Under the Influence with Jo Piazza
Under the Influence is a deep dive into social media, exploring the world of aspirational marketing where influencers sell products from perfectly staged homes. Journalist Jo Piazza investigates how this multibillion-dollar industry commodifies everyday life, driving people, especially women and mothers, to the brink of sanity. The podcast examines the origins, implications, and cultural impact of influencer culture.
Episodes
Everything Bookish: How to Read More, Find Great Books, and Write Your Own
Today we're talking about one of our favorite things in the world. BOOKS.
Lauren and Garri from The Everygirl Book Club join us to talk about how to build a more bookish life, even when you're juggling kids, work and everything else. We're talking about finding time to read, where to get great recommendations, why it's perfectly fine to abandon a book halfway through, and why audiobooks absolutel
Are You Ready to Run for Office?
Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something and author of When We’re in Charge, joins us to talk about what the hell we can actually do when everything feels terrible. How do you run for local office? How much does it cost? Can you do it while working a full-time job? And what if you don’t want to run but still want to help?
We talk about why local races matter so much, why younger candidates
The Truth About Sex and Money After 40 (The Midlife Plot Twist Part Two)
What if you're not having less sex because of perimenopause? What if you're just tired of your husband and the pile of dirty laundry on your bed? And while we're at it, how the hell is everyone on Instagram affording those vacations?
Our friend Lindsey Goldwert is here to talk about my two favorite taboo subjects: SEX AND MONEY.
Lindsey is the co-author of The Midlife Plot Twist and writes the e
In the Wake of the Cornell 7, How Can We Raise Good Men?
What happens when boys learn about masculinity from the internet before they learn how to understand their own emotions?
Jo talks with Peggy Orenstein, author of Boys & Sex, about the forces shaping young men long before they reach college, the locker room or the frat house. They dig into the extraordinary influence of figures like Andrew Tate, how social media algorithms can turn curiosity into
You Don't Have to Burn It Down: The Midlife Plot Twist, Part One
This week we start a two-part series on how not to blow up your life in midlife, with Gabrielle Moss, co-author of The Midlife Plot Twist: How to Reboot Your Life Without Burning It Down, Even If You Really, Really Want To.
Gabby spent her career writing about pop culture, so she knows exactly how badly it has served women over forty. We get into why the midlife crisis went from a serious idea to
The Last Free Women of Afghanistan
Rebecca Blumenstein helped get 124 people out of Kabul when the city fell. Diana Kapp had been reporting on Afghan girls since 2012. Their new book, The Last Free Women, follows four of those young women through five years of starting over in America, learning English, going back to college, and carrying the weight of everyone they left behind. We talk about what's happened to women in Afghanistan
Chasing Cozy: The Birthday Episode With Jane Green
We’re coming to you poolside on Jo's birthday from Marrakech with bestselling author Jane Green for a conversation about the things we learn as we get older, wiser and more bad ass.
We talk about choosing the people who choose you, trusting your gut, learning the art of discernment and realizing you’re allowed to build the life you actually want. We get into raising independent kids, why they nee
Can a Chatbot Love You Back?
Bridget Todd used to read the headlines about people proposing to ChatGPT and write those people off as sad and strange. Then she heard tech leaders describe AI companionship as the future they are building for everyone, and realized dismissing it was not a plan.
This week we talk with the award-winning podcaster behind There Are No Girls on the Internet about her new audiobook, Love at First Pro
The Lone Liberal on Fox News Wrote the Book on Disagreeing Better
Jessica Tarlov has one of the strangest jobs in American media. Five days a week she sits at a table on Fox News' The Five as the lone liberal, arguing in front of millions of people who mostly do not agree with her. Everyone asks her the same question, and it comes from both parties: how do you do that without losing your mind?
Her new book, I Disagree: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends,
How Can We Save Child Stars ? Would You Buy Sydney Sweeney's Underwear? And a New Royal Tell-All
We're dropping an episode of a brand new celebrity news podcast in your feed today. Celebrity Intelligence: The Lowdown. Jo's a lead producer and host on this one and she's joined by her longtime colleague and dear friend, Dan Wakeford.
