00:06:46.900And it has nothing to do with anything that is actually happening on TikTok, the disinformation
00:06:53.360that spreads on TikTok, or, you know, how people get any information on TikTok.
00:06:58.700They just there's no grasp of what is actually happening. And I think I've got a I've got a six year old, a four year old and a one year old. I want to see media literacy classes. And by media literacy, I mean, social media literacy classes in schools as early as kindergarten. I do.
00:07:18.460I just think everyone needs to understand better what content we're constantly absorbing.
00:07:29.900Yeah, it's so true. And I think, you know, I am not a neuroscientist, but I spend so much time now thinking about how the brain works with social media, how my brain works with social media.
00:07:40.880and I have tried to pay more attention now that I'm spending time on TikTok in particular,
00:07:46.040which is so fast paced. It's so engaging. It's so aggressive. And I told my husband the other day
00:07:52.860that I had spent like maybe an hour and a half on TikTok. I tried to just record my own videos and
00:07:57.880get off and not scroll too much. But I told him that it felt like there was a little fan in my
00:08:02.880head, like a computer fan, and it was overheating. Like it was the only way to describe how my brain
00:08:07.580felt that I was just so awake, but also so completely zunked. And I just felt like I was
00:08:13.900a computer that was overheating. And I think it's so interesting because I think very fairly
00:08:21.320we talk about children. And I also think that adults don't have comprehension. Like it's almost
00:08:27.600like we all missed, you know, when you think about how bad sex ed courses are, we don't even have the
00:08:32.220bare minimum for technology. And we're all moving through it too. Like I'm really curious to see
00:08:38.580what we're going to learn about our brains a hundred years from now about how much we are
00:08:43.820changing in real time, whether it happens over multiple generations, but like the speed at which
00:08:48.860we are adjusting to social media is so quick in some ways. And in other ways, I think that we have
00:08:53.940no idea how resistant our brains are to it and how much it's damaging us because it just doesn't
00:08:58.780function with how we were designed to take in information. Absolutely. And I've been trying to
00:09:05.140find a neurologist and a neuroscientist to talk to me about that very thing, because I love the
00:09:12.900analogy that you just made, that your brain almost felt like it was overheating, because that is
00:09:18.500exactly what has been happening to me in the past four months. I've been on social media more than
00:09:25.760ever. My audience is probably sick of me saying this, but it's true because I'm a marketing
00:09:31.460monster for my book. And I'm doing so much of it on social because that is where eyeballs are.
00:09:39.120And it means that I have to be on Instagram more than ever. And my brain feels broken
00:09:45.820by the end of the day. Like it just, it feels like it's been in overdrive. So the fan analogy
00:09:53.940is so good. I don't think, I mean, I know, I know for a fact without backing any of this up
00:10:00.400by science, because again, I am no expert. I am just a human being in the world, not claiming to
00:10:07.140be an expert like everyone else on social media claims to be an expert. But we were never meant
00:10:13.300to consume information at this pace or all of these kinds of information next to one another.
00:10:21.060That's what I was thinking about the other night.
00:10:24.120You know, we used to read a magazine, and magazines were usually about one topic.
00:10:28.960Like, you knew if you were picking up Time magazine, I'm going to read about news now.
00:10:33.540Or I'm going to pick up Vogue and look at very expensive dresses.
00:10:39.480And now the news is right next to the fashion, is right next to the how do you organize your fridge to look like a salad bar, is right next to the breastfeeding tips.
00:10:48.820Like, all of this stuff was not meant to be in one place or given to us so quickly.
00:10:56.720Yeah, before I forget, there's an Ezra Klein episode about how we weren't even designed to learn how to read and how it basically came about that when we taught ourselves how to read, it opened up this new, you know, area of her brain.
00:11:11.220And deep reading basically provides something that we were never even meant to, like, find out about ourselves.
00:11:15.720I'm going to send it to you because I think that it'll be interesting in terms of this topic. But
00:11:19.820but yeah, you know, I think it's almost like this is such a big topic and we've just barely begun to
00:11:26.580kind of dive into it. And so I think it's almost interesting to remember that like there are
00:11:30.440different there are different sections of the pie in terms of where to pay attention to. There's
00:11:35.740the worry about how it's shaping our brain, how how the way that social media is structured can
00:11:40.400actually change our attention spans and all of that. And then there's also the worry about mental
00:11:44.840health, about how the way that our connection to famous people has kind of collapsed. And so you
00:11:50.720have access into their interiority in a way that you never had before. And it's also a fake
00:11:56.040interiority, right? It's only the idealized version of their lives. And that can make you
00:12:00.680super depressed. And then you have the other side, which is the consumerism of it all,
00:12:04.860like the capitalism of it all. And I'm so amazed when I engage with people on TikTok,
00:12:09.400the extent to which they don't think that people are selling them something. And that is like one
00:12:14.460of the most concerning things to me because I think mental health is a luxury. Being able to
00:12:20.500pay attention to your mental health is a luxury. And that is something that is so tied to financial
00:12:25.840freedom. And you have so many women who are being advertised without their knowledge and spending1.00
00:12:31.000their hard-worn, hard-won money without even realizing what just happened. Like it happens1.00
00:12:36.260so fast on Instagram and social media. And you don't even realize that you have this like
00:12:41.060personal connection to the person. And you don't even realize that you go to their account and
00:12:46.280you're buying their stuff and that that's what's happening, that it's a sales exchange.
