00:03:58.780So you have written a lot about Trad Wives.
00:04:01.760I want to start out for our audience defining what we would say a trad wife is, a hashtag trad wife, because I think there's lots of different ways of being a trad wife and they all get lumped together, which is something that you've written about, too.
00:04:17.900Yeah, yeah. So I think that what we have to clarify is that this idea of a traditional wife is really, it stems from like evangelical fundamentalist Christianity. And it's traditional femininity. It's like a godly way of behaving as a woman. Like there are all of these texts that come from fundamentalist Christianity.
00:04:41.440Some of them are from the various like schools of thought and theology that are related to, say, like the Duggars. Some of them are just people from what are sometimes called independent churches who just have these ideas about like wives submit and all of the things that that would mean.
00:04:59.500And that is, I think, that is the OG. That is the template. And there are all of these other groups that either are taking inspiration from those trad wife representations or they are from religious sects. And I'm saying sects, S-E-C-T-S.0.68
00:05:25.160So it's a hard word. It's a hard word on a podcast.
00:05:28.780that have overlap with those fundamentalist evangelical Christianity representations.
00:05:37.840If you look up hashtag Trad Wife on Instagram or TikTok,
00:05:41.580you will often see in the personal bio also a Jesus wife.
00:06:05.640There's just like different phrases that are those tip offs.
00:06:08.940And I'll say that that is really essential to this type of evangelical trad wife.0.81
00:06:16.900You will not see that in like a Mormon mom, like that sort of trad wife.0.75
00:06:24.080Like, it's a different sort. It's a subtle distinction, but it's a crucial one. And part of it is the way that evangelical Christians and Mormons, who are Christians, but who are not, I think, I don't group them with evangelical Christians as a larger group.0.56
00:06:42.920They proselytize in different ways, and they think about their proselytizing in different ways. They have different tactics for their proselytizing. Mormons are more subtle.
00:06:52.480mormons are way more subtle and that's why i think with a lot of the mormon mom influencers
00:07:00.360in the very beginning a lot of people didn't even realize yet that they were mormon uh and that and
00:07:07.900that so many of them also knew each other that they were almost a clique of women who were very
00:07:13.120close a lot of them went to the same church because they keep their religion very much on the down low
00:07:19.180almost as if it's buy into our lifestyle and then we'll tell you a little bit more about our
00:07:26.340religion whereas some of the evangelical trad wives are very in your face we love jesus forward
00:07:33.220jesus forward they are well they're jesus forward that is such a good adjective
00:07:37.500well so first i should i should also put some of my like background uh in the forefront just to give
00:07:44.860some context on like where I'm coming from with this. So I grew up Presbyterian, but during a
00:07:52.260period in time when even like all of these what are called mainline religions, so like Presbyterianism,
00:07:59.040Lutherans, like Lutherans, all these sorts of Protestant religions, even Catholicism,
00:08:03.860we're getting this real infusion of evangelical light or some sort of version of that, like we're
00:08:10.120coming into the culture. I also grew up in Idaho, and Idaho has the highest LDS density in the
00:08:17.200United States. People often think it's Utah. That's false. It's actually Idaho. I know a lot
00:08:22.380about the philosophy of proselytizing within the Mormon church. I think I got really interested in
00:08:28.000it as I got older. I was like, oh, how is this working? Why are so many LDS kids on student
00:08:36.020government why do they seemingly all play sports in some capacity and if you talk to kids about it
00:08:43.980i talked to my friends about it was like you know part of what we're trying to do is be visible as
00:08:48.440like people who are really involved right like we want to be people who are invested in our community
00:08:57.060and and have that be really forward-facing and you know one thing that like in other countries
00:09:03.400that the LDS church does is they, instead of, you know, they have people who knock on
00:09:08.240doors and say, like, have you heard about our church and that sort of thing, but they're
00:09:11.420also just very involved culture-wise in, like, there's this famous story that I heard
00:09:16.880a bunch when I was growing up about how LDS missionaries hooked up cable in, I think this
00:09:27.660They hooked up TV, basically, to a bunch of houses, and it was a channel that you got
00:09:32.120a lot of BYU basketball so then when the missionary showed up on your door it wasn't have you heard
