradwives, anything, crunchy moms situation, it get is
Speaker 3: very succinct to this ideal of moms protecting white children
Speaker 3: or the white community in itself. In this level of
Speaker 3: that has to be also meaning that we're rebellious against
Speaker 3: the norm and those are the devils who you know,
Speaker 3: this level of conversation, it's like, yeah, this makes perfect sense.
Speaker 3: And that guitar playing is you're supposed to think this
Speaker 3: is a Midwestern family out in the cornfields in their dresses,
Speaker 3: having the perfect little like dinner at the tables, but
Speaker 3: that they had obviously garden themselves because they don't trust
Speaker 3: the government or the fertilizer, and you know, wore these
Speaker 3: clothes that they have made themselves, as well as the
Speaker 3: fire that you know, they don't do doctors, none of that.
Speaker 3: Like this level of ideal of the perfect life that
Speaker 3: kind of also insinuates by the perfect light.
Speaker 2: Means you have to be white a thousand percent.
Speaker 1: And something that you picked up on that I really
Speaker 1: want to pull out is how so much of this
Speaker 1: content also sort of has this almost like faux persecution
Speaker 1: angle to it, like they don't want me to be
Speaker 1: submissive to my husband, who like, they don't want me
Speaker 1: making homemade meals. It's like, who are you talking about
Speaker 1: that it's preventing you from doing this.
Speaker 2: This is something that I noticed a lot.
Speaker 1: It's almost like these people want to be persecuted or
Speaker 1: like victimized in some way, and they really they're so
Speaker 1: committed to wanting to feel like they're going against the
Speaker 1: grain and challenging that they have made that into an
Speaker 1: identity and they've kind of like built it up that
Speaker 1: everything they do is like being challenged. Everything they do
Speaker 1: like they don't want me to grow my own food.
Speaker 1: And it's like, who, like, who is preventing you from
Speaker 1: doing this if that's what you want to do, right,
Speaker 1: I've seen so many people say like make it seem
Speaker 1: as though there's some sort of feminist conspiracy to keep
Speaker 1: women from staying.
Speaker 2: At home and not doing wage durning work.
Speaker 1: And I I mean I would if I could afford
Speaker 1: to comfortably do that.
Speaker 2: I think I would love to do it, right. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people would love to do that.
Speaker 1: But like what people are saying is like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: should have the choice to do what do whatever you
Speaker 1: want to do. And what they're hearing is like, they're
Speaker 1: not letting me stay at home. Where where are these
Speaker 1: people who are preventing women from like staying at home
Speaker 1: with their families if that's what they want to do.
Speaker 3: That's called capitalism, babe in it This sucks for everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're all we're all dealing with the same suffering.
Speaker 3: But you know, I think that's that conversation again, this
Speaker 3: whole like they won't let me do this thing or
Speaker 3: they won't let me do that thing. And it's kind
Speaker 3: of that conversation you were talking about earlier, where black
Speaker 3: women were pretty much excluded from the white feminist movement
Speaker 3: because they did not listen to the fact that black
Speaker 3: women have been working, women of color have been working
Speaker 3: the entirety of their existence from jump because they had
Speaker 3: no other choice. That the fact that they want to
Speaker 3: go to work and women should be they're not listening
Speaker 3: to the other side of what feminism should look like.
Speaker 3: And that conversation is that it's the choice. It's the
Speaker 3: choice to do what you whether it is to be
Speaker 3: a stay at home mom and to have whatever balanced
Speaker 3: life that you want. If you agreed upon it and
Speaker 3: everything is fair for you too and there's respect, then wonderful.
Speaker 3: That's the thing. That's the choice to have. That choice
Speaker 3: is the feminist ideal. But yeah, the more I see,
Speaker 3: like again with the tradwives, they're going to a nineteen
Speaker 3: seventies tactic of the fear mongering of feminism. Right if
Speaker 3: they want to take away men, they hate, oh men,
Speaker 3: they want to kill men.
Speaker 4: A B.
Speaker 3: The fact that they can't wear You can't wear bras
Speaker 3: because if you do, you're not a feminist and you
Speaker 3: can't wear like who ever said these things? Who said this?
