Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Grab Bag： Where Did Love Taza Go？

00:00:00.000 Hey y'all, Jo here and welcome to Under the Influence. Today's episode is yet another grab

00:00:11.460 bag of sorts where we are going to talk about all things Olympics, what the heck happened to

00:00:17.280 everyone's early influencer favorite Love Taza, and my friend Allie Hoff Kasich's wonderful frothy

00:00:23.840 and fun new novel, Too Blessed Distress. Allie's here to talk to me about all of it,

00:00:29.560 including my latest favorite ridiculous conspiracy theory.

00:00:38.480 Hello, Allie. Thanks for being on today to talk about one of my favorite subjects,

00:00:43.980 the reason this podcast exists, influencers.

00:00:48.640 Sometimes you just have to go back to what made you fall in love with it in the first place,

00:00:53.200 and I'm so glad that I can help you do that today. Well, we have a couple things I've really

00:00:58.520 been wanting to dive into about influencer culture, but the first thing I want to ask you is

00:01:04.220 who was your gateway influencer? Oh, that's such a good question. So can it be a blogger?

00:01:12.620 Does it have to be a social media influencer? I think that blogger is separate. So you can say

00:01:19.160 blogger but then tell me the social media one too okay i guess this person who was my my entryway i

00:01:27.080 i ended up following her on social media so i think it works my um my my entree into influencer

00:01:34.500 world was love taza naomi davis do you know my god mine too yeah yes and then i i really was

00:01:42.960 attached to her on her blog, but she probably was one of my first non-friend or family member

00:01:49.320 Instagram follows as well. So I think it counts on both fronts. It does. It does. And that's the

00:01:54.680 question. And I'm curious for our audience to ask themselves, who was the person you followed

00:01:59.500 on Instagram, the first person that you followed who wasn't a friend or family member and who

00:02:04.300 wasn't like distinctly a celebrity, but was just another seemingly normal person, but you didn't

00:02:10.540 know who they were yes yes and i i am still heartbroken that we do not know where taza is

00:02:17.480 we don't know where taza is it haunts me does it haunt you joe because i it's maybe one of

00:02:23.300 my roman empires i think about it several times a month um like where did she go what happened to

00:02:31.100 her i know her book kind of tanked but is that really why she went off the grid i have a lot

00:02:36.580 of questions. I have a lot of questions too. And I mean, maybe we should get into that because I'll

00:02:41.700 bet a lot, I'll bet you it was a lot of people's gateway. Let's just explain to the audience who

00:02:47.060 and what Love Taza was. Yes. So should I, I can share my perspective. I stumbled on her when I

00:02:54.240 was working as a publishing assistant in New York City. And at the time I was commuting like hours

00:03:01.600 a day. I was living at home and taking the bus because I'd graduated early from college and like

00:03:06.180 didn't know anybody who I could live with. So I was just endlessly on the bus and I was sleeping

00:03:12.440 in my childhood bedroom and it was all very unglamorous. But then at the same time, I was

00:03:16.300 spending my days in New York, which had always been my dream. And I came across Taza, who was

00:03:20.820 probably only several years older than I was at the time. She had graduated from Juilliard.

00:03:26.780 She was Mormon, as so many influencers were and are, as we know. And she was married to the love

00:03:34.900 of her life. She had this blog called The Rockstar Diaries, which was really about documenting her

00:03:40.340 early married life with Josh, who went by Ties and Fries online. And Taza was his nickname for

00:03:47.220 her. And I think I just was really swept into it because I felt like she was living the New York

00:03:52.140 life that I hoped that I would get to live once I stopped doing this nightmarish commute. And

00:03:58.800 she blogged for at least a decade and she became super successful i mean it started as these like

00:04:05.700 polaroids of the two of them sleeping in a tent on their on the floor of their studio apartment in

00:04:12.300 harlem and we kind of followed their life over all these years i think they had five kids they moved

00:04:18.980 to washington dc until the into this beautiful townhouse they ended up like renovating a gorgeous

00:04:24.660 apartment in New York when they moved back. She had a line at Target like her brand really blew

00:04:30.220 up. And then she went away. And then she just disappeared. And so many of the things that you

00:04:37.820 just said really resonate with me, because I do think that for a certain generation of young

00:04:44.120 women, watching people like Naomi Davis, the human behind the Love Taza blog and then Instagram

