Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - When Influencers Make Us Feel Bad About Ourselves

00:00:00.000 Hey all! Joe here, and you're listening to Under the Influence instead of hanging out

00:00:10.780 with your kids. Good for you. You are making some good decisions. Today we are talking

00:00:16.600 about something that we've talked about a lot before, but it's been a minute. We're

00:00:20.920 talking about how easy it is to feel like shit when we scroll Instagram. And to be honest, 0.99

00:00:25.960 Instagram is everyone's own personal hell, because whatever you're feeling bad about

00:00:30.640 in your life is what's going to make you feel even worse when you scroll social media. It is.

00:00:37.020 Today, we're talking to my friend Fertessa Latifi. She's a journalist who writes a ton 0.67

00:00:41.240 about influencing and social media. But most importantly, she is also a brand new mom.

00:00:46.660 And as we know, Instagram is a landmine, a real landmine for new moms. Okay, there are a lot of

00:00:54.300 things that are going to make us feel shame, make us feel guilt, and make us feel less than.

00:01:00.180 So for Fertessa, her thing that's making her feel a little bit crappy inside right now is that her

00:01:06.180 birth didn't go as she planned. Now, a lot of us know very well that birth often does not go

00:01:11.720 as planned, but the first time you do it, you're like, I've got a freaking plan.

00:01:15.920 I know what I want to happen here. But having kids is nothing if not an exercise in figuring out

00:01:21.620 how to pivot, my friends. But Fertessa was very disappointed by this. And as she's been scrolling

00:01:27.680 Instagram, she's been seeing these beautiful influencers literally moments after they gave

00:01:32.680 birth. Moments. It is a beautiful Vogue photo shoot all up in their vajayjays. They've got 0.53

00:01:39.920 the perfect eyelashes. They've got the perfect bikini waxes. The baby looks like it's already 1.00

00:01:45.200 six months old. And these are making Fertessa, a person who reports on influencers, feel really

00:01:51.060 bad. Feel bad. And that sucks. But we also have to remember that we're constantly making assumptions

00:01:57.760 that this is at all anyone's reality on the gram. Because it's not. It's not. Everyone is lying to

00:02:05.360 you, my friends. Everyone is lying to you. We are also going to talk about push presents today and

00:02:10.900 how I think they're dumb. And how soon should you go back to work after having a baby? And if you 0.74

00:02:16.020 want to be a person who goes right back to work, should you feel bad about that?

00:02:21.060 hi fortessa hi okay so you wrote something yesterday that that really really got to me

00:02:35.160 it's about a particular mom influencer who really made you feel like shit can you can you talk to 0.96

00:02:42.000 me about this because mom influencers make me feel like shit all the time yeah literally all 0.98

00:02:46.420 the time, which is crazy because I feel like we should know better, but somehow we don't. 0.98

00:02:50.660 We should know better. As people who cover this world and cover this industry,

00:02:56.500 and yet, and yet, yesterday or the day before, I still bought sweatpants jeans. I was still

00:03:02.680 influenced to buy sweatpants jeans, but it was the greatest decision I've ever made.

00:03:06.820 Well, see, sometimes they know what they're talking about.

00:03:09.740 They do. They do. So who is this mom influencer who made you feel bad? And let's remind our

00:03:15.360 audience you're you're a relatively new mom how old is your baby right now yes she is turning six

00:03:21.100 months this weekend oh my god she's she's practically a grown-up i know it's sad she's

00:03:26.200 like going off to college i'm sad totally totally someone's gonna just like hand her a 40 and a pack

00:03:31.560 of marble lights soon and you'll just you'll be done yeah state school okay so so you still have

00:03:39.200 a six-month-old baby right now he's still you have a six-month-old baby and and tell me tell

00:03:45.000 me about this particular mom influencer yeah okay so she goes by pookie because her and her husband

00:03:53.200 whose name is jet okay so her actual name is campbell and his name is jet it's very like sec

00:03:59.100 like i grew up in the south i don't know where they actually grew up but i would bet that it

