00:00:17.880Because when I read Steph McNeil's recent piece on Vulture about Ballerina Farm, I immediately
00:00:23.780messaged her and said, drop everything you're doing and get on the microphone with me right
00:00:28.280now because this is this is truly the best piece that I've ever read about Hannah Nielman.
00:00:34.500That's so nice. Well, it's true. And I've actually had several people text text me the story today
00:00:40.400because anytime anything comes out about the Ballerina Farm brand or Trad Wives, I get hundreds
00:00:46.720of texts, including my friend who lives in Midway, Utah and runs the Folklore Bookshop.
00:00:52.340And she told me that this is the best story she's ever read. And that's what everyone is saying.
00:00:56.560So kudos to you. You did an amazing job with this. Thank you so much. I really wish I had had a chance
00:01:02.240to explore Midway a little bit more. It is the cutest little town ever. I wish I had known. I
00:01:08.180would have gone to her bookstore. Oh, my gosh. Next. Yes. Next time. Next time. Well, because
00:01:12.700so I went. I did an event at Folklore, Lindsay's Bookstore, and amazing turnout in Midway. And
00:01:20.720I explored the town. And also I did the tour of the dairy farm with Daniel while I was there.
00:01:26.560Yeah, so I toured the dairy as well. It wasn't Daniel, though. I don't remember what his actual job was, but he's high up in the dairy operations guy.
00:01:38.300yeah yeah i was actually so shocked because i was not going to report a story i was really going
00:01:45.320just for fun i was like oh look i can tour the dairy farm and this seems like a good time and
00:01:50.700assumed it was going to be like an assistant taking us around and then daniel just like shows
00:01:54.160up in these dirty car hearts i was like hello i am daniel i was like okay cool this is a different
00:02:00.420day than i expected so for this profile i want to tell everyone i truly believe and i want to hear
00:02:07.300your opinion that this is the most pretty much honest look that we've gotten from Hannah in her
00:02:13.660own words so far yet how did you feel about that yeah I like she was being very honest you know I
00:02:21.220think that we had a really good rapport um I I felt like I didn't feel like she was holding back
00:02:30.140from me especially um you know as we were sitting across from each other you know I I think like my
00:02:37.040my thought process and interviewing anyone is you know trying to have like a really
00:02:45.500genuine conversation without the I don't know I try to just like start from square one and start
00:02:52.660with like no baggage no anything just like let's you know sit down and have a conversation about
00:02:57.300like xyz issues and just I don't know I feel like it it flowed well and I felt I felt like she was
00:03:02.940being i felt like she was very honest with me i do too and you know you're another journalist that
00:03:09.400i think has a really good bullshit meter uh i mean i can tell when someone's feeding me a line
00:03:13.800it's it's why i find it exhausting to ever interview anyone from meta because i'm like0.99
00:03:18.380you guys are the most media trained motherfuckers i've ever met in my entire lives but like this0.86
00:03:24.420did just feel like no bullshit and you asked the hard questions you asked about what she thinks of0.99
00:03:30.860being called a trad wife what she thinks of being a possible caricature in yesteryear and what she0.84
00:03:36.880thought of the raw milk scandal and i think that her answers were also smart and measured she's
00:03:43.700clearly been media trained you wouldn't do an interview like this if you hadn't been but i also
00:03:48.660found them very very relatable i think that you know i think the one thing that i if i could like
00:03:56.860say to people that listen or people that are really fascinated with influencers in general
00:04:02.440is I think people forget sometimes that there is like a person at the center of it and
00:04:08.520a person you can have a conversation with. Right. And I think like if you actually sit down with
00:04:14.380people, you're not going to get the caricature that you see either online by their own accord
00:04:18.920or like the caricature that you get from all the think pieces. Right. And I think like that