00:04:52.340 was kind of similar to my experience watching sex in the city so like i watched the original

00:04:59.420 episodes of sex in the city when i was in high school and college and i'm like this is gonna be

00:05:04.460 my new york city life and then weirdly it was actually to be honest i mean i was actually a

00:05:09.360 gossip columnist it was strange but i i feel like for the generation that came up right below me

00:05:16.860 these early influencers and bloggers were giving people a glimpse into what life in the big city

00:05:24.320 could look like and it was it was very voyeuristic it felt very real and she went from just being

00:05:30.760 oh my gosh we're like this young couple struggling in the city to I mean then going full-blown mom

00:05:38.460 influencer five kids and and I just want to reiterate the fact also a Juilliard trained

00:05:45.660 ex-ballerina turned wife and mother it's like oh my god that's that's super familiar

00:05:52.100 yes isn't that interesting how that seems to have played itself out all over again

00:05:57.640 with somebody else that we know very well in 2026 yeah fascinating right um I mean what

00:06:03.780 what if Naomi Davis just turned into Hannah Nealman like what what what if that's what 0.74

00:06:08.700 happened that would be such a great story if she just maybe she's just wearing a wig and

00:06:14.340 I mean, I've lost track of how many kids Hannah Nealman has, but I think you could probably make an argument that they just added a couple more while they've been offline, and now Josh is a farmer.

00:06:24.500 I think he was a banker before, but he seemed quite capable.

00:06:27.560 He could probably figure it out.

00:06:29.880 Sure, sure.

00:06:30.680 And we're not even saying that Daniel Nealman is that capable of being a farmer.

00:06:33.820 No, you don't have to be.

00:06:34.960 You don't have to be.

00:06:35.840 Really, it's a hobby farm. And frankly, as we well know, apparently he's not very capable because their raw milk just tested positive for E. coli.

00:06:45.900 And I will tell you, I don't think that that would happen under Josh Davis's watch. I think that Josh Davis would be more on top of it than that.

00:06:52.020 So if there's any argument against this theory of yours, which I do genuinely like, it's that Josh Davis seems a little bit more careful, maybe, than Daniel Nealman.

00:07:03.300 Sure, sure.

00:07:04.040 We don't know because Josh Davis never made raw milk.

00:07:08.440 Not that we know of.

00:07:09.300 Not that we know of, but maybe he is making raw milk now.

00:07:11.860 Like, this is the best conspiracy theory that I've ever put out on the internet.

00:07:16.660 I'm just going to throw it out there now.

00:07:17.680 I'm honored to be part of it.

00:07:18.560 I really do.

00:07:19.180 I feel good about it.

00:07:20.520 I mean, you know, who knows?

00:07:21.600 Who knows?

00:07:22.100 I mean, you can just say the craziest things online these days.

00:07:26.320 I'm actually going to the Ballerina Farm outpost.

00:07:31.040 I'm doing an event in Utah, a book event at a wonderful woman-owned bookstore called Folklore, which is in the town where the Ballerina Farm brand is based.

00:07:43.580 And I guess I won't have the experience of having raw milk products because they've been pulled from the shelves, but I'm going to buy everything else.

00:07:51.940 I can't wait to watch.

00:07:53.040 I will be paying close attention to your social media while you are on this trip, because this sounds like it is ripe for fantastic content and lots of anecdotes.

00:08:02.680 I mean, I'm just here to sell books, girl.

00:08:04.800 I'm just here to sell books.

00:08:06.560 I really am.

00:08:07.240 I will do any and all of the things.

00:08:09.240 I will chug Ballerina Farm hydration powder.

00:08:13.280 I will like one knee chug it while I'm in the middle of the store until I'm dragged out kicking and screaming, telling people to order the Parisian heist.

00:08:21.740 Yeah, this is why you're my hero.

00:08:23.380 This is why you are the person to look up to in this industry.

00:08:25.860 I will do whatever I have to do for you to just be interested a little bit in what I'm doing, you know?

00:08:30.660 Yeah, just pay attention to me, please.

00:08:33.440 You know, I read this great piece in British Vogue.

00:08:36.800 I think it was a couple years ago from Emma Spector.

00:08:40.140 And it was about Love Taza.

00:08:42.920 It was about Naomi Davis.