Speaker 3: What is happening, this fear mangery that has come back,
Speaker 3: and that they have not only uh taken this on,
Speaker 3: they're pushing it so hard that those who always hated
Speaker 3: the ideal of something absolutely are gripping to this like, yes,
Speaker 3: they are trying to take away these things from me
Speaker 3: or make me do these things, and I hate the feminists.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is such a straw man. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And so this actually is one of the three major
Speaker 1: points that I want folks to think about and really
Speaker 1: know in terms of coming to this content with a
Speaker 1: critical eye and with a little bit of media literacy,
Speaker 1: is that this kind of content is often specifically engineered
Speaker 1: to make us have a big reaction. Right, So, in
Speaker 1: the example that we were just talking about, you know
Speaker 1: that influencer does not have a huge following.
Speaker 2: She has like twenty k on Instagram and I think
Speaker 2: or I forty k on.
Speaker 1: TikTok, which is pretty small in the ecosystem of trad
Speaker 1: wife influencers. And so you know, because some of these
Speaker 1: people have like millions and millions of followers, So I
Speaker 1: suspect the reason that she has to frame her video
Speaker 1: in such a smug way where it's like, my choices
Speaker 1: are good. Other women's choices not good is because she
Speaker 1: is trafficking on our big reaction to get engagement. If
Speaker 1: she just said I like to homeschool my kids, I
Speaker 1: like to play with my kids, I like to cook
Speaker 1: for my husband, I have a relationship where I rest
Speaker 1: back to my husband.
Speaker 2: Who would care? Nobody would care because it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: good for you.
Speaker 1: She has to tweak it to be like I'm doing
Speaker 1: it in a good way and everybody else is doing
Speaker 1: it wrong intentionally because it gets our blood boiling to
Speaker 1: get more engagement, get more views, and to ultimately boost
Speaker 1: her profile where it's very clear she wants to have
Speaker 1: a big one, right, and so in some ways this
Speaker 1: is just a good old fashioned engagement grift where you
Speaker 1: say things in a way that is intentionally said to
Speaker 1: be a little bit inflammatory to get more engagement.
Speaker 4: Right. Gosh, that took me on a rabbit hole of
Speaker 4: like a dark time in our company where that was
Speaker 4: like you should make people mad, they'll engage with you, like, please,
Speaker 4: don't do that.
Speaker 1: This is a bit of a side note, but this
Speaker 1: is my new like media literacy battle cry, which is
Speaker 1: that we should understand how many places on the Internet
Speaker 1: and how many places and influencers and people and content
Speaker 1: creators that make up our Internet discourse are doing that.
Speaker 1: They are trying to get one over on us because
Speaker 1: it is effective. We already know that social media platforms
Speaker 1: intentionally boost content that gets a lot of engagement that
Speaker 1: makes us angry or gets our hearts racing because it
Speaker 1: is better for their platforms. And so the ynamic or
Speaker 1: anybody who says something that is inflammatory that gets people
Speaker 1: upset that they are rewarded with engagement. That is a
Speaker 1: bad system and we need to be looking at it,
Speaker 1: like I can't tell you how many stupid TikTok skits
Speaker 1: I have gotten sucked into where I'm like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: why do I care?
Speaker 2: Like what this fake scenario says.
Speaker 1: It's happening like the story time of a woman doing
Speaker 1: her makeup telling me a made up story about a
Speaker 1: friend that doesn't exist, Like why am I giving this
Speaker 1: my attention? And we need to put a wrench in
Speaker 1: that entire system, that entire machine that continues to crank
Speaker 1: out content like that, because it's not good for us.
Speaker 4: No, and I think a lot of it is so
Speaker 4: And I know you're going to talk about this a
Speaker 4: little bit, but it's so dishonest and the time it
Speaker 4: takes and perhaps the production it takes to just make
Speaker 4: these videos. I always kind of laugh when I see
Speaker 4: like ring lights in their eyes and it's clearly supposed
Speaker 4: to be like, oh I just woke up.
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, you did it.
Speaker 4: But you do have another example of somebody who has
Speaker 4: a lot of engagement, yes, yes.
Speaker 2: And that is Ballerina Farms.
Speaker 1: So if you don't know who Ballerina Farms is, her
Speaker 1: name is Hannah Neeliemann and she is a follower of
Speaker 1: the Church of Latter day Saints Akam Mormon. She married
Speaker 1: into the family that owns the airline Jet Blue, So
Speaker 1: girl married very well. She is probably not living like
Speaker 1: a rural kind of dependent on the land lifestyle. However,
Speaker 1: if you looked at her content, you might think like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's living a very humble rule existence, because that's what
Speaker 1: she wants you to think. She spends a lot of
Speaker 1: time on TikTok, cooking with her eight kids on her farm,
Speaker 1: and when she's not doing that, she is competing in
Speaker 1: beauty pageants. She has almost ten million followers, so a huge,
Speaker 1: huge footprint in the landscape. I would say ballerina Farms.