What happens when you become famous before you know who you are? This week on Celebrity Intelligence: The Lowdown, we dig into the darker side of growing up famou
"How Not to Look Like Shit": Bobbi Brown on Makeup, Aging, and Being Scrappy Forever
Bobbi Brown started Bobbi Brown Cosmetics out of her garage while pregnant in 1990. Four and a half years in, Estée Lauder called and said we want to buy you, and she said okay, mostly because she did not really know what a brand was yet. She stayed on for 22 years as an employee of the company that owned her own name. When she finally left, she still had four and a half years left on a non-compet
Sunday Nice Things: Did Emily Ruin Paris?
Today we're sharing an episode from another podcast I think you'll enjoy: The Global Story from the BBC.
The question they’re tackling is a great one: Did Emily Ruin Paris?Whether you love Emily in Paris, hate-watch it, or just can't escape it, there's no denying it's had a huge impact. The show has turned cafés, streets and neighbourhoods into tourist hotspots, and even won praise from French Pr
The Tradwife Era Is Over. So Why Are We Still Obsessed?
Why are smart, progressive, left-voting women are still watching tradwife content? Even after the trend has peaked?
Author Claire Swinarski has also written a tradwife novel entitled The Supper Club Saints. Today we're chatting about how Yesteryear became such a phenomenon and whether the book's success is really about giving women a socially acceptable place to put their rage. We also get into
An OBGYN's Cheat Sheet for Getting Taken Seriously
Dr. Tracy Shevell is an OBGYN who has spent 25 years in women's intimate spaces, and she has watched the system fail women over and over. Her goal is to help women get them better care by telling them how to work within a broken system.
Tracy tells us the exact phrasing to use going to the doctor or walking into an emergency room, and why describing your symptoms honestly and expecting the syst
Pour Yourself a Cup of Ambition: Remembering Dolly
Dolly Parton died on Tuesday at 80, and she may have been the last thing Americans agreed on. We're replaying this episode in her honor. Our conversation with Will Bonfiglio, the WashU lecturer behind a wildly popular college course on Dolly, is about how the country icon became a cultural unifier across politics, class, gender, and generations. From Dollywood to "9 to 5" to her million-dollar vac
Why We Need Paid Leave Right Now
The United States is basically the only country in the world without paid family and medical leave, and we are not okay with it. This week, Dawn Huckelbridge of the Paid Leave for All campaign joins us to break down what paid leave actually is (no, FMLA doesn't count), who it's really for (everyone — parents, the sandwich generation, gig workers, you), and why it's a winning issue with 91% of Amer
Sunday Nice Things: A New Book You'll Absolutely Love
This week on Under the Influence Sunday Nice Things, we have a book rec you will LOVE. Jennifer Herrera’s Siren Says, a magical, sexy, gloriously witchy novel about embracing your power and finding your confidence as a woman. We have a quick chat with Jennifer about the ancient story that inspired the book, botanical magic, the wisdom women pass down through generations, and why so many of our myt
Why We Keep Underestimating Conservative Women
For years we've been laughing at tradwives.
We've mocked the prairie dresses, the sourdough starters, the "submit to your husband" content, and the endless parade of blonde influencers telling women to embrace traditional femininity.
Meanwhile, conservative women have been building one of the most effective political movements in modern American history.
Today's guest, sociologist Katie Gaddini
The Joy of Giving Fewer F*cks
What happens when good girls grow up and stop apologizing?
For generations, women have been rewarded for being agreeable, being accommodating and being grateful for what they have instead of asking for more.
And yet many women reach a certain age and find themselves less interested in being nice.
Our guest is comedian, storyteller, and longtime public radio host Ophira Eisenberg, whose new co
The Dark Side of Being a Good Girl
For years, women have been told that success means being chosen. Chosen by a partner. Chosen for the promotion. Chosen by everyone except ourselves.