00:08:44.360 And she had this line where she said,

00:08:47.400 when you're feeling adrift in your own life, as I did for most of my early 20s,

00:08:52.180 it's tempting to lose yourself entirely in someone else's. And to me, I mean, that stuck

00:08:59.640 with me because I think that gets to the heart of why we follow influencers in the first place,

00:09:06.340 because it feels nice to inhabit someone else's life, albeit maybe not a real one,

00:09:12.720 for a little bit when you're feeling adrift, when you're feeling tired, when you hate your husband,

00:09:17.400 when you don't really want to play with your kids anymore.

00:09:20.140 That just feels nice and comfortable, right?

00:09:23.840 Yeah, I think so.

00:09:24.960 And Taz's aesthetic at the time was so whimsical.

00:09:30.500 I mean, it sort of evolved over the years.

00:09:33.280 But at the beginning, I was so drawn to just like the colorful way that she lived her life.

00:09:38.640 And I think that it created its own fantasy.

00:09:42.060 Like just the lipstick and the bright pops of color they had in their apartment.

00:09:46.280 Like she was doing some world building there and creating something almost fantastical in a grounded setting that made it seem possible for all of us to have a little bit of magic.

00:10:00.740 And I think that the most effective influencers do exactly that.

00:10:06.180 And she did sort of weave her belief system into her blogging here and there in a way

00:10:14.800 that almost like added to that because we would hear about these like conferences that

00:10:19.140 they would go to.

00:10:20.600 I think Wednesday night they would have their like family night or the kids would go to

00:10:25.260 Sunday school.

00:10:25.920 They would, they traveled all over the world with these five kids and in every country

00:10:29.560 they visited they went to see a mormon temple like it was sort of woven into the fabric of

00:10:33.400 this fantasy that she built um but it never felt heavy-handed it just all felt very safe and happy

00:10:39.920 and it didn't really seem like she had any complaints and i wonder if that's part of why

00:10:44.460 she disappeared because while she had hinted at like a couple of of challenges in her blogging

00:10:51.200 career it did seem like a lot of things were falling apart toward the end and she was getting

00:10:55.540 a lot of criticism for the first time and it's like she just didn't know how to deal with that

00:10:59.400 anymore as part of her brand. The escapism was her brand, which is exactly what you were just

00:11:04.020 describing. And once that was complicated, she had to bail. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's

00:11:11.260 a lot of reasons she would have wanted to leave. I did interview a lot of influencers and bloggers

00:11:17.820 from those early days who said that once the criticism ramped up, and it did and it still

00:11:24.900 does. Criticism of women is like an Olympic sport online that they just couldn't take it anymore. 0.99

00:11:31.980 A lot of them told me that they got terribly depressed, terribly anxious. Some of them even

00:11:37.540 experienced suicidal thoughts. It became much too much. And I do remember that Naomi Davis and the

00:11:45.240 Love Taza brand, it was around the pandemic and they decided to pack up their family and drive

00:11:51.200 across the country during lockdown to Arizona to start to start like to have a fresh start there.

00:11:58.260 Right. And then she got a lot of criticism for that. And that seemed to be the tipping point

00:12:04.940 where maybe maybe it was too much. Yeah, she really got a lot of blowback about the travel

00:12:12.260 across the country, which, look, it was a very complicated time. We were all making decisions

00:12:17.120 that we really had no business making.

00:12:19.140 Nobody knew what they were doing.

00:12:20.740 And I think doing it in a public setting

00:12:23.240 must have been very scary. 0.84

00:12:24.960 Like you said, judgment against women 0.96

00:12:26.300 is absolutely rampant and terrifying. 0.99

00:12:29.860 She could have made smarter decisions.

00:12:31.860 She could have communicated about them better.

00:12:33.540 I think there was this real sense

00:12:34.980 that like they were untouchable

00:12:36.300 in the way that they presented the move.

00:12:37.860 Like, don't worry,

00:12:39.480 we have considered all possible outcomes.

00:12:41.340 Like this is safe for us.

00:12:42.480 This is safe for everyone else.

00:12:44.240 I remember it seeming almost magnanimous.

