Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Even More Ballerina Farm

00:00:00.000 Hello. So you all sent me so many comments about the Ballerina Farm episode that I had

00:00:16.840 to do another one. I just had to. Some of you had never heard of her before. You're

00:00:23.440 welcome. Sorry you just lost 10 hours of your life that you're never going to get back.

00:00:28.020 oops and a lot of you had heard of her but you just like didn't know how to feel which is how

00:00:38.100 I feel about her and so today I'm actually gonna call Gwyneth and we're gonna gonna work through

00:00:45.360 all of those all of those feels that we all get from looking at the ballerina farm account a lot

00:00:52.940 of you also asked me about the other things the Ballerina Farm sells besides Willa, the $89

00:00:58.860 sourdough starter, which I haven't bought, but I thought about it. I did. I really did. Except

00:01:05.240 my friend Steven, who I'm going to see this weekend, he makes a badass sourdough. And I think

00:01:11.400 I'm just going to get his sourdough starter instead of buying Willa. Or I could buy Willa

00:01:18.100 and blind taste test them. But yes, Ballerina Farm does sell other things. You can get a set

00:01:25.120 of copper cups for about $32. I've seen similar ones at the Dollar Store, at the Dollar General,

00:01:33.260 by me up in the Catskills. You can get a wooden spatula that is specifically tailored to mix your

00:01:39.980 Willa sourdough starter for $17. There is also a walnut cutting board for $69. You get the gist.

00:01:48.100 These are a lot of things that I also saw when I was traveling around the country going to the Laura Ingalls Wilder gift shops.

00:01:57.020 It's a brand, and now it is something of an empire.

00:02:00.280 And I look at Ballerina Farm like she's a little bit pioneer woman, re-drummond, meets Laura Ingalls Wilder with the personality of Emily in Paris, and then just like a seasoning of Black Swan, for good measure.

00:02:14.420 And speaking of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Wilder, this reminds me of what Glynnis and I also

00:02:22.320 discovered when we were out there reporting on the Wilder podcast.

00:02:26.840 Prairie Life Nostalgia is currently big business. 1.00

00:02:30.020 It's huge fucking business. 0.98

00:02:31.700 In fact, I did a whole episode of Wilder about the business of Laura Ingalls Wilder and how 0.99

00:02:38.700 people are buying into prairie life nostalgia, which is, I think, Ballerina Farm's whole allure.

00:02:46.900 I mean, she is the epitome of this longing for a way of life that seems simple and beautiful,

00:02:52.240 but in reality is hard and impossible for people who are not very, very wealthy,

00:02:58.020 like Hannah Nealman and her husband. Farmers in this country are suffering, especially small

00:03:03.300 farmers. And I really do think that Ballerina Farm does a disservice to them to make what she

00:03:09.060 is doing look so easy. I also wonder why we seem so nostalgic for this kind of life to begin with.

00:03:18.140 Do you actually want to get up at 4am and milk a fucking cow? Have you ever milked a cow? I milked 1.00

00:03:24.680 a cow one time and that cow pooped in my face, spit in my eye, and then I couldn't even get the

00:03:31.080 milk out of the nipple. And I felt guilty for milking for milking her. I vowed in that moment

00:03:36.540 to never milk anything but myself. And I'm not even going to do that again. I'm done. Done with

00:03:41.540 milking. Done with it. And on that note, I'm going to call Glynnis. Call him the Glynnis.

00:03:48.220 Okay. Hi. Hi. I miss your face. I know. So welcome to the new improved version of Under

00:03:58.560 the influence? I am making it myself. We are free from the shackles of corporate America.

00:04:07.640 And, you know, I just I think it's better than ever. And I'm happy that you're here.

00:04:12.540 I'm excited for you. I think this is great.

00:04:16.560 Well, and so today, this week, we talked about an account, an Instagram account called Ballerina

00:04:22.980 farm. When your newsletter came through, I was like, anytime I see something, what does she have

00:04:29.200 like 6 million followers? 6.4 million followers. Yeah. So when I see something like that and I'm

00:04:36.040 like, I've never heard of this person, then I'm like, which I always think is interesting that

00:04:41.820 we can exist in such siloed worlds that somebody could have that many followers and I'm completely

00:04:49.180 oblivious to their existence. So I clicked through and I was like, this just looks like

00:04:53.560 Little House on the Prairie wealth porn. Yes. Thank you. It is Little House on the Prairie

00:05:02.000 LARPing for rich people is what I think it is. Let's say LARPing. I haven't heard that word in a

00:05:08.860 while. Yeah. For our audience members who don't know what a good LARP is, it's a live action