00:04:23.520to me was the most interesting thing was getting to sit down and speak to her about
00:04:27.080like one-on-one like human to human mom to mom like woman to woman and you know there are things
00:04:35.060that you know you might agree with her on there are things that you know you might relate to her
00:04:39.680on there are things that are like you know you might not relate to her on look like we she lives
00:04:46.400in a culture and in a life that you know might not be relatable to someone like me who lives in
00:04:52.500brooklyn you know what i mean like you know she lives in a very specific religious community like
00:04:57.020she was she you know makes choices that you know i necessarily i wouldn't necessarily make myself
00:05:02.080but you know i think can respect so i think like i don't know i think one thing that i've learned
00:05:08.400and i'm sure that you've learned this as well is with people who are discussed a lot on the internet
00:05:13.920And I feel like this is like even more now, just the way that people are kind of discussed as
00:05:23.860nauseam for content. It's never what you expect when you actually get into a room with them. And
00:05:31.100I think part of what I really try to do is come in with no preconceived notions, obviously with
00:05:36.940questions and with experience and with knowledge, but not come in immediately. I kind of come in
00:05:43.180was an open mind i guess what i say and i feel like that is something that helps when you're
00:05:48.840kind of in these spaces because if you just like come and expecting this avatar then that's that's
00:05:55.660not gonna help you actually see the person underneath right and then you're not gonna have
00:06:01.260what i think is necessary for a good profile which is curiosity about a person yes yes exactly
00:06:10.660um yeah i you know i've interviewed a lot of you know i would say like influencers specifically that
00:06:17.900have had a lot of discourse about them and i don't know it's like in in celebrities too it's
00:06:25.660like when you get into a room with someone it's just you know it's it's different i don't know
00:06:32.340does that make sense um no absolutely absolutely because and you and i have talked about this a lot
00:06:37.260that influencers truly are, in a lot of ways, the new celebrities in this world. You know,
00:06:41.940they're written about, they're critiqued in the same way as celebrities. And so I think most people
00:06:47.480go into meeting them or thinking about them with a preconceived notion, and no one is who they are
00:06:54.400on screen, on camera, or on the internet, right? Like, they're only showing parts of their life.
00:07:00.520I like that you asked about the term trad wife. I would say I do not consider her a trad wife now. I would have considered her a trad wife during the early years. And here's why. Because to me, the definition of trad wife is someone performing on social media, performing a certain sort of domesticity in order to gain followers and sell products.
00:07:27.540And I think that she did that for a long time when a lot of the reels, which she references, were her juggling kids in a beautiful kitchen.
00:07:36.620And she acted a lot like, oh, I'm just a wife.
00:07:40.400I'm just a wife and I happen to be doing these things.
00:07:43.420And that was that feels like the very definition of trad wife to me.
00:07:47.000What she's doing now, to me, feels like coming out of the shadows and saying, I work my ass off and I am running a business and running a brand with my husband and we are partners in that business.
00:08:01.180Well, it's interesting because, and this, you know, this isn't a piece, but she said basically that was a self-correction because she felt like she was trying to portray herself one way and people were taking it the way that you just described.
00:08:17.000Like she was showing, oh, this is my life, blah, blah, blah.
00:08:19.880And she did not like the assumption that she was trying to say, oh, I'm just this little
00:08:30.820And so she has been trying in her mind to change that.
00:08:38.400I think primarily from primarily by trying to show all the other people that are working on
00:08:48.720Ballerina Farm, if that makes sense. So, you know, she created. She makes all the sense.
00:08:53.460Created the Ballerina Farm store account because she wanted to show that, no, this isn't just me.