00:12:50.020And so that's, I think, the biggest concern for me at this point.
00:12:54.160Huge, huge, huge, huge, because there is no real transparency about you're looking at my life,
00:13:02.020but I'm also selling you something. And I, you know, I work with a lot of young women
00:13:09.080on my various projects, and one of them, you know, she would say that she spends a lot of time
00:13:16.760on TikTok. And in the past six months, we've had a conversation about how her consumption and her
00:13:25.260shopping has gotten out of control without her realizing it because of two things. One, she's
00:13:31.860being served these products on TikTok all the time. Two, it's easier than ever to buy these
00:13:38.940products because it's one-click shopping. And three, she can spend money she doesn't have.
00:13:45.460She doesn't even have a high credit limit. But now with the pay X dollars a month situations
00:13:52.260that go on with Klarna and all these other things without a credit card, she's been able to buy
00:13:58.280something for $3 a month that she's supposed to pay over three years, and she is massively in debt.
00:14:03.560oh my god i have so much empathy for that i have dealt with credit card debt at certain points in
00:14:09.580my life and it's such a real thing and i think you know buying and and consumption is always about
00:14:17.080the emotion of it like that's always been the case when you walk into a williams sonoma and
00:14:21.420you think you know my life could feel as organized as this williams sonoma would if i only had the
00:14:26.080cutting board but i think that what we are dealing with now is it's almost you know i don't mean to
00:14:32.460say this in a negative way, but it's like we're not up for the task of competing with this level
00:14:37.440of manipulation without not really, really intense education. Like I think about Ballerina Farm or
00:14:43.980Kim Kardashian or any of these huge influencers who do such a profoundly effective job, who with
00:14:50.580their employees create such a profoundly idealized version of being alive that I don't blame anyone
00:14:58.700who buys the $100 sourdough starter kit or who buys, you know, the $600 skincare product,
00:15:04.980because it's so hard for us to combat that on our own. Like, it's so hard to overcome that level of
00:15:11.900manipulation with the tools that we have, which is close to nothing. You know, like, this happens
00:15:16.740also, I think a huge thing to remember is that it happens quietly. Like, most people don't talk
00:15:21.380about this. You're usually buying this product or watching these people at 9 p.m. at night alone in
00:15:26.540your bed when you're, you know, alone or your partner's gone to sleep. And so there's no
00:15:30.420conversation about it the way that there might be if a family is watching, you know, commercials in
00:15:35.280front of a TV. So I think that that's another challenge with it. So, so many challenges. The
00:15:40.120fact that we've just named 20 different challenges in the past five minutes, that's what's terrifying
00:15:46.920to me. I want to dive into all of this. I, in particular, want to talk about Ballerina Farm.
00:15:54.200Thank you for mentioning her because I was about to mention her.
00:15:57.000But first, we're going to take a quick break because we're going to try to sell you stuff.
00:16:24.200I did. I did. And I felt so smart. So smart. Now, this is, it's been viewed 2.5 million times. That's a lot of eyeballs on your face.
00:16:38.880It is a lot of eyeballs. It's pretty humbling whenever I try to actually quantify what that means, honestly.
