677. Everyone is Lying to You with Jo Piazza

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there, and welcome to episode number 677 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today is Jo Piazza. Jo Piazza’s new book Everyone Is Lying to You is a tradwife influencer murder mystery, and it is out now. I love this book, and I also love this conversation. I have been so excited about sharing this episode. Jo has been covering tradwives and influencers for a long time and has been writing about celebrity culture for most of her career, so we are taking about tradwives, celebrity influencers, and how celebrity has changed with social media. We also talk about how and why tradwife influencers are, well, influential and how so many parts of our society have let women down. This interview was so fun, I had such a great time recording it and editing it, so if you’d like some fresh burning feminism and critique of predatory influencing, this is your episode.

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All right, are you ready to talk about tradwives and sourdough? Let’s do this: on with my conversation with Jo Piazza.

[music]

Jo Piazza: I’m Jo Piazza. I’m the author of, most recently, Everyone Is Lying to You, a twisty, turny, pulpy summer beach read, but I’m also a journalist. I’m the creator of the Under the Influence podcast, and my book last summer, which I still, the characters live rent-free in my head, was The Sicilian Inheritance.

Sarah: Which was optioned, if I remember correctly, yes?

Jo: It was, it was! Yeah, yeah, we were optioned by MGM and we’re also –

Sarah: Brilliant!

Jo: – we’re also in development right now for Everyone is Lying to You, because I just think America needs a tradwife murder mystery on their screens –

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: – as well as, as well as in their hand.

Sarah: Yes. This is like all of the older British actors doing The Thursday Murder Club adaptation on Netflix, only this is going to be every really good, like, like, female actress –

Jo: Yes.

Sarah: – who you haven’t heard from a while. This is the perfect vehicle. Like Sarah Michelle Gellar would kill it in this.

Jo: I love you saying that so much –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jo: – just, like, from the depths of my heart, because when I was talking to our producer the other day she was like, Who do you want, to be honest? And I was like, I want Sarah Michelle Gellar more than anyone else on the planet.

Sarah: She would kill it. Like, no pun intended. The first, when you, when you mentioned that it, things were in development, I was like, Oooh!

Jo: Yes, yes. She is my Bex! Like, I want her to be my Bex, and I, Freddie Prinze –

Sarah: Ah!

Jo: – can even be in it too? I can see them –

Sarah: I was going to say, just put him anywhere.

Jo: Oh, he can do anything! He can do anything!

Sarah: He literally can do anything, actually.

Jo: Yeah, yeah. You know, I actually, I had a great conversation with Freddie because he’s a professional wrestling enthusiast?

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: And has a professional wrestling podcast, and so we had a, we had a great talk for one of my podcast episodes, and he’s a delight.

Sarah: He seems like it.

Jo: He really is. I think that they are probably one of, like, the nicest, most fun couples in Hollywood.

Sarah: And they, their, their happiness seems like just the right level of imperfect and messy and silly, and I just, even though I, I fully am aware, like you are, that everything you present about your celebrity marriage on Instagram is gloss and persona, the, it’s kind of like when you can tell during a show or a movie that the actors are clearly having a really great time?

Jo: Or when they hate each other and they’re so, and they’re so grossed out by having to make out? Yeah.

Sarah: Yes. You can sort of tell? With them you can sort of tell, they seem really just happy and chill!

Jo: I know; they seem to like each other and yeah. Sarah Michelle Gellar, if you’re, if you’re listening…

Sarah: I’m sure.

Jo: – listening? You –

Sarah: I’m sure she’s a listener.

Jo: You’re my number one! You’re my number one for this TV show.

Sarah: I, I second that entirely. I, I heart-, heartily endorse it.

Well, congratulations on Everyone is Lying to You. I know your premise is tradwives are murdering their terrible husbands; here for it. But there’s also a lot going on in this book. What are they lying about?

Jo: Everything. I mean, the, the title of the book came first, to be honest. ‘Cause I’ve been –

Sarah: Really!

Jo: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And they didn’t, then the publishers never touched it because I’ve been covering influencers for five years. I’ve been covering tradwives for about two, since they first started, like, popping up. And one of the things that I realized: while I respect the hell out of influencers, and on Under the Influence I talk about that a lot, these are entrepreneurs; they are building businesses for themselves outside of the corporate structure, which is terrible for women. Okay, the corporate America has done nothing to help moms and women supposedly have it all, the way we were told we could in the ‘90s and 2000s.

Sarah: Not a thing.

Jo: Not a thing! That was also, that was – you know what? Everyone is lying to you, not just influencers. Literally everyone. But my beef with a lot of influencers is Instagram makes you feel like you’re looking at someone’s real life –

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: – and you’re, and you’re not, okay? So moms feel a lot of shame when we’re looking at these influencers’ picture-perfect lives, particularly the ones with the all-white homes running around barefoot and through their heirloom tomatoes with their perfect kitchens with nothing on the countertops and their nineteen children, and nothing is out of place. And this is just media. They’re just creating a magazine or a TV show for you, but they’re pretending it’s their real life. And so it’s that deception and, like, pulling back the curtain on that, puncturing the fantasy, that I wanted to do in Everyone is Lying to You. So we have a journalist character who’s watching this former friend of hers, Rebecca, who’s a mom influencer with millions of followers, and she’s looking at her perfect life, and she feels bad about her very normal life. Like, the same life that we have. If I could pick up my computer and turn it around right now without messing up my microphone, I’m staring directly at my messy bed and the laundry on the floor and just a bunch of, like, kid shit all over the place, right? Like, that’s, that’s a normal person’s life. That’s not what we see on Instagram, and it makes us feel really bad about ourselves. So in this book I wanted to pull back the curtain on this influencer’s life and show the reality. Show that they have a videographer and a photographer coming to their house. They make their kids change outfits nine times just for the content of it all.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: That, you know, there’s a whole stage set where they do a lot of this content, because that’s what I’ve discovered is the truth of influencing, and I was like, this is just such a good backdrop for some real juicy murder. Like, as we start unveiling and peeling back the onion of the secrets of the influencing world, let’s, like, give it some juice and some pulp here! And, and that was, that was really, really the inspiration for this.

Sarah: One of the things I loved about this book is that I started blogging before it was called blogging, and I have been around the internet through mommy bloggers, through the cooking bloggers, and I see this incredible lineage of people who are operating independent businesses on the internet –

Jo: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – awesome – with no social support or, or protection – not so great – and there’s a, there’s a massive dis-, distance between what they’re showing and what is the reality, and the – my theory is that in, in culture, in pop culture, when that distance get real-, gets really, really, really far? It will snap back like a rubber band. It, that tension can’t be maintained, and when it snips, snaps back, if it’s a big snap, it’s like a disaster, and it’s like content for a year.

Jo: Yeah! Yeah! No, abs-, I mean, absolutely! You’re, you’re so completely right. In the early days of Under the Influence, I interviewed a lot of women who were coding on, like, early HTML and then moved to, like, Blogger?

Sarah: Blogger?

Jo: And, and BlogSpot? Like, the whole evolution of it? I think it’s Instagram that changed the game –

Sarah: Hundred percent.

Jo: – in so many ways. When we – the early internet was such a great place for moms to talk about how hard it is to be a mom.

Sarah: Yes, it really was.

Jo: It was so raw and honest and, I think, helpful! I think it bred a lot of community for women who felt really lonely –

Sarah: Yeah!