00:05:15.160 role play yeah that is it is totally and listen i as you know i'm not against little house role

00:05:23.300 play for an eight-year-old with like clothes that your mother made from the quilt but i mean i

00:05:29.380 literally looked at that and i was like it looks i mean i haven't seen all of yellowstone but i was

00:05:34.900 watching a little bit of on the plane and it is that wealthy western fantasy that has so i mean

00:05:42.740 is so much money like the money was just like oozing out of then i thought it was fascinating

00:05:48.380 that you said she'd been a ballerina like what a bizarre it feels like she's a creation of

00:05:55.560 like vc andrews is too dark but she does feel like a creation of a book like a fiction book

00:06:01.680 that you buy in the airport and be entirely consumed by on your flight yes but with more 0.85

00:06:08.420 sex the book would have the book would have more sex and less jesus i do have to say you're right 0.76

00:06:15.100 ballerina farm feels so intensely inspired by laura ingalls wilder and this nostalgia for 0.76

00:06:23.280 prairie life and prairie stuff she sells an 89 sourdough starter i mean again it's like it's

00:06:33.040 the fantasy of little house almost like the television show right where you can see the

00:06:38.020 fantasy and everyone's beautiful and their skin is glowing and there's none of the smells or the

00:06:42.880 reality or the actual outhouse experience like it's literally the you just peeled off the facade

00:06:49.040 and placed it on modern living imagine how much money you would have to have to look like that

00:06:53.820 plus employ all of that child care does she ever take photographs of her child care no no i have

00:07:01.920 not seen photographs of her child care that leads me into this other part of this that I want to

00:07:07.220 talk to you about she has inspired dozens maybe maybe even up to a hundred reddits and subreddit

00:07:16.320 where people just critique her life her lack of child her lack of showing child care and but the

00:07:24.160 thing that seems to make people the angriest on on these reddits and by the way there's also a

00:07:29.820 reddit you're gonna you're gonna love this i went deep onto reddit today um there is a reddit called

00:07:37.300 utah influencer drama okay yep just just just a whole reddit dedicated to utah influencer drama

00:07:48.000 and then another reddit called farm slash ranch slap slash homestead snark oh my god i mean people

00:07:58.060 have too much fucking time on their hands but all of the criticisms are i love her content but it 0.58

00:08:05.560 feels like none of this is real oh my gosh you know they have so much money they have so much 0.99

00:08:10.900 money why do they pretend they don't have money her audience her 6.4 million followers are obsessed

00:08:17.880 with how rich they are to me what's interesting is the question of is this real at this point

00:08:26.660 I have to think that we all must operate from a baseline of nothing on Instagram is real.

00:08:32.320 Like, if you're still operating with the question of is this is is this real, then.

00:08:38.400 The look inward, right?

00:08:40.500 Like that's.

00:08:41.780 That's not that's that is a naivete that I think is you have to answer for yourself.

00:08:48.620 But it just when you said that, it makes me think like.

00:08:51.120 the one thing Gwyneth Paltrow should get credit for is she never pretends that she doesn't have

00:08:57.100 money. She doesn't hide her money. She's like, I'm so wealthy. You should be wealthy too. 0.92

00:09:03.480 Why is everyone wealthy? I'm so wealthy. I could buy you. I just, she would just like look you

00:09:07.640 right in the eye and be like, I could buy your ass. It's sort of a little nefarious to have that 1.00

00:09:12.200 much money and make everything look that beautiful and then make people question whether you have

00:09:17.220 money because that's just a fast track to making people feel even shittier about themselves than 0.83

00:09:21.920 they normally do going on social media these reddits are proving that this account and god

00:09:27.080 god bless her right like i try not to be too judgmental uh you know at the end of the day

00:09:33.420 i don't love ballerina farms content because i think it just shows that our culture is still

00:09:38.780 incredible yeah yeah it shows that our culture still fetishizes a certain kind of woman and

00:09:44.400 mother that i do not think is healthy for any of us to have shoved in our faces and she has so many

00:09:50.280 followers that i think she has to be held accountable for her words and her actions

00:09:54.980 because that is a lot of influence but what i am finding amazing is just how much time and energy

00:10:02.320 a lot of people are devoting to picking her life apart i mean one of my one of my favorite lines

00:10:09.820 on this reddit is these are wealthy children of influence cosplaying as poor farmers who can't

00:10:15.160 afford a rug it just makes me think like we're in the high school lunchroom and like the popular

00:10:20.780 table of heathers is in the middle of the lunchroom and everyone else is sitting on the side