00:16:46.260right yeah i mean it just like i can't even because even if and we know the tiktok numbers
00:16:53.160are skewed right someone can start a video and not watch a video whatever but even if 10 percent
00:16:59.440of those people watch the video that's a lot of human beings it is it's it's kind of a meta thing
00:17:06.480if you think about it that i have started talking about these brands and i'm a writer just like you
00:17:12.180are. And so we're always thinking about like, all right, if I can sell a book and then get
00:17:15.86010,000 copies sold, that is a major, major success to get your message across for that
00:17:21.300many people. And I have been thinking about that so much recently that my goal is always
00:17:25.640to become a novelist. And at the same time, the world is changing. And right now I'm speaking
00:17:31.500to more people than will ever buy any book that I sell. And so it's been very meta to
00:17:38.080kind of experience that where it's like i'm i am a person who wants to make a living sharing my
00:17:43.800thoughts and by talking about like the the social media of it all i'm accessing more people than i
00:17:49.700probably would through a book it's very weird you can really overthink it very quickly don't i'm
00:17:55.360gonna tell you right now do not overthink it also when we stop recording tell me all about your0.99
00:18:00.440novel and let's get that let's get that shit shit published um but i have the same feelings because0.99
00:18:06.800my podcast this podcast that we're on right now reaches hundreds of thousands of people0.99
00:18:12.680and yet you know the good sales for a book only five percent of all books in the world will sell
00:18:21.420five thousand plus copies when we talk about so for pre-orders for the sicilian inheritance right
00:18:28.460now i'm not supposed to talk about numbers like no one in publishing talks about numbers but i0.94
00:18:32.640have no filter anymore because i just don't give a shit oh hell yeah right i'm like what's the0.96
00:18:37.020point what's the point of acting like this is all magic and a secret so we're close to a thousand0.95
00:18:41.400pre-orders of the sicilian inheritance and that's huge it's actually huge um because you know my
00:18:48.620last few books which did very well but before they were on sale we were only at about 90 pre-orders
00:18:55.100so like this is a big number and it's all because of our audience on this podcast and because i'm
00:19:00.580marketing monster asking people to buy it all of the time. Of course, of course. But when you think
00:19:06.740about a thousand people reading a book versus 2.5 million people viewing a TikTok, you know where
00:19:14.380the influence really lies. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, it's funny. I've gotten a lot of comments
00:19:19.680from these people saying, you should do a newsletter or you should do a podcast and kind
00:19:24.240of tongue in cheek. But I'm like, you don't want me to start a podcast. You don't want me to start
00:19:28.420a newsletter. If I read an essay, only a quarter of you will read it. This is where you are,
00:19:33.020you know? And I think people are slowly realizing that shift, which is like, no, I gave you
00:19:38.740everything I would say, you know, in this longer essay. And it's ironic because I am doing a few
00:19:42.980essays about it, but it is really interesting because there's no way 2.5 million people are
00:19:47.040going to read the essay. You know, short form is an effective way to have some of these conversations.
00:19:51.540And so, yeah. And this is where they are. I actually, I had a male writer who I like a lot,
00:19:58.280reach out to me and say, hey, I've had success on TikTok. I should definitely start a podcast now.
00:20:03.980And I was like, your TikTok audience isn't going to listen to your podcast. And he was shocked.
00:20:08.520And I know that he's going to do it anyway. And I was just like, I promise you it doesn't convert0.79
00:20:13.780that way. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. But I think that the ideal situation, though, is I don't know. I
00:20:20.520mean, just to say, like, I have been such a fan of your podcast for so long. And I think that what
00:20:25.220happens is you gain a more dedicated viewer and the viewer who is or the listener who is listening
00:20:30.140to this episode to me is so much more valuable and tuned in and interested in the conversation
00:20:34.800than someone who was sent maybe a video of mine not to you know tear down my video I'm proud of
00:20:39.020it but it is something where it's like the benefit of my video is that I was connected to you you
00:20:43.320know and now we're having a more in-depth conversation versus whatever two and two or
00:20:47.660three minute which is really just like the opening page of a much bigger conversation about ballerina
00:20:52.480farm and branding and all the in-between. Totally. And what I'm hoping is that through
00:20:58.240the TikTok interactions, through the Instagram Reel interactions, then we can move people into
00:21:03.820a bigger conversation. And that's what I think we have to try to be doing. And again, that is part
00:21:09.840of the media literacy of people understanding just the different ways people consume these
00:21:16.100different mediums right yeah i totally agree um so all right i want to go back to your 2.5 million
00:21:23.580view viewer viewed um tiktok tiktok um where this is a crash course in media literacy
00:21:32.880and ballerina farm and so many people i would say probably about 50 people sent me this video
00:21:40.920it made the rounds and it made the rounds of of really smart engaged listeners and readers
00:21:49.100and i just i want you to tell me a little bit give me like the tl tl dr is did i use that right
00:21:57.840you did it so smoothly thank you it's like it's like when i it's like when i tried to start using
00:22:03.680slide into your dms and people are like you need to stop you know it was effortless thank you thank
00:22:08.960you. Give me the TLDR about what you said in this TikTok. Yeah, so I, by that point, had been
00:22:15.660talking about Ballerina Farm and about kind of the trad wife rise kind of randomly just in a series
00:22:21.820of TikToks where I would share a thought that I had and then respond to a commenter. And what I
00:22:25.920was starting to notice is that people used the term Ballerina Farm, which, you know, I'm sure
00:22:31.120most people who listen to this know this, but Ballerina Farm is the name of an account, right?
00:22:35.260And then they would also use the name of the woman who was featured in the account.
00:22:38.960And they would use it interchangeably between Hannah Nielman and Ballerina Farm. And it started to occur to me that this was kind of the crux of the problem. And it was also causing a lot of the miscommunications between people who didn't understand what I was talking about when I said that this person is intentional.
00:22:58.020You know, this branding is intentional. It's bigger than a person. And so I kind of realized that I had missed the first step of the staircase by not differentiating and saying we need to be really intentional. When you say the term ballerina farm, we are talking about an account under which at least a dozen people work.