Jo: – in motherhood, and Instagram has, has just glossified that and supercharged it, and too many of these accounts are selling you a fantasy.

Sarah: Oh gosh, yes.

Jo: And that’s what I don’t like. Okay, like, they’re selling you a fantasy that definitely does not exist right now, because they’re also telling you, I just stay home and garden and care for my children all day while my husband makes all of the money. I’m like, Who are all these rich men that are financing you? Like, the average man in America is making seventy thousand dollars. Like, who are all the-, who are all these rich men bankrolling you? And the truth of it is, most of these women are the breadwinners in their house!

Sarah: Yep!

Jo: Most of, most of their husbands don’t have a job anymore!

Sarah: Nope.

Jo: So, like, those are the truths that I think are important for people to know, because this content goes down easy.

Sarah: Oh yes.

Jo: It goes down real easy, but then you’re also like, Why, why can’t my life look like this?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: What is wrong with me that my life doesn’t look like this? Or you’re like, I should definitely have chickens, because they look so easy, and then all of a sudden you’ve got four chickens, and they’re massive assholes, and you have shit all over the place, and –

Sarah: They’re such assholes! [Laughs]

Jo: Such assholes, and you’re dealing with chickens!

Sarah: Who are determined to kill themselves, by the way. They are determined to die. They actively –

Jo: They just want to die.

Sarah: They just want death. They, they wish for the –

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: – embrace of death because, I think, all the other chickens are assholes and they’re tired of it.

Jo: They’re sick of it. They’re like, I don’t want to live with all these other chicken assholes, and –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jo: But that’s just, that’s my favorite example of how social media makes something look so beautiful and idyllic, and I’m like, no one who has chickens thinks that this is gorgeous –

Sarah: No.

Jo: – and beautiful, and not work! That’s the thing: it’s just like, when you strip away labor from something we don’t value it –

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: – and they’re stripping away the labor of motherhood by making it look very easy? When in reality they have babysitters, nannies, and tutors. We just never see them; they’re hiding them.

Sarah: Which makes me bonkers. One of the first things that would really piss me off was when I started to figure out that a really prominent blogger was actually hella wealthy? Like absurd –

Jo: Oh!

Sarah: – mega wealthy? And I’m like, How does no one see this person is hiding an incredible amount of wealth? And I’m like, this is, this is, this is not real! [Laughs] This is not happening without a lot of money behind it!

Jo: No, none of it happens without a lot of money. I mean, look at the Ballerina Farm account.

Sarah: Yes!

Jo: Her husband is the heir to the JetBlue fortune. The-, this kind of life and this, this presentation and fantasy of a life comes with a lot of, like, you need a lot of money to make money off of it. And, and they all kind of cosplay the fact that they’re just pulling themselves up by their bootstraps here. And that’s what makes me insane about it, because I’m like, No, you’re rich. And you’re trying to sell me – I mean, all of, all of these tradwives – you’re trying to sell me things for seventy dollars that should cost fifteen.

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: And you’re fleecing your audience when you’re already so rich, and it’s just like, this kind of disconnect – and my influencer in the book does inherit a farm! She’s not pulling herself up from the bootstraps. She ultimately does have to finance that farm, and so she’s working her booty off, but at the same time she starts with this certain level of wealth that I think is never revealed anywhere on the internet.

Sarah: No. It makes me bananas.

So I want to start with how are you defining tradwife?

Jo: Hmm!

Sarah: I’ve listened to enough that I know your definition, but I want to make sure I have it for people who will be listening –

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: – so we’re all talking about the same thing. How do you define tradwife?

Jo: Yeah, absolutely! And this comes up a lot, because a tradwife is not a stay-at-home mom. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. I have so much respect for women who choose to stay in the home and –

Sarah: Ditto.

Jo: – care for their children. They’re the CEOs of their household. I wish that society did more to elevate them and also make it easier for women to take a pause and then go back into the workforce?

The tradwife, to me, is the woman on social media who is presenting a certain kind of fantasy, and that fantasy can either be – it’s a spectrum. We often see it in kind of a Laura Ingalls Wilder, prairie chic homesteading aesthetic, or the 1950s June Cleaver, beautiful dress, perfectly coifed hair, all of the done makeup. The underlying themes are often a woman’s place is in the home; a woman’s highest purpose is to be a wife and a mother. Don’t you want to check out of the way that society has told you to be a feminist and go back to these more “traditional values”? Wouldn’t you be happier? And then they’re also all trying to sell you something.

Sarah: Always.

Jo: So they’re, they’re all very clearly a brand. Whether they are selling you their course on how to homestead or how to home school –

Sarah: First –

Jo: – or…

Sarah: – be a billionaire! Then –

Jo: Yeah. First be a billionaire, and then maybe you can do it.

Or their two-hundred-dollar flowery linen dresses. Those Dôen dresses are four hundred dollars, and all of these influencers are getting affiliate money from those. Or their egg aprons, or their high-protein flour. They are all trying to make money off of you, and, and that’s what the tradwife is. The tradwife is this person who is acting out a fantasy of so-called traditional values in order to commodify your attention.

Sarah: So they are advocating, overtly and subtly, for, as you put it, women to give up their autonomy, to give up their agency, and they glorify a status that actually, we had a whole movement to open doors so women didn’t have to be stuck in that environment. What about the, the right-wing influence on influencers? There is a lot of overt right-wing pressure –

Jo: You’re, you’re right! You hit the nail literally on, on the head when you said that there is often a right-wing component to this. Not all tradwife accounts, but many tradwife accounts, have been funded or boosted by right-wing organizations. We know that Turning Point USA has been instrumental in grooming influencers, because they knew they didn’t have Hollywood ten years ago, and so they’re like, We will create our own celebrities, and they have. They have created an entire army of young women influencers who push these ideas, who push the A woman’s highest purpose is to be a wife and a mother. And I’m not saying that this is not a purpose. I’m saying that is not for everyone. Okay? And I’m saying that they’re also selling you a fantasy if you think that the majority of households can afford this or that the majority of households can do this without a strong social safety net, and the thing that also drives me wild is them pushing a man as the plan, a man as the knight in shining armor, because no man has ever been a knight in shining armor –

Sarah: Nope.

Jo: – okay, like, in anyone, in anyone’s life, and I don’t write those kinds of characters any longer.

I love my husband. I’m married to a very good man. He is, like, an incredible partner. He didn’t save me. Like, I saved myself, I built my life, and my girlfriends saved me, but, like, there’s no man that just comes in and saves you. And so this ethos that if you just find yourself a good husband, if you’re going to go to college, but you really don’t have to, you should do it and just get, to get your MRS, that is actual, actual language that is being used in these accounts. When they first started popping up, I think a lot of people were like, Oh my God, they’re just cooking; it’s just sourdough; and it’s not.

Sarah: No, it’s never just sourdough.

Jo: Just, like, it’s never just sourdough. Like, this is a political movement in a lot of ways, and I also want to show how our attention is being manipulated. The Turning Point USA Young Women’s Leadership Conference just happened, and I call a lot of these young women junior varsity tradwives because they’re saying, I don’t want to go to college, or if I do, it’s just to find a good husband!

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: And they’re being brainwashed into thinking that that is going to be a path to happiness when we know that for the majority of people, that does not work out well.

Sarah: Nope. It also makes me think of the fascination with Bama Rush on TikTok?

Jo: Oh my God, yes! Yes.

Sarah: Because those were women who were basically auditioning to be wives! Like, they were absolutely positioning themselves as commodities.