00:04:03.600 is in the south and they're this couple and they do these like outfit videos where jet always says

00:04:10.940 like something like and pookie looks stunning tonight pookie tell him what you're wearing and

00:04:16.120 then she'll like do a little twist and be like this is my like prana dress or whatever and so

00:04:20.860 they've gotten tons of followers from this and they just had their first baby the other day so 0.84

00:04:26.380 she is like a brand new mom influencer brand new mom influencer and do you think that her

00:04:33.060 engagement has gone up since she's been a mom? Because we know that the algorithm likes pregnant 1.00

00:04:37.620 bellies and newborn babies. Totally. I think it definitely has. And it's also because like

00:04:43.900 everyone's like, how is Campbell going to do pregnancy? Because she's like so glamorous and

00:04:49.900 she's so like beautiful and that's her thing. Like she's not supposed to be relatable at all.

00:04:55.180 And so that is a subgenre of influencer. Like you're not she's not supposed to be relatable.

00:05:01.980 she's supposed to be essentially like the angelina jolie of influencers whereas a relatable one is

00:05:08.300 more like an aniston exactly exactly so like um her husband got her a push present the other day

00:05:15.100 and i didn't look at what kind of bag it was but i think it was like a birkin or like in something

00:05:21.880 that i can't pronounce like i don't even know how to say like hermes it was like something like

00:05:26.100 ridiculous. I think push presents are so dumb. So dumb. Yeah, I don't get it. I don't know why 0.99

00:05:35.500 they make me feel yucky, but they kind of make me feel yucky is all I'm going to say out there.

00:05:39.380 But no judgment. I think it's the word push. I think it's maybe the word push. Totally. Yeah.

00:05:45.960 I also think I bought myself things when I was about to go into labor, but I didn't really want

00:05:54.240 my husband to get me anything i just i wanted to order whatever i wanted i just want i wanted to be

00:05:59.680 the the pilot of my own life at that point yeah because you were about to not be forever

00:06:06.340 exactly exactly yeah so okay so he gets her a push push present god bless jet who names 0.98

00:06:13.920 who names these fucking people okay i don't know j-e-t-t oh of course because they're like you 0.94

00:06:20.840 know it's not enough it's not enough to name our kid jet we're gonna need to double t to double t 0.98

00:06:25.960 this child double it up i must wish that i hadn't already handed in my copy edits for everyone is

00:06:31.240 lying to you so i could add a jet just for fun i know jet is a really it's it just fits so well

00:06:37.780 and her name being campbell is like really good like it's very obvious well i imagine that it's

00:06:43.440 like her mom's maiden name you know and that like southern tradition of like giving your daughters

00:06:48.520 the first name of like that your maiden name you know what i mean exactly exactly yeah but he calls 0.91

00:06:54.760 her pookie so that's how pookie came about yeah so pookie everyone calls her pookie on the internet

00:07:00.760 because he calls her pookie so it's like a thing how old are how old are these people oh my gosh 0.77

00:07:07.220 good question um can i google it really quick totally well let's just keep going i'll google

00:07:13.180 it i'll be your checker okay so pookie pookie has her first baby and how does this make you

00:07:19.060 mom of a six-month-old feel bad yeah so like let me just caveat this that it's like totally not

00:07:26.160 her issue and like she didn't do anything wrong and this is like a me thing but like she had these

00:07:32.460 like beautiful pictures of like immediate well what seemed to be like immediately after birth 0.95

00:07:38.560 you know and it looked like she had had a vaginal delivery because the baby was like laying on her

00:07:45.200 chest in the room like the delivery room not in like the operating room you know what I mean

00:07:51.220 um and so it seemed that whatever she had wanted for her birth and I'm making a lot of assumptions

00:07:56.820 it seemed to have happened and she had these beautiful pictures where her nails are done and

00:08:00.840 also her engagement ring and wedding rings were on which is crazy because I couldn't wear my rings

00:08:06.500 for, like, five months while I was pregnant and then, like, three months afterwards.

00:08:11.520 Oh, my God. Stop it. I only just put my rings back on and my baby is going to be two

00:08:15.820 in a couple weeks. I really only just put them back on.