00:23:19.040You know, whether whether you're including the nannies, whether you're including the people who are helping film the reels that are recorded on these accounts, whether you're talking about the children who are exploited in these accounts, whether you're talking about, you know, Hannah Nealman and her husband, who are the main characters in these accounts.
00:23:36.680I really wanted to break that down and to clarify that Ballerina Farm is a brand and
00:25:17.820You know, I think I would something that I've been trying to say to more recently is that the most freeing part about making this distinction and moving forward from that foundation of distinguishing between individuals and brands is that you get to let go of a lot of the morality that we assign around talking about people.
00:25:37.100And more specifically, a lot of the, you know, well-intentioned morality about talking about women, that we can't shame other women, you know, like the choice feminism of it all, that any decision a woman makes is empowered. If she, if this individual has made decisions, she should be empowered to be happy. And if you're not happy for her, you're jealous.
00:25:56.500And once you, I spent a lot of time stuck in that muck, right? Like having arguments about,
00:26:02.660you know, why it's okay to be jealous. And then I just realized I'm not rising high enough. You
00:26:08.080know, like we need to be having a way different conversation about this. And so when you start
00:26:12.360talking about the brand versus the person, I noticed that a lot of the emotions shift, right?
00:26:17.700Because people can't get as self-righteous and defensive of a brand. And then I'll say,
00:26:24.240like, yeah, I have no problem with Hannah Nealman. I don't know her. Neither of us know her. We're0.85
00:26:28.500arguing about the brand. And it can kind of really change the tenor of a conversation in what I think
00:26:34.000is like a super instructive and positive and healthy way. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that is,
00:26:40.720to me, the media literacy 101 of that. That these accounts on social media are brands. And it's so
00:26:50.620freeing too for women who feel anxiety or feel shame from looking at accounts that are you know
00:26:57.540seemingly perfect or a certain kind of body or a certain kind of house or a certain kind of parent
00:27:02.880and when you realize oh it's it's a brand they're they're they're making me a little magazine is
00:27:08.980what they're making me ah that is how I let go of a lot of my personal anxiety about social media
00:27:15.620it's like the social media doesn't give me anxiety anymore because it makes me feel less than
00:27:19.980It's just because all of the images and all of the information is breaking my brain at this point. But yes, that is the very, very essence of this. Ballerina Farm is a brand, and it's not just a brand. It's a brand with 8.5 million followers.
00:27:39.460And just putting that in perspective is crazy. You don't get 8.5 million people watching nearly any single show, any single prestige television show at this point that production companies are spending millions of dollars on.
00:27:59.840And yet she's got 8.5 million people tuning into this account. It is mine. It it has. See, I slip up to it has 8.5 million people tuning in. And that number has risen exponentially only in the last two years.
00:28:20.380Yeah, it's I mean, it's I think I said this in the video. It's a larger population than a number of countries. Right. And I think that that's another thing that social media has kind of done to flatten our brains is that we look at numbers and it's hard to quantify them. It's really hard to engage with them. It's easy to think about 500 people in a room. It's much harder to conceptualize what 8 million people is. You know, it's so hard to even quite even half of them are bots. Like, who cares? It's a huge, huge number. And I agree with you.
00:28:48.900I think that I think that we have a really hard time engaging with parasocial relationships.
00:28:55.100And I think that that has kind of become a little bit like a buzzwordy term in a way
00:29:10.020I'll do like cameras to the face and I have people who don't know me who will message
00:29:13.800and be like, oh, my God, classic Caro, you know, because they think they know me because
00:29:18.340i've given a portion of myself to the internet and it's this it feels like you're facetiming a
00:29:23.440friend and the same is true of of any influencer i think and i think that another thing that i try
00:29:29.960to distinguish is that when you talk about a brand then you also get to cut through the argument a
00:29:34.680lot of people make which is well that's what everyone does everyone on social media is presenting
00:29:39.720a version of themselves so why are you so upset at her to which i say not everyone is trying to
00:29:45.000run a brand, you know, and there are there's a conversation to be had about the way in which
00:29:50.160most people curate their feeds, regardless of how they use social media. But I think that you lose
00:29:55.960a lot of the really essential nuance about when you're being sold something if you don't make
00:30:01.420the distinction of like, but they're not trying to be a brand. Once there is a brand in place,
00:30:05.380once this is operated by multiple people and selling something, it's a totally different
00:30:10.840conversation. And it's essential to kind of make that leap and to help people be like, oh, I actually
00:30:17.360have a lot of really strong emotions about this account. I wonder why it is. I think it's because
00:30:22.040I feel I mean, Taylor Swift is a great example. You feel so close to her. You feel so attached to
00:30:27.680her that it feels like an intimate relationship because she's a really good businesswoman. She's
00:30:32.360good at doing her job. And I think that I often have to kind of step back and be like, I don't
00:30:37.320love her i love her music and that's a that's a portion of her but i i can't attach my emotions
00:30:43.100to this person that i've never met right because you don't know her and i think i think back to
00:30:50.700i wrote this book god 12 years ago now called celebrity inc about you know it was economic
00:30:58.220case studies of how famous people make money and it was just as the kardashians were like just
00:31:04.740coming up. Instagram didn't even exist at that point. Charlie Sheen had just gotten paid for
00:31:11.240the first sponsored tweet. And this is in the dark ages, essentially. But one thing that we talked
00:31:18.660about was the fact that television stars were better at selling you things than movie stars.