Speaker 1: I would describe her as like a source of a
Speaker 1: lot of skepticism and frustration. Like she competed in a
Speaker 1: beauty pageant just a few days after she gave birth,
Speaker 1: for instance, and people were like, you know, like, you're
Speaker 1: probably not in your best shape when you just have
Speaker 1: given birth. What it like People felt some kind of
Speaker 1: way about the fact that she was, you know, competing
Speaker 1: in a beauty pageant. But as a recent piece in
Speaker 1: Glamour points out, you really would never know that her
Speaker 1: content is like controversial or is a source of frustration
Speaker 1: or skepticism for people. The piece reads, neely Man has
Speaker 1: never wavered. She doesn't publicly address her haters, she doesn't
Speaker 1: engage with the discourse, and she doesn't try to clear
Speaker 1: the air on, for instance, whether her wealthy father in
Speaker 1: law bought her ranch for her family. She just continues
Speaker 1: to make bread, post videos of her dancing, and live
Speaker 1: her life. She seems to be, at least online, completely
Speaker 1: unbothered in content, which of course is its own kind
Speaker 1: of privilege when you have eight kids. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, we have no idea what her reality really
Speaker 1: looks like, do E, And so she does not have
Speaker 1: to engage in kind of rage baiting that somebody who
Speaker 1: might be a less successful Tradwives influencer might have to
Speaker 1: write like her thing is like I just make my
Speaker 1: bread and like smile weird and like pretend to be
Speaker 1: living a rural, rustic life even though I'm very wealthy
Speaker 1: right right.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot of romanticizing of like that kind
Speaker 4: of work and that kind of life that I think
Speaker 4: I see happen a lot in general. Conservative movements were like,
Speaker 4: let's get back to the land. I'm like, do you
Speaker 4: know how to get back to the life?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was talking to So my partner grew up
Speaker 1: on a farm in rural upstate New York. When I
Speaker 1: say a farm, I don't know, Like I'm not a
Speaker 1: country girl. So when he was like, oh, I grew
Speaker 1: up on a farm. My parents will on a farm.
Speaker 1: The first time I went to visit his parents, who
Speaker 1: still live on that farm, I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't know what I had been envisioning, but like it
Speaker 1: is a farm farm, like a real farm. And so
Speaker 1: he grew up like tending to animals as part of
Speaker 1: his chores, and they would you know, butcher and package steaks,
Speaker 1: you know, for it to eat and to sell, so
Speaker 1: like a real farm, and it's always so funny to
Speaker 1: him and his family. How people online have convinced themselves
Speaker 1: that farm life is.
Speaker 2: This like route to a soft, slow life.
Speaker 1: That is only true for people who are wealthy, who
Speaker 1: are not actually farming as a source of their existence,
Speaker 1: as a source of sustenance, as a source of their
Speaker 1: financial security. Anybody who actually lives on a farm, a
Speaker 1: real farm, where that farm where like you live or die,
Speaker 1: or you eat or don't eat based on how that
Speaker 1: farm is doing, will tell you that it is a
Speaker 1: ton of work. People who have farms are always tired.
Speaker 1: Their schedules are wild. Like this idea that that oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're just gonna buy a land and start
Speaker 1: a farm, and that that's gonna be an easy, slow life.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. That is just a fiction, a fantasy. Talk
Speaker 1: to anybody who's ever done farming.
Speaker 2: That's not true.
Speaker 3: Have they not seen that little house on the prairie.
Speaker 3: They're waking up at four am and going to bed
Speaker 3: at nine and they're I know' that's my reference, But
Speaker 3: no like to know that they actually have to wake
Speaker 3: up at the crack of dawn to make sure whether
Speaker 3: it's snowing or raining and all of that, to make
Speaker 3: sure they have to take care and tend to all
Speaker 3: the things, the living things that are on there, including
Speaker 3: any crops, and if they have like workers on there.
Speaker 3: And I'm assuming, because I don't know anything about this
Speaker 3: Ballerina farmer that if they are that wealthy and they
Speaker 3: do actually own a farm, that they do higher workers,
Speaker 3: and how little she's active on that farm. Maybe I'm
Speaker 3: just sadic, you know, speaking up too much, but just
Speaker 3: like that doesn't seem like a thing that she would
Speaker 3: be doing while she's also posting pretty little pictures of
Speaker 3: herself dancing with her kids.