Jo: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And again, you want to marry young? Awesome! You want to stay home with your children: also an amazing choice and a decision. But I want women to realize that they need to have options and choices. Get an education. Make sure you have work experience. If you are not making the money in the home, have your husband putting away money in a 401(k) in just your name. Buying property in just your name. You need a kind of social safety net, and, like, that is, that is something that is not being taught to these young women.

Sarah: No. One thing I think a lot about is how, as women, we are constantly taught that we won’t be taken seriously until we are married to a man, and then that’s, you know, that’s the first step, and then you have to have kids, which is why there’s this sort of authoritative marketing: As a mom, I like duh-duh-duh-duh.

Jo: Uh-huh.

Sarah: Listen, just ‘cause I procreated does not give me special insight into the world! I know fuck-all about many things! But the tradwife movement of You know what? It sucks out there. Actually, yes, it does suck. I’ve worked in corporate America; it blows! But because for so long, I think, we as especially women of our generation – I’m just a little older than you – we have to turn against each other to justify our own choices. Like, when I had my kids it was like, Okay, who were the nanny parents and who were the daycare parents and who were the stay-at-home parents? And they did not mix. Did you use organic or did you just feed your kids whatever? Did you breastfeed or did you use formula? What, what were you, you know, what were you doing with your cleaning products? And it’s like all of this is a cudgel to isolate women when they’re trying to gain authority as, like you said, the CEO of their house.

Jo: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sarah: What makes me bananas is that there isn’t really a counterargument to tradwives. As you’ve said on a podcast, the left has terrible marketing, which, geeze, Lord, yes, it does! What, what is the counter movement? Other than your book? Which is pretty fucking awesome. A nice shot across the bow there! What, what, where’s the counterargument? Where’s the, where’s the oppositional influencer movement? Like, there isn’t one!

Jo: There’s not one. We need one. The left is terrible at branding. I say it over and over. I don’t think they’re listening.

Sarah: No!

Jo: Yeah, there’s a reason that we lost, okay? There’s a reason that we continue to lose. There is a reason that we will likely lose again, because they’re not ready for any of this. The right is so good at manipulating social media, manipulating the news, and manipulating influencers, and using influencers to manipulate young people.

Sarah: Yes!

Jo: We saw it happen with the, with, with the boys, with the bro-sphere and –

Sarah: Oh dear God, yes.

Jo: – the Joe Rogan guys. But it’s happening even faster with young women now, and they’re just ignoring it. So I think what we need to show, when I talk to young women too, young women who I wouldn’t think would be brainwashed but happen, they’re like, The left seem so mad all the time! You seem so unhappy. All of you hate your lives. And I think we need to show, and show and show and show again, that by having choice, by having agency, by having a lot of these progressive values and laws in place, that is what leads to happiness. I mean, and I try to shout it from the rooftops, right?

Sarah: Yes!

Jo: I’m actually a nine out of ten happy. Like, I’m so freaking happy I hate having to market and sell my book ‘cause I get tired, right, and it’s hard? But, like, that’s my, that’s the discount here. That’s the only reason I’m not a ten out of ten. And I’m a ten out of ten happy because I was able to have an abortion when I wasn’t ready for a baby –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: – at age sixteen. Okay? That’s reason number one. Number two is birth control, because –

Sarah: Oh dear! Yes, thank you!

Jo: – I was able to decide when I wanted to get pregnant and not get pregnant for one of the, you know, dozen terrible men that I dated in my twenties and thirties who were clearly the wrong people. I was able to marry a really wonderful guy at age thirty-five after I had a great career.

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: And now I have three awesome kids, who are also shitty some of the time, but kids are just shitty some of the time!

Sarah: That’s, that’s kind of, it comes with the package.

Jo: That’s kind of like what they are –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: – right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: And because, you know, I’ve worked my butt off and made sure that I’m paid equally to men in my industry, I can also afford childcare –

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: – so that I have a fulfilling, purposeful career, and I get to spend time with those kids! Right? I check out almost every day at four o’clock.

Sarah: Yep!

Jo: If I were back in the corporate world, which does not support women, I remember watching mothers at the magazines I was working at not being able to leave till six, six-thirty! I was like, how did they ever see their kids?

Sarah: Mm-hmm! Oh yeah.

Jo: Right?

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Jo: That sucks! But all of these things are only possible, and because I do work for myself so that I can do this, that is made possible by Obamacare, because I can buy affordable health insurance for my whole family. Right? It doesn’t have to be tied to my job or my husband’s job. And all of this, all of this happiness is only possible because of a progressive social safety net.

Sarah: Yep! A hundred percent.

Jo: And that’s the messaging they just can’t get across!

Sarah: No.

Jo: Right?

Sarah: No. Because, because the, the right has also cast all of this social support as communism or socialism or in some way bad, which is absurd –

Jo: Absurd. Absurd.

Sarah: – but so effective! It’s up to you.

Jo: So effective!

Sarah: No one can take away what you build. It’s up to you – it’s all very isolationist, and it’s all, it’s all very white. So white.

Jo: Oh, it’s so white.

Sarah: It’s –

Jo: It’s sooo whiiite!

Sarah: It’s so white…

Jo: It’s so white. It’s so white. It’s true! And frankly, I think feminism failed in a lot of ways, you know? I, and I think a lot of the early feminists would agree, they made the tent very small.

Sarah: Yes! Absolutely.

Jo: You’re only a feminist if you’re out there being a go-getter career lady in your power suit! And I’m like, So you alienated a lot of stay-at-home moms –

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: – that, that made, made the choice but still would consider themselves feminists and pro-woman? Like, that sucks, man! So we have to widen the tent. I don’t want to attack other women; I want us to bring more women into the tent. It’s why I don’t judge women; I judge, like, you know, the systems that are keeping us down?

Sarah: Hundred percent. But you’re so angry, Jo! You’re just so angry all the time! That’s not fun!

Jo: I’m so maaad! That’s not fun!

Sarah: I want happiness, deceit, and sourdough!

Jo: Right, well, and that, the problem is…

Sarah: Combined with a lack of media literacy. Ugh.

Jo: Combined with a lack of media literacy. Those accounts do look happy!

Sarah: They do!

Jo: But I, I mean, I get sucked into them! It’s like sometimes I’m like, the other day I was like, We should get bees.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jo: And my husband was like, Shut your mouth! He’s like, You killed the tomatoes! The other day you were like, Let’s make a tomato rooftop garden, and like, they are dead. He’s like, This is not something you are either (a) good at or (b) enjoy.

Sarah: But I know I heard you talk about your neighbor, your neighborhood apiary.

Jo: Yeah!

Sarah: We have a, we have an apiary up the street and they sell local honey, and holy cow, is that stuff good? But, and their backyard looks like JFK during the morning with all the bees coming in to land. They’re so fragile?

Jo: I know.

Sarah: They die, like, all the time. I can’t handle –

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: – that much dying between chickens and bees. No. It’s a big no from me.

Jo: Chickens and bees, it’s so much death. It’s so much death. It’s just –

Sarah: It’s so, so morbid! It’s like no, this is a happy! And like, no, they’re all dying. The one thing I always notice about these people is that they seem to be immune to bug bites? They’re always outside, they’re always barefoot, and I’m like, how do you guys not have alpha-gal and tick bites and, like, I would be, I would be a mass, I would be one hive, head to toe. I would be a hive if that were me.