00:08:20.760 How do these women wear their rings during labor? How do they fit and how do they not 1.00

00:08:26.360 get overstimulated? Like, I don't get it. No idea. No idea. But look, I also, again,

00:08:33.400 We're a judgment-free zone. I just think it is very interesting. It's such an influencer thing

00:08:38.640 to get your hair and your nails and all of the stuff done. Yes. To do immediate afterbirth

00:08:46.220 pictures, but not pictures of the afterbirth, but ew, what if there were placenta influencers?

00:08:54.300 I mean, there kind of are with like placenta encapsulation influencers. 0.99

00:08:58.900 Shut up. There's placenta encapsulation influencers? 0.94

00:09:02.100 I mean, I guess like influencers who talk a lot about placenta encapsulation.

00:09:06.160 Yeah, totally.

00:09:07.400 There's an influencer for everything.

00:09:09.120 OK, so she takes these pictures.

00:09:11.140 Yeah, whatever.

00:09:11.860 She's beautiful. 0.95

00:09:12.640 She's like stunning.

00:09:13.520 Like, obviously, she takes these pictures and she posts them and she's beautiful and

00:09:19.020 her baby looks really beautiful and her husband's right there and he looks so happy.

00:09:24.620 And like, this is like, I don't know, maybe getting like a little bit too like in the

00:09:29.640 weeds.

00:09:29.980 but like it just made me think about how my birth went nothing like I expected it to and how like

00:09:37.720 the pictures that came out of it are things that like I don't like to look at because they remind

00:09:43.140 me of how little it went like I expected it to and I think like and again this is totally not

00:09:49.520 her issue like I am so glad if she had the birth that like she was expecting and like has these

00:09:55.900 beautiful pictures to look back on but it was just like felt like to me just like another way 0.98

00:10:01.380 to like not stack up to mom influencers was to like not have the ideal birth and not have the

00:10:07.700 ideal photos that came out of the ideal birth so i wanted you to tell this story because i think

00:10:15.180 that very often when we feel something when we look at influencers when we're when it's stirring

00:10:21.560 up all of these emotions it's really about us right it's about feeling like somehow we didn't

00:10:30.180 stack up and having some kind of shame that is ridiculous because we shouldn't have any shame

00:10:37.940 about about how we mother and if you're even thinking about whether you did it right you know

00:10:42.480 you're doing it right and so i i really i want i want to dig into this because i know we've all

00:10:48.960 felt this way at some point when we're looking at influencer content. And it's very rarely about

00:10:55.320 the influencer themselves. It's often about something that we're going through. And, you

00:11:00.120 know, you and I have talked about your birth a lot and it didn't go the way you expected. And I

00:11:03.900 think that you're still processing that. Totally. I am. I am. And I don't think I realized how much

00:11:10.500 I needed to like until this week. And not only just with like this post, like that wasn't the

00:11:16.100 only thing that made me realize it but like I started going back to therapy for the first time

00:11:20.840 since before I was pregnant and I just realized like oh it turns out that like what happens during

00:11:27.060 your birth like really affects you which sounds so silly to even like say out loud like of course 1.00

00:11:32.320 it does but like I don't know I thought that I would have an experience not not like pookies 1.00

00:11:38.820 because I am not as glamorous and put you're not pookie you're not none of it no I'm not 1.00

00:11:43.380 Yeah. And Jet is not my husband. Alex is my husband. And, you know, we just would never have it put together like that. But like, I don't know. I just saw the photos and I was like, oh, God, I'm so jealous. And I don't usually find myself jealous of mom influencers. And this time I was like, man, nice to be Pookie. 0.99

00:12:04.240 Nice to be Pookie.

00:12:05.440 Okay, I'm looking at her pictures right now.

00:12:07.420 She looks beautiful, you know?

00:12:09.280 She does.

00:12:09.980 They're lovely.

00:12:10.740 And God bless Pookie.

00:12:12.140 I'm super happy that she had the birth that she wanted to.