00:10:25.000 table sort of like talking about them right it's it's not i mean you know this from covering gossip

00:10:33.560 for so long this just feels like she she knows what she's doing her goal is to i mean if she's 0.94

00:10:43.700 this wealthy then what is the narcissism vacuum here that's you know she's striving to fill 0.94

00:10:49.140 because if they are this isn't you know like so many of the influencers we spoke to on under the

00:10:56.220 influence of like oh this is how i'm making extra money this is how i'm supporting the kids there's

00:11:00.320 no other way to have like flexible hours and bring income in like this is a wealthy person

00:11:05.280 performing something a fantasy it's a wealthy person performing a fantasy right and making

00:11:14.600 people feel inadequate from it which feels sort of similar to royalty i guess that's that's their

00:11:20.780 function um influencers the new american royalty totally totally and also ballerina farm is such

00:11:30.780 a bizarre name because it when i first saw that name in in the newsletter i really thought like

00:11:36.140 is this like a ballerina training camp a farm that grows ballerinas but yeah i just i think

00:11:43.260 after after we spent so much time with laura ingalls wilder doing the wilder podcast and

00:11:49.520 talking about the false nostalgia of the prairie and farm life and how life on the prairie and in

00:11:56.440 Laura Ingalls Wilder's times were actually was actually terrible and hard and oftentimes filthy

00:12:03.720 and disgusting and tragic and and just I don't understand when I don't I don't understand the

00:12:13.060 continuation of the false nostalgia for this kind of life it's like what are we actually craving

00:12:18.480 we're actually craving some connection to the land we're actually craving some connection to

00:12:24.700 each other in real life maybe um i think there is a sort of nefarious under current that connects

00:12:33.380 us to the trad wife movement of a lot of people are craving women taking up less faith in

00:12:39.820 problematic ways um i mean she is the epitome of you know the stepford wife goes to the prairie i

00:12:51.780 guess is how that strikes me but yeah um well and but on what and on wilder we talked about why

00:12:58.500 people are are after this kind of false narrative this false nostalgia and i think it's because we

00:13:05.500 really just we're all we're hungry for community we're hungry for connection we're hungry for

00:13:10.460 something that seems nicer and prettier and better and easier than the world that we're living in

00:13:14.700 which is so ironic like easier i mean as we know the back breaking labor that caroline ingles had

00:13:23.020 to put in every day when she was living in a hole in the ground beside a creek is so overwhelming

00:13:27.980 and the lack of antibiotics so it's such a fantasy but i think there is some element of like

00:13:33.400 getting off like of real life like you're craving real life as as defined by this fantasy there is

00:13:40.680 some element of i'd like fresh air and to see nature yes and to move my body as i hear sirens

00:13:47.740 behind you yeah it's in your gritty gritty urban life yeah um so i don't know i mean it's such but

00:13:59.320 it's also such a white fantasy right it's so totally this is i'd be curious to know the

00:14:05.420 breakdown of those six million followers is the truth i would actually i would love to see a

00:14:10.560 breakdown of those six million followers and i would also love to know to know how much money

00:14:16.640 she's made from willa the sourdough starter because you know what i almost bought it i almost

00:14:21.560 bought it i don't know why i don't know why i'm always curious when people of enormous wealth

00:14:27.180 feel the need to be startup business people because we both know that's exhausting so

00:14:34.800 there's um i don't know the ego is the right word because everyone has ambition but it is

00:14:41.100 a curious thing to be this ambitious and and for no other reason than ambition's sake or attention

00:14:48.820 because you're clearly the bills are paid the bills are paid paid the bills are paid it feels

00:14:55.700 like a love and a desire for attention. It genuinely does. I was doing an interview last

00:15:05.620 night with the Washington Post about influencers and mom influencers. I did it at 8.30 after I had

00:15:13.060 two of three children put to bed. And I was beat, man. But one of the things that came to me when I

00:15:21.400 was giving that interview is that, you know, I covered the rise of reality television stars

00:15:27.380 12 years ago. And I think that we're in the same place with influencers and particularly mom

00:15:34.580 influencers. I saw reality stars as the punchline of the joke. And then I saw them dominate

00:15:40.580 television. And then I saw people finally going after them with a critical eye because they were

00:15:45.440 mainstream. And at first, mom influencers were a joke. And then people took them seriously because

00:15:51.280 it is a multi-billion dollar industry and now people are finally looking at them a little more

00:15:56.060 critically uh and so i just think it's going to be really interesting to see what happens next in

00:16:03.060 this industry because it's only getting bigger and bigger and bigger my other thought is that