00:31:25.700because television stars came into your home and that felt so much more intimate because you watch
00:31:35.120friends on this screen that's in your house. Then, you know, you go to the movie theater to
00:31:42.060see the movie stars and they felt very removed. So television stars did very well with brand deals
00:31:48.500for things like lean cuisine and Nutrisystem and water and skin products because they felt like
00:31:55.820your friend. And I think about that all the time when I think about how much closer to you
00:32:02.920influencers are. They're not just on a screen in your home. They're in your hand.
00:32:08.740It's so true. And it's so funny that you say that because I've actually been trying to like
00:32:12.400dig through newspaper archives because whenever I have like this sneaking suspicion that
00:32:17.460a new aspect of technology is ruining the world. I'm like, someone has definitely felt exactly this
00:32:23.120way about an earlier version of this technology. And I have a hunch that if I were to find the
00:32:28.600right op-ed or article around the time that most people were buying televisions, then there would
00:32:34.220be people who were concerned that the television would be like a compression of the mind that we
00:32:40.440are not able to process and that therefore is at risk of selling us things without our consent.
00:32:45.360Because that's my argument about influencers, right? Is that our brains are not formulated to understand at a fast enough speed what's happening when we look at something on our phone. And I look at television as like, well, we understand that now. And I'm sure that 30 or 40 or 50 years ago, someone would be arguing, no, we didn't understand.
00:33:06.820You know, and when you think about the way in which we talk about technology, at this point, we're about 30 years behind. Like, we have had close to no movement on social media regulation, let alone substantive conversations about, you know, at Congress.
00:33:23.180And so we are falling farther and farther behind. And, you know, TikTok is only going to become more addictive. And then there's going to be a more competitive rival. And it's moving at the speed of light, you know. And so I feel like we're falling farther away from the truth rather than, you know, clawing towards it.
00:33:40.620absolutely absolutely and i i did some of this research when i was working on on celebrity inc
00:33:47.680and yes there have been concerns about every form of media since since media began i did not go all
00:33:55.680the way back to the gutenberg printing press but i'm sure there were there were issues there okay
00:34:01.240sure drama during that there was for sure drama okay but yes with the rise of radio and then with
00:34:08.320the rise of television and, you know, obviously also with the rise of of the Internet, there
00:34:14.520there have been concerns and very valid concerns, too, about the mental health aspects of those
00:34:21.680things. And yet and yet and yet I would argue that what we're dealing with now is worse than
00:34:28.460those things, because exactly as you said, it is faster than ever before. It is more compressed
00:34:33.860than ever before. And I think it's also more isolating than ever before. I look at TV and
00:34:39.640movies, and they still feel like a very social thing. For most people, you know, we would all
00:34:45.980be watching the same TV shows, mostly when I was growing up, at least, back in the Dark Ages.
00:34:53.900And we would talk about them. Like, there was a communal conversation. Now, everyone is watching
00:35:00.680their own thing and you're you're very isolated when you're viewing these things most of the time
00:35:05.580so again i just i can't we've got we've got to find us a neuroscientist you will you come back
00:35:11.620on when i find us the right neuroscientist i would love that i'm gonna we're gonna we'll do
00:35:16.720like a public call for them i'm sure that they spend all their time on tiktok i'll find one
00:35:20.100okay you will find you will put it out on tiktok i'm putting it out on this podcast right now
00:35:23.880if you're a neuroscientist listening to us right now can you just dm me on the on the platform
00:35:30.040that i hate we know you're out there and we know that you're a woman because there are many of them
00:35:35.280so we have to find them we have to find them we're gonna find them okay we are gonna take one more
00:35:40.120quick break and then i want to hear about the comments that you got to your media criticism
00:35:46.720of Ballerina Farm. Okay, so you post this video. It gets 2.5 million views. You are very rightly
00:36:03.660talking about how Ballerina Farm is a brand. What are the comments like? You know, it's interesting.
00:36:10.140that video out of all the videos i shared about ballerina farm where i think had the fewest or
00:36:18.360had the lowest register of animosity i honestly think that there was something about the there
00:36:24.920was something about the clarity of the message and the the shortness like i was only saying one
00:36:30.120thing and i think often in videos my videos are often you know four to five minutes long
00:36:34.120And so I'll talk about a lot of things. But I think that I was so consistent about one thing that I think a lot of people were kind of like stunned. Like, I really think that most of most of the comments were either surprised, like people hadn't thought of it that way, or a kind of neutered indignation of repeating the thing that I had just said on the video.