00:09:37.860about our church it's you know those people that you see on your tv like we are part of that larger
00:09:42.840organization so it's a more subtle and a more effective way of getting in the door the trad0.96
00:09:49.720wife style of Mormons is different than evangelical Christians who are much more likely to be the
00:09:56.140people who are like in the middle of the farmer's market yelling like have you heard about our friend
00:10:01.200jesus exactly exactly and and and that's what i've noticed too but i but i think that is an
00:10:09.520important distinction when we're talking about hashtag trad wives because a lot of the like
00:10:15.760a lot of the big trad wife accounts they are evangelical christians yeah and the the linchpin
00:10:24.820of most of them is submission to me. We are submissive wives. We focus on being stay-at-home
00:10:34.580moms. We don't work outside the home. And then things that feel a little bit more dangerous to
00:10:40.260me, we don't believe in women going to college. We don't believe in women getting the same kinds1.00
00:10:47.280of education as men and all of this is couched in very traditionally beautiful images yeah1.00
00:11:00.340uh yeah and so there i don't i i hesitate to use certain adjectives here because i don't
00:11:08.080want to say pretty and beautiful they're they're they look almost like depictions
00:11:14.420of 1950s sitcoms which was never what the world really looked like yeah but it's especially for
00:11:23.160the majority of human beings in the world but it's this idea of the quote-unquote wholesome
00:11:33.300submissive housewife where they're throwing back to a kind of false nostalgia i think right right
00:11:43.220Well, and if you think about it, this aesthetic is only possible through one, like television, right? Like the Donna Reed show where you only get these snippets and it's like very carefully edited and crafted to on the pages of Life magazine, Look magazine, where again, it's like a very specific narrative.
00:12:03.820And then Instagram is just our contemporary version of that, where it is, you know, filters, edits, all of these things are what make that vision possible. And I think that, like, you didn't see much of it in, say, like the 1980s, at least not those representations, those beguiling representations, because the tools were not available to the individuals, right?
00:12:29.580Of course. Yeah, they weren't. They just weren't.
00:12:31.960And there's like there was no filters like you just you got your portrait done at Olin Mills at your church.
00:12:36.660And that was like the extent of your ability to portray the perfection.
00:12:42.380And now they're being broadcast to millions and millions of followers.
00:21:42.040But when you get bored, you'd be like, oh, I guess I got to scrub the floor again today.
00:21:47.400Today, because I because I, you know, I don't have anything else that I'm allowed to do because I can't leave my house without my husband.
00:21:54.860Yeah. The the only attractive part of it, I have to say, is that I do feel it's not even two or three jobs anymore.
00:22:01.440I feel like I have five or six jobs as a content creator and author.0.79
00:22:06.380I'm just constantly the hustle is fucking real.0.95
00:22:09.640Yeah. And the idea, sometimes these accounts, just watching them, and if I can take out some of the Jesus talk, I think, wow, they must be very relaxed, despite the fact that they're cleaning their whole house.0.93
00:22:24.780They're not relaxed, so this is the thing.
00:22:26.840But they have one job. They have one job. I would like to have one job.
00:22:30.060No, you don't feel relaxed. I think that that is such a first.
00:22:33.760yeah yeah i think it's just my desire to have one job which it probably isn't even real i would be
00:22:40.220so fucking bored if i had one job but but it's also like you know the old joke about like i wish
00:22:47.580i had a wife right that's also a fantasy about having one job and that job is your actually0.84
00:22:55.500like the job that you get paid to do so what would that be like for me that would be more enjoyable
00:23:01.400than only doing housework because like i don't loathe cleaning the house i i don't find it
00:23:10.660fulfilling like i can find it gratifying that because i like a clean house but it's not something
00:23:16.160that i like wake up in the morning and like you know what i just love doing is vacuuming cleaning0.88
00:23:21.860shit and if people say that they like cleaning shit like it's because they like the end process0.96
00:24:13.400I remember when, you know, when Mike Pence was running for vice president alongside Donald Trump,
00:24:20.740there was some, I think from liberal circles, some amazed discourse that like,
00:24:26.380And he would not be in a room alone with a woman. And I'm like, yeah, that is normal within that Christian culture. You never are in the room with someone of an opposite sex alone.