This week we're joined by Sabrina Bendory, author of The Feminine Code, for a conversation about self-worth, attachment styles, toxic relationships, and the ways women are conditioned to over-give, over-accommodate, and lose themselves in pursuit of
Grudges, Revenge, MLMs and Book Recs with Emily Paulson
This week on Under the Influence, bestselling author and recovering MLM insider Emily Paulson joins us for a rage-filled chat about revenge fantasies, influencer culture, tradwives, motherhood, social media lies, and the absolute exhaustion of watching terrible men fail upward forever.
Plus: a huge stack of summer reading recommendations, including books about momfluencers, bad mothers, feminist
Book Tour Brain & Majoring in Influencing
It's been a blurry week. Jo and Nick share behind-the-scenes moments from The Parisian Heist tour, announce the Catskills Book Festival, and talk about what' books Jo is working on next. Then Nick leaves to pick up the kids and Jo digs into Arizona State's groundbreaking degree in content creation and why she actually thinks it is a brilliant idea. (And they should hire her to be a profe
The Art of an Adventurous Life
This week, we're sharing a special crossover episode with Get a Life, the new podcast from Jo's best friend, women's wellness coach and positive psychology practitioner Jackie Cascarano. Together, they explore the forgotten women who inspired The Parisian Heist, the myth of the male genius, why travel has shaped Jo's life and writing, and how curiosity, creativity, and adventure can help women bui
Get Out of the Waiting Room of Your Life
Jess Ekstrom, the author of Making It Without Losing It: How to Stay Motivated in a World Where We Are Never Done, grew up in the shadow of one of the biggest financial scandals in American history. After her family lost everything to Bernie Madoff, she eventually sat across from him in prison and asked him why he did it.
His answer was slightly heartbreaking and it became the lynchpin of Jess's
The Best Ideas Come at 3 in the Morning with Allison Winn Scotch
Nobody talks honestly enough about the 3 a.m. wake-up—the sweating, spiraling and sometimes creative genius that strikes women in the wee hours of the morning. This week we’re joined by bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch to talk about insomnia, midlife, creativity, and how all of it inspired her latest novel, The Insomniacs.
What starts as a conversation about melatonin, mouth guards, indica
How to Thrive Through Life's Plot Twists
Eliza Reid never expected to become the First Lady of Iceland.
The Canadian-born writer and mother of four was living a hectic, but totally normal life when her husband launched a presidential campaign during a political crisis. Seven weeks later, she was a First Lady of a small Arctic nation.
Eliza is a magical human who speaks so candidly about the strange experience of becoming publicly known
Why We Keep Falling for Paris
Why are we so obsessed with Paris?
It is the f*cking best, but long before Instagram convinced us that a destination could transform our lives, Paris had already perfected the art of selling a fantasy with the promise that if we could just get there, we'd somehow become a more sophisticated version of ourselves.
This week, we sit down with bestselling author Danielle Trussoni (writing as Daniell
Heists, Billionaires, and the Untold Story of Jo van Gogh
The art market is one of the most secretive, least regulated wealth machines on the planet. Billions of dollars change hands between billionaires, oligarchs, and dynasties with almost no oversight, and behind almost every famous man in that world is a woman who did the work and got written out of the story.
This week I'm sharing my conversation with my brilliant friend Farnoosh Torabi from her po
Laura Ingalls Wilder is Getting Her Due on TV
Wilder is back in the Under the Influence feed. A brand new Little House on the Prairie just landed on Netflix and obviously Glynnis and I had thoughts. I talked to Executive Producer Joy Gorman Wettels, who had her whole team listening to Wilder while they made this show, about how she spent years getting the rights from the Friendly family, why this version centers Laura instead of Pa, how they
The Art of the Heist: Why We Root for Thieves
Why do we all root for art thieves? This week we're joined by Anthony Amore — director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the heist expert behind the heist in The Parisian Heist — to bust every myth Hollywood ever taught us. We get into the real story of the unsolved 1990 Gardner heist (two fake cops, 81 minutes, 13 masterpieces, none recovered), why the empty frames still hang
Life After Ambition: The Midlife Crisis We Weren't Prepared For
We were promised that if we worked hard enough, checked all the right boxes, and built successful careers, we'd eventually arrive at some stable version of adulthood. So why do so many women in midlife feel like we're teetering on the edge of a cliff.
