Order Devorah's Book HERE Subscribe to the Over the Influence newsletter HERE for episode transcripts, bonus content and more of my ramblings about weird stuff on and off the Internet. And order your college roommate a copy of The Sicilian Inheritance to make up for that Pearl Jam CD you never returned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
A couple of years ago, Kelli Stuart was diagnosed with breast cancer after she went in for a routine mammogram and it did not go the way she expected. Once Kelli got her diagnosis she wanted to find one thing in her life that she could control. Like a lot of women that I know and love, Kelli is a doer and a fixer. She talked to all of the doctors and did the treatments that they recommended, but she also wanted to do more. She wanted to know more. While Kelli was waiting for her treatments to do...
A lot of parents are putting really gross shit of their kids online every single day. And millions of people are watching it. Millions! Millions. We are talking about poop blowouts and booger picking videos and vomit and pee and every possible bodily fluid you can imagine. Sarah Adams is the unfortunate recipient of many of these videos. Ever since Sarah started the anti-sharenting account, Mom Uncharted, where she discusses the perils and pitfalls of sharing your kids online, her audience have ...
You can read Minna's original piece in the New York Times here and buy Mom Rage here . As always, grab your Sicilian Inheritance often and early . I need to know how many cannolis to make for the launch! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Earlier this week we asked whether the "traditional wife" Lex Delarosa was trolling us with her Instagram account. So many of you were convinced that her content was satire. UTI is here to clear up the confusion once and for all. You'll have to listen to find out the answer. But what I can tell you is that this conversation veers off into so many different tangents, including the massive levels of hate Lex gets on her account. The comments she gets vary from things like, "I don't like your hair,...
Have you heard about #softgirls? They're young women who want to check out of hustle culture. Their greatest dream is to achieve nothing. She doesn't want to be a girl boss. In fact, a lot of them do not want to work for pay at all. She just wants to perfect her skincare regime and do all the Pilates. Are these women aspiring to be little more than trophy wives? Are they the gateway drug to #tradwives and a life of submission to men? We're here to find out with Glamour reporter Stephanie McNeal ...
Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe to Anne Helen Petersen's Substack Culture Study . Read her piece on #tradwives here . And listen to her podcast Work Appropriate . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Jessica Elefante used to be part of the problem. She was a brand strategist and marketer who created fake problems for us so we would buy things and do things. Because that is what brands and influencers do. They trick us into believing we need things to make our lives better. But now Jessica is a reformed BS artist and she wants to fix the problem. She wants to help us figure out how to stop the nefarious forces of influence from making us unhappy and unhinged with her new book Raising Hell, Li...
What will happen to all the kids having their lives made into content? How do they feel? Maybe they're fine, maybe they're miserable. It is so hard to know because most of them are still so young. But reporter Fortesa Latifi has done a deep dive into how influencer kids are feeling about their entire lives being broadcast online. She spoke to one young woman of an influencer who told her parents she didn't want to be in their videos any more and they told her if she didn't appear they would lose...
What line do we cross when we post pictures of sick kids to social media and why does the Instagram algorithm and content machine seem to promote these kinds of images? I am not the only one who gets creeped out when I am served pictures and videos of other people’s sick kids in the hospital. The discomfort is very real. I need to talk through all of my feelings about posting sick kids on Instagram and the money making infrastructure (branded content of sick children) around it which is why I am...
Feeding kids is hard. It doesn't matter