00:24:43.720And part of this is this understanding that, like, you will always, somehow women are always, like, even if they don't mean to be, that they are always evil seductresses who will tempt men.0.89
00:25:01.980And that it is women's job, first and foremost, to not be objects of temptation, but not put themselves in situations where they would also tempt their, quote unquote, Christian brothers.
00:25:13.860So it is your job to not put yourself in that situation, not because, like, you would flirt with other people, but because you would also be harming your Christian brothers.
00:25:25.760Right. Right. And we don't want to harm them.
00:25:28.020No, because, you know, they're not in control of their emotions or their sexual irritations.
00:25:31.980No, or their sexual urges. They cannot control them.
00:25:34.900My favorite story about that is one of my friends was one of the first women cops in Philadelphia, and she fought to be a police officer. It wasn't allowed for women to be police officers before 1974. And they wouldn't let the women ride in the police cars with the male police officers, because they were like, you're just a bunch of whores, and you're clearly going to try to have sex with these men.0.85
00:26:00.660Yeah. Yeah. It's just this understanding of women as like sex activators.1.00
00:26:08.240Yes. An amazing sex activation machine can't be controlled.1.00
00:26:16.140It's a submission that gets me. It's a submission that makes me nervous. I don't necessarily agree
00:26:22.560with all of the articles that say, hey, so many young girls are going to be influenced by these0.58
00:26:30.040women to not go to college or to be submissive. But by the same token, I do know some young women
00:26:40.380and we have a lot of young podcast producers. We have a whole army of babysitters because again,
00:26:47.720I can't do this myself. I'm failing every day at everything that I'm doing, who do follow some of
00:26:56.040these accounts and who who do tell me things like well yeah no I mean I don't maybe I I don't think
00:27:01.860that I want I want to work I don't want to hustle and I'm wondering how much these accounts actually
00:27:05.960do influence some young women well see I think there's a real difference between like anti-hustle
00:27:11.420culture and I want to like sublimate my identity to my husband's right yes yes and I think that
00:27:21.400Like, that is where the sweet spot is, is, like, I want to resist, like, hashtag girl boss, but the way to resist that is not by becoming a trad wife.
00:27:32.000Like, I think this is where I think you get the stay-at-home girlfriend trend, which is slightly different, right?
00:27:38.680And I, like, when my editor at Elle asked me to do this, she was like, you know, we're looking at trad wives, but also stay-at-home girlfriends.
00:27:45.480And stay-at-home girlfriends, to me, seems like a slightly different component.