00:12:46.240 like don't worry like we're gonna take care of everybody um and then i also just think when they

00:12:52.080 got to phoenix it just didn't really seem like it was everything they thought that it would be so

00:12:57.640 she'd taken this enormous risk gotten all of this criticism and then the house renovation which i'm

00:13:04.560 sure they were like oh this is going to be gold for content like it just wasn't shaping up i remember

00:13:09.980 like it just not being as interesting as her new york and dc stuff the kids were getting older i

00:13:15.300 think kids do age out of this like they don't want to be part of it anymore and so much of her

00:13:19.760 appeal was that she was raising these like really independent spirited kids and when you raise

00:13:24.920 independent spirited kids what you hope for is that they don't want to be followed by a camera

00:13:28.600 all the time um and then she wrote this book that i admit i bought uh and i didn't finish it because

00:13:34.500 it was bad and i was a pretty devoted fan and i think it had really bad sales so i'm sure that

00:13:41.160 was very embarrassing. Yeah. I mean, who knows? Who knows? But I do think it is fascinating that

00:13:46.400 we are still talking about this six years later, the same way we would talk about a celebrity on

00:13:52.720 like one of those VH1, where are they now shows. And if you Google this, there are entire Reddit

00:13:59.500 rabbit holes devoted to tracking her down. And I'm just like, I mean, I guess if we put the mom

00:14:06.240 group texts on this, we could probably find her in like 15 minutes if we really felt like it.

00:14:11.160 I would hope so.

00:14:12.060 I think it would be so fun if we went on, what if we went on like a road trip to find her?

00:14:16.580 I mean, that could be a whole documentary called Finding Taza, which, I mean, all right, look, it's not the worst idea.

00:14:24.200 Creepy, creepy, voyeuristic, stalkery, wrong, wrong, but good content.

00:14:30.580 Somewhere she is just out in the world, presumably Phoenix, like raising all of these kids and maybe living a life beyond the fact that she really was like this.

00:14:41.160 massive first impact on the blogging scene I have also spoken to a lot of people who say that

00:14:46.220 she was the entry point and to then kind of just retreat into oblivion it's not like she is doing

00:14:52.280 some other work that we're aware of like she's just living a life and if that's what she wants

00:14:58.180 then that's great but um it is so strange like it was very abrupt there was no farewell post

00:15:03.420 I think maybe her Instagram is now wiped like I don't even think you can look her up anymore

00:15:08.380 I hope she's well Taza if you're listening we're thinking of you and we hope she's she's clearly a

00:15:15.760 massive under the influence fan obviously uh she's been listening from the beginning I mean it does

00:15:21.100 remind me a little bit of when Rick Moranis dropped out of Hollywood uh because his wife passed and

00:15:25.940 so Rick Moranis one of the greatest comedic actors of the 80s uh left Hollywood to raise his children

00:15:32.220 I mean that's you know Taza is just the Rick Moranis of the influencing world I think that's

00:15:37.300 probably what she was aiming for the whole time. A hundred percent. All right, let's take a quick 1.00

00:15:42.640 break. And when we get back, I want to talk about the specific influencer rabbit holes

00:15:47.240 that you went down when you were researching your book to Blessed Distress.

00:16:00.880 Okay, we are back. You've got a book coming out. I blurbed it. I'm doing your launch event with you.

00:16:05.880 you did a lot of research for this book, but you also like you're a person who enjoys following

00:16:10.600 influencer culture. What specific rabbit holes did you go down that you can tell us about so

00:16:16.140 we don't go down them? Yes, please don't, because I have already given these people way more of my

00:16:21.400 time and attention than I would like to admit. So it all happened during peak lockdown during

00:16:26.580 COVID as Taza was driving her family from New York to Phoenix, I guess. I was stuck in the house like

00:16:32.520 everybody else, not driving to Phoenix and spending a lot of time on my phone. And at some

00:16:37.580 point I saw a video, I couldn't tell you who made it, but I remember that it was about your virginity

00:16:44.020 and why it's so important to maintain your purity. But it was a video featuring this gorgeous young

00:16:50.060 woman who at the same time was promoting like what she was wearing and her makeup. And I just thought

00:16:55.460 it was so interesting because it was so divorced from any of my own personal experience. And as

00:17:01.140 of course, we know more now, the algorithm then did its algorithm thing because I watched the

00:17:06.120 whole video and was just kind of like intrigued. And I started getting served so many videos in

00:17:12.560 this vein, talking about subjects like saving yourself for marriage, like modest fashion,

00:17:21.300 like dating a godly man who would lead you and help you make the smart decision about

00:17:27.940 finding church and finding community like anything you can think of but through this very specific