Jo: I am a hive! So we, we spend a lot of time up in the Catskills, and we were just there for two weeks. I’m covered in probably like hundreds, hundreds –

Sarah: Me too!

Jo: – of mosquito bites. I’m so itchy? You know what is uncomfortable? Sitting in grass.

Sarah: It’s the worst!

Jo: Sitting in grass, running through a field barefoot, and I’m a person like, I like the outdoors! I like hiking and stuff, but, like, I was so itchy for the past two weeks. I’ve got to figure, figure something else out, but they never show how itchy they are. And my husband has Lyme or one of those other things right now!

Sarah: Oh God!

Jo: Like, he just got the test, but he definitely has it. A really good friend up there also has one of those bacterial things. They’re both on doxy!

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: You know, because the bugs are so bad! And you know, you know what’s only going to make the bug situation and the disease situation worse? Just eradicating all of our government programs that fix such things.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely! Eradicating our environmental protections will be a great step forward to all of us being allergic to mammalian meat in the future.

Jo: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm! Exactly.

Sarah: And I just read this whole article about how the alpha-gal, I think it’s called the Lone Star tick is moving into the northeast at a rapid rate, and I’m like, You know what? With my immune system and how much bugs love me, I might as well just give up mammalian meat right now, ‘cause it’s going to come for me. I just –

Jo: I know! I know! I’m like, if the next pandemic is mosquito-based –

Sarah: Ohhh!

Jo: – I’m screwed. They, bugs love me – nothing works, either.

Sarah: Why?!

Jo: Nothing works.

Sarah: Why do they like us?

Jo: I don’t know. I, and I google it constantly; I have not found a satisfactory answer. They’re not helpful.

Sarah: Nope.

Jo: No one, no one has helped me figure this out, and I’m only, like, just, like, it’s only been like two days that I’ve not been itchy now, because it was so, it was so bad! And I think –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Jo: – but I think that these, these bugs, this is the worst season we’ve ever had. We found at least two ticks a day on our kids –

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: – and they were covered in head to toe with DEET.

Sarah: Yep! The, the thing that I’ve heard recently is that the winters have not been cold enough for long enough, and so –

Jo: Totally.

Sarah: – there’s just a growing population that never gets cut –

Jo: They never die.

Sarah: – by the cold.

Jo: They never die.

Sarah: No, it’s all hot and warm and, and –

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – it’s not cold enough for long enough to kill them.

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: And it’s the worst. Like, I can’t go outside after 3:30 unless I am myself a biohazard.

Jo: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah: Deep, Deep, my signature scent is Deep Woods OFF!… [Laughs]

Jo: Same! Same.

Sarah: I know perfume is a big thing right now. That, that’s my perfume; I’m sorry.

Jo: That’s my perfume! Deep Woods OFF!

Sarah: You can’t mix it with anything; it’s just that. [Laughs]

Jo: Just that. Just that. No, I tried all the natural things, too, and they don’t work…

Sarah: They don’t work at all. Nope.

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: The one thing I found that works in addition to bug spray is if you’re going to be outside get some really good, like, seriously stinky sandalwood incense, and if you put those every two feet in a square, in an area, it will keep them away for at least two hours, and sometimes that’s all I need.

Jo: Okay! Okay! Yeah, sometimes that is all I need, right? Yeah. Definitely –

Sarah: Yeah, I just need the two hours and not be a blood donor to every insect in the area. [Laughs]

Jo: Every insect. Exactly, exactly, but somehow all of these influencers who are outside all of the time are never itchy.

Sarah: They never have a bug bite, never have a weal, never –

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – never get hives, and I’m like, This, this is how I know you’re lying to me, because you are in upstate wherever-the-hell with ticks everywhere. Don’t pretend like this isn’t happening.

Jo: Don’t pretend. Don’t pretend. Mm-mm.

Sarah: Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Which is like the defaults state of mainstream media at this point. Everything’s fine! It’s all good!

Jo: Everything’s fine! We’re doing great! Yeah, and which, and when, again, Everyone is Lying to You. It’s my favorite title of any book that I’ve ever written.

Sarah: It, it really gets the job done.

Jo: It really does, right?

Sarah: It, it, it –

Jo: It tells you exactly what you need to know about the book.

Sarah: – does what it says on the tin.

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: Now, like I said, I’ve been listening to a lot of your interviews. I’ve been following you around the internet like a creeper, and you said at one point that tradwife influencers are the latest in a very long line of celebrities and have, in some cases, taken over celebrity gossip spaces.

Jo: Yeah!

Sarah: Which, I mean, the minute you said it I was like, Oh, of course they have. I know of like nine different snark communities. Once you have a snark community, you have made it. What is, what do you see as the, sort of the lineage or the provenance of the tradwives? What, what makes them so powerful?

Jo: Well, they’re really good at garnering what is now, I think, our main currency, which is your attention.

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: Right? And so I covered celebrities for a really long time. I was –

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: – a gossip columnist for the New York Daily News, and then I was running the news desks of In Touch and Life & Style, which is how you and I met –

Sarah: Yes!

Jo: – an entire like nine lifetimes ago, and I remember I covered the rise of reality television stars, and I remember people were like, This is never going to stick! And I’m like, Yeah, it is, because you have nine times more magazines, and then you had all of these celebrity blogs, and there was a news hole, and you had to fill it! And these reality stars would do things that regular celebrities wouldn’t do; I mean, they’d do anything just to, just to get in the news, and they were entertaining! They were good at this; they were good at capturing your attention. And now the influencers are just that, but they’re on steroids, and they also happen to be on this tiny screen that is attached to your body at all times. So more people are watching what these influencers are doing than are watching any given show on Netflix at a time, because they’re pulling it out in bed, they’re pulling it out in the bathroom, they’re pulling it out in line at the grocery store. They’re co-, influencers are constantly with you, and with that comes so much power.

Sarah: Yeah. And parasocial relationships.

Jo: Intense parasocial relationships –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Jo: – and be-, because, when you’re looking at Instagram, you truly do feel like you’re looking at friends, because you’re cousin’s on there showing off their new baby, or your neighbor’s on there, you know, showing off, like, Taco Tuesday, and then this influencer’s there showing off how they’re cooking breakfast and selling you their gingham placemats for ninety dollars, and you’re like, They’re my friend too! And it’s this intense parasocial relationship that is so lucrative for them, because they can convince you to buy things!

Sarah: Yep. One thing I’ve noticed about podcasting, and I wonder if you ever encountered this too: this is a very intimate medium.

Jo: Oh yeah! Absolutely!

Sarah: Like, I’m in your earbud; I’m in your head.

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And there have been times when I’ve been at a conference, especially in romance, where I’ll be talking and someone’ll turn around and be like, I, I know your voice.

Jo: Same. Same. Yeah.

Sarah: And that, that is so intimate, that the voice, the speaking to a person is very intimate, and with influencing you not only have the, the intimate voice – especially if you’ve got earbuds on while you’re listening? Which, if you’re listening to social media in public, please put in earbuds. Thank you!

Jo: Please do! Please do!

Sarah: [Laughs] Be really happy, it would make me happy, and I know everyone exists to make me happy!

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: But that’s in your head! That’s, like, in your skull, right next to your brain. It’s deeply intimate. At the same time, this is a skill! This is a skill that they have that not everybody has!

Jo: It is a skill!

Sarah: Yeah!

Jo: …It is a skill, and it is also work. That’s the thing…

Sarah: Yes! That’s the other thing that’s hidden: that it’s labor!