00:12:15.620 But yeah, it is so interesting to me how so much of what we scroll these days reflects something back on us and to us.

00:12:26.520 Yes.

00:12:27.280 Yeah, totally.

00:12:27.900 I think like it was definitely uncomfortable for me to like see those photos and then be like wait 0.96

00:12:33.620 why am I having this reaction to this like woman's birth that has nothing to do with me like

00:12:39.060 this is this has objectively nothing to do with me and I was just like I was just sad like it just

00:12:45.940 made me sad it's funny I was looking back at my birth my post-birth photos recently and

00:12:53.220 also none of them are posed i mean one of the things we have to remember about social media

00:12:59.280 is is that influencers are very good at posing their pictures i don't have that one iconic

00:13:05.560 picture of nick standing over me while i gaze adoringly at my baby for any of my three kids

00:13:12.680 for any of them because no one no one was there to take the picture i didn't think to ask the nurses

00:13:17.740 to take the picture. We actually have no pictures of the three of us with any of my births.

00:13:24.820 That makes me feel so much better. I think I could cry because I don't have a picture of the

00:13:30.800 three of us. I mean, I haven't like talked about my birth like publicly yet and I haven't really

00:13:35.180 figured out how to, but I had an emergency C-section and things went like pretty badly

00:13:40.200 without like going the ultimate bad. Like we were both okay, but it was like very bad in the meantime.

00:13:46.820 time and like when Alex met our daughter like I was unconscious you know and it's just like I

00:13:54.800 thought it would be the three of us like it was with like Pookie and Jet and little Paloma you

00:14:00.760 know of course of course well I think that a lot of Instagram gives us unrealistic expectations

00:14:08.060 for what life is quote-unquote supposed to be like at no other time in human history have we

00:14:14.300 been privy to this time in another woman's life. In a woman who is a stranger, right? Women have

00:14:22.420 been together as they've been giving birth since the beginning of women. We used to be surrounded 0.97

00:14:27.720 by women when we gave birth. But now we're just watching strangers do this, which let's all agree 1.00

00:14:34.380 that it's weird. Okay. It's weird. Why do I like, why can I see this? I don't know. But then also,

00:14:41.880 what is why can't I look away you know because this this is the question of this podcast this

00:14:48.220 this is why this podcast has continued for five years no yeah it's it's just so strange and you

00:14:55.940 know I think also the gap between what we think we know about Pookie's birth which is that it

00:15:04.040 looks like it went exactly as she wanted and that it was beautiful and angelic and you know whatever

00:15:10.720 and she got to have that, like, golden hour after birth, like, maybe that's not the reality,

00:15:16.100 you know? And, like, I hope that it was. I hope that it was. But we will never, like, I guess I'm

00:15:22.180 just trying to say that we don't actually know what's behind those pictures, which sounds so

00:15:25.800 obvious, but I have to remind myself of that. I know. I know. You who writes about this all of

00:15:31.960 the time, you have to remind yourself about it. So therefore, I think we all have to remind

00:15:36.120 ourselves about it totally all right let's take a quick break and when we get back i want to talk

00:15:41.820 about another piece that you recently wrote which you've been getting a lot of reactions to

00:15:46.720 and it's about how you started working again right after you pushed that baby out of your body yes

00:15:53.680 okay we're back you recently wrote about how not only did did you start working again

00:16:08.020 right after you had your baby but you wanted to start working again right after you had your baby

00:16:14.380 what have the reactions to that been i think it's mixed like i've definitely gotten some emails that

00:16:22.080 are like from other moms that are like oh my god i felt so guilty and ashamed that i did this or

00:16:27.860 that i felt this way i can't believe i'm not the only one and then i've definitely like seen some

00:16:32.500 comments like on tiktok and other places that are like oh my god like you should always want to stay

00:16:38.060 home with your baby and blah blah which like okay cool okay i think that this also depends on whether

00:16:46.960 or not you like your work. Yes. We live in a country where the majority of people hate their

00:16:52.040 work, where their work is a complete drudgery, nine to five, filled with toxic bosses, and they

00:16:59.400 love not being there. And if you love your work, if your work is something that fills you with

00:17:04.200 purpose, I think it's a very different thing to want to do it right after you have your baby.