00:17:33.320 white evangelical lens and I was most intrigued by the fact that even as somebody who does not

00:17:40.340 consider herself to be religious like I was kind of taken in by it um and even as somebody who

00:17:46.500 like fundamentally disagrees to so many of the underlying beliefs of these people I was still

00:17:52.880 taken in by it. And I thought that that was concerning because I am an adult woman who

00:17:58.780 likes to think that she's pretty informed and educated. And I don't want to be somebody who

00:18:03.820 can be swayed or convinced by somebody online who has a great message packaged in cute fonts and

00:18:10.960 sparkles, but I was. And so I took it upon myself to really focus on learning more about this

00:18:17.960 community and trying to figure out what about it was working um as a tool to grab eyes and spread

00:18:25.080 messages and i i really don't want to tell you like how much time i spent um watching these videos

00:18:33.420 listening to these podcasts my algorithm will never be the same joe at this point all that i get are

00:18:39.080 like golden retriever videos and modest is hottest content like that's it um and i weirdly am still

00:18:47.940 kind of interested in what goes on with these people, which I sort of hate to admit, but

00:18:53.720 I spent a lot of time with them researching. And I'm happy to share a couple of the big names that

00:18:58.640 I came across. But big picture, I would just say like it's everything from sisters who have

00:19:05.520 online ministries together where they talk about their former porn addictions and how they beat

00:19:11.940 them and also about home birth because of course, to couples that were trying to do this together

00:19:17.300 and who were barely hiding their extremely toxic, abusive dynamics.

00:19:22.720 And it's everything in between, too.

00:19:25.400 Yeah, give me a specific example of one group that you were following.

00:19:32.680 Okay, so there is a couple, and their names are Morgan and Paul August.

00:19:38.220 I bring them up because as dark as their stuff is, it's also kind of hilarious

00:19:43.760 in that Paul is currently pursuing a career as a professional pickleball player very publicly,

00:19:52.980 even as his wife, Morgan, is obviously at home and miserable at all times with their two children

00:19:59.900 because he is training for pickleball.

00:20:03.700 So this has taken quite a turn because they got famous on their YouTube channel,

00:20:09.000 The Paul and Morgan Show.

00:20:10.020 And at the beginning, most of their videos were just these like sit down face to camera videos talking about godly marriage, talking about their journey.

00:20:19.940 Morgan did have sex before she married Paul, but of course he decided that he would forgive her and allow her to bring her sins into their marriage, which she was redeemed.

00:20:28.960 So she talked about that story quite a bit.

00:20:30.800 And they talked a lot about what it looked like for them to be a modern Christian couple.

00:20:36.380 their motto for a long time was about having hope about being free and they had a really big

00:20:44.660 following they had tons of patreon followers they did youtube lives all the time where people would

00:20:50.000 chime in and i don't quite know how this works but i guess you can like send creators money

00:20:55.200 while they're doing a youtube lives they did that a lot they never had other jobs um so there's

00:21:03.240 always been a lot of speculation about like maybe one of them has rich family members that are

00:21:08.480 paying for all of this but they very confidently were talking about how this was a full-time

00:21:12.740 ministry at a certain point they started talking a lot about their fertility struggles which is

00:21:18.780 its own rabbit hole in the christian space because their big strong feelings about a lot of the

00:21:26.200 treatments that many of us find to be quite mainstream at this point so they were they were

00:21:30.440 resistant to things like IVF because of their religious beliefs. They really commodified that

00:21:35.220 for a long time. And then they had two children. She, of course, wanted to have an all-natural

00:21:41.180 home birth and ended up waiting way too long to go to the hospital. Almost died. Had to have an

00:21:47.400 emergency C-section. Got pregnant again, like, immediately. And her one joy after having her 0.98

00:21:54.880 two children was getting out of the house to play pickleball and it was through her that paul

00:22:01.220 discovered that he also loved pickleball and he is now pursuing a pickleball career and one of my

00:22:08.000 favorite things to see on reddit is because i don't follow them or watch their videos myself

00:22:12.340 i just turned to my friends at reddit to see what they post but he posts like training montages as

00:22:17.660 if he is rocky um of himself like like basically giving like a bird bath in a drinking fountain

00:22:25.160 to cool himself off because he's training so vigorously for pickleball um and then at the