Jo: It’s labor! So yesterday I – or two, two days ago – I was doing a segment with our local FOX station, promoting the book. They were going to come over. I was going to bake Cinnamon Toast Crunch from scratch in my tradwife dress, bake some bread, we were going to unbox all of the copies of Everyone is Lying to You, and I wanted to show the chaos, right? I wanted to show the kids running around and it being completely bananas. Sidebar: when I revealed that my husband baked the bread and that I didn’t do it, I said, And my husband baked this fucking bread, and I dropped an F-bomb on live television, and it was not bleeped. So no one is going to – like, it, it aired live, but they’re not going to clip it because I dropped the F-bomb, but I think that was part of the authenticity.

Sarah: Mazel tov! You said the F-bomb on FOX! I’m so proud!

Jo: I did. I did. You should be proud.

Sarah: Hell yes!

Jo: You should be proud. Yeah, it was a big –

Sarah: Deeply proud!

Jo: – big deal, big moment for me. So. But, you know, the whole point of that was to show both that, like, doing this is actual chaos – my kids were running around, my baby didn’t have a diaper on, I was actually trying to keep her butt out of the shot –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jo: – my kitchen was a mess, and also, the prep for all of that –

Sarah: Oh my God.

Jo: – was like six hours, and then I made a Reel out of it, of me making the Cinnamon Toast Crunch from scratch, and that took me another two hours.

Sarah: Yep!

Jo: So, like, all of this is a full-time job?

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: And they’re pretending, they’re just like, I’m just a wife and a mom, and I’m just here just showing you my life when, like, I’m a person who’s very media-savvy, and a Reel took me two hours to make.

Sarah: Yeah! It reminds me a lot of how romance writers, for a very long time, especially if they were writing on the side of childcare, eldercare, house management, all of the other things, work, oh, it’s this thing that, you know, they do in your spare time; isn’t that a nice little hobby? And I’m like, That woman is making six figures a month for self-publishing –

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – what she’s doing. She’s a – but the, the demeaning nature of it, it strikes me like influencer really, influencers are really leaning in to the demeaning way in which women’s hobbies and interests have been discussed.

Jo: And work!

Sarah: Yeah!

Jo: Women’s work has been discussed, of course!

Sarah: No, this isn’t work; this is fun! This is great! It doesn’t take me any time at all! Meanwhile, behind the scenes, six hours to make a twenty-eight-second video.

Jo: Yeah, exactly! Exactly.

Sarah: They’re all hiding the work.

Jo: They’re all hiding the work is, yeah, and your example with romance authors is so good, because I find when I have romantic themes in my book, that’s some of the hardest stuff that I do. I actually have a romance idea that I haven’t given to my editor yet called Yes, Chef, but I, I’m daunted by it! Rom-, like, writing good romance is so much work, it’s so much labor, and much like influencing, it’s been written off for so long because it’s work created by women for women.

Sarah: Yes. And to quote Nora Roberts, It’s about emotions, relationship, and sex, the hat trick of easy targets. She’s talking about –

Jo: Hat trick of easy targets.

Sarah: She’s a hundred –

Jo: She’s so right, yeah.

Sarah: She’s so right about that.

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: Now, I listened to your interview with Sophie Gilbert, who’s the author of Girl on Girl, which is a truly amazing book. Oh –

Jo: It really is; it’s great.

Sarah: It’s so good, and it’s yet, it’s gutting?

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: It’s like, Oh, I remember this. Oh, I remember how this made me feel. Oh, crap. You talked about, in that interview, how people use gossip and pop, pop culture to cope with stress.

Jo: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: Can you talk about how the tradwives fit into that response mechanism?

Jo: Yeah, absolutely! I mean, I have always thought that gossip and pop culture were a way to just kind of relax in a chaotic dumpster fire of the world. When 9/11 happened, I remember all of the gossip columns went dark.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: And they were like, We’ll never, we’ll never do what we did again. And then all of a sudden, the celebrity gossip magazines were created, like, literally out of the ashes, right? Because people were desperate for escape, and I think it’s the same thing with influencer fantasies that –

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: – you know, when the world is chaotic, we want an escape hatch? And a lot of this content feels very soothing! I like watching someone pull bread out of an oven. The bread that I made, that I spent four hours working on, tasted like a hockey puck, and I followed one of these influencers’ recipes, and she was lying about it!

Sarah: Oh, I hate that! I hate that!

Jo: Well, the recipes on the internet have just gotten, gone to total shit, right?

Sarah: Oh, they’re terrible.

Jo: Because…

Sarah: This is why cookbooks are coming back. Cookbooks are going to have a huge resurgence because it’s like –

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – this doesn’t work, and I’ve got nine of the same, nine of the same recipe, and they all taste bad.

Jo: They all taste bad! The Cinnamon Toast Crunch that I made from scratch: disgusting.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: Okay? And again, that was also an influencer recipe. But it, it does go down easier. It’s even, it’s even, like, more gauzy and just, like, easy on the eyes than any of the magazines that we used to devour. So they’re just very, they’re very good at this. Like, they’re very good at, like I said, captivating our attention, which is now a currency.

Sarah: It’s like taking a Nancy Meyers film aesthetics and then chopping it up into teeny, teeny, teeny pieces and then distributing.

Jo: Into teeny tiny pieces and then distributing it, and then, in the midst of it, they’re like, Want to buy this couch? Want to buy this stand mixer? And you’re just like, and all of a sudden you’ve bought a couch and a stand mixer, and you didn’t even know it happened because it’s one click!

Sarah: Yeah! I, I got all my energy from these things, di-di-di-di-duh. Which will absolutely make me sick, a hundred percent. The I got all my energy? Like, no, you got all your energy from having money.

Jo: From money –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: – yes.

Sarah: To quote –

Jo: So much like, much like celebrities – ‘cause I’m, I’m a what – any time, like, celebrities, and I’m not going to say they look amazing, but that they look the same at fifty that they, when they did at thirty, and I’m like, That’s because you’re rich.

Sarah: Yes. That is absolutely because you’re rich. It’s, to quote economist Ariana Grande, Whoever said money can’t solve your problems must not have had enough money to solve them!

Jo: Must not have had enough money to solve them.

Sarah: Nope!

Jo: Because, like, money buys their new face –

Sarah: Yeah!

Jo: – is what it does. Yeah!

Sarah: And, and that is all, especially now with Mar-a-Lago face? That is all participating in subservience: look how much work I’m going to –

Jo: Mm-hmm?

Sarah: – visibly show you that I have done to conform to your expectations of me. I’m going to wear my conformity as obviously as possible.

Jo: Literally on my face!

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: Like, yes. Mar-a-Lago face is a very real thing! I, I had two great, Jess Grose and Inae Oh on the show to talk about Mar-a-Lago face, and every woman in the Trump administration looks and dresses and, the same and has the exact same hair. Like, this is a code. It is a very coded thing. It’s like, you can be a powerful woman, but if you want to be a powerful woman, you have to look like this.

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: Which is essentially like a fembot porn star.

Sarah: They all look like newscasters.

Jo: They do! It’s a, you know, I, I’ve told people before, ‘cause I used to go on FOX News back in the day, when I was a gossip columnist, ‘cause I would talk about entertainment, right?

Sarah: Yeah!