00:27:49.300like these women may or may not have gone to college like they are much more focused in like
00:27:56.100preserving themselves as um ideal femininity in terms like society's ideal femininity so they do0.99
00:28:03.740a lot of pilates on screen in like you know uh what's the brand i'm thinking of like in matching
00:28:13.180like tank top the aloe aloe yeah yeah the a l l o yeah and they like they like make chia bowls for
00:28:22.740them and their husband and live in like beautiful high rises and they don't have kids like this is
00:28:27.360an important component and they're younger right like it would be interesting to see
00:28:33.460what happens to those people in 10 years like that to me i can see how that if you were a younger
00:28:38.920person you'd be like that's aspirational because i just consume all the time i consume or consume
00:28:44.560and then also like tighten my body there's a lot of like there's a lot of crossover with these1.00
00:28:51.420young women in body tightening slash wellness yeah whereas i think a lot of trad wives like1.00
00:28:57.260someone like ballerina wife or ballerina farm um and she's an lds influencer who overlaps with some0.51
00:29:04.900of these trad wife aspirations she's not consuming per se even though her farm is filled with things
00:29:14.680that are actually very expensive even if they look cheap or not expensive they are very expensive
00:29:19.160yes she is like creating and that is i think tapping a different well of desire which is
00:29:26.380what if i gotta like cook cool things all day right yeah what if i gotta be a creative0.99
00:29:33.620like do my domestic creativity product like things that are I can only do as hobbies now
00:29:39.940what if I got to do that all day right right which I think is very attractive to a lot of people and
00:29:47.600that's that's what I wanted to ask you next what do you think these accounts have millions of
00:29:52.800followers or not all of them but some of them have millions of followers and you know a lot of them
00:29:58.000have in the high tens of thousands of followers. What is attractive about these accounts? Why do
00:30:06.600they get so many followers? Well, I think sometimes people underestimate just how many
00:30:12.100evangelical Christians there are in the United States, right? I no longer underestimate it
00:30:18.880after Donald Trump's election, actually. Or people who believe in that ideal and aren't
00:30:25.800maybe necessarily going to church every week but like you know this is the the type of
00:30:29.880religious person that is very is more common in america now than ever before is someone who says
00:30:36.280like they are a religious person but if asked when they go to church they're like i don't go
00:30:39.740to church right like donald trump is the model of this yes yes uh but i think that
00:30:47.220the same way that like i don't know there's people that i follow influencers that i follow
00:30:54.840who are uh creative but like feminist and like flippant or um people doing like cool queer
00:31:05.580design of different things like those people for a lot of evangelical christians like that
00:31:10.600those aren't people that they can follow so who do they follow for lifestyle content essentially
00:31:15.680like this is their version of a beauty magazine for evangelical christians that's cool yeah and
00:31:24.620And we say that all the time on this podcast, that this is a lot of these social media feeds
00:31:30.680and a lot of these TikToks are the equivalent of an old school beauty magazine.
00:31:56.420Young and Modern. Young and Modern, not Young Miss.
00:31:59.880But these are the modern day equivalent, I think, of magazines. It's just a different form of media.
00:32:07.320And so, yeah, this is what you would scroll through if this is the kind of thing, I think, that appeals to you.
00:32:15.000And there are certain things that do appeal to me on some of these accounts as well.
00:32:20.500You know, I get very sucked into something like, how do I make a meal for nine kids, which you mentioned in your newsletter.
00:32:29.360But you know what? You know what I do with that reel? Forward it to my husband.
00:32:32.540And I'm like, look how you can make a meal for nine kids.
00:32:37.540I mean, I. I find the performance of motherhood on social media really exhausting.
00:32:44.380like to me it always looks very exhausting uh and i like so i think that that component of it
00:32:51.520to me is like oofsa uh i think that sometimes it's a way that like the performance of it is a
00:33:00.300way to like even the stuff that's like real talk this is what my life was like or whatever that
00:33:06.620you see both in trad wife influencers but also non-trad wife influencers uh it feels like a
00:33:14.420subterfuse or like a way for us to be to deflect from their their real problem with motherhood in
00:33:22.740america which is that like we are still pretending that every family is arranged like a trad wife
00:33:28.420family but that is not the case for the vast majority of families and shouldn't be the case
00:33:34.020Like we're a different society. So how do we create supports for that? We're not because we are legislating in a way that is trying desperately to, again, pretend that this is like the reality that we can go back to when, again, it was not the reality for the vast majority of Americans, even in the 1950s.
00:33:52.040Right. And it's not the reality for the vast majority of Americans now. So that to me, like I sometimes I get frustrated and fatigued with that. Like it's just an aesthetic distraction from actually grappling with these larger issues.
00:34:08.020And I understand why, like, at any point in time, we often glom to those things instead of dealing with the real issue.
00:34:18.260But, yeah, no, but it is a distraction.
00:34:20.560And I think, clearly, it's hard to distill all of the systemic issues that make motherhood in America feel impossible into a beautiful reel.