00:22:31.080 same time like split screen style his wife is at home like trying to raise godly men as she talks

00:22:37.300 about um and it's so it's just so uh disjointed because they have all of this language about like

00:22:43.920 what it means to be a supportive family and a supportive couple when that's so clearly not

00:22:48.440 what's going on. And she gets so mad in the comments because people will mention that it

00:22:55.440 really seems like Paul is completely ignoring her, ignoring their children. And she is not shy about

00:23:01.720 taking on people in the comments, which seems very ungodly to me, but it definitely makes for

00:23:07.820 interesting viewing, just as somebody who eats this stuff up. And I could really watch the

00:23:15.640 Paul and Morgan show for hours. It's pretty juicy stuff. Also, fun fact, she threw up at their

00:23:23.040 wedding. I mean, I threw up after my wedding, but I'll bet we did it for different reasons.

00:23:29.500 I think so, too. She claims that she was just hungry, but the internet has different thoughts

00:23:35.160 about why she quite literally ran off the altar to go vomit oh wow she ran off the altar to go puke

00:23:42.080 to go herb yeah wow there's a lot there's a lot there i did my best to summarize it but uh they

00:23:48.220 they really like started in this like preaching vibe and instead they've tried to pivot not so

00:23:55.960 gracefully into like more of a family vlogging pickleball vlogging situation with very judgmental

00:24:03.800 Christian undertones. And I think they probably should have stayed in their lane. That seems to 1.00

00:24:08.920 be where they were making better inroads. And a lot of it now is just random outbursts about how

00:24:16.600 women shouldn't wear leggings to the gym and how all of the videos carried at Walmart are

00:24:22.060 blasphemous. But what I'm taking away from this is that pickleball influencers are also a thing. 0.82

00:24:28.440 They are. And you should probably do an episode about it.

00:24:30.860 All right, fine. Done. Will you come back? Will you talk to me about Pickleball influencers?

00:24:35.820 I will talk about Pickleball Paul and how much I hate him for as much as you would like me to.

00:24:41.940 It's amazing because I tried to get into Pickleball. One of my first substacks was

00:24:45.560 about me trying to get into Pickleball and buying a whole outfit to get into Pickleball.

00:24:48.960 We bought a set that we set up maybe twice that just lives in our basement now. For some reason,

00:24:56.560 it just never caught on for us. I think it was too much work for Nick and I. We're like,

00:25:00.260 You have to go set up a court. And also the kids were littler when we tried to do it. So we're like, what do we do with the kids? Now we can, I guess, just take them to the playground. Maybe I'll try pickleball again. Maybe I'll do my deep dive into the pickleball influencing world. And that will influence me to come back, come back to the sport.

00:25:19.840 That's what they're trying to do. They want you to see how much fun they're having. And maybe you'll decide to go pro like Paul.

00:25:26.660 I mean, maybe.

00:25:27.880 I did tell my kids the other day because we were on the chairlift skiing and Charlie said to me, you're too old to be in the Olympics.

00:25:37.100 And I said, I'm going to take up curling.

00:25:40.660 And not that I think curling is easy, but it is a sport that you can be older and do.

00:25:46.400 Because I think like one of the top curlers is like a 55-year-old personal injury lawyer.

00:25:50.000 And so I told him, I'm like, don't you bully me, because next thing you know, your mom is going to the next Olympics in France as a curler.

00:26:00.320 So watch what you say, boy.

00:26:02.700 Yeah, be careful.

00:26:03.360 Did you know that there is apparently like a Philadelphia curling club?

00:26:07.640 I have heard of this.

00:26:09.100 We are considering going. 0.84

00:26:10.600 We tried to go to one called the Bear Pen.

00:26:13.140 It just had like a curling field sheet, whatever they're called, this weekend.

00:26:18.780 But it was booked by parents who are better at booking things than we are.

00:26:22.940 But yeah, I would love to visit the Philadelphia Curling Club.

00:26:26.980 Matt really wants to take Will.

00:26:28.960 And he feels like now is the time to start training your small children to become curlers,

00:26:34.240 that they can fall into this like curling craze that seems to take over the U.S. with

00:26:40.000 each passing Winter Olympics.

00:26:42.600 I mean, I'm here for it.

00:26:43.640 OK, what what are jobs going to be in 10, 15 years?

