All the latest on the dumpster fire coming out of Buckingham Palace. Apparently the royals think NOW is a good time to hire a new communications assistant. And Jo has applied for the job! Also Donald Trump has weighed in on Kate-gate and he has thoughts....thoughts that might surprise you. All that and more with our resident Kate expert Caro Claire Burke. Follow Caro HERE . Order your Sicilian Inheritance HERE . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Mar 22, 2024•40 min•Ep. 101
Today we're going to talk about two things that we don't talk about nearly often enough—career setbacks and women's ambition. And these things have way more to do with one another than we might think. I genuinely believe that our ambition only increases or has the potential to increase after a setback. That's one of the reasons I wanted to bring on both of today's guests. We will be hearing from business strategist and all over hype woman Amanda Wagner about why ambition should never be consider...
Mar 21, 2024•49 min•Ep. 99
A lot of things get fetishized on Instagram and #farmlife is one of them. Farm life on social media is often portrayed as hazy, beautiful, aspirational leisure. We rarely, if ever, see the hard actual work that goes into farming, the backbreaking labor and the intense costs of maintaining a farm. We do see a lot of chickens and beautiful blue eggs, but never the dirt under the fingernails or the fields that have failed due to unpredictable weather patterns. We don't see these things because they...
Mar 19, 2024•36 min•Ep. 98
Who wants to enjoy a little bit of nostalgia this Sunday morning? Join Jo on the magical and wonderful happy-making Stuck in Stonybrook podcast where they revisit our favorite childhood series through a modern (and often feminist) lens. Subscribe to more Stuck in Stonybrook here . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Mar 17, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 97
How do YOU discover new books that you love? I think that people want to read what other people are reading. I think we are desperate for water cooler conversation about books, the kind we used to have before everyone had Stanley Cups. Today we are digging into the world of book influence with Zibby Owens (AUTHOR OF THE NEW NATIONAL BESTSELLER BLANK). Zibby has been at the forefront of getting books to people for the past decade as a podcaster of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books, as an event p...
Mar 14, 2024•43 min•Ep. 95
Very important topic today in this emergency episode—what the heck is going on with Kate Middleton? We do a deep dive into all the conspiracy theories (and how the Swifties are involved), the specifics of the photo manipulation, why people even give a flying eff and most importantly what this has to do with how we treat women in the media. We also have to talk about how we cover brands, because make no mistake the Royal family is a celebrity brand that is failing spectacularly at their crisis ma...
Mar 13, 2024•40 min•Ep. 96
"If we weren't so afraid of being old, we could have a vision in our head of what we could be when we are an older woman." — Lyn Slater In 2014, Lynn Slater became an accidental icon when she started a fashion blog and Instagram account in her early sixties. The media went wild and all of the stories focused on how she was an older woman who dared to talk about style and fashion and put it out there on the Internet. Lyn rode the influencing wave for nearly a decade before she decided she wanted ...
Mar 11, 2024•47 min•Ep. 94
Gen X is the scrappiest generation and we might just be the generation to change how we think about and treat perimenopause. Today we get to talk to my dear friend Stacy London about perimenopause and perimenopause influencers. When Stacy was going through perimenopause herself advocacy and education for women's healthcare became her new passion and her new business. Stacy has worked her ass off to break through the noise and the b.s. around perimenopause and we are going to get into all of it. ...
Mar 07, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 91
There is nothing better than leaving your children and going on vacation with your best friend. My own BF Jackie crashed my reporting trip in Sicily this week (much to my delight) and it reminded me of the importance of both travel and girlfriend time. This does not sound like every other episode of UTI, but I thought maybe you might like to be in a car with us on this weird journey in Sicily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Mar 06, 2024•42 min•Ep. 93
Social media is incredibly toxic for women and girls. I say this all the time, and sometimes I start to feel like a real conspiracy theorist, like the social media version of a prepper telling you to build a tunnel under your house with lots of canned goods, but it is still something I truly believe. My guest today is Kara Alaimo, the author of OVER THE INFLUENCE (a book, not my substack). It looks at how social media is affecting every single aspect of the lives of women and girls from our pare...