00:34:53.760They are running or, you know, an entire home.1.00
00:34:58.380What women, what mothers do in the home is work.
00:35:01.260And so I don't want to take away from that.
00:35:04.240But when the idea becomes this is the only work that women should be allowed to do, that's when it becomes so, so incredibly troublesome.0.53
00:35:17.100There's a lot of things that the transformed wife—so you still follow her?0.93
00:35:22.440Yeah, well, there's a lot there's a lot of things she says that that, you know, she says things like young women waste their most fertile, beautiful years pursuing a college education and a career rather than marrying, bearing children and guiding the home.
00:35:37.420This is not where she says things like you should make yourself available to your husband and his urges at all times at all times at all times.
00:35:47.040Like, just this, like, sexual, like, availability that, yeah.
00:35:52.900Yes, I still follow her is what I'm short of it.
00:36:11.620But I, and my listeners are so curious about this world.
00:36:14.900And maybe that says a little bit about who my influencers are. They are not trad wives. Most of them are still involved in the quote unquote hustle culture of trying to be, we don't say the word girl boss anymore. And also my friends are all in their 40s. So like partner lady or whatever career lady is.0.95
00:36:34.280and and they have said to me that some of like some of this it is
00:36:40.380appealing only in the fact that it is a grass is greener thing it's that oh my gosh i would love
00:36:47.560not to be taking this deposition right now and to be making an apple crisp but oh i also forgot that
00:36:53.320i hate cooking and i am have never made an apple crisp in my life and i i don't even know what the
00:37:00.800things that go into an apple crisp. But it is a grass is greener kind of thing, which I think
00:37:06.060about with Ballerina Farm a lot. And we talked about this in another episode. No, farm work is
00:37:12.680hard. Farm work is crippling labor. It is. It is not easy breezy hobby farm beautiful the way that
00:37:22.000she makes it seem. And yet there's all these people that follow her. And I see in the comments
00:37:26.800too that gosh i just wish that i had this farm life it's like you have no idea the hell it is
00:37:33.340to milk a cow well i think about this a lot actually with gardening because it's my hobby
00:37:41.260and there is a real temptation with if you follow certain influencers to think like oh if i made my
00:37:51.100like gardening into my full-time life if i just grew dahlias all the time like how beautiful my
00:37:56.800life would be but then there is this whole other culture of influencers that are like0.62
00:38:01.580here is all the hard fucking work i do right like here is me like here is every like they really0.73
00:38:08.100spell out not in a way that i feel like is shamey it's just more like this is what it's actually0.95
00:38:12.360like to to run a flower farm yes and to me it's a job yeah and to me i think that that is0.81
00:38:19.560what i appreciate because what they're influencing is like jobs are jobs right like a trad wife's
00:38:26.760job as a wife like in this position like that is a job like they're working hard and especially if
00:38:34.240they're making themselves available to their husbands all the time god that sounds so exhausting
00:38:41.580and also in a lot of these cases you know not using birth control so they are pregnant
00:38:47.320constantly all the time or they're pregnant a lot or nursing a lot um their bodies are not
00:38:55.780their own for a long time like you are putting your body to work in a way that is it takes a
00:39:02.360real toll and real toll yeah but here's the thing is that women in those positions are taught like0.97
00:39:08.860essentially to empty out their reaction to things right like your feelings about something do not1.00
00:39:14.420matter. And you replace that with here is what the Bible says I should feel about this situation.