00:26:47.160 what are our kids going to do? AI can't curl. At least not that we know of. I like to think 0.66

00:26:53.800 that Will could do more than curl. Like maybe he can have that as a hobby. But if he's passionate

00:26:58.680 about curling, then I can be a curling mom. Yeah, totally. Right. I'm all here for that.

00:27:04.780 OK, let's take one more quick break. And when we get back, I actually want to talk about the

00:27:09.140 Olympics. I want to just shoot the shit about the Olympics and how much joy it has brought 0.98

00:27:14.720 all of us in a time of darkness okay we're back why do you think we needed the olympics 0.99

00:27:29.580 so freaking bad for the past two weeks it was just so nice to have a timeline cleanse i think

00:27:38.920 just to have some other content to consume. I felt like my social media was a little bit happier

00:27:45.780 because instead of all of the news pages that I follow constantly sitting out like political

00:27:51.800 content, it was clips of people snowboarding and figure skating and curling. And I just felt like

00:27:59.940 everybody got into it. It was so fun to see like the collaborations with Sesame Street characters

00:28:04.940 going there I just it seemed like everybody jumped on the bandwagon and rallied around it

00:28:09.800 in a way that we are just unable to rally around most things right now what do you think

00:28:14.820 well I just think it's exactly what you said right like it would we just we needed joy we

00:28:21.320 needed something to bring us together we needed something a little less salacious than the Cold

00:28:26.660 play concert cheaters. And just I think we wanted to love America again. I hate that we are in a

00:28:36.640 position now to not love our country because there are so many things that I genuinely love about our

00:28:42.480 country. But it is hard to be an American right now. So to have to be able to watch people you

00:28:48.440 respect who are really good at what they do and who are really competent human beings doing good

00:28:55.100 things and productive things and doing what they love in the world. I think that is just

00:28:59.380 truly joyous right now. I agree. And it was also really refreshing to see that kind of patriotism

00:29:06.880 reflected in so many different ways. I think it was clear that different athletes had kind of

00:29:12.840 mentally prepared themselves to be more or less public about how they feel about what's going on

00:29:18.080 in the country right now. And to see that range and that spectrum of commentary or not

00:29:24.460 was fascinating. And to see that like you can show up and represent all the good things about

00:29:29.580 America by being super vocal about it or by simply like being clear about what you do and don't

00:29:37.060 agree with. It was just really refreshing to see people show up in that patriotism in different

00:29:41.380 ways. Some people to be a lot more vocal about how they're feeling about what's happening in

00:29:45.240 the country and some people to be a little bit quieter but still to kind of indicate that they

00:29:50.220 are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. I don't think that anybody who I've seen on TV

00:29:56.140 around the Olympics right now seems like all that jazzed about America beyond representing

00:30:01.380 them as an athlete. And I personally appreciated like seeing all kinds of people

00:30:07.640 wear that in different ways. And I think it created a great conversation about like what

00:30:13.160 it means to be a patriot. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I also really loved that this Olympics

00:30:20.520 felt like it was spotlighting mom athletes a lot more. I mean, I am a mom and not necessarily an

00:30:29.980 athlete. We know that I'm a failed pickleball player. But, you know, doing anything you love

00:30:35.120 while momming is really hard. And I don't want to ask you the question of how did you write this

00:30:40.700 book while being a new mom because no one would ask a new dad that. But I also want to know. So

00:30:45.160 that's my backhanded way of asking you it. Well, thank you for the caveat because I'm sure nobody

00:30:51.700 would ever ask my husband how he did his job while being a new dad. My journey here was

00:30:58.140 interesting because I actually found out that I was pregnant the same week that I signed with my

00:31:02.960 agent after querying to find representation for my book for a couple of months. And I always say

00:31:09.820 that, um, you know, I kind of needed, I needed to know in that same week that both, both things

00:31:17.160 were going to be possible. I found out that I was pregnant, pregnant at the beginning of the week.