Speaker 1: I can confirm that they have like a pretty big staff,
Speaker 1: like a pig paid employees who work for them. I
Speaker 1: should all say, Like side note, I have heard some
Speaker 1: horror stories about what is actually like going down on
Speaker 1: that farm. If you were interested, there are reddit rabbit holes,
Speaker 1: but like I cannot confirm any of that myself, so
Speaker 1: like don't have anything to say about it, but that
Speaker 1: is out there about some of the allegations of how
Speaker 1: the animals are treated on that farm, But like, do
Speaker 1: your own research there because I don't know either way.
Speaker 1: But yes, she definitely has paid staff to do the
Speaker 1: actual labor, and again, there's something wrong with that. That's like,
Speaker 1: if that's how you're gonna do it, but then don't
Speaker 1: go on TikTok and make it seem like you are
Speaker 1: doing this work yourself and it's actually not that hard
Speaker 1: and you actually have a slow life, a soft life,
Speaker 1: because that's not true, right, And so I think that's
Speaker 1: sort of like my biggest point is that I think
Speaker 1: that some of these creators are just not being totally
Speaker 1: honest in the way that we understand that most online
Speaker 1: content is probably not honest in some way. But there's
Speaker 1: something about the like trad Wife's Life, Rustic Vibes content
Speaker 1: creators that I think makes it harder to see when
Speaker 1: someone is basically lying to you on the Internet about
Speaker 1: what their life actually looks like. And so Ballerina Farms
Speaker 1: might not have to like Engagement Farm the way that
Speaker 1: the other influencer does, but that doesn't mean that she's
Speaker 1: being totally honest about what is going down in her
Speaker 1: life or that we're getting an honest view of it,
Speaker 1: because you know, what do you call somebody who makes
Speaker 1: content to make their life look a certain way? Maybe
Speaker 1: not totally accurately to sell commercial products a marketer, right,
Speaker 1: Like that is marketing. Ballerina Farms, i would argue, is
Speaker 1: a business, and her social media stick is just part
Speaker 1: of the marketing arm of this business, Like their farm
Speaker 1: is a farm where you can buy boxes of meats
Speaker 1: from it online, like it is a corporate entity, and
Speaker 1: so she is just a like marketing her consumer goods
Speaker 1: to try to get us to buy not just the product,
Speaker 1: but into the whole lifestyle that her product is kind
Speaker 1: of revolves around. And what's also kind of interesting is
Speaker 1: there's this creator, Caro Claire Burkie on TikTok who has
Speaker 1: really made a thing out of doing some media analysis
Speaker 1: around Ballerina Farms as a brand, and she basically is like,
Speaker 1: we don't actually know or see the actual real person
Speaker 1: behind Ballerina Farms, Hannah. We don't really see a real
Speaker 1: view of her life. What we're seeing is the way
Speaker 1: that her corporation or her company wants us to see
Speaker 1: her for marketing purposes. She compares it to the Kardashians,
Speaker 1: who you know, we know have become literal billionaires from
Speaker 1: leveraging a highly curated peak into their personal lives to
Speaker 1: get us to buy into them as a brand. But
Speaker 1: the difference is, she says that the Kardashians are maybe
Speaker 1: even more upfront about this dynamic than these trad wife influencers.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody would be like, oh, the Kardashians
Speaker 1: are just trying to give us an honest look into
Speaker 1: the lives of billionaires, and like they're just being sell off.
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody would say that.
Speaker 1: Anybody would know like, oh, they want you to buy
Speaker 1: the makeup, the lip kit, the skims, the whatever, this
Speaker 1: to that, and they're leveraging showing a curated look at
Speaker 1: their lives to do that. I think with these trad
Speaker 1: wife influencers, they're just not being honest about what the
Speaker 1: dynamic is.
Speaker 3: It feels like it's going backwards, gonna because for a
Speaker 3: long while, there was a lot of parents who are
Speaker 3: truly honest, like this is what it looks like to
Speaker 3: get to our videos here where they're doing the video
Speaker 3: and doing it behind the scene, and they're being more
Speaker 3: open and transparent. It feels like it's going back to
Speaker 3: again where Instagram started and everything was so pretty, that
Speaker 3: all the pictures were so perfect, and they had to
Speaker 3: show the perfect life in order to get the more
Speaker 3: ads and more views. So it feels like it's going
Speaker 3: backwards again, just like our society in how they are
Speaker 3: trying to romanticize, as you were saying, a lifestyle.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point, and I do
Speaker 1: think that that this has something to do with that.