00:39:20.460And if you are not feeling that, then you are sinning. Right. So I think that that like you
00:39:26.120replace unhappiness with like. I just need to be better. Like if I if I am more. Passive to my
00:39:35.360husband, then I will be happier because that is God's plan for me. Right. Right. The irony
00:39:43.880in this though is and maybe it may be a wrong here but i want to throw it out because
00:39:49.340what i realized about influencers doing this podcast and all of the reporting that i've done
00:39:54.860is that it's not as easy as it looks and content creation is is a job and they are working and
00:40:05.320many of them are indeed making money off of this and so they are like they do have a business they
00:40:13.300working they are putting in time that is not just running their homes and so that seems like an
00:40:18.800anathema to what they claim their values are because they definitely are putting in work
00:40:25.920well this is i mean there are there are contradictions at the heart of this entire
00:40:33.560worldview right like i mean i just think about this all the time with like here's a religion that0.93
00:40:38.380is ostensibly built on the teachings of Jesus Christ that also, like, hates gay and trans
00:40:45.460people, like, is xenophobic, like, all of these different things that, honestly, were0.78
00:40:52.220at the heart of my own leaving Christianity behind.
00:40:58.540But you live, you learn to live with those sorts of contradictions.
00:43:48.340in my dress and so i took it off put my put my sweatpants back on and then forwarded my husband
00:43:56.820what i want for dinner break time quick break time when we get back we're going to talk just
00:44:03.000a little bit more about whether the trad wives are fulfilled or empty and dead inside
00:44:09.700You know, one thing I think about is how much of this identity is women, when they were young, especially if they grew up in this religious tradition, like they have always been told to empty out, to eradicate, to stifle any questioning thought, anything that is different than the norm, than the status quo within their church.0.91
00:44:36.360Like there's just so little room for the development of an identity of like figuring out who you are, what you actually want, what it feels like to know what you want, those sorts of things.0.96
00:44:48.700And so the trad wife becomes a convenient identity, right?
00:45:03.420But really what it is is that there's been so little opportunity to actually figure out what knowing what you want even feels like.
00:45:12.260I think that that is so incredibly true.
00:45:17.340There hasn't been the space to figure out what you want.
00:45:21.600And that's not just for women in evangelical circles.
00:45:27.140I think that women generally haven't historically been given enough space to think about what do we want.
00:45:32.240and what will actually make us feel fulfilled and and make us happy in that in in that way the
00:45:41.820trad wives are all of us great well and that's the thing too is i think sometimes there is a danger
00:45:47.300in this discourse and i saw it in like comments on my piece of people who actually hadn't read
00:45:51.800the piece like are you demonizing stay-at-home moms like no no no no no all this is all about
00:46:01.160agency right and i think that sometimes it's it's difficult to not fall into that trap of like
00:46:07.480well everyone's choosing their choice like even trad wives are choosing their choice
00:46:12.400when sometimes there is some false consciousness here in terms of like
00:46:16.860are you choosing it or are you choosing from the menu the very brief menu of options that
00:46:23.520are available to you exactly like basically you can be a trad wife or you can be a missionary
00:46:29.360that's like right if you're a woman if you're a woman right and that's and i will say i some of1.00
00:46:37.480the most bad ass hard-working women that i know are stay-at-home moms and make make no mistake1.00
00:46:43.880they are working and that is the choice they've made for themselves and their family trad wife0.99
00:46:50.820feels like something totally different to me than stay-at-home mom it feels like offering
00:46:57.560like you said two choices or really ultimately zero choices and it is also the submissive element1.00
00:47:05.340because the stay-at-home moms that i know are the goddamn boss in their house yep uh there is1.00
00:47:11.820nothing submissive about them but the defining characteristic of the trad wife is the submissiveness0.98
00:47:19.700yes yeah oh yeah I love this conversation so much well I could obviously I mean when it so I wrote0.57
00:47:29.140this piece for Elle and then I was like oh my gosh there's so many things that I didn't actually
00:47:34.820touch on in that piece because it was limited by time and space and that sort of thing so I had to
00:47:38.960write like a lot more in my newsletter and I didn't I didn't anticipate how popular that
00:47:44.900newsletter would be it speaks to how popular this like conversation is what were the comments like
00:47:50.520on that newsletter um i think a lot of people either you know this world or you don't right