This week we're joined by writer and cultural critic Amil Niazi, author of Life After Ambition, for a chat about the modern midlife crisis. Not the
How to Actually Relax This Summer
Summer is supposed to be relaxing, so why does it feel like five summers' worth of stress before July even hits? This week, we're pushing back on the algorithm's demands that we all have a "'90s summer" or a "nonna summer" and making the case for opting out of any kind of perfection or summer archetype entirely. We're joined by creator, blogger, and debut novelist Chassity Evans.
We dig into Chas
Why We're All Binging Parks and Rec Right Now—The Most Hopeful Show on Television Was Almost Canceled
Why does Parks and Recreation feel more necessary now than when it first aired?
We're chatting with bestselling author and pop culture journalist Jennifer Keishin Armstrong about the enduring appeal of Leslie Knope, Pawnee, and the sitcom that accidentally became a blueprint for rebuilding community.
We talk about why audiences have embraced earnestness over cynicism, how Amy Poehler helped crea
What Should We Be Watching Right Now? With Kate Casey
Kate Casey, host of Reality Life with Kate Casey returns to the show with recommendations for what to watch right now, from buzzy new documentaries to true crime rabbit holes and reality television that is deliciously bonkers and addictive.
We chat aboutThe Crash, Should I Marry a Murderer?, the surprisingly emotional Martin Short documentary, Kate's latest Housewives obsession, the Martha Moxle
Ballerina Farm Gets Real With Steph McNeal
Our friend Stephanie McNeal wrote a truly great piece for Vulture this week called BALLERINA FARM IS HAPPY WITH HER CHOICES. Steph went to the farm and sat down with Hannah inside the homeschooling schoolhouse to talk about everything from being called a tradwife to Yesteryear to who does what in her marriage. It's the best profile of BF and Neeleman we have ever read so we had to get Steph on the
Jane Green on Rewilding, Reinvention, Mushrooms, Tattoos and Midlife Freedom
Bestselling author Jane Green spent decades looking like she had the perfect life: a beautiful house, a successful career, a long marriage, children, stability, all of it. But behind the scenes she was drowning in financial fear, people pleasing, resentment, perimenopause, and the terrifying feeling that she had completely lost herself.
Then she walked away. She Rewilded herself.
In this deeply
Sad Beige Babies With Sad Beige Parents
Sad beige motherhood helped inspire this podcast.
This week we're diving into the internet aesthetic that convinced an entire generation of mothers that parenting should look like a luxury hotel lobby in Denmark. We talk with Hayley DeRoche, aka The Official Sad Beige and author of Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe, about how influencer culture turned motherhood into a perfectly curated performan
Girls Gone Wild Go Feral—Behind the Scenes of the Show That Shaped a Generation
What if the women from Girls Gone Wild finally got the mic?
This week we go all the way back to the horrifyingly normalized misogyny of the early 2000s with author and podcaster Courtney Kocak, who spent seven deeply unsettling weeks working on the actual Girls Gone Wild tour bus.
Courtney takes us inside the world Joe Francis built: drunk college girls signing contracts they didn’t understand,
Sunday Nice Things: Family Money
So excited to drop Family Money from Babylist into your feed!
Having a baby comes with real money questions, no matter where you're starting from. Welcome to Family Money, a new podcast from Babylist, because it shouldn't feel like only some people know how to play the game.
Family Money is the podcast about the financial side of family life that parents think about constantly but rarely say out
Royals Were the Original Reality Television Stars
Before there were influencers, there were royals.