Mar 05, 2024•40 min•Ep. 92
Today's Sunday Nice Things has everything that you want in a Sunday listen—swingers, the seventies and puritanical Minnesota. From my friends who bring you the Terrible Thanks for Asking podcast comes a new show called Time Capsule: The Silver Chain. This is an 8-episode “true no-crime” documentary podcast that delves into the secret world of partner-swapping suburbanites in 1970s Minnesota. Newsletters from an abandoned safe deposit box set host Paul Ditty on an investigation to learn all he ca...
Mar 03, 2024•51 min•Ep. 90
There is no one-size fits all cure for grief. It's something you just have to go through and we all go through it in different ways. There has recently been a rise in grief influencers on Instagram and some of them can be quite predatory, targeting people at their most vulnerable time to purchase things like course to overcome their grief. Some of them are also wonderful and helpful. Like everything on social media there is a spectrum. Here to talk to me about all of this today is Sloane Crosley...
Feb 29, 2024•52 min•Ep. 89
We've talked a lot on this podcast about using kids as content and where the line should be drawn. We've also talked about mothers posting pictures of their sick kids to get attention. But there is another side to the story. What if your child had a rare disease? What if one of the only ways to get the medical establishment and doctors to take notice of that disease was to shout about it at the top of your lungs, sometimes on social media? What would you do? It's an impossible question. Last Nov...
Feb 27, 2024•43 min•Ep. 88
On today's episode of Sunday Nice Things we are bringing you the series Momplicated where host Dana Phillips dives into the dumpster fire of motherhood with women who aren't afraid to swim around in the muck and pick trash out of your hair. Today she is joined by the hilarious Caitlin Murray, who is best known for her wickedly funny Instagram account Big Time Adulting! Dana and Caitlin discuss vacationing with kids, the awfulness of sick and snow days and why it is OK to not love the baby stage ...
Feb 25, 2024•49 min•Ep. 86
Pandora's Box is open. We will never go backwards in terms of technology. Social media literacy is media literacy. There are more eyeballs on small screens scrolling through influencers than people reading political news or watching television shows. Influencers have more of an impact on people than most politicians and traditional celebrities. We need to talk about how to talk about them. Today we are joined by media critic and writer Caroline Burke about the different ways to parse the social ...
Feb 22, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 85
The former family Youtuber and vlogger Ruby Franke has been sentenced to up to 60 years in prison for felony child abuse. And frankly, I'm just going to say it here—I hope she serves the maximum sentence. This comes after Ruby has admitted to punishing her children in a variety of horrific ways. Quick update on the news and the ripple effect it could have in the parenting influencing community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Feb 21, 2024•3 min•Ep. 87
Have you ever rewatched a beloved movie as an adult and then been shocked, absolutely shocked by the behavior of the parents in it? A great example is The Parent Trap (both versions) in which two parents choose to abandon one of the children because they don't like one another. Today we are getting into which pop culture representations of parents do and don't hold up with Andie Mitchell , and Sabrina Kohlberg , the hosts of the brand spanking new Pop Culture Moms (it's not even out yet so this ...
Feb 20, 2024•50 min•Ep. 84
Each week on the SSR (Shit She Read) podcast host Alli Hoff Kosik will challenge a guest to reread a literary throwback or to experience for the first time ever a book they may have missed as a kid. The show covers everything from The Baby-Sitters Club to Holes to Nancy Drew and Harry Potter. Guests are asked to spill all the feels and all the opinions about their throwback read for your podcast-listening pleasure. A glass of wine is not required, but it's certainly allowed. This week I happen t...
Feb 18, 2024•59 min•Ep. 83
Welcome to Friday Quickies....the Daily for influencer and social news with more foul language and swingers. This week we talk about Taylor Swift giving her boyfriend's podcast a boost, Minnesota joining the good fight to pay influencer kids and why Instagram is censoring your politics and how you can keep following the accounts you love. We also have the trailer for the new narrative swinger podcast (yeah you heard that right) Time Capsule: The Silver Chain. You can subscribe to Time Capsule he...
Feb 16, 2024•17 min•Ep. 82
Molly Winter recently hit the New York Times bestseller list with her memoir MORE, an account of the first ten years of opening up her marriage when her children were young. She is still happily married and she says her marriage and sex life is better than ever because she has been able to explore more facets of herself with her partners. Molly's account of the first 10 years of her open marriage is raw and honest and eye-opening. It has plenty of lessons for people who don't want to open up the...