00:47:58.560right and a lot of people i know didn't know it until i started talking about it on the podcast
00:48:02.920and it's not necessarily that the people who know it are like christians right this is something
00:48:09.860that like people there you know the same reason that people who weren't moms and who weren't
00:48:16.260mormon read mormon mommy blogs in the 2000s and early 2010s like there is a voyeurism element
00:48:23.640to some of this oh do they of course or a gossip element too like what is happening with this
00:48:28.780family blah blah blah i actually don't think that trad wives give any good gossip um no it doesn't1.00
00:48:34.220seem so doesn't seem so it's not like interesting i've looked there's no tension because they can't
00:48:40.620express any sort of doubt because that itself like it has to be like i was feeling down and then i
00:48:46.940prayed and then i felt better kind of thing you know what i mean um there hasn't been a real there
00:48:52.400hasn't been a real trad wife scandal yet either no no um that has really sucked me in unlike the
00:48:58.600mormon mom influencers who give us scandals all the time oh yeah yeah oh yeah yeah so i think that0.99
00:49:04.960like the response for some of my readers and especially male readers was what the fuck0.99
00:49:12.020you know yeah and then there were some people who were like this makes total sense this is part of0.95
00:49:19.040a much larger backlash um that is that has been gaining steam and you know i mentioned this a
00:49:27.700little bit in the newsletter but there's a whole nother direction you could go that's really
00:49:30.540emphasizing how much of especially the like really mainstream trad way like the the super trad
00:49:36.780wives like how much of this has to do with white supremacy both explicitly and more furtively uh
00:49:44.540so there was some conversation about that because i i absolutely think that's the case and um
00:49:49.340say we're darby's book what what's it called um it's about
00:49:56.460googling um sisters and hate say we're darby's book sisters and hate which is about
00:50:03.600american women that are involved in white extremism broadly but like trad wives are a
00:50:09.700big part of it so i think that connects some dots for people so if they were familiar with
00:50:14.660her work they were like oh yes i know about this yeah um so and you know like growing up in north
00:50:21.700idaho like i and then doing reporting there especially over the past couple of years back
00:50:27.260when i used to live in montana like i met trad wives who don't have an instagram presence right
00:50:31.920like they are just trad wives they just live in north idaho and like live this as their truth
00:50:36.460and so and it has incredible political ramifications so i think some there's some
00:50:42.420like, oh my gosh, these ridiculous Instagram accounts, why do you follow them? And then0.82
00:50:46.760there's some that's like, I have seen the effect of these people on the political landscape of my
00:50:54.080state, on the educational landscape of my state. Like this stuff is really important. We have to
00:50:59.440take it seriously. It is really important. I mean, I think the thing about influencers,
00:51:05.300and i say this a lot is and you're someone who has done so much research into the world of
00:51:12.780celebrity from an academic standpoint so i think you'll you'll get what i'm saying here
00:51:18.940is that influencers are now often as influential as some celebrities they have yeah they have so
00:51:26.660many followers they do induce people not just to buy things but to think things and i believe they
00:51:33.500should be covered the same way that I believed 20 years ago. Celebrities should be covered
00:51:38.660because when you have influence over people, journalism should hold you accountable.
00:51:44.340Yeah. And I believe that is now influencers have reached that point. And I think that journalism
00:51:49.660should now hold them accountable. We should be talking about this world. We should be talking
00:51:54.740about how they influence our thoughts and our ideas and our culture.
00:52:00.760I mean, they're called the influencer.
00:52:02.680They're called, they're actually called influencers.
00:52:06.120Well, and I think of them, you know how like celebrity is this large understanding that this term that we have to describe someone who is a public figure who is known for something, right?
00:52:17.840And who maybe has a persona that is, we can talk a little bit about like a public persona that they present to the world and that is consumable and then a private persona.
00:52:26.520So oftentimes there is that delineation. And this is true even for reality stars and influencers. But under that huge umbrella, you know, we have movie stars, musicians, television stars. Like there is some overlap between those two. But I think that there was like a resistance to put influencers under that umbrella for some reason.
00:52:48.640I think just because people thought that they like, you know, they're famous for not being, they're famous for being famous, like they have no skill, but they do have a skill.