00:17:11.020 and also you are a person who can do your work from outside of your house yeah totally and i

00:17:18.100 think i think that's a good point because a lot of like my friends who are becoming moms or who

00:17:23.180 have just become moms are like oh my god thank god i have a break from work which like i totally

00:17:27.520 respect that but i think for like me and for you joe i know this is your experience is that like

00:17:33.200 a lot of our identity and our like understanding of ourselves is in our work and we really enjoy

00:17:38.620 it. And so for me, especially like in that postpartum period where you like really just

00:17:43.800 feel like a body, like I just felt like a milk machine and like a soother and like a body that

00:17:50.780 had delivered this baby and not even I didn't even feel like I had delivered the baby because

00:17:54.720 I had a C-section and like I felt like whatever. That's the whole other thing. But like I only

00:18:01.040 felt like a body and it really felt good to use my mind. Totally, totally. And

00:18:08.620 In the early days, I actually tell women this a lot.

00:18:12.680 I got so much work done in the early days of postpartum.

00:18:16.860 I was, but the hormones made me insanely creative, insanely, insanely efficient.

00:18:22.760 And also that baby sleeps so much.

00:18:25.340 They're so boring.

00:18:26.560 They're such lumps. 0.92

00:18:28.020 Yeah, they're literally like little potatoes.

00:18:29.760 Like for me, I just would put her in a wrap on my chest and I would just, you know, rock 0.76

00:18:36.620 her a little bit when she needed it.

00:18:38.340 and whatever. But like, it was totally fine. She doesn't let me do that anymore. But no,

00:18:42.840 no, no, of course not. Of course not. I can't I can't get any work done when any of them

00:18:47.500 are around now. In those days, it is a small window, friend. And if you want to, I say

00:18:52.980 embrace that window because it will close. It will close. It's closed. But I do think

00:19:00.320 I think it's very interesting that people have such intense opinions about this and that

00:19:08.340 somehow they use it to define how you are as a mother right right I think there's this this idea

00:19:18.840 and especially with like how popular the whole trad wife movement is right now that there's this

00:19:25.160 idea that women should only be filled up by motherhood and by wifedom and I think that it's

00:19:31.700 not a coincidence that that's happening at the same time as this like rightward turn in our 0.51

00:19:36.340 politics like obviously all bound up together and I do think it's like not not to say that like

00:19:43.100 writing a little blog post is like radical but I do think being a woman who chooses to work and

00:19:49.040 also be a mother I do think that's radical in a way and I do want to say that obviously I am so

00:19:54.680 privileged that I got to choose to go back to work versus like being forced to go back to work and

00:19:59.980 like it's different to go back to work on my computer than it would be like physically in an

00:20:05.300 office or in a more demanding job. But I think especially in this time when there's this focus,

00:20:13.060 this hyper focus on women and our ability to bear children at the cost of everything else,

00:20:19.640 I do think it means something to say, well, I do want other things.

00:20:25.100 I think it does mean something to say that I want other things because one of the dangers 0.99

00:20:30.640 of the trad wife movement. And every time I say this, I want to remind everyone that a trad wife 0.99

00:20:35.900 is not a stay-at-home mom. I respect the hell out of stay-at-home moms. Stay-at-home moms 0.98

00:20:40.260 are the CEOs of their households. What they do is labor. It's really hard work. It's funny. 1.00

00:20:47.960 There's a post that I want to write, but I can't because Nick Astor reads my substack,

00:20:51.660 but he doesn't listen to my podcast. Called, it took my husband losing his job for us to

00:20:57.940 finally have an equal marriage no my god i would read the shit out of i know everyone would uh i'll

00:21:05.020 ask him i'll ask him how he feels about it but he's but you know he's sensitive because he like 0.98

00:21:09.520 so many americans has been out of work since since april the job market sucks yeah and a lot of

00:21:17.360 companies have not been hiring until they saw what was going to happen with the election especially