Jo: I’m, I was promoting the column. And so I’d go on FOX News, I’d go on MSNBC, I’d go on CNN, and I always got hair and makeup done, ‘cause they used to do that for you, and at CNN it was just, like, very just, like, basic, right? Like, they’d powder your nose. And at FOX I had eyelashes that would tickle your face; like, so much eyeliner; and just cakes –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Jo: – cakes of foundation. I was in that makeup chair for an hour to make me look FOX-acceptable.

Sarah: And it’s, and it’s 4K, too.

Jo: Yeah, yeah!

Sarah: Like, I can’t do 4K makeup; that’s not happening in my life.

Jo: No, nonononono. That is not, that is not, that is not the world I live in.

Sarah: No. When you said that, you know, people want a break, they want to relax into something that’s sort of fluffy, makes me think of what I would call pedicure content?

Jo: Mm! Mm-hmm.

Sarah: What are the things you’re going to want to look at while you’re having a pedicure? It’s not a document that you have to edit or email. You’re going to want to read Life & Style or People, or you’re going to start scrolling Instagram. They really have taken away the magazine industry.

Jo: They have! Yeah! I mean, the, the magazine industry is, is gone, and it’s, it’s starting for books too…

Sarah: Yes, it is.

Jo: You know, I hear people say a lot, I don’t have time to read books, and I’m like, How long do you scroll social media in a day, girl? Like, you know, there’s – we, we choose how we spend our attention, we choose where we put our attention, and, you know, I’m, I’m guilty of it too, although I did just get the Brick to try to limit how often I’m on social media and email and you know –

Sarah: Is that the thing, you put your phone in the Brick and then it’s sealed off?

Jo: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: Nice.

Jo: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sarah: Nice.

Jo: Because it’s even hard for me, although, like, my thing isn’t Instagram; it’s just if I have my phone I’m, I’ll be working all the time.

Sarah: Oh, rot-, yes. I made up my own job, so yes, I know that pain very well.

Jo: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: I understand it completely.

Jo: But yeah, no, it’s abs-, social media has absolutely replaced magazines; it’s replaced television shows in, in a lot of instances, and definitely been replacing books and – when you think about books, too, I mean, I was talking about the book marketing earlier – traditional press doesn’t really do anything for me anymore, you know, but influence, book influencers do. It’s book influencers that sell books!

Sarah: They do.

Jo: They, they do! They just do, right? Like, there’s all those lists of, like, the books you have to read and, like, if it’s in the Times it might do something, or NPR, but, like, honestly? People just want to see what the Bookstagrammers are recommending.

Sarah: Yep! And that’s a whole thing that I have been fascinated with. Like, I could give like a ten-minute TED Talk, no prep, about how books have become an aesthetic accessory? That the books –

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – that you’re talking about, the whole thing is the aesthetics of being a reader, and we’ve reached a point where the aesthetics of being something and the actual being of something are two very different things. It’s like if you buy fabric and then you sew, those are two – the, the acquiring of fabric and the using of the fabric, those are separate hobbies. The being a reader is different from performing as a reader. That’s an entirely different operation as an influencer, and I am fascinated by it.

The other thing that I think is happening is that, because the content that we most often consume is getting shorter and shorter and shorter, we do not have cognitive stamina like we used to.

Jo: No, we don’t. We don’t. Our attention spans are just being frayed and essentially blown up –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: – at this point.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: And I noticed it, you know, the other day. We, we don’t get the print New York Times anymore, because we can’t buy it anywhere in our neighborhood. It’s literally not in our neighborhood, and we were traveling so much that we canceled the subscription, but a woman gave me the print New York Times at the pool, and I was just like, Oh my God! I’m like, I’m like, my eyes are moving after like half the article, and that never happened before, where I’m, like, trying to scroll, and I just really think that our brains are being, you know, irreversibly changed by all of this.

Sarah: One aspect of this industry that I think a lot a lot about is how celebrity gossip and the celebrity sort of machine? If you look at it with skepticism because you know enough about it, it’s going to teach you how to recognize propaganda and narrative spin?

Jo: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: And I think –

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – I think that’s very powerful, but I also notice that instead of being critical, people are now just, as an example of media literacy, Oh, well, I read it on the internet. It was in words on a screen. I heard somebody say it. It’s true. There isn’t any –

Jo: Yes.

Sarah: – critical engagement, when, whereas, as, as you would know as a celebrity gossip columnist, everything about a celebrity’s narrative, most of it’s manufactured by somebody working for or against them, right?

Jo: Absolutely! Yeah, no; I mean, the majority of our scoops on, in the gossip magazines were coming from people who worked directly for the celebrities, right? They were fed to us by publicists, agents, managers, oftentimes the celebrities themselves. I mean, it was a very – and I think that’s why I’m so, it’s so easy for me to cover influencers because it’s very similar.

Sarah: Yeah!

Jo: Right? Like, they’re crafting a narrative of their story that they know exactly what they’re, what they’re feeding to you, and it’s the same with influencers! You know, we, we finally reached a level of media literacy with some celebrities? We’re like, Ohhh, this is smoke and mirrors. They’re just being paid for this, right? But I don’t think we’re necessarily there yet with all the influencers? We’re, like, a lot of people are still like, This is just their life! Like, I mean, I get, I get so much hate and attacks online, ‘cause people are like, Why do you hate this person? Why are you so jealous of them? And I’m like, I’m legit, like, have no emotions, certainly not jealousy. I’m trying to dissect a business brand here, and I think about all influencers as, as a media brand, and, like, what are you selling me? Who and what is creating this? What is behind this?

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: That is what I think about, and that’s one of the things that I’m trying to show in the book.

Sarah: This reminds me so much of the way that we, like, worship some celebrities as a culture. If you don’t defend the people you love, you’re doing it wrong. If you don’t fall on your sword for your favorite celebrity or your favorite influencer, you’re not a real fan. And then you see things like, for example – this, this always chaps my ass – Travis – or Travis – Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, head to toe –

Jo: Yes, yes.

Sarah: – head to toe Gucci. Every single –

Jo: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – item they are wearing is clearly, they are paid to put it on their bodies.

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: That is never disclosed, and the minute you try to talk about it, be like, Oh, you just hate her. You just hate Taylor. And I’m like, No, I don’t actually give a flying shit about Taylor Swift. I want to talk about this undisclosed spon-con, because I get anxious when I put on an ad for a social media post that I’m being paid for.

Jo: I know.

Sarah: Right?

Jo: Absolutely! Absolutely, yeah, no. I mean, I think that any media criticism has always been hard, but that fandom is just swelling and becoming, like, a much more obsessive and a much more siloed thing?

Sarah: Yes!

Jo: Again, because of, because of these parasocial relationships. Right? Like, you genuinely feel an intense connection with, with the celebrities too, because you’re also following their Instagram accounts.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: So you, you have more “access,” even though it’s manufactured access, to them than ever before, and the parasociality of it is very unhealthy.

Sarah: I personally have very strong feelings about children appearing in influencer social media and social media in general.

Jo: Yeah!

Sarah: There is no Coogan Fund for reality kids –

Jo: No.

Sarah: – or mommy blogger kids or influencer kids, and then I look at that as a parent and I’m like, Oh, that…uncomfortable. What are –

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: – your thoughts on how tradwives and influencers specifically, their monetizing their children? Is that something you’ve ex-, examined a lot?

Jo: Oh yeah. I mean, I think about it all the time. I’ve done a lot of episodes on it. I mean, the fact is so many of these mom influencer accounts are fully dependent on, on their children, and not just, you know, a child or two children: on having lots of children, because we know that pregnancy and infants drive engagement, which is why you see so many of these mom influencers having such large families?