Speaker 1: I think for a while, what popped on social media
Speaker 1: when it came to making content about motherhood was authenticity like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a mess just like you, Like my kids are filthy,
Speaker 1: and I'm exhausted, and I haven't washed my hair just
Speaker 1: like you. And I think that that authenticity maybe became
Speaker 1: leveraged where like that it almost felt like a curated authenticity.
Speaker 2: And so I almost.
Speaker 1: Wonder if this trad Wives kind of perfection is a
Speaker 1: response to this authenticity that kind of typified motherhood content
Speaker 1: on the Internet of a certain era. Like if it
Speaker 1: was cool to be authentic, then now what's cool is
Speaker 1: like being being like isn't my life perfect?
Speaker 2: Like we're just coming back around.
Speaker 3: Coming back in that circle. And just as a reminder,
Speaker 3: with her having that many followers and that many views,
Speaker 3: she's making lots of money just off of her tiktoks,
Speaker 3: lots of money.
Speaker 1: Yes, like that is my thing, there's no shame in it,
Speaker 1: but like this is a business. And in my interview
Speaker 1: with Joe, she puts it really well that if you're
Speaker 1: somebody who is setting up a tripod, setting up lighting,
Speaker 1: putting on a face of makeup, putting on a particular outfit,
Speaker 1: to film content that you then edit published to millions
Speaker 1: of your followers, and have built up a social media
Speaker 1: platform that might involve navigating like brand deals or sponsored posts,
Speaker 1: you have a job that is employment, that is labor.
Speaker 1: So you have a situation where some of these women
Speaker 1: are making content about how they do not do wage
Speaker 1: earning work, but the strategy that in which they are
Speaker 1: doing that is work.
Speaker 2: It's like a mind.
Speaker 3: Like I feel like they forgot the mom blogs, which
Speaker 3: was the beginning honestly of all of this and the
Speaker 3: way that it was created. It was stay at home
Speaker 3: moms trying to figure out how to make money to
Speaker 3: help the sists and figuring out this is this is
Speaker 3: profitable and has now ventured into this and as where
Speaker 3: the blogs were curated in a way that it was
Speaker 3: written and entertaining, this is an entertainment on a different
Speaker 3: level which is a show? Is a show?
Speaker 2: Pretty much? Yeah, Like in some ways this is just like.
Speaker 1: Entertainment, Like it's like using curating a version of your
Speaker 1: life for entertainment value, right. And I've actually even heard
Speaker 1: the theory that at least some of this content is
Speaker 1: fetish content, like sexual fetish content that are not actually
Speaker 1: meant to be speaking to women at all or saying
Speaker 1: anything or making any kind of comment about women and
Speaker 1: what we should be doing with our lives or not
Speaker 1: doing with our lives. That it's meant to appeal to
Speaker 1: horny men and their submissive wife sexual fantasies, and that
Speaker 1: these creators have just sort of found a way to
Speaker 1: make fetish content in a way that does not trigger
Speaker 1: you know, TikTok or whatever's not safe for work content sensors,
Speaker 1: and so like, if that's what's going on, like more
Speaker 1: power to you, you know, do your thing. But we
Speaker 1: need to come at this content with a little bit
Speaker 1: of like media literacy and criticism, because people would then
Speaker 1: take that content and then use it to make some
Speaker 1: kind of a point or a statement or turn it
Speaker 1: into a way to understand our own lives.
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, why would you be doing that?
Speaker 1: With fetish content, Like, I don't think it's I don't
Speaker 1: think it's meant to help you understand how you should
Speaker 1: be living your life or making your choices.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it could be accidentally fetish.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, there's a we passed over it. But there
Speaker 4: was a note you had in your outline that I
Speaker 4: was I thought was interesting was that it's sort of
Speaker 4: like Cause playing a certain type of life. Right after
Speaker 4: the insurrection happened on January sixth, I read this really
Speaker 4: long article about like a lot of people there were
Speaker 4: Cause playing, like the idea of Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 4: take back our country, and then they get into trouble
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden they're in court and they're like,
Speaker 4: oh God, Well, like the consequences come and it just
Speaker 4: falls apart. So it does have these sort of implications
Speaker 4: that I don't think people think about when people watch
Speaker 4: that and it gets in their head and they get
Speaker 4: this idea of like, oh, I can live that life,
Speaker 4: I can live off the land, or I can do
Speaker 4: all these things, but the reality is not there, and
Speaker 4: it can become a really toxic soup that infects all
Speaker 4: of us. And it sounds like, based on my experience,
Speaker 4: and what you're saying that we're getting a lot more
Speaker 4: of this content right now.