00:21:21.460 companies in the climate change space. Right. So it's been rough. And and one of the decisions

00:21:27.840 we made, I was like, OK, I'm turning a lot of this mental labor over to you. I want you to

00:21:35.100 organize our child care hours. I want you to organize doctor's appointments and pickups and

00:21:42.580 drop offs and take over the calendar. And he does now and he's he does grocery shopping. He does

00:21:49.500 all of the things and we were moving towards an equal partnership before but this pushed us over

00:21:55.000 the edge and he is now like this is so much work and i'm like i know i know it is but child wives

00:22:03.200 are different than stay-at-home moms than women who choose to work in the homes child wives are

00:22:07.680 really pushing an ideology of women giving up their agency and that's what i don't like and i 0.99

00:22:13.680 don't like also pushing the ideas that a woman's only purpose is to care for her husband and her

00:22:22.280 children don't like that don't like that at all and not ashamed to say i don't like it so you're

00:22:28.660 right in saying that i i think that this becomes a political statement in this day and age when you

00:22:35.820 say no my child is not my only fulfillment no and even even like saying that right now or like

00:22:45.600 writing about it there's a part of me that goes like oh my god am i making a mistake and i was

00:22:50.580 talking to my mom about it who for some of my life was a working mom and for some of my life

00:22:56.360 was a stay-at-home mom and she goes you're gonna feel guilty no matter which one you choose

00:23:01.840 no matter what you choose no matter what you choose i have really made peace with my choices

00:23:07.420 but it's taken me eight years and three kids so i've got some ways to go it's a path my friend

00:23:16.380 it is a long winding path is what it is but what i've realized that what works for me

00:23:22.660 is that I need to spend time away from my kids.

00:23:28.820 I don't want to be the constant caregiver.

00:23:33.340 I'm a better mom when I'm filling my cup

00:23:36.040 and when I have a job that does make me feel purposeful and fulfilled

00:23:40.940 and when I have a partner who is doing equal labor to what I'm doing

00:23:45.440 to keep our family running.

00:23:47.180 This is what I want.

00:23:48.000 This is what I need.

00:23:49.020 And now I'm unapologetic about it.

00:23:50.640 But it took me eight years to get there.

00:23:52.660 Yeah. Gosh, it's so hard. And I think especially just in this specific moment where the focus is

00:23:58.620 so much on women staying home and being in the kitchen and being barefoot and pregnant

00:24:04.360 constantly. Like, it's just, it's bizarre. It's bizarre. And you write a lot about the 0.96

00:24:11.460 Trad Wives, as do I. As do I. We're actually, we're revealing the cover of Everyone is Lying

00:24:17.840 to you this week cannot wait yeah it's amazing actually i just love it so much and we just had

00:24:26.000 a sales and marketing meeting and i'm so glad that this wacky little idea that i had is now

00:24:30.980 going to be a book uh but you know it's very trad heavy it's very trad heavy obviously it's the

00:24:37.000 trad wife murder mystery we've all been waiting for and i have been waiting for that i know you

00:24:41.680 I know you have. With bated breath. I want to talk a little bit about how the trad wife trend

00:24:48.400 has been sucking in young women and how you think that influenced the election, 0.99

00:24:55.060 because I really think that it did. First, let's take a quick break and then we'll do that when we 1.00

00:25:00.060 get back. All right, Fortessa, it's trad wife time. 0.99

00:25:11.680 okay it's trad wife time first off we talk about this a lot but i think it's continually continually 0.92

00:25:19.380 evolving and interesting why do you think that trad wife the trad wife trend does suck young

00:25:26.540 women in i i wrote about this and and so did you very recently i think part of it is like the same

00:25:33.620 reason that like mom influencers in general suck us in and it's because like they make everything

00:25:38.460 looks so beautiful and so calm and like my version of motherhood does not look like wearing a

00:25:45.420 beautiful nap dress and having my hair done and my makeup done and you know baking sourdough from

00:25:51.120 scratch and when I see the trad wives who put this on the internet that this is what their version of 0.51

00:25:57.100 motherhood supposedly looks like like there is a moment where you're like wait that looks really

00:26:03.020 nice like it does kind of seem lovely and there's this like false nostalgia of this like return to

00:26:08.300 the past, even though that past like didn't really exist. And I wrote a story for Teen Vogue and I

00:26:14.680 talked to young women who have been, you know, kind of brought into the to the trad wife, at least

00:26:19.520 the idea of it. And they were saying, like, the world is so hard. Like the economy is really hard.