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: And they’re riding, you know, literally on the backs of their children, without any guardrails in place. So –

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: – you know, since reporting on Under the Influence, I’ve wiped my Instagram of ninety percent of my kid content. There’s still some on there, mostly because, you know, my kids are a part of my life, and I share my life –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: – but I’m not sharing all of my life, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: And I may get to a hundred percent at some point. My oldest is old enough to have a discussion about whether or not they appear –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: – on my account? And I have, I have my own, own rules for it. I agree with the laws that if you are making money from using your children in your content and that is labor, they should make money. I pay my children because they have appeared in my content. They do appear on my Substack more than my social media, because I do write about life as a mom, and they, they, they are paid for that. I, I compensate them; you know, put it into an account for them that they can touch later on in life. I think that all influencers should be doing that if they’re using their kids. I also think that, you know, it should be much more highly regulated of how kids can be used in these accounts. How often they can be shown, how they can be shown, because we also know that there are a lot of predators out there online –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: – using these images for their own purposes.

Sarah: You know what else? These influencer kids, people make, like, AI material out of them, and I’m like, how, how do you square that, if that’s what you’re doing? I don’t, I – that I really struggle with. I don’t understand, until, of course, it’s like, Oh well, I get a lot of money if I have another baby!

Jo: You get a lot of money if you have another baby, and if I show that baby – I mean, I’ve seen more influencers’ birth canals –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jo: – than I’ve, than I’ve seen my own birth canal! Okay, like, these women, like, film themselves giving birth –

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: – and then monetize it! Like, I’ve seen women do a, like, getting ready with me routine literally like hours after giving birth: Buy this serum that I just put on my face. Okay, like, there’s no, no guard rails around that. And then you do have all of these images of the child from in utero to eighteen, and we’re just seeing the first generation of influencer kids come of age?

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: And some of them are fine, much like, you know, all kids, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: It’s a crap shoot.

Sarah: It’s variables.

Jo: And some of them are not okay, and I think we need to think about, like, what regulations do we have to put in place for the ones who are not going to end up okay!

Sarah: I am waiting for the memoirs of the mommy blogger kids who’ve grown up…

Jo: So many of them, so many of them. But then, also, content creator is a genuine job these days –

Sarah: It sure is.

Jo: – right? Influencer is a genuine job. So some of these kids may grow up better able to brand themselves than other children. I don’t know! I mean, I think it’s, I think it needs to be a really open conversation?

Sarah: Yes. I agree with you.

Jo: We have to keep talking about it –

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: – that’s the thing.

Sarah: And it, and it so easily falls under the, Well, you’re just criticizing other women. You’re just criticizing what other women do, and I’m like, No, I’m not actually criticizing what they’re doing. Like you said, I’m criticizing the systems that make this the best option.

Jo: I’m criticizing the systems.

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: That’s the thing: I’m criticizing the systems; I criticize the, the social media companies a lot?

Sarah: Ohhh God.

Jo: Because I don’t think that they do enough to protect people, to protect children. I got criticisms like, you know, out the wazoo.

Sarah: Roger that.

Jo: So they’re women. I just think we have to have a conversation about it and, you know, most people do know what’s best for their family, but also a lot of people are not working in the best interest when capitalism is involved, and we know that. And, you know, I try to show that a lot in the book of –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: – like, you know, what happens when these brand deals are at stake, right? When there’s lots of money and your family is dependent on that money?

Sarah: Like, Disney money is serious money; Pampers money –

Jo: Disney money.

Sarah: – Proctor Gamble money –

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: – serious money.

Jo: Serious money! Like, once you start getting that Disney money, and I think that’s like a jokey line in the book that’s true? Once you start getting that Disney money, you want more of that Disney money, and I know people that have had more babies just to stay in that Disney groove with that branded content!

Sarah: ‘Cause that’s an age range.

Jo: That’s an age range! Exactly. Like, I mean, I’ve, I’ve just, like, aged, that not, not that diaper companies are paying me for anything, but, like, I’ve just aged out of diapers, right? And if you have, like, a big Pampers deal, which these things exist –

Sarah: Oh, they do.

Jo: – I’m like, All right, maybe it’s time to have another baby.

Sarah: Because otherwise they don’t have a product for you that they’re going to pay you for. They’re going to take that money –

Jo: No!

Sarah: – and give it to somebody else.

Jo: That money’s gone! Exactly! To the next one.

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: Yeah!

Sarah: So outside tradwives – or within tradwives – what gossip or pop culture stories are you currently obsessed with? ‘Cause I know you’re very –

Jo: Hmmm.

Sarah: – tuned into a lot of things, but also looking at it critically, which is like my favorite thing to do with pop culture.

Jo: Totally. I, I mean, I, I’ve been into what everyone’s been into this week, which is the Bezos-Sanchez wedding and all of the celebrities that went that were complete strangers to this couple. Can you imagine having a wedding where all of your guests are strangers? Or going to a wedding where you don’t know the actual couple? It’s so bananas to me?

Sarah: And yet all of these people are connected to Amazon.

Jo: Well, exactly! Because Amazon, like, they’re, they go to kiss the ring!

Sarah: Yeah!

Jo: ‘Cause, like, Amazon is one of the – and I know this very well; I develop TV shows – Amazon is one of the few places that will give these celebrities money going forward –

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: – that can, like, pay to produce the things that they want! So of course they have to go, but also, they don’t know him or her, and it’s just, it’s so, it’s – I mean, it was just the tackiest wedding I’ve ever seen. So I’m very into that. I’m always into Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Love the Kelce brothers, because I’m a die-hard Eagles fan, so a big fan of Jason over here. Can’t get enough of them. And then The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives; I was very into that, obviously because of work, and then just went deep down the rabbit hole of those gals.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Jo: So right now, right now, those are my big pop culture obsessions.

Sarah: I, I live very close to the DC Mormon temple.

Jo: Mm!

Sarah: I have a lot of Mormon neighbors. It’s a very interesting world to live in.

Jo: It’s a very interesting world to live in! Exactly!

Sarah: And so many of the influencers and the mommy bloggers were, were Mormons, ‘cause they’re encouraged to journal and soft-proselytize.

Jo: Soft-proselytize! They’re encouraged to spread the word. Exactly.

Sarah: Yep. Oh yeah.

Jo: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, those are, those are my big things right now. It’s funny, though, ‘cause people are like, What podcasts do you listen to? And I’m like, Oh, well, I listen to things for work, but, like, for fun, I actually only listen to one really obscure British history podcast? The Rest is History?

Sarah: I love that show so much!

Jo: I love, I mean, I have, I have no parasocial relationships except with Tom and Dom.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Jo: Like, if I saw them, I would be such a weird fangirl? Like, I just –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Jo: – they’re in my ears all the time, because I can’t really read before bed either, because reading is, feels like work for me, ‘cause then I start thinking about my own books. So I put on my sleep mask that has headphones every night and listen to Tom and Dom, and they help me fall asleep. I just did the Ark of the Covenant; I just did the Holy Grail. No, I really feel like they’re my friends. It’s the most unhealthy relationship that I have.

Sarah: But it’s so, it’s so good to, like, listen to something completely disconnected from anything in the present. Like –

Jo: It has nothing to do with my life –

Sarah: Nope!

Jo: – or the present, and, like, or, or anything that I work on?

Sarah: Yep!