Speaker 1: That is such a good way to put it, and
Speaker 1: something that I didn't have. But I just want to
Speaker 1: say is that I want to make it clear that
Speaker 1: I think that everybody should be able to do what
Speaker 1: they want to do. Like my feminism is about letting
Speaker 1: people make choices for themselves.
Speaker 2: If that choice is to.
Speaker 1: Like rage bait other women online for their choices, I
Speaker 1: don't love that, but you know, in terms of if
Speaker 1: you want to stay at home or work.
Speaker 2: That should be your choice.
Speaker 1: However, one thing I will say is that I have
Speaker 1: definitely seen an uptick in people giving younger women that
Speaker 1: they should just marry and start having kids really young.
Speaker 1: And I don't generally get down for one size fits
Speaker 1: all advice, but for someone really young to tell them
Speaker 1: that they should not know anything about having their own
Speaker 1: money or managing their own money, that they should not
Speaker 1: try to have any kind of employment history, should this
Speaker 1: marriage fall apart, should there something happen to their partner, whatever,
Speaker 1: I think that is really dangerous advice. Even if you're
Speaker 1: somebody who wants to get married young, wants to have kids, young,
Speaker 1: wants to have a submissive traditional marriage. Do all of
Speaker 1: those things, but make sure that you know how to
Speaker 1: take care of yourself and live your own life, because
Speaker 1: nothing in life is guaranteed, Like you could be happily
Speaker 1: married forever and get married very young and then have
Speaker 1: your partner die unexpectedly or something right. And so I
Speaker 1: think that we're giving young women advice based on a
Speaker 1: fantasy that does not come.
Speaker 2: To fruition in reality.
Speaker 1: And I think you're right, Annie, that we are seeing
Speaker 1: more and more of this kind of content. And I
Speaker 1: just don't think we can talk about the rise of
Speaker 1: this kind of online tradwife content without looking at where
Speaker 1: we are as women right now, which is not great.
Speaker 1: You know, we've experienced this major rollback of our rights.
Speaker 1: The Journal of the American Medical Association actually put out
Speaker 1: a report just this week that found that since Roe fell,
Speaker 1: rape has led to an estimated fifty eight, nine hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy nine pregnancies in states that ban abortion without
Speaker 1: exception for rape.
Speaker 2: That is staggering. You know. We also are.
Speaker 1: Facing rising costs of things like groceries and housing. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: found that on average, US households want to spend an
Speaker 1: extra five two hundred dollars this year just to be
Speaker 1: able to enjoy the exact same standard of living that
Speaker 1: they did last year. Add to that things like climate instability,
Speaker 1: political instability, all things that historically women have really for
Speaker 1: the burden of. And so I just can't help but
Speaker 1: think that we're seeing this rise in content that romanticizes
Speaker 1: and glorifies times when women had even less rights than
Speaker 1: we do right now is related to what's happening currently,
Speaker 1: which brings me to the last thing that I want
Speaker 1: people to really keep in mind when they encounter this
Speaker 1: content online is that I believe that trad wive content
Speaker 1: is responding, albeit oftentimes in a very distorted way, to
Speaker 1: very very real issues that we're facing as women. You know,
Speaker 1: we're kind of being served a crap sandwich right now
Speaker 1: from being honest with you, Like, we don't have paid leave,
Speaker 1: we don't have affordable childcare, we don't have any real
Speaker 1: social safety net. Women are burdened with more and more
Speaker 1: of the labor that it takes to keep a family
Speaker 1: stable with very little social or institutional help. And it
Speaker 1: just doesn't surprise me that we're seeing this online glorification
Speaker 1: of stay at home parenthood in a particular kind of
Speaker 1: way right now as a reaction to it. And I
Speaker 1: think that something that gets left out of the discourse
Speaker 1: is that the reasons that women are staying home are
Speaker 1: not necessarily like to deprogram their kids from government instruction
Speaker 1: or whatever. The A lot of times it's because childcare
Speaker 1: is so f being expensive that it does not make
Speaker 1: financial sense to work outside of the home anymore. Or