00:09:02.260there is this whole host of people behind me um so it's interesting but I think also one thing
00:09:09.680that's really true about the internet is people are very stuck in the perception that that they
00:09:20.080may have put out a long time ago you know what I mean although I guess like not in a negative way
00:09:25.800because amanda patula probably wouldn't say that but um you know i think that people you know she
00:09:32.760is trying to kind of evolve like i said in the piece um and you know is people are still kind
00:09:40.620of saying oh well she does this and you know in her mind she's like well maybe i did but now you
00:09:45.900know i'm trying to show x y and z right right exactly and i do think she was very careful with
00:09:51.540her words around those things but but at the same time i think that we are and i think this
00:09:56.960with nara smith too i think we're seeing all of the labor um her labor and also other people's
00:10:03.540labor including daniel's labor that goes into this brand which really felt erased i think in
00:10:10.460the early days where we were talking about trad waves say two or three years ago i think you know
00:10:15.640it was folks making everything look a little bit too easy and this does feel like a self-correction
00:10:21.840I don't totally believe her when she's like I just photographed myself from great angles and
00:10:27.700I'm like maybe but also I think you look great okay I think you probably probably you're looking
00:10:32.980you're looking good okay but I think like I think one thing that you know is just true
00:10:41.040is some people post-birth look great you know I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not but I have so
00:10:50.120many friends who just looked the same I hope I have friends who you know you know look great
00:10:57.120and you know what are you there's that's just the way it is and I looked I looked like a puff-a-lump
00:11:06.400that had just been hit by a truck yeah yeah i mean i had a baby seven months ago and i still
00:11:13.800i'm like who am i like i had to be i had a baby three years ago three and a half years ago and
00:11:21.720i'm still like oh god really uh but when i post on instagram i do usually use my best angles
00:11:28.380oh yeah i mean everyone does because we all do because we all do okay let's take a really quick
00:11:36.100break and when we get back I want to hear what you thought about the farm okay I'm back you
00:11:48.280interviewed Hannah in the schoolhouse right yes yeah and she and she also admitted that she has
00:11:54.620the teacher and the teacher's assistant she's talked about that before she is not doing all
00:11:58.440this homeschooling no no that and that was pretty apparent in the schoolhouse as well yeah she it's
00:12:05.500basically like a um very very small school if that makes sense well it does because or i guess
00:12:13.740the baby's not he's not learning anything we don't know what that we don't know what that
00:12:18.260baby learns okay we don't know how 24 7 exactly exactly just chilling just well it's funny when
00:12:25.680i was there uh doing the farm tour the baby had been born two days earlier uh yeah and they were
00:12:32.800like still figuring out her name and daniel just kind of seemed like he had been hit by a truck
00:12:36.940and i'm like i think maybe you came out to do this tour of the dairy today just to get out of
00:12:42.040your house i mean that's relatable 100 man 100 so you did it in the schoolhouse um and then you
00:12:49.800toured you toured the whole farm right tell us tell us what it's like because you are also one
00:12:53.240of the only people that i can talk to who has out who has actually toured parts of this farm
00:12:58.520in this dairy yeah um i so they are offering uh tours of the dairy now which is a relatively new
00:13:07.400thing um i'm not sure when you went out there but i it's only been around for a couple months
00:13:11.420i was one of the one of the early ones i mean this was like i think march yeah yeah so it's
00:13:17.640something that it's it's something that you can just sign up for online and so you know there was
00:13:23.140And the group of people that were on my tour, I don't know about yours, was just kind of very much either parents on spring break who were like, oh, yeah, this seems like something cool to do, you know, very much like what can we do to fill the time?
00:13:40.280And that kind of was relatable to me because it's like, oh, yeah, sure.
00:13:43.660Let's go tour this farm that's down the road.
00:13:46.240You know, you're just looking for anything to do.
