Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - An Intermission

00:00:00.000 This is intermission.

00:00:08.820 It's a little breather.

00:00:10.900 After reporting on episode 6 and all the dangers to our kids of being broadcast on the internet all the time,

00:00:17.240 I got spooked.

00:00:20.020 And I want to take a little break to regroup.

00:00:27.180 I personally hate it when podcasts do this.

00:00:30.000 like a highlight reel or they just go dark, which is why we're not just going dark. We will be back

00:00:34.600 next week with a fully reported brand new episode. But this week, I'm turning off my phone.

00:00:44.340 Glynis and I had a short conversation to reflect on why I'm making this choice right now.

00:01:00.000 Oh, hi, Glynis. Hey.

00:01:05.300 One thing about being on these video calls is that I can really see my mask acne really well.

00:01:09.380 Can you see my mask acne? No, my connection is not good. You look like your skin is glowing.

00:01:14.900 Oh, I like that.

00:01:16.400 Like we time traveled back to the late 90s when nothing affected our health.

00:01:23.980 nothing literally nothing we couldn't in the in the late 90s we could have inhaled Windex

00:01:30.500 do you remember huffing what was huffing you like inhaled like whipped cream canisters oh god I had

00:01:38.720 a friend that did that in the in the restaurant I used to wait tables at when we're having a long

00:01:44.220 night suddenly all of the whipped cream canisters from the dessert bar would disappear I never huffed

00:01:50.320 but I wish that I'd once huffed one beer at dinner last night. And I look like the walking dead.

00:01:56.220 I can't even have dessert anymore. And this we sound like, I feel like COVID has given me

00:02:01.320 enormous empathy for old people in so many ways. But I can't have dessert anymore. Just really 0.94

00:02:08.780 feels like one of those things you hear as a young person and you think, wow, I'll never be

00:02:13.720 like that your life sucks and then one day one day you stop being able to sleep I feel like that

00:02:22.440 should be the title of your next series of essays I can't have dessert anymore oh god it's too 0.98

00:02:28.340 depressing though who wants to read that I wouldn't even want to read that speaking of depressing

00:02:34.940 our last episode episode six episode six fucked me up episode six terrified me episode six made me 0.88

00:02:46.660 convinced that i'm gonna turn my kids into jody sweeten from full house oh jody sweeten right 0.95

00:02:55.280 or the corys both corys hame and feldman oh i love the corys dream a little dream my always

00:03:03.920 my favorite Cory movie that no one's ever seen. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're wrong. You're

00:03:07.680 wrong. It was License to Drive. That was not my favorite Cory movie, though. But that's the best

00:03:12.140 one. No, Dream a Little Dream. License to Drive. Battle of the Cory. What was that like for you

00:03:19.500 after, you know, putting so much energy into trying to figure out, you know, a career step

00:03:29.440 that makes sense and is sustainable because you and I often have conversations and we've been

00:03:34.960 having these conversations for years about as writers what is sustainable like what does a

00:03:42.380 writing career even exist anymore and how so but how does it feel to sort of have moved into this

00:03:48.500 world and then did this feel like a bucket of cold water or a slap in the face what did it feel like

00:03:53.300 yeah it felt like a donkey punch 0.91

00:03:56.740 are we allowed to say the word donkey punch

00:03:59.860 hello i'm not i'm not gonna explain what that means 0.99

00:04:06.340 also no one should google it but yeah it felt like shit 0.53

00:04:09.880 i've listened to episode six and that's why that's why people are hearing this 0.52

00:04:14.760 right now we're we're taking an intermission

00:04:17.140 mostly because i need a break i need a breather

00:04:21.780 i need to i i don't think i i no longer think that i have a career path as an influencer mostly

00:04:28.740 because really do you really think that that was enough to push you out i do i do you don't think

00:04:35.320 there's a way to navigate with kids like a safe space with kids i say this in the episode i think

00:04:43.220 that there are a lot of mom influencers who are doing great work who they do set up boundaries

00:04:47.800 around their kids they I think that they are good moms I'm not I don't want to call anyone out

00:04:53.600 I don't think that it is for me when I brought it up to Nick Nick's answer was I'll make you

00:05:00.960 I'll make us fake kids he's he he wants to photoshop digital children into our Instagram

00:05:09.120 account because he just he finds something very distasteful about making money off images of our

00:05:16.140 children. I think the comparisons that we ended up making to child stars in episode six scared me.

00:05:28.060 All of the conversations also about how much easier it is to have your children's data stolen,

00:05:34.660 the fact that pedophiles can pluck your child's pictures off the internet, all of it makes me

00:05:40.480 want to shut down my Instagram which I can't do because the fact is I'm still an author I write

00:05:46.600 books and I have podcasts and Instagram is how I tell people I'm making things and doing things

00:05:52.220 but no I don't I don't think it's I no longer think it's sustainable to be an influencer

00:06:00.040 what was the one thing what do you think was the the one thing that flipped it for you

00:06:06.880 What was the thing you heard that was like, oh, I don't know if I can get past this?