00:26:26.480 The job market is really hard. Like college degrees don't mean what they used to. Like student

00:26:31.660 debt is really overwhelming. Like nobody can afford a house in my generation or the ones younger

00:26:37.440 than me and so there is like this part of young women that sees this idea of like handing it all 0.95

00:26:43.820 over to a man and making it his you know his thing to do everything outside of the house

00:26:49.420 and your domain is just the house and there seems to be a sense of like peace and relief in that

00:26:56.100 like i get to get off the hamster wheel again and i think that this goes back to the fact that

00:27:04.060 the modern workplace right now is often very toxic. We treat people badly. The corporate

00:27:10.840 world is hard and it often sucks, especially for women and mothers. And I think it has always 0.95

00:27:16.980 sucked. I go back to when I was working in magazines and working at tech companies and 0.60

00:27:23.900 that was before I had kids. And I just remember how terribly the mothers were treated. They were

00:27:29.700 treated like shit if they had to leave to go do something for their kids meanwhile everyone's just 0.99

00:27:34.160 dicking around on their computers okay yeah like you're all on twitter anyway like you're all on 0.99

00:27:39.500 twitter anyway but the the dirty looks when they left the office at 5 30 at night i mean that seems

00:27:46.640 so late to me now uh is it was insane it's it's toxic and so i do think that it it's easy to look

00:27:56.960 at this other kind of life, which is fake.

00:27:59.040 I mean, you're being marketed to, right?

00:28:00.480 You're being sold a fantasy.

00:28:02.920 To look at that and be like, oh, God, that does look easier.

00:28:07.200 Almost in the same way that if you're watching

00:28:08.760 a science fiction show set on Mars,

00:28:10.620 you're like, Mars looks cool.

00:28:12.400 Yeah, totally.

00:28:14.020 And it's interesting because I see this like proliferation

00:28:16.360 of tradwiped content, even among people who like

00:28:18.960 wouldn't maybe necessarily consider themselves tradwives,

00:28:22.700 but it's just like adjacent content. 0.58

00:28:24.480 Like I'll see TikToks from young women who are like,

00:28:26.960 if you're scared to have babies, don't be scared because this is me right now. We're like making

00:28:32.460 cupcakes at like three in the afternoon. And this is just like my little bestie doing it with me.

00:28:36.960 And I'm like, first of all, making cupcakes with a kid sounds really stressful, but like

00:28:42.280 they make it look so beautiful and so nice and so calm. And there's like, I guess, a part of you

00:28:48.260 that thinks, wouldn't I rather be making cupcakes? Totally, totally. And I actually, I enjoy

00:28:54.840 making stuff with my kids i do i do to a point but it's not pretty it's not pretty it is messy

00:29:02.820 and doing anything involving flour with small children jesus christ right that flour you're

00:29:09.840 not getting that flour off of everything it's going to be all over the place the whole kitchen

00:29:15.020 is going to be coated in flour so yeah i mean that's fun but also it's not it's not as pretty

00:29:21.340 is they always make it make it look and we're going back to what we were talking about with

00:29:25.200 Pookie which is we have no idea how her birth was we just know that she wanted for some reason

00:29:32.660 whatever reason to post these beautiful pictures after her birth and I'm sure that it got her a

00:29:38.740 ton of engagement because post-birth pictures do so well on Instagram and and it's not her reality

00:29:47.120 None of this is anyone's reality. 0.96

00:29:50.120 I don't even think that it's the trad wife's reality. 0.96

00:29:54.000 No, no, I don't think it is. 0.97

00:29:55.720 It's just like, it's just fascinating to see how it like colors our own views.