00:36:58.100But I think that it was interesting because that I had had a lot of anger directed at me whenever I talked about Ballerina Farm.
00:37:06.200A lot of, you know, women against women.
00:37:13.640So I hate to interrupt you, but I have to say I did too.
00:37:18.940And I want to talk about that because it made me feel terrible for days.
00:37:24.180like in the beginning when the first time the first few times that i posted about ballerina farm
00:37:29.860i got the same comments you're jealous why would you shame another woman why would you take down
00:37:36.200another woman and that's just so antithetical to everything i believe in the world and that i try
00:37:42.860to put out into the world that i went to a dark freaking place because of these comments i felt
00:37:48.780terrible. I questioned everything that I was doing. I thought about maybe not talking about
00:37:56.020this brand any longer. How did you feel when you read those? I mean, terrified, I think,
00:38:01.940is the first answer I would give. I think that there is a level of mortification that comes with
00:38:08.780sharing your thoughts online. And you and I have both been doing it in different ways for a long
00:38:12.920time, but I had never shared cultural criticism before. That just wasn't what I did on Instagram.
00:38:18.780I shared my personal writing, which really didn't engender any sort of anger.
00:38:22.860So first and foremost, I felt terrified.
00:38:24.620It was like, I don't know if this is what being canceled feels like.
00:38:27.000I don't know what the consequences are, you know, I think.
00:38:31.300And then within that, yeah, you feel, I felt afraid.
00:38:36.540I felt like I didn't know for a moment if I was wrong or right.
00:38:41.960And then when I sat with it, I think the first thought I had was, why are we why is jealousy inherently a term that has moral bad?
00:38:52.340You know what I mean? Like, like, first and foremost, I was like, why am I so upset when someone's saying I'm jealous?
00:38:57.080Because to a certain extent, I am. We're all jealous.
00:39:00.640You know, like I am envious of the life within this platform, which is one of the driving factors why I'm talking about it.
00:39:07.600Of course I am. That's why I paid attention to the account to begin with.
00:39:11.480Like parasocial relationships are founded on some level of jealousy, of wanting what someone else claims to have that you don't have. You know, if my life felt and looked like a ballerina farm reel, I would not be looking at ballerina farm.
00:39:28.040And so once I broke that down and kind of took the morality out of it, that was one of the things I wanted to address, which was jealousy shouldn't end the conversation. And it's often used as an accusation between women as a way to silence them. The idea of you are jealous and therefore your thoughts are not valid by nature of the fact that you're jealous. It's like this really circular logic pattern.0.94
00:39:50.800And so something I said in another video was, you can be jealous and also still have a good point. So like, let's put aside whether I'm jealous or not, because it's really irrelevant. But if you are, if you do feel envy, that does not suddenly delegitimize everything else you're feeling. It is designed, it is content that's designed to make you envious.
00:40:10.620And so if you're feeling that, then it probably means that you're involved in the content in some way, and you should be a part of the conversation, as opposed to dismissing it for a bunch of men who don't watch the account, aren't moved by it because it's not for them, and therefore aren't able to see all of the ways in which it's manipulating people.
00:40:27.860Yeah, absolutely. And I love what you just said about jealousy, because I talked about this in the early episodes of Under the Influence and the underpinnings of early advertising.
00:40:44.180we're all about aspiration and it is it is you know a basis of capitalism that we are being
00:40:52.700sold to aspire to a class that we perceive is just above us and it's that perception that someone
00:41:02.820is a class above us that like really gets us to buy things right and i think that's where social
00:41:10.260media gets weird because we don't know the real economics of anything you know like someone could
00:41:17.640look like they have a gorgeous house and it could just be one gorgeous corner of not even their
00:41:25.760their their house but like you know a space they found to make look like their house right
00:41:31.300or so it can go and it can go either way someone can look so much wealthier than we are and then
00:41:39.820we aspire to that. Or someone can look just like we are or a class below us. I would argue that the
00:41:48.140Ballerina Farm brand cosplays poverty quite a bit, despite the fact that they have so much money
00:41:55.540coming from an airline. And we just don't know. There's so much smoke and mirrors that it's hard
00:42:05.260to tell the reality behind any of it. Yeah, it's, you know, it's such an interesting time to be
00:42:11.840alive because there has never been more information and more communication amongst millions of people
00:42:20.000about what it is actually like to live right now, right? Like we have so much more information.
00:42:24.700There's such a big labor revolution taking place in part because of social media conversations.