Speaker 1: maybe on the flip side, both parents are working and
Speaker 1: they're just like figuring it out and just squeezing by
Speaker 1: a lot of people are just doing what they have
Speaker 1: to do based on financial circumstances that are not great,
Speaker 1: and so that is a very different thing from choosing
Speaker 1: to work because feminism and like woke society says that
Speaker 1: you have to. It is like some of these creators
Speaker 1: are creating a straw man for why women either work
Speaker 1: outside of the home or don't, and that's actually not
Speaker 1: a reflection of the reality that most parents are facing
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, especially during the beginning of the pandemic, there
Speaker 4: was so many articles about that of like women work
Speaker 4: being forced out of the workforce, like all of the
Speaker 4: scientific papers from women decreased, And I think it's interesting
Speaker 4: a lot of content like this immediately out the gate
Speaker 4: feels defensive for whatever lifestyle. And I could see it
Speaker 4: being defensive from like women judging you, but you also
Speaker 4: see it being maybe trying to find like a reason
Speaker 4: that it's okay that you didn't have the choice, So
Speaker 4: let me make this look prettier. And I no, I
Speaker 4: definitely like it, and this is definitely what I want,
Speaker 4: so I can. I think that totally makes sense, Bridget.
Speaker 3: And I think people are picking up on it because
Speaker 3: women are tired and would just love for someone to
Speaker 3: do it, like, yes, you go out and work and
Speaker 3: let me just chill here, which is not the truth
Speaker 3: that at all, but the way they make it look
Speaker 3: like while I sit here with these pretty little kids
Speaker 3: and tell them to go take a nap, like which
Speaker 3: if you've been any childcare, you know that's not the thing.
Speaker 3: And everything's a mess and everything's a disaster, and cooking
Speaker 3: is hard, and being a stay at home mom is
Speaker 3: a full time job in itself and deserves pay. Which
Speaker 3: is the other conversation that they don't want to have
Speaker 3: chidwives is that a lot of those stay at home
Speaker 3: moms who love it also are like, but we should
Speaker 3: be paid. Yeah, absolutely should.
Speaker 2: It's labor, I mean absolutely exactly. So I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of these influencers can really over
Speaker 1: simplify and glamorize what is ultimately a dynamic that does
Speaker 1: not allow for women to make the choices they want
Speaker 1: to make.
Speaker 2: Because being a stay at.
Speaker 1: Home mom because you cannot afford daycare is not the
Speaker 1: same thing as choosing it for yourself because it's what
Speaker 1: you want to do.
Speaker 2: And it's because you can't afford to do it.
Speaker 1: And I think that ultimately women deserve to have choices,
Speaker 1: if you deserve to have better choices to be able
Speaker 1: to do what we want to do with our lives.
Speaker 3: Yep, women do women?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 4: Women, Yes, agreed, agreed one thousand percent. Well, thanks as always, Bridget. Again,
Speaker 4: I feel like we could go on and on and on,
Speaker 4: but we will let you go for now. Where can
Speaker 4: the good listeners find you?
Speaker 2: Well, you can listen to my podcast. There are no
Speaker 2: girls on the internet.
Speaker 1: If you want to hear my full conversation with Joe Piazza,
Speaker 1: we put it out as recently. She's hilarious. Definitely recommend
Speaker 1: confine me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in DC or
Speaker 1: on TikTok at Bridget mix pods.
Speaker 4: Yes, and hopefully we'll be able to do some ir
Speaker 4: L things and maybe we can see some of you
Speaker 4: all there, listeners.
Speaker 2: Let's hope so TVD stay tuned.
Speaker 4: Yes, stay tuned well. Thanks as always, Bridget and listeners.
Speaker 4: If you would like to contact us, you can our
Speaker 4: email Stephania Mom, stuff atiheartmea dot com. You can find
Speaker 4: us on Twitter at most up podcast or on TikTok
Speaker 4: which we don't post very often, but we might start
Speaker 4: posting more. It's a gram at stuff Mom Never Told You.
Speaker 4: We have a tea public store, and we have a
Speaker 4: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
Speaker 4: as always to our super producer Christina, executive producer and
Speaker 4: our contributor Joey.
Speaker 3: Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 4: Stuff Never Told You is production by Heart Radio. For
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