00:13:47.900um and there was actually a couple people on my tour who were like driving cross country for a
00:13:52.580move or you know something like that and um or like on a road trip basically and stopped by as
00:13:59.440like oh we should stop and do this thing um well that was interesting the dairy is huge i think
00:14:07.220that's another thing that i think like a lot of the perceptions of her are kind of stuck in amber
00:14:12.000a little bit um yes yes kind of do more press and let you know do a little bit more stuff because i
00:14:18.220think a lot of people are still like she has one cow and they don't know how to take care of the
00:14:23.360cow which is like something people say i remember like back in the day um right right there's so
00:14:28.380many there's so many cows there's so many cows there's so many cows and also it is here's one
00:14:33.620of the things that shocked me it's a massively robotic and ai driven dairy yeah which i assume
00:14:41.960i mean i have known nothing about dairies but i assume that a lot of them are now but yeah there's
00:14:49.940a lot of cool tech in there there's some really i mean the milking machine you saw the milking
00:14:54.060machine right wait so there's like basically a pump for like a breast pump for is this what
00:15:01.340you're talking about yeah yeah the breast pump for cows for cows and i was cracking up because0.99
00:15:07.760like it it was me like four months four months ago there were two there were two women on my
00:15:16.160tour who said the same exact thing when they saw the pump yes like girl yeah i'd be like
00:15:21.160yep yep and the cows line the cows line up to go in and i'm like how do you get them to do that
00:15:27.560and he's like we give them a cookie and i'm like i wish someone had given me a cookie every time i
00:15:31.180had to go pump my milk i know that would have gotten me in there real quick um yeah for for
00:15:37.120my my son who my baby that i just had um he i had he had both my babies like didn't care about
00:15:44.380eating and so i had to exclusively pump him for like the first couple of months because we had
00:15:50.140to track how much he was eating and it was horrible that's just an aside anyways um but
00:15:56.840yeah it was yeah the ai and then there was like the ai machine that was kind of like scanning all
00:16:02.520the different cows and like see they like went into like the weighing thing and it showed like
00:16:06.220how healthy they were yeah it was super cool i tried really hard to find a cow that was born
00:16:10.380on my baby's like actual birth date like it was the same age as him i couldn't find one but that's
00:16:16.200okay uh yes but i did you submit names for the cows because i submitted a bunch of names for the
00:16:21.180cows no they didn't let me oh yeah oh yeah i got to submit names for the cows wow well i know it
00:16:29.580was really special i did i i put in all of my children's names and all of the characters from
00:16:34.600everyone is lying to you which brought me a lot of joy oh my gosh that's funny i know i know it
00:16:39.880was great it was great uh yeah i i do think that that is like what a regular dairy these days looks
00:16:47.220like but what i thought was so interesting is that as you said i think a lot of people's ideas
00:16:51.420about her are set in amber we're picturing them waking up and milking cows themselves and i'm like
00:16:57.400there's not even other people milking those cows the milking machine looks and then a robot a poop
00:17:03.080roomba goes around and picks up but i forgot about that yeah yeah i uh just like shameless plug i'm
00:17:10.860gonna share some photos and videos on thursday on my sub stack um about uh some of the like i
00:17:17.480tried to take as much like videos as i could because it was it was cool um and then so they
00:17:22.460have two retail sites now they have the store in midway as you mentioned but they also have a farm
00:17:26.500stand um which is down the road from their house um where you can buy a lot of the same stuff the
00:17:31.740farm stand is obviously a little smaller um but you know you can buy like charcuterie boxes you
00:17:36.280can buy dips you can buy um oh they have that they have a soft serve truck there do you have
00:17:42.860the soft serve girl i had the soft serve every day i was there for three days okay it was so good
00:17:50.260it's so good it's so it's did you get the melted butter that then hardens with the sea salt on it
00:17:56.100no i couldn't bring myself to the butter you should have because i still think about i still
00:18:03.100think about it okay like it was spectacular it wasn't it wasn't okay look I also I ate my way
00:18:11.440through the ballerina farm store and I loved everything I ate I'm like I'm unapologetic
00:18:16.540about the fact that the food was good it's really good and that was like another thing that I thought
00:18:21.520was really interesting to come out of my interview with her and this article is like my editor in
00:18:28.280particular was really interested in pinning down, OK, like what is from the farm? What like if
00:18:33.480you're buying things online, where is that from? That kind of thing. And one thing I found really
00:18:42.760interesting is kind of their business model now is all of the stuff that they're producing at the
00:18:47.660farm. They specifically want to be sold locally. So they want to send like their milk and their
00:18:55.320bread and their beef where it's like basically you can only buy it if you're in Utah. And then
00:19:00.380the things that you can buy on the Internet are like the protein powder, for example, like those
00:19:05.480aren't manufactured at Ballerina Farm. It's kind of like this two prong approach to business that
00:19:11.780I found kind of interesting. Yeah. Whereas like I think in the beginning, if you were going to buy
00:19:17.840a meat box from them, it would be meat from the farm. And I think essentially they just can't
00:19:23.200keep up with the demand to like ship meat all across the country they just don't have a big
00:19:26.880farm yeah exactly did you did you try the bone broth hot cocoa um i have it i haven't tried it
00:19:35.160yet though it's really good yeah i really like it i also like the farmer protein yeah so i i i
00:19:42.040shameless like i guess like plug for the farmer you know the farmer protein is very good i i don't
00:19:49.360drink protein drinks like straight, but I put it in like a smoothie and it's really good.