00:31:21.040 And a couple of weeks later, or a couple of days later, after all of this time of like,

00:31:24.740 not knowing if the book thing was going to happen, I got in a call, um, that somebody was

00:31:29.580 interested in representing me. And I just had this sense of peace of like, okay, I don't have

00:31:34.120 to give that up. Like that thing is also going to happen. Even as I just got this other news that I'm

00:31:39.820 gonna have a baby and that I know is gonna be this major new part of my life. So both things

00:31:45.160 happened in parallel. My book went out on submission the day my son was born. So these two

00:31:51.480 babies have grown up together, which will probably put him in therapy for even longer than he might

00:31:57.680 be otherwise. So I've written in I've written in the acknowledgments that he's welcome to send me

00:32:01.940 the bill for that. I am, I am finding more now that he's he's two and I'm working on my second

00:32:08.760 book like the practical piece of writing as a new mom is is more challenging now because a lot of

00:32:16.620 the book was written already when a lot of book one was written already when he was born and it

00:32:22.120 was more the editing process I think book two I've had to learn it's it's like I've never written a

00:32:28.560 book before because I'm not only writing a completely different story but I'm writing in

00:32:32.340 a very different life where I'm writing in these like pockets of time available around my day job

00:32:38.140 and around parenting. So I think for me, it's just been about like really buckling down on

00:32:43.380 time management and not overly romanticizing the writing process. Like sometimes it's not

00:32:49.240 sitting down for hours at a time with a candle burning and beautiful music playing

00:32:55.920 and writing a perfect chapter. It's like, okay, I have half an hour and I might be scrunched up

00:33:02.340 in like a very bad posture for my orthopedic health, but I'm going to crank out a couple

00:33:09.220 hundred words that I'll be able to edit later on. So I think getting to that point where I'm okay

00:33:15.640 with that, writing book two has been important. Yeah, I think that we learn a lot from writing

00:33:22.560 our first book in the same way that we learn a lot from making and then raising our first baby.

00:33:28.060 I mean, my 13th book is better than my first book for a lot of reasons.

00:33:32.900 And my third baby, even though she is a terrorist right now, is easier than my first baby.

00:33:40.460 Remind me how old Will is.

00:33:42.320 He just turned two in January.

00:33:44.260 Oh, that's a good age.

00:33:45.720 That's a sweet age.

00:33:46.600 That's not terrible yet.

00:33:48.080 I find that they really turn around three.

00:33:52.380 Oh, OK.

00:33:52.920 So I'll mentally prepare.

00:33:53.920 He is, he's definitely in it pretty hard with the toddler thing right now, but they're very sweet moments that I think balance that out in a nice way.

00:34:05.220 Yeah, no, toddlers are difficult.

00:34:07.800 You know, all kids are difficult, right, in their own way, and they're all sweet in their own way.

00:34:12.520 Toddlers are difficult because they're still so dumb, and there's like a gazillion ways for them to kill themselves on everything and everywhere all the time.

00:34:20.260 the thing with three is that all of a sudden they realize that they're their own person 0.99

00:34:25.980 they have ideas their ideas are are completely irrational but they want them enforced and so

00:34:33.320 they will just fight you on everything um and that that part of it is exhausting i don't think

00:34:40.100 that ends till five okay so i have some time i should buckle down totally totally but and just

00:34:47.380 prepare for it finish book two and then and then you know just prepare just prepare to be screamed

00:34:53.100 at all the time i'm just screamed at all of the time these days i'm getting used to that especially

00:34:58.360 in the car there's just a lot of screaming in the car i'm like i know you you said you said it once

00:35:03.180 i heard it the first time we don't need to say it over and over and over again at increasing volume

00:35:07.700 between point a and point b but that seems to be what we're doing so i think i just like i'm just

00:35:14.340 going to keep writing and hopefully getting better at tuning out to The Screaming. And like you,

00:35:20.700 I hope that my books continue to get better and maybe my parenting will get better too.

00:35:25.340 I love that for you. I'm so excited for your book to come into the world. Will you tell

00:35:29.880 everyone where they can find you online? Yes, you can find me on Instagram at

00:35:33.720 Allie Hoff Cossack. That's A-L-L-I-H-O-F-F-K-O-S-I-K. You can also find me at

00:35:39.560 AllieHopCossack.com. I am also a podcast person. You can find links to my shows there along with

00:35:44.600 my sub stack. And I would love for you to come say hi. You can pre-order my book, Too Blessed

00:35:48.860 Distressed, or order it after March 3rd, wherever books are sold. And I hope you love it.

00:35:54.700 Thanks so much for being here.

00:35:56.180 Thanks for having me.

00:36:09.560 Thank you.

00:36:39.560 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - February 24, 2026

Grab Bag： Where Did Love Taza Go？

Episode Stats

Transcript