00:06:13.400 Listening to Lou, the child of a former mom blogger, and the things that they posted on TikTok, they said they're 26 years old, and they still resent their mother for putting them out there on the internet.

00:06:28.000 And I think all the time, especially about Bea, there's something about mothers and daughters. There's so many things that my daughter will probably resent me for or dislike me for just because mother-daughter relationships are so fraught. Like, do I need to give her one more thing? One more thing to resent me for?

00:06:48.100 I can empathize with, with worrying more about B, but I also think that is contributing to that is some of your own experience in front of a camera, which no, not, no, not just with your mother, but your own experience in front of a camera, which we've spoken about, like being a woman in the public eye, it's never a good thing. 0.97

00:07:12.460 Right. There's it's always ends badly. We I mean, we're recording this shortly after the Megan and Harry interview. So I mean, there's so little reward for women in the public eye that I can really see that being concerned, obviously, for Charlie as well, but that there's an extra level of complication when you are putting your daughter in the public eye and what that would mean 10 or 15 years from now. 0.94

00:07:42.460 in terms of ideas about self-worth and appearance and et cetera, et cetera.

00:07:48.380 Yeah. Yeah. And that's like, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll feel differently. We're recording

00:07:54.440 this literally right before episode six airs and I've listened to it over and over again,

00:08:01.140 trying to edit it, but I need a break. I need a break. Plus episode seven is also

00:08:09.480 about the dark side of this. It's about how women get trashed on Instagram and criticized and picked 0.92

00:08:16.580 apart about how conspiracy theories are infiltrating the world of mom influencers. 1.00

00:08:23.580 They're actually called Cua moms. So episode seven is really heavy. Episode six was really

00:08:29.820 heavy. And I feel bad because I want to keep delivering content. But I also I need a little

00:08:37.120 bit of a break this week after finishing up episode six, which weighed on me. Yeah, it was a

00:08:43.860 lot. And this but I will say, doing this podcast, and dissecting this world and getting to be a part

00:08:50.740 of this world. And the reaction that we're getting about this world has been awesome.

00:08:56.000 It's been extraordinary. Somebody who writes primarily about not having kids or marriage.

00:09:02.280 I'm hearing from people about it. It's really it's so interesting to me that it's hitting a

00:09:06.680 nerve. I think that's partly timing because we've all been on our screens, as my phone likes to tell

00:09:11.660 me on a weekly basis, significantly more than usual. We've seen a shift, a flattening of what

00:09:19.120 celebrity means. I think obviously the pandemic has revealed a lot about what is expected from

00:09:29.840 mothers more than fathers in terms of childcare and responsibility and whose careers are being

00:09:36.400 lost in this moment. So it doesn't surprise me, but it's sort of extraordinary to, to see

00:09:41.200 how much of a nerve the podcast has hit. Cause I think when we started it, that was not

00:09:47.580 my expectation necessarily going in. It seemed interesting. And now it seems very

00:09:52.380 integral to this moment and extremely intense and that we're at some sort of

00:09:59.160 pivot almost of how we're thinking about all of these things. And you, you, what you're voicing

00:10:06.260 I think, is articulating what a lot of parents, a lot of people are thinking about.

00:10:36.260 i feel bad i feel bad because this because i'm a woman and i feel guilty all of the time um

00:10:44.680 but i think people that listen to this podcast get it it's a lot of moms um women who live live

00:10:52.540 their lives on the internet and we all need we need a break so we're gonna finish reporting

00:10:58.280 episode seven which is another doozy i'm gonna take a step back from trying to be an influencer

00:11:04.640 and maybe your step back maybe you should take a step off your phone

00:11:09.020 well that's what i was thinking if i if i could take what we're calling an intermission

00:11:15.900 right now i want to get off my phone for a week and i can't get off my phone for a week

00:11:20.920 if we're producing episodes every week so i actually think it'd be very interesting in the

00:11:26.140 middle of this, as we've been so engrossed in online life and how to weave it and direct it

00:11:35.540 in ways that benefit you, to really step out of it is like a cold dose of what offline life feels

00:11:43.500 like. And remember that. We grew up with offline life. So it'd be interesting to remember it and

00:11:47.500 think like, am I idealizing offline life maybe? Or is this actually better? Well, I don't know.