For centuries, the British royal family has provided the world with fashion trends, family feuds, public scandals, doomed romances, and enough gossip to fuel generations of headlines. Long before social media, people were obsessing over what royals wore, who they married, and what happened behind palace walls.
Bestselling author Melanie Benjamin
What Killed the Girl Power Movement?
The greatest scam of the last 20 years is that women were told if we just worked harder, leaned in more, woke up at 5:00 AM, negotiated better, practiced enough gratitude, optimized ourselves hard enough, and girlbossed with enough intensity, equality and equity would finally be ours.
That didn't happen, did it? This week we're talking about why the entire promise of girl power failed so many wo
MAHA Moms, the Influencer Election and What the Hell Will Happen With Midterms With Emily Amick
There’s a reason so many people are tuning out politics right now. Every day feels like another terrible headline, another scandal too big to process, another moment where you wonder whether we live inside The Onion.
But while everyone is overwhelmed and exhausted, the right has built one of the most sophisticated media ecosystems in modern history.
Emily Amick returns to the podcast to talk a
The Burnout Beneath Ambition
Why does success still feel so empty for so many women?
Executive coach Brooke Taylor says the answer is something she calls “the success wound”: the pain that comes from tying our self-worth to achievement, productivity, perfection, and external validation. In this episode, we unpack why so many high-achieving women are burned out, anxious, over-functioning, and terrified they’re never doing en
We Need to Talk About Spencer Pratt
Years ago, Spencer Pratt was dismissed as a fame-hungry reality TV idiot with frosted facial hair and a crystal obsession. But looking back? He may have understood modern media better than almost anyone else on television.
Now he’s running for mayor of Los Angeles.
Jo digs into the strange pipeline from reality TV to political power, why audiences are drawn to “outsider” candidates they already
What to Read After Yesteryear and the History of Tradwives
If you loved Yesteryear — or absolutely hated it — a lot of you have been asking the same question: what should I read next?
This week on Under the Influence, we’re diving into the ultimate post-Yesteryear reading list, from influencer thrillers and feminist rage novels to nonfiction deep dives into tradwives, Christian patriarchy, mommy influencers, and the very real cost of turning domesticity
Pregnancy in the Age of Social Media
Social media has changed pregnancy in a big way. Between picture-perfect bumps, “effortless” births and endless advice, it’s easy to feel like you’re not measuring up. But it’s also made space for more honest and authentic conversations—the parts of pregnancy that aren’t camera-ready.
In this episode, we talk with journalist Fortesa Latifi, author of Like, Follow, Subscribe, and Ayla Woodruff, an
Why Does the World Hate Ambitious Women?
There's a very specific kind of rage that comes from realizing that the rules were rigged against you the entire time. As women, we were told that we could have ambition, careers, power, money, independence, all of the things, that we could have it all, but only if we managed to pursue all of it while we also remained endlessly agreeable, attractive, maternal, selfless, accommodating, emotionall
A Sneak Peek of THE PARISIAN HEIST
Happy weekend! Here's a sneak peek of the first chapter of Jo van Gogh's story in The Parisian Heist. Just in case you needed a little taste before getting your orders in. In the past timeline of this book we are telling the untold story of Jo van Gogh, Vincent's sister in law who inherited his hundreds of worthless paintings and dedicated her life to making him a household name. She is the reason
Hating on the 3-Hour Mom—We'd Never Do This to a Man
A Wall Street Journal headline about a powerful female executive spending “only” three hours a weekend with her kids turned into an internet blood sports. So we unpack why. In this episode, we get into the outrage around Skims executive Emma Grede, the impossible standards put on mothers, and why no one ever asks dads to account for every minute they spend parenting.
Join our newsletter communi
Visit Ballerina Farm With Me
What happens when you step inside the internet? In this episode, we head to the Ballerina Farm farm shop in Midway, Utah and the Ballerina Farm Dairy (and get a tour with none other than Daniel Neeleman himself).
Come, watch and listen in real time as the branding does exactly what it’s designed to do: make you believe that if you just buy the gingham tote or the sourdough starter or the beef
Art is For Everyone With Liz Lidgett
Art has a branding problem.