00:16:08.860 if you talked to any farmer who is a farmer today who is doing actual farm work they're going to 0.85

00:16:16.800 tell you their life looks fucking nothing like her instagram page right their life looks like

00:16:24.180 her life looks like farming the way our lives look like um a like a Fred Astaire and Ginger 0.97

00:16:31.160 Rogers musical in New York City like at the disconnect pretty huge I think our lives do

00:16:37.160 look like a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical in New York City

00:16:40.200 exactly i don't know why i was using that analogy i mean i think at the end at the end of the day

00:16:48.100 ballerina farm is totally harmless i just find i find it such a fascinating

00:16:54.380 cultural moment that this is a this is a thing a brand that has 6.4 million followers americans

00:17:02.560 are clearly hungry for something and i don't know what it is and that's well that's what i want to

00:17:06.660 get to the bottom right i think but i mean i think it's right there in the sort of the irony or the

00:17:12.720 dichotomy maybe um of like this online digital fantasy that has no connection to reality and is

00:17:20.880 completely in every way imaginable separate from those six million followers is just a filling a

00:17:27.900 fantasy of reality and connection like it's a complete there's an irony there it's a complete

00:17:35.620 contradiction. But, you know, it sort of makes me think of, have you ever watched soap operas in

00:17:41.420 Britain? It's all like poor, unhappy people who are not terribly good looking. And then you look

00:17:47.560 at soap operas in the States and it's all about uber wealthy, beautiful people. It's like Americans

00:17:52.000 just love wealth and beauty and she's feeding it to them in a way that like also allows them to

00:17:57.660 fantasize about being in the air and the outside. Yeah. So I do think that there is a false

00:18:04.780 there's a false fantasy that people think they would enjoy yeah doing this kind of work and

00:18:11.280 make no mistake it is work it is labor i have we i had to stack stack wood at the cabin uh because

00:18:20.100 we we ordered we got a dumpster to get rid of all the the gross squirrel poop filled insulation that

00:18:27.420 was in the garage i mean you're living closer to the real version of this life than i will ever

00:18:31.900 come to you that I do I do yeah and um so a dumpster came but I decided because I'm cheap

00:18:38.820 and because I you know I'm very efficient I asked uh John who who owns the dumpster if he could fill

00:18:46.700 it with firewood because John is also the firewood guy and then we would have the firewood and then

00:18:51.440 put the dirty insulation in the dumpster uh and so yeah he just he just dropped off like two years

00:18:57.800 worth of wood and I had to stack that wood and by me I mean I didn't really I didn't do most of it

00:19:02.940 Nick did it but it was back-breaking labor and that was just stacking wood I would like to

00:19:07.860 challenge Ballerina Farms followers who were like oh my gosh like what a beautiful life to just stack 0.99

00:19:13.280 some fucking wood and or milk a cow or muck muck some shit out of a stall because I don't think 0.98

00:19:19.580 it would seem so pretty then well maybe that's why they're following it right it's sort of the idea 0.99

00:19:26.900 of how I love reading cooking memoirs.

00:19:29.320 I can barely boil an egg, as you know,

00:19:32.200 but I can fulfill some sort of fantasy

00:19:34.200 that requires no responsibility on my part

00:19:36.500 of reading about people cooking.

00:19:39.180 I mean, I love to read Ruth Reichel,

00:19:41.280 but I can't do anything.

00:19:42.660 So maybe they don't want to do the backbreaking labor

00:19:45.460 of chopping where they just want to watch someone do it.

00:19:48.060 I just don't understand why I can't get 6 million followers

00:19:51.240 with an account of me just eating cheese.

00:19:54.140 I bet you could, but I might be an OnlyFans account.

00:19:57.600 Do you think that we could make money on OnlyFans?

00:20:00.660 Oh, absolutely.

00:20:01.900 I think we could.

00:20:02.720 I think there is a kink for everything,

00:20:05.600 and you should just pick the thing that's most enjoyable

00:20:07.620 and put yourself on OnlyFans

00:20:09.120 and see how much money starts coming in.

00:20:11.540 Do you think that's an episode of Under the Influence?

00:20:15.100 Absolutely.

00:20:16.060 Put yourself on OnlyFans eating cheese.

00:20:18.460 See what happens.

00:20:19.500 There you have it, friends.

00:20:20.880 I'm joining OnlyFans.

00:20:22.640 That's the next frontier. 0.86

00:20:23.860 next frontier of under the influence joe joins only fans to create her cheese eating channel

00:20:31.120 keep that image in your mind and have a great rest of your day

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - September 21, 2023

Even More Ballerina Farm

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