00:11:54.120 I was at I was at the playground with Charlie the other day. I went to the playground with my mom

00:12:00.040 friends at five o'clock and we decided we were going to have wine and take the kids to the

00:12:05.880 playground, except I didn't have any wine in the house. I only had white claws and I also didn't

00:12:10.260 have any cups. So I was the parent drinking a white claw out of a can on the playground. And I

00:12:16.100 decided fuck it i don't care uh but charlie and b were going down the slide together and it was so 0.98

00:12:25.180 cute and i kept taking pictures of it and you know thinking oh yeah i'll post this to instagram it's 0.99

00:12:30.660 so cute everyone should see this and charlie stood up and pointed a finger in my face i was like no

00:12:37.480 more photos. Put your phone away. I will never be photographed. Wow. How old is he now? Three? 0.76

00:12:48.420 Three and a half? He wants you to know that he is three and a half. You better give him that half

00:12:53.960 or he'll be pissed. I do have a recollection of around age six or seven informing my parents I

00:13:02.780 didn't want my photo taken. But I do think it's happening much younger and I see it happening.

00:13:06.660 that doesn't necessarily surprise me because I've seen kids because it's so comprehensive right it's

00:13:13.800 not just at Christmas and Easter and birthdays like it used to be when we were kids no no it's

00:13:18.880 all it is all of the time and I you know I put my phone down and I picked up my white claw and I

00:13:26.000 but it was it was a shock because I was like he notices he's noticing the fact that I'm do I'm

00:13:31.900 documenting all this that my phone's glued to the palm of my hand and I look that's why I need a

00:13:36.780 break I think too I would just say this that I it's you're feeling it from episode six and also

00:13:43.400 because we're partway through doing episode seven I think what comes after that though is some

00:13:48.940 interesting conversations about where this might go and I think that's that's useful and interesting

00:13:58.260 to keep in mind because as one of the reasons this feels so overwhelming and dark is because

00:14:03.440 there's currently no limits or boundaries or any sort of rules about this. And that if one of the

00:14:13.120 outcomes is similar to what you spoke about in terms of protections around child stars, like

00:14:18.200 if there starts to be, if this starts to be dealt with as an official industry, which it is starting

00:14:26.060 to be, which you talk about, or we'll talk about in a future episode. Maybe what comes with that

00:14:32.460 are protections and limits that make it more feasible. Well, I will tell you that last night,

00:14:41.720 researching the future of mom influencing, I downloaded TikTok for the first time.

00:14:50.060 and I don't I'm still figuring out if there's anything on TikTok for me but trying to figure

00:14:56.660 out if there was anything on TikTok for me I have gone deep into ABBA TikTok

00:15:02.560 I thought we were ABBA TikTok when I ABBA TikTok I'm I just opened it right now and so

00:15:11.740 I think that if I know right

00:15:16.240 wow yeah yeah

00:15:21.240 so i'm like all right if i can figure out how to be a mom influencer on tiktok with

00:15:30.760 the intersection of abba see there's happiness coming that's all i'm gonna say i'm not gonna

00:15:34.120 play anymore abba for you we're not giving joe you are not a quitter i'm not a quitter like julia

00:15:39.000 Roberts. For example, not like Julia Roberts, just as one example. If we're talking about

00:15:47.260 quitters, I just want to make sure that we're mentioning Julia Roberts. Yeah, I feel like

00:15:55.180 I'm curious once you come back from intermission. Intermission. Yes. When I say that, it makes me

00:16:04.300 think of when my mom went to the movies as a kid and movies were so long, they literally did have

00:16:07.940 an intermission in the middle of the movie uh when you come back from intermission and we get

00:16:13.920 through i'm curious to know what sticks and what doesn't well we'll see also wouldn't it be great

00:16:21.740 if i could wouldn't it be great if i could just have an intermission for my life as a mom if i

00:16:25.120 was like god bye kids i'm leaving i'm gonna have it's intermission intermission now every time i

00:16:31.340 hear like a celebrity wealthy mom talk talk about how what a joy parenting is oh it's such a delight

00:16:36.760 I can't or George Clooney I can't believe I ever lived that I'm like you've got so many staff

00:16:41.180 helping you you get intermissions all the time that's I just want some more intermissions and

00:16:46.820 I'm taking one this week and yeah you know what we'll see everyone again next week should we leave

00:16:52.120 people with ABBA TikTok yes let me see going on the TikTok right now is only joy let's leave with 1.00

00:16:58.700 joy oh oh look at these girls doing super trooper

00:17:04.820 super trooper all right bye guys intermission time we'll see you soon

00:17:12.960 no don't worry i'm not having like a celebrity style breakdown where i'm checking myself into

00:17:21.000 a spa near arizona desert we will be back next week with a full episode and i'm so excited to

00:17:26.760 share it with you. This podcast is reported and hosted by me, Joe Piazza, with a lot of help from

00:17:33.680 Gunas McNichol. Emily Marinoff is our producer. Jackie Huntington helped us compose this episode

00:17:40.200 to put it all together and make it sound gorgeous. And Manga Shatikador is our executive producer.

00:17:56.760 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - March 18, 2021

An Intermission

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