Somewhere along the way, we decided it was only for rich people, or academics living in their ivory towers
Liz Lidgett is changing that.
Liz opened a gallery right before the world shut down during the pandemic, started putting art on Instagram when no one could leave their homes, and built a following by making the art world feel way more human.
We talk about how t
Moving at a Human Pace With Isaac Fitzgerald
What does it mean to move through the world at a human pace? To ramble and wander and chat up strangers in real life?
This week, we sit down with writer Isaac Fitzgerald to talk about his new book American Rambler and what happens when you decide to walk across America and follow in the footsteps of Johnny Appleseed.
These great American yappers get into the idea that midlife is a second coming
Money, Marriage, And The Myth of “Having it All — Ask Jo Anything
Ask Jo anything this week. We've got a grab bag of audience questions and completely unfiltered responses to things like:
What’s the biggest lie women are being sold right now?
Can you actually “have it all”?
How do you stop feeling like you’re failing every day?
How does it feel to be in your 40s (body, confidence, not giving a f*)
How often do you get Botox?
What’s it like bri
Let's Read Alone Together a Chat With the Co-Founder of Silent Book Club
There's nothing I love more than quietly reading. I love it alone. I love it in groups. But I especially love doing it in public, with the rest of the world buzzing around me, all absorbed in their own little worlds. What if the antidote to burnout, loneliness, and the attention economy was… sitting in a room with strangers and reading quietly?
This week, I’m talking to Guinevere de la Mare, the
Get Outside! The Indoor Epidemic Is Real and It’s Wrecking Our Brains
We’ve become an indoor species and it is making us sick and burnt out.
Today we're chatting with Dr. John La Puma about the indoor epidemic and what happens when we spend almost all of our time inside under artificial light and on screens.
We break down what that’s doing to sleep, mood, and focus. Dr. La Puma explains how something as simple as stepping outside each day for 17 minutes can reset
My New True Crime Obsession in Utah—the Kouri Richins Murder Trial
Jo’s new true crime obsession started with a trip to Midway, Utah.
She was there for an event at Folklore bookstore and a visit to Ballerina Farm Dairy, and within about five minutes of driving around town someone pointed at a house and said, “that’s the murder house.” At which point she needed to know everything.
This is the story of Kouri Richins, the Utah mom who poisoned her husband with fen
Gen Z Men Are Getting More Conservative. What the Hell Happened?
A third of Gen Z men think wives should obey their husbands. This generation of young men, ages 14 to 29, is getting more conservative by the day. How? Why? And can we reverse it?
To figure it out, we talk with Gen Z strategist and creator Haley Lickstein about what the hell is going on with young men and how much of it is the internet’s fault. And what about the women? Are they fighting back o
The Fine Line Between Cult and Wellness Movement—One Woman's Escape From One Taste and Finding Humor in the Aftermath
How does something marketed as healing, empowerment, and connection start to slide down the slippery slope of becoming a sex cult?
That's just one part of Star Stone’s story inside OneTaste, the sexual wellness company built around “orgasmic meditation,” that sits right on that blurry line between wellness program and cult.
Star takes us from the Bay Area wellness scene of the 2010s to today’s
The Chess Queen Who Wants Women to Stop Waiting for the Perfect Move
How do you make a move when you have no idea what comes next?
Jen Shahade has spent her life inside the world of chess as a two-time U.S. women’s chess champion and the author of many books about chess including her latest Thinking Sideways, a book that uses chess as a way to think better, live better, and stop pretending we can plan ten moves ahead in a world that changes nineteen times a day.
Why So Many Mothers Are Unraveling and Filled With Rage with Libby Ward
We're often told or indoctrinated to believe motherhood is supposed to be magical, fulfilling, your highest calling, the thing that finally makes everything make sense. And yet so many women are quietly unraveling and filled with rage.