00:19:56.180I haven't tried the hot chocolate yet, just haven't gotten around to it. And the hydrate's
00:20:00.480good too. The hydrate is interesting. I have to say though, like I, I really like the really salty
00:20:07.560electrolyte mixes. Like I'm a huge like element head. So it doesn't like scratch that itch for me.
00:20:14.340But I think if you're not obsessed with like electrolytes being super salty, you would like it.
00:20:22.920I like the maple syrup protein powder, which is a flavor profile I had not had before.
00:20:27.980And I put it in my Greek yogurt, which is which is pretty good.
00:20:33.000You know, one of the things that I think is interesting and I'm glad that I went to the farm well after I had written Everyone is Lying to you.
00:20:41.720well after that book even came out, right? Because I did not want to write a satire or a caricature
00:20:48.580of Hannah Nealman, nor would I ever want to be cruel to any woman, to any influencer. And so
00:20:58.000I'm really glad that I didn't. But one of the things that I did, and I've compared Hannah
00:21:03.240Nealman to these folks, and I did compare my influencer character, Rebecca, in Everyone is0.90
00:21:08.740to you too is i'm like i think a lot of these women just want to become the next chip and
00:21:13.900joanna games and i've said that about ballerina farm i'm like i bet this is what i see them
00:21:18.800evolving into and you directly asked her that what did she say about that yeah i mean she she
00:21:25.540wasn't she was seemed like fine with the comparison i don't know if they're necessarily
00:21:30.200like modeling after but that it's very much the same concept i haven't been to magnolia um but
00:21:36.800But they are trying to expand into, like, essentially a Magnolia-esque huge thing where you can come and go to multiple locations.
00:21:48.220And they already kind of have it, but I know that they, and I think she mentions this in the article, I know that they're planning on trying to build even more.
00:21:56.660I went down, they have a bunch of, like, greenhouses now and plants and stuff like that, that they're getting off the ground.
00:22:04.000And that's, like, a relatively new thing.
00:22:05.580Um, and I think they want to start growing more, more vegetables. They're only growing vegetables
00:22:11.180right now. Um, and yeah, like I think, yeah, I think they want to expand for sure. Um, and it's
00:22:19.620very similar. I think like the one, I think one thing that I find very interesting is I think
00:22:24.360because it's Hannah and it's Ballerina Farm, people take the stuff that they're making,
00:22:31.100not at face value like let's take like all of the social media stuff aside and just look at it from
00:22:37.080like face value in canvas utah what is this and if you strip all of that away and you look at it
00:22:43.700for what it is like let's say the starman store in midway um and i've told this to a lot of people
00:22:48.460it's pretty similar to a story you can find in brooklyn uh it reminded me a lot of stores i've
00:22:54.880been to in Sonoma County, Maine, like, you know, I'm a I love a good like farmer's market as
00:23:03.400kitschy store where you can go and get, you know, some charcuterie and some jam and, you know,
00:23:11.620a couple of little chotskies and like you can find that store anywhere. And that's it's very
00:23:17.320similar. It's not you know, it's not overly Americana. It's not overly like all of these
00:23:22.520things like there's not a sign that says trad wife on the door like you could it is very similar to
00:23:28.480the six bells which i don't know if you know what the six bells oh i know a lot oh i know about six
00:23:32.360bells it's it's basically the six bells which for those who don't know is um audrey gellman who
00:23:37.840founded the wing it's her like farm to table kitschy home goods store um right down right
00:23:44.580from where i live in brooklyn oh i didn't know well and then six bells also has the um hotel
00:23:50.180upstate um kind of close to to where i am i said the exact same thing when i walked into the farm
00:23:56.800store i'm like we could be anywhere we could be in brooklyn we could be in the cat we could
00:24:01.940certainly be in the catskills my friend uh or we could be in minneapolis like this it's like