00:42:29.380it's so much easier than it has ever been to understand how systems work and to learn about
00:42:35.920them and to know like there's you know a really silly example of this is but like all of the
00:42:41.340humorous like trends that go through social media about being broke like people are so aware about
00:42:47.240how credit card debt is happening and how starbucks is so expensive and blah blah like all
00:42:52.060these different ways in which to understand how difficult certain aspects of life are right now
00:42:57.480And at the same time, there has never been more sophisticated technology to create more curated versions of a humanity that doesn't exist. And so you're caught between these two, like, overwhelming parallels between a reality, which is really, really hard to face, which is the reality of, I don't know if I'm going to retire. I don't know, you know, what the what I don't know if the two party system is going to last in America.
00:43:26.080like there are so many issues politically socially medically that people don't know are going to
00:43:32.020resolve themselves and at the same time you are you're being offered these utopias and you know
00:43:37.100that they're not real but even the knowledge that they're not real I will say doesn't necessarily
00:43:42.800take away their pleasure and that's something that I think I want to talk about more frequently that
00:43:48.840the awareness that something is fraudulent doesn't necessarily take away the pleasure of watching it
00:43:54.880And so you don't necessarily solve things by suddenly keying into what's going on. Like it still feels good. Like if I look at a ballerina farm reel, I still get little, you know, a little endorphin hits because it's still pleasurable to watch. And so I just try to be aware of the endorphin hits when I watch, you know, an influencer or a friend who seems to have a cooler life than me.
00:44:16.640And just kind of in almost like a meditative way, just try to be aware of it.
00:44:20.880Be like, oh, that's making my brain feel good right now.
00:44:30.880It's the whole point of media literacy in general is really a mindfulness of it, right?
00:44:37.200Because just, oh, hey, I am enjoying this.
00:44:41.040But yeah, I mean, I kind of know why I'm enjoying this.
00:44:45.060like oh i i felt this looking at that and but i'm kind of keyed into it it just makes us pause
00:44:52.320and in the same way i i i would compare this you know to to substance abuse too when i'm more
00:44:59.980mindful about drinking and i've been doing i did dry january which which was great and kind of a
00:45:08.220damp february i just went out went out for my my first like date night we went to a birthday party
00:45:15.840in the suburbs but i'm i'm a little more mindful when i drink i'm like oh i just got that jolt of
00:45:23.100like that like woohoo i am loose and i'm fun but i noticed it just because i had had that
00:45:30.580had like a little bit more literacy around you know what i was doing with this substance
00:45:37.120And it's the same thing with social media. Like, if we understand it, if we talk about it, if we just pause, I think then it's healthier for all of us than the mindless scroll.
00:45:49.660Yeah, I totally agree. And I think it's so funny because I feel constantly like I'm running the risk of sounding to someone who doesn't necessarily agree with what I'm saying or is keyed into social media yet like a conspiracy theorist.
00:46:03.140Because basically what you're saying, you know, is like, I believe very firmly that there is no, you cannot possibly overestimate the impact that the social media channels and algorithms have on our culture, on our politics, on our spending patterns, on our relationships.
00:46:21.600It is impossible to overstate how big of a deal they are.
00:46:25.660It is like the single the single biggest force, I think, moving forward for humanity is social media. And I believe that really strongly. And so I think I kind of try to think that, like, there is no the box, the box is open. Pandora's box is open.
00:46:44.100We will never be going backwards in terms of technology, no matter how concerned or afraid we might be of the technology in question. And so I think trying to slow down your speed with an algorithm that is designed to make you move as quickly as possible is one of the single best tools that any individual can do without, you know, any money, without changing your behaviors, anything like that.
00:47:10.520And so, yeah, I think it's super important to remember that the single most powerful thing that you can do is put your phone down even for a second. And if you've done that, you should reward yourself. And you should remember that this is not easy.
00:47:23.680Like, that's another thing that I try to communicate. Like, this is the hardest thing that you will ever do is try to have a healthy relationship with social media. And it's only going to become more difficult. So having like patience and empathy and love for yourself and for others with the way that they engage with it is, I think, super essential.
00:47:41.460Totally. We are on the same page. I do find myself worrying that I sound more and more like a conspiracy theorist every day because I'm like, this is the single most important issue that I will tackle as a parent in my lifetime.
00:47:55.660I went so far, I've talked about this before on the show, as I was convinced that I was going to go back to school and get a Ph.D. in communication studies from the same college where I got an undergrad degree in communication studies.
00:48:12.760But go through the whole process because I was also like, you know, I'm not just going to try to do this willy-nilly.
00:48:19.820Like, I need to understand, like, all of the underpinnings of, you know, the history of communication and then use that to create media literacy programs for K through 12 and try to influence the government.
00:48:36.760And I still believe in it, but I don't think that the academic institutions are game for it right now. I don't necessarily think that the majority of schools want to tackle this yet. So please tackle this with me. Right now, I'm just going to do it through my podcast and maybe I'll start doing it on the TikTok.