This week we sit down with Libby Ward—the hilarious creator behind Diary of an Honest Mom, and author of Honest Motherhood—to talk about the reality of parenting c
Gossip is Good For You! Dissecting Taylor Frankie Paul and the Justin Timberlake DUI Video
Time to do a deep dive into breaking celebrity news and what it’s revealing about our culture right now.
Our guest is Dan Wakeford, a longtime force in entertainment journalism and one of the smartest editors to come out of the celebrity magazine era. He’s now launching a new newsletter, Celebrity Intelligence, built on real reporting, no rumor-chasing and no AI sludge.
We dig into the cancellat
The False Choice Between Tradwife and Girlboss
Why have women been told the only choices are girlboss or tradwife, lean in or opt out, burnout or retreat? We're chatting with author and coach Megan Hellerer about why that binary is so false and so seductive, especially for women who did everything “right” and still wound up exhausted, anxious, and unhappy. Megan shares how she went from Stanford to a dream job at Google to panic attacks on the
Taylor Frankie Paul is a Bingeable Trainwreck and ABC and the Bachelorette Knew That Going Into This
An emergency episode is needed because the Bachelorette just got canceled before it even started and it's just so Secret Lives of Mormon Wives......
ABC pulled Taylor Frankie Paul’s entire season after a video resurfaced from a 2023 incident that was already public and very much part of her story on Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
None of this is new and ABC knew exactly who they were casting to
Women Are Being Gaslit About Birth, a Chat With Dr. Jennifer Lincoln
The internet is full of terrible birth advice, and pregnant people are paying the price. This week, we’re joined by OB-GYN Dr. Jennifer Lincoln to bust the myths, misinformation, and guilt that swirl around labor, delivery, epidurals, C-sections, and motherhood online.
We talk about why so many women go into birth wildly underprepared, why shame has become its own cottage industry, and why dads
How the Right Won the Attention Economy
The right did not accidentally win social media and the internet. They built an entire influencer machine, and the left is still acting like a few sponsored posts during election season might somehow be enough to compete in the attention economy.
We're chatting with Emily Amick about how conservatives turned podcasts, wellness influencers, mommy bloggers, TikTok creators, and pop culture accounts
Sunday Nice Things: Creation Myth
You all loved hearing Helena DeGroot's episode about not having kids so I wanted to drop the first episode of her series Creation Myth here for you to listen to.
The show explores what life's purpose looks like without having children. After the decision not to have kids ended her marriage, 40-year-old Helena grabs her mic to find out: did she make a mistake? We hear from friends and family, and
How Reality TV Changed How We Consume Stories with Survivor's Stephen Fishbach
What’s harder: winningSurvivor or writing a novel? According to former Survivor runner-up Stephen Fishbach, it’s writingthe novel by a billion. In this episode we talk with Stephen about his sharp new thriller Escape, which pulls back the curtain on the reality TV machine and the people trying to control the story behind the scenes.
We get into why Survivor is still one of the most powerful story
Is This Actually a Love Story? JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, the Nineties and Parliament Lights
Are you watching Love Story? This week we're chatting with our resident ’90s guru Glynnis MacNicol about Hulu’s depiction of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's tragic romance and why that title feels either deeply ironic or just flat-out wrong. We talk about the mythology of John John and Carolyn , the downtown NYC glamour of it all, the slip dresses, the cigarettes (the sweet, sweet cigarette, and
Not Having Kids Is Not a Tragedy
What if you do not want kids, but everyone acts like you are making a mistake?
This week, we’re talking with Helena DeGroot, creator of the podcast The Creation Myth, about choosing a child-free life in a culture that refuses to believe that choice can be valid. Helena knew early that she did not want children. Her husband said he was on the same page, until he was not. After years of pressure, t
How Vulnerable Kids Became Clickbait
Content featuring sick, sad, or injured children usually performs best online. Let that sink in.
That insane fact is just one of the unsettling realities journalist Fortesa Latifi uncovered while reporting her new book, Like, Follow, Subscribe, a deep dive into the world of kid influencers and the children growing up as brands.
In this episode of Under the Influence, Latifi explores why vulnera
How History Erased Mothers
Motherhood makes history, but history keeps trying to erase mothers. In this episode of Under the Influence, feminist cultural historian Elinor Cleghorn discusses her new book A Woman’s Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering and unpacks how motherhood has been written and rewritten to strip women of agency. From ancient birth rituals and the long, maligned history of midwifery to the Vi
Grab Bag: Where Did Love Taza Go?
Who was your gateway influencer?
For us, it was Love Taza—Naomi Davis—the Juilliard-trained ballerina (yes, a different one) turned mommy blogger and social star who made New York City look like a candy-coated dream of red lipstick, tiny apartments, and five kids in technicolor. And then she disappeared.
This week’s episode welcomes author Ali Hoff Kosik to talk about her new book Too Blessed to
Sunday Nice Things: Birth With Babylist
Jo has been working on a brand new podcast about birth for the past year and she is so excited to share it with you all.
Today we are sharing the very first episode of Birth with Babylist.
In our first episode, we walk through what birth actually looks like, from early labor through delivery. We talk to experienced OB-GYNs and midwives as they break down the stages of labor, what’s normal, wh
Can You Actually Retire Early When You Have Kids?
Financial advice for parents usually lands in extremes, either panic-inducing warnings about how expensive kids are, or unrealistic frameworks that don’t account for how life actually unfolds. This week’s guests, Christy Shen and Bryce Leung became well-known after publishing Quit Like a Millionaire and retiring at 30 with over a million dollars invested, but their path started from a place of rea
How to Be a Rich Old Lady
Close your eyes (not if you’re driving) and picture your old lady life. You wake up when you want. You wear glorious caftans. You’re strong and you’re rich because you built yourself a safety net.
Today we’re chatting with Amanda Holden, the personal finance educator behind the new book How to Be a Rich Old Lady. We get into why women are trained to feel “bad at money,” how that keeps power in so
Toe Pick!
In celebration of the Winter Olympics (the best thing to ever happen to Peacock) we are bringing back one of our favorite episodes of Committed with professional figure skaters Chris and Alexa Knierim.
These two shared the same dream when they fell in love and got married—get to the Olympics... together. They didn’t let broken bones or a mysterious illness get in their way. Their love story is e
Grab Bag: The Ballerina Farm Raw Milk Scandal, Hating on the Katies & Intellectual It Girls
Today’s episode is a grab bag — a hodgepodge of the stories people have been asking me about in my DMs for the past week.
First up: the Ballerina Farm raw milk scandal. We break down the failed raw milk tests, the health concerns, and why the internet reacted with such gleeful ferocity. This isn’t really about unpasteurized dairy with cow poop bacteria in it. It’s about influencer perfection
Moms Drive the Economy. So Why Are They Still Underpaid?
Moms drive the majority of household purchasing decisions. Recommendations from mom influencers outperform traditional ads. They even convert better than celebrity endorsements. And yet, they’re still treated like they should be grateful for a free product and an affiliate link.
This week we talk with Chelsea Clark, founder and CEO of Momfluence, an influencer marketing agency built specifically
Why Planning Summer Has Become a Nightmare
Every January, parents are asked to plan the entire summer for their kids months in advance, spend a lot of money, juggle waitlists, and pretend this isn't a hellscape of doom. In this episode, we chat with journalist Katherine Goldstein about the overwhelming amount of summer planning we all seem to be doing and why so much of it falls on moms.
There are a ton of reasons for this that are uniqu
From Momfluencers to MILFs: Who Gets Labeled a Bad Mother
If you’ve had kids, you’ve probably wondered at some point if you’re a bad mother. I would say this is true for 99.9 percent of us. And the other 0.1 percent is Ruby Franke.
On today’s episode of Under the Influence, we're joined by Cut culture writer EJ Dickson to talk about her smart, sharp and wildly satisfying new book One Bad Mother: In Praise of Psycho Housewives, Stage Parents, Momfluencer
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