00:24:07.860the farmification the little house on the prairie of vacation i would actually argue that i i think
00:24:14.300the ballerina farm farm stand is more authentic than the six bells brand like she's at least
00:24:18.300living some of this the six bells invented a fake town for their hotel narrative
00:24:23.100the six bells is bizarre six bells is weird man it's an interesting place i i have no idea how
00:24:30.640they're affording that rent um because you know if anyone else lives in cobble hill you know the
00:24:36.280stores change all the time because no one can afford the rent which sucks um there's no one
00:24:41.580ever's in there i don't know how they're keeping open i literally live like down the street from
00:24:45.860so it's kind of my personal obsession so you're like i mean and you're not shopping at six bells
00:24:50.480once a day i am not although my mom has gone in there and loved it yeah no because this is
00:24:58.180great i mean give me a candle in the shape of a fruit or vegetable and i will buy it yes every
00:25:04.780time every time i've got one downstairs that's an artichoke gonna light that tonight for dinner
00:25:09.320i have an asparagus candle from from ballerina farm now oh that was a good one so you asked them
00:25:18.040about the raw milk controversy i think it's one kind of interesting and also two kind of clickbait
00:25:24.080um again because the internet likes to rage what was her answer about the raw milk stuff that came
00:25:28.920out last year um she said that she but she essentially took it as this is something that
00:25:36.480kind of happens in the industry and so they didn't really when they found out that they failed the
00:25:43.020testing they were like oh that's something that happens apparently in the raw milk world it's
00:25:47.820kind of like you get it all tested some fails some doesn't is my understanding of it and then
00:25:54.280one thing I found interesting was this happened almost a year ago like last August I believe and
00:25:58.860it wasn't reported on until January and it was reported on by like a local news station who must
00:26:04.300of I don't know if they sought out the documents or they were like, let's see if they failed any
00:26:10.220raw milk things. But kind of, you know, some local journalism that came out with it. So it's kind of
00:26:15.300this interesting thing for them, I think, because it was it happened. They didn't really think a lot
00:26:19.400of it. And then it kind of exploded into this huge thing six or seven months later. You know,
00:26:25.340I think that she kind of thought it was disingenuous. She felt people were kind of
00:26:29.820extrapolating that, you know, they were careless, that they were careless. I think that it was also,
00:26:36.680you know, raw milk is this huge, even like, even since that happened, um, has been this huge
00:26:45.180issue and, you know, rightfully so, you know, I, I don't, I don't support, you know, selling raw
00:26:52.260milk if it, you know, has not been tested or had like whatever. I believe in pasteurization.
00:26:57.420um there has been a lot of controversy about it obviously the rfk stuff um so i think she felt
00:27:05.380like it was being uh blown into something that it wasn't that they were selling things that
00:27:11.440were dangerous when in their mind they were not so yeah yeah that feels right that feels right
00:27:17.100um i know that you have a four o'clock call to jump on and i want you to tell everyone where
00:27:21.400they can find your wonderful wonderful sub stack where there will there will be bonus pictures and
00:27:26.780bonus commentary on this entire trip yeah so i am at stephanie mcneil on sub stack my sub stack is
00:27:35.000called side chat you can also find me on instagram i post a lot of cow and food videos those cows
00:27:42.580were real cute too weren't they like i just like i took so many selfies with those cows
00:27:46.520i was i'm so glad i don't eat beef i was like i can't and then i saw the chickens and i was like0.96
00:27:52.280i don't care i hate chickens i think they're so gross they're such jerks i think chickens are0.76
00:27:55.820massive jerks okay and i'm sorry for all my chicken fans by the parisian heist anyway0.89
00:27:59.940uh steph you are wonderful thank you so much for coming on thank you thanks for reading