00:30:00.240 Like I, I remember bringing like, I remember it was like six months ago that I gave birth,

00:30:05.120 but like I brought a makeup bag with me because I was like,

00:30:08.820 oh, I'll like do my makeup before we leave or whatever.

00:30:11.420 Like, no, I literally barely brushed my teeth.

00:30:16.320 Totally. Totally. Exactly. Exactly. But that that is not what Instagram wants to see. And so what is so dangerous is that this is a fantasy, but a lot of people don't realize that. So they think, OK, yeah, let me let me find a man who just wants to support me.

00:30:35.660 And then that reinforces these old school, very dangerous, very toxic gender roles and takes away agency from women. And I think, I truly believe that a lot of these more conservative influencers on both the trad wife spectrum and the make America healthy again spectrum really did capture a lot of young women who were undecided voters and swayed them for Trump.

00:31:01.600 I do, too. I think more young voters voted for Trump than anyone really expected. And you do

00:31:08.580 kind of have to wonder if this like social turn towards trad wifedom like has a say in it. And I

00:31:14.860 do think that maybe it does. I really think it did. I really I really do. I think the right is

00:31:22.280 so good at at just creating this aspirational content that is so gonzo bananas, but it lulls

00:31:30.720 you into thinking, okay, yeah, if I just stay at home and I don't work, then that's going to be

00:31:39.960 nicer. And also, Donald Trump is going to help my husband get a job that would support two people.

00:31:47.880 I can't not work. Even if Nick Astor were to get a job tomorrow, it's not enough to support both of

00:31:55.880 us and three children in philadelphia um right just the way the way that we live and we're not

00:32:02.380 even spendy people yeah no i mean it's tempting right like the the whole idea is tempting and i

00:32:10.160 think we can see that people were obviously tempted because uh trump is president-elect so

00:32:15.840 he's president-elect so yeah the trad wife the trad wives won and frankly i will tell you

00:32:20.180 because i follow so many of them the trad wives are gloating right now they really they really

00:32:24.640 are and they are coming they're also coming out of the woodwork so people that we would not have

00:32:29.320 thought of as trad are now self-identifying more and more because i think they were kind of like

00:32:34.540 the label was kind of flying under the radar for some people for a while and then they're like yep

00:32:38.880 nope nope our people our people have won well they're like we're the majority we're the majority

00:32:44.740 now yeah we don't have to be afraid we don't have to be afraid you have recently started a subsac i

00:32:50.340 love it it's called what's the vibe and it's just it's more of you it's just more of you than we

00:32:55.560 usually get in teen vogue and in the washington post so i want to tell everyone to subscribe to

00:33:00.700 what's the vibe right now uh just for for a lot of fortessa's brilliant musings on this world

00:33:06.860 of influencers yeah yeah come come hang out it's been fun i've honestly it's more fun than i've

00:33:12.660 had on the internet in a really long time i say that all the time substack is more fun than that

00:33:17.660 I've been I've had on the internet since I had to start working on the internet 20 years ago. So

00:33:22.260 I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. And hopefully I get to talk to

00:33:27.000 you again soon. Yeah, thanks for having me. And that is all we have for today. I'm now following

00:33:32.340 Pookie. I will have you all know that. She has very shiny hair. It's my first impression. You

00:33:39.000 know, I started following Pookie and then I stopped because I don't want to. She's not my vibe. Not my

00:33:45.240 vibe. I'm sure she's a lot of people's vibe, but not mine. I did just start following an account

00:33:51.280 that I love, which is all about how to make cheese and meat and butter boards. And now,

00:33:56.360 now when I'm finished making this podcast, I'm going to go buy myself some fancy cheeses

00:34:00.080 and some spicy butters. And I'm just going to board. I'm going to butter cheese board all

00:34:05.180 night long. Go have a great day, guys. You deserve it.

00:34:15.240 Thank you.

00:34:45.240 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - December 12, 2024

When Influencers Make Us Feel Bad About Ourselves

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