Jo: And so I’m just like, it is the best, like, that’s my escapism. My escapism is an obscure podcast hosted by two old British men.

Sarah: What books are you reading that you might like to tell people about, in addition to your own, which I will be putting front and center?

Jo: Yeah, so many right now, actually. I just read a book by a Croatian writer who is, was pub-, it’s published by Simon & Schuster, called Slanting Towards the Sea, which is just gorgeous. I worked with her at the Adriatic Writers conference a couple months ago, Lidija Hilje and Slanting Towards the Sea. It’s just, it’s a beautiful second-chance romance and com-, coming of age which is really great.

I loved Broken Country, but everyone really loved Broken Country, and Wild Dark Shore really got me? I just, like, wow. I, I bawled at the end of that book.

Nightwatching was the most terrifying book that I’ve read in a very, very long time? You know, if you’re a mother of young children it’s going to screw you up for the rest of your life, but, like, if you are the kind of person that loves thrills and wants to be scared, like, woof! That really, it really does it! It really does it, Nightwatching, and I don’t think, I don’t think that that book got nearly enough attention, but it was so well done. I mean, it was just like the best locked-door thriller that I’ve read in years.

Sarah: That’s awesome!

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: I have a book recommendation for you that’s like a cousin of your book?

Jo: Ooh, great! Bring it.

Sarah: It’s called Homemaker. It’s about a woman who is in Wisconsin, so there’s a lot of Midwest nice –

Jo: [Laughs] Love.

Sarah: – and she does two unforgivable things in her town, in Green Bay. One, she investigates and exposes an OB/GYN that everyone loved who was assaulting their patients, and then she divorced what everyone thought was a good guy.

Jo: Oh my God, shut up. Like this, I need to read this book right now!

Sarah: It’s so – I’m telling you, it’s like a cousin – if there’s a name for this genre your, your, this book is like a cousin to yours?

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: One of the other moms disappears –

Jo: [Gasps]

Sarah: – and because she’s so good at recognizing patterns and seeing when someone is lying and when something doesn’t fit, she’s tenacious about it.

Jo: Wow. I love every- – I’m going to order this right now! Like, I’m going on – like, this looks amazing.

Sarah: It is so up your street.

Jo: Oh, I’m so into it. So into it.

Sarah: Where can people find you? I presume you wish to be found at this time.

Jo: I want to be found. I want everyone to buy this book and share this book and give it to friends. Do you know what I do lately? Because I really like to help people find new books –

Sarah: Yes.

Jo: – that they’re going to enjoy. I think discovering books is really hard? So when I go to people’s houses for, like, dinner or, like, a play date, I bring books instead of bringing flowers, and I, like, they’re either books that I’ve already read that I love, or I’ll buy, I buy, when I go to author signings I have them sign like five for me, and then I give personalized books to people? Because I just think, I think it’s such a nice gift! It’s like, Hey, I was thinking about you and this book, and I think you’ll really love it, and I think it’s such a great way to help people discover books! So if you want to buy nine copies, go ahead.

I am on Instagram at @jopiazzaauthor. My Substack is Over the Influence, the podcast is Under the Influence, and Everyone is Lying to You, the book that the internet cannot stop talking about, is absolutely everywhere that books are sold.

Sarah: And you know, buying book, copies of books for people ties back to influencers, because essentially what you’re saying is, This is a narrative that reminded of you that I think will make you happy.

Jo: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: And then the whole core of influencing and mommy blogging and all of it is to, here is a narrative that you will identify with.

Jo. Yeah. Exactly.

Sarah: But this narrative is also about you is a tremendous, tremendous thing to say to somebody.

Jo: I know, and I think it’s such a good gift, because it also then, like, you can create a little book club of two, and you have something – especially for a new friend, too, where you’re like, What are we going to talk about?

Sarah: Yep.

Jo: We, we have a wonderful au pair who lives with us, and she’s trying to, you know, figure out how to get closer with her boyfriend’s family, and I just gave her a bunch of copies of The Sicilian Inheritance, and I’m like, Start a book club with them!

Sarah: Very smart!

Jo: Right? And I was like, just like, It’s something built-in to talk about when you don’t know what to talk about.

Sarah: I mean, that’s the foundation of reality TV fandoms, right? You are meant to watch these semi-intoxicated with your friends in the room or on your phone or –

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – wherever. Yeah, it’s all –

Jo: Exactly.

Sarah: It’s all –

Jo: Exactly.

Sarah: – community narrative.

Jo: Well, and that’s the thing with influencers, too, you know. I think that there’s a lot of community around, like, influencer fandom these days, and people are hungry for community, and they’re hungry for purpose? And so, you know, that’s, it just, it makes sense to me.

Sarah: Have a great book tour. May it be so easy that you look back –

Jo: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and, like, Oh! Piece of cake!

Jo: Oh, you know, I don’t, the thing is, I don’t mind the book tour part! I, like, I just wish that I didn’t have to, you know, think about, think about the business side of it –

Sarah: Yeah.

Jo: – as much as I do.

Sarah: And think about how it’s going to be more than a book signing, because it –

Jo: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – much like bookstores are now aesthetic places to be seen and photographed –

Jo: Yeah.

Sarah: – book events are now things, like, they’re mini-conferences at this point.

Jo: They’re mini-conferences! I mean, but I’m making them fun. I’m trying to make all of it fun for me, right? So there’s going to be tradwife costume contests –

Sarah: Love it.

Jo: – at most, most of them. It’s BYOP: Bring Your Own Pie.

Sarah: [Snorts]

Jo: And, like, you can also bring your own sourdough. It’s just, they’re going to be raucous and fun and – because no one needs to just, like, sit and listen to me talk. I’m like, Let’s just have a good time, girls.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you so much to Jo Piazza for fitting me into her media schedule during book launch. She is currently on tour. Her book stops do include tradwife dress contests, food contests. The, the social media coverage has been very fun.

I love thinking about this, especially because it’s so nefarious, right? Tradwives are appealing to young women in the US because they promote this sort of soft filter of life through deception, which means they’re not revealing their wealth, they’re not revealing the support that they have, and they don’t reveal that they’re running multi-million-dollar media companies as well. And they’re promoting this to people who do know how shitty it is to be a woman who wants a career and possibly also to be a parent, because, you know, the You Can Do It All! girl-bossing did not come with adequate support for anyone, so of course it can’t work. You know, unless you have wealth and support, which is the thing that tradwives are telling you that they don’t have.

I am so curious to know what you thought of this episode, if you’ve read the book. It is out now; there are links in the show notes. But I hope you’ll communicate with me what you thought. Like I said, this is something I love thinking about.

You can email me at Sarah@smartbitchestrashybooks.com. You can find me on social media @SmartBitches in just about every location. Or you could just yell out the window. You can leave a comment on Patreon if you’re in the Patreon community. You can leave a comment on Smart Bitches if you’re on the website. There’s lots of places, but I would, I would just love to hear what you think.

You can find links to everything we talked about, including books that we mentioned in the show notes, of course.

As always, I end with a terrible joke. This week’s joke comes from Barnaby Snickett.

What did the mermaid wear to math class?

Give up? What did the mermaid wear to math class?

An alge-bra.

[Laughs] You knew I was delighted by this one, right? I love it! Algebra. I’m going to torture my family – hope you do too!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you back here next week. And in the words of my favorite retired podcast Friendshipping, thank you for listening; you’re welcome for talking.

[end of music]