00:48:56.140but I think about it with my six-year-old all the time one of our babysitters is on their phone too
00:49:03.880much and you know that's something that's something else to tackle but what so when he sees me pick up0.78
00:49:09.880my phone now he's like oh are you on TikTok and I was like how the fuck do you know what TikTok is
00:49:15.120and he's like oh she's on it all the time and so then I show him TikTok and we scroll through and0.98
00:49:20.580I'm like there's some funny things on here it's a lot of crap I describe most of YouTube as crap0.97
00:49:24.780to him again i'm giving him like a very bad potty mouth and i also don't care i'm like i really don't0.95
00:49:30.200care if you say crap um and but i don't think it's not going to be useful to hide any of this
00:49:36.160from them i also don't know i think it's important not to give kids phones until a certain age but
00:49:41.460also like you can't keep you you can't keep this stuff away from them so because they're also
00:49:46.380seeing you stare at your goddamn phone all the time right without knowing the thing that scares0.71
00:49:52.300me the most, and the way I try to describe this, is when I saw my parents read a newspaper,0.99
00:49:58.500I knew what thing they were doing. They were consuming news. Or if I saw them watching a
00:50:05.460TV show, again, I knew what they were consuming because you can see it. When we stare at our
00:50:09.980phone, they don't know if we're reading an article, if we're buying something, if I'm
00:50:13.220texting their dad. They just don't know. They just see us stare at a screen. And so they'll
00:50:17.580model that, but without knowing the functionality of how we're using it, unless we talk to them
00:50:23.260about it all the time. That's such a good point. I really never thought of it that way, but you're
00:50:28.640so right. And I also think, you know, something that I think is one of the things that I'm proudest
00:50:33.940of about my relationship is that we really make a point to not have our phones. And it was easy
00:50:38.720at first when it was like the honeymoon phase of being obsessed with each other. And now it's
00:50:43.060something that we really have to call each other out on and say, hey, you know, please put your
00:50:46.180phone down. And I think that that is, I think that it's a strategy, a strategy that some people
00:50:52.420take is to diminish the power of the phone and be like, oh, it doesn't matter. And I think that
00:50:56.980I don't have children yet, but my thought when I talk to friends or to you or to children is to
00:51:02.600understate or like emphasize the power of it and to try to show at least through my actions,
00:51:09.320if not my words, that like I have to be very intentional about it and that it's not something
00:51:14.260that can be treated casually it's something to be taken as seriously as driving a car like this is
00:51:19.380a serious thing and it has a bunch of different functions and you will engage with various
00:51:24.520different functions at different points in your life with it and in some ways the usage of it is
00:51:29.380kind of stigmatized like something i was thinking about is that watching like a ballerina farm
00:51:33.780instagram story is kind of like in the venn diagram between watching television and watching
00:51:38.420porn like people won't necessarily admit that they're doing it all the time and that makes it
00:51:43.340really hard for people to have honest conversations about how much time they're spending on their
00:51:47.420phones because there's shame in it. There's shame in being addicted to these influencers and to
00:51:52.400these content streams, even though all of us are addicted to them. Exactly. Exactly. And I think
00:51:57.800that's why so many people like listening to this podcast because we're finally talking about all
00:52:02.780of it. We're talking about the things that we all actually do, right? Like we just can't ignore them
00:52:07.680anymore. Right. Oh, I could talk to you forever, but I have to pee. I know. So I'm so grateful
00:52:15.780that we spoke about this. It's honestly such a pleasure. I absolutely love the work that you're
00:52:19.900doing. And it's just I feel like it's a never ending topic that is changing as we do and as
00:52:25.600social media does. So it's it's kind of the perfect thing to spend a lot of time focusing on.
00:52:30.360It is. Well, you're going to become one of my regulars. You're going to come back
00:52:33.140on the show. Tell everyone where they can find you. Where they can find me. If you are brave
00:52:39.840enough to enter TikTok, you can look up Kara Claire Burke or on Instagram on Kara Claire Burke.
00:52:45.660And then, yeah, that's kind of what I do on social media. And that's where I share my various
00:52:49.620my various writing pursuits. And that's all we have for today. I loved this episode. I love
00:52:55.320the metaphor that your brain feels like it's overheating, that the fan has gone on in your
00:53:01.120brain when you've been on social media too long. And now, trust me, you're not going to be able to
00:53:06.540get that out of your head. You're going to be scrolling and be like, oh, the fan has gone on.
00:53:09.940Time for me to stop. Thanks for being with us today. If you love us, leave a review,
00:53:15.660share us with your friends. And we are very, very close to reaching my goal, my pre-order goal for
00:53:22.960the Sicilian Inheritance for February. So if you order it now and send me a receipt, you will get
00:53:27.960a free lifetime subscription to our Over the Influence newsletter. Again, Sicilian Inheritance,
00:53:33.940the best book of the summer, is available for pre-order now, and I would just love for you to
00:53:38.860be one of the first people to have it. Go have a great day. Do something nice for yourselves.