Feb 15, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 81
It's not pretty. But it is real. There's a new breed of the ANTI-TRADWIFE out there and they are sharing the raw and honest stories about living a life submissive to a man and what it looks like on the other side. Today we are talking to Enitza Templeton, a mom of four who was a tradwife for ten years before she left her husband to try to make it on her own. Entiza made a video from the food stamps office that went viral on TikTok where she warned young women against depending on a man for finan...
Feb 13, 2024•29 min•Ep. 80
Welcome to a new episode of Sunday Nice Things. This week we are bringing you the new show Gratitudeology created by my friend Jamie Hess. When Jamie almost died, she woke up. As daughter of legendary broadcast journalist Joan Lunden, it seemed from the outside that Jamie had everything… so why did she feel so empty inside? She pondered that question as she fell into a life of drug addiction, and when she hit her bottom, it hit her: nothing feels good until we get grateful… but we often don’t fe...
Feb 11, 2024•47 min•Ep. 79
Need some news you can use to talk about at your Super Bowl Party? We have Glamour reporter Steph McNeal here to explain the latest right wing conspiracy theory about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce faking their relationship to help Biden. Also all the updates from Teen Vogue's Fortesa Latifi on laws to compensate the kids of influencers and the new backlash against luxury stuff influencers on TikTok. Welcome to the world of DEINFLUENCERS. Some stories to catch you up: Are Taylor Swift and Travis ...
Feb 09, 2024•22 min•Ep. 78
Let's talk about anxiety, real talk about anxiety! Today we are joined by Julie Chavez, a librarian, mom of two and the author of the memoir Everyone But Myself. When you are a working mom, there is no time for debilitating anxiety. There's not. And the terrifying aftershocks of Julie's first panic attack left her grappling with questions about the causes of her mental health crisis and where it was going to lead next. This book resonated with me so deeply. This is a hopeful and honest account o...
Feb 08, 2024•43 min•Ep. 77
Tia Levings was recruited into a Christian fundamentalist movement as a young wife. She quickly learned that being a godly and submissive wife in the Christian patriarchy included strict discipline and isolation, and required women to be silent keepers of the home. Years of pain and abuse followed. After becoming a mother, Tia realized that she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women. That's when she fled with her ...
Feb 06, 2024•46 min•Ep. 76
Welcome to Sunday Nice Things! Today we have an episode of This American Ex-Wife from the wonderful Lyz Lenz! I first became obsessed with Lyz when I read her book God Land and then she came on an early episode of Under the Influence to talk about attending a mom influencing conference and I fell hard for her. She's the creator of the newsletter Men Yell at Me which I read religiously every time it hits my inbox. This American Ex-wife is a podcast that explores the state of American heterosexual...
Feb 04, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 75
So many of you have asked me for an audio preview of The Sicilian Inheritance that I finally just sat down and created one! Why not! I love this part. In it our main character has just met our Sicilian protagonist Giusy in a Sicilian restaurant. It's filled with delicious food and wine and even ends in a cliffhanger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Feb 03, 2024•9 min
The #fitfluencers and #wellness brands are coming for you. And they've been on the attack since January 1. This time of alleged renewal and reinvention is the Super Bowl for brands hoping to sell you a "better" or a "thinner" you. YOU are the product during this time of year and brands pay big money to get in front of you during this vulnerable time. Today we chat with digital brand marketer Amy Shoenthal (author of the Setback Cycle) about HOW you get targeted and Danielle Friedman (author of L...
Feb 01, 2024•39 min•Ep. 74
We talk a lot about the negative parts of social media, but good things do happen online. One of those good things is community. Five years ago the New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg started #1000WordsofSummer. It’s an online community that convenes for two weeks in June to write 1,000 words a day. People were obsessed with it. Jami’s new book, 1,000 Words, is inspired by this community. It includes letters from her and over 50 seasoned writers on how to do the work when it’s the l...
Jan 30, 2024•36 min•Ep. 73
If you want more of She Pivots you can find all the episodes here . Under the Influence is sponsored by Quince and Honeylove . Give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince ! Go to Quince.com/influence for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Get 20% OFF @honeylove by going to https://www.honeylove.com/Influence #honeylovepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Jan 28, 2024•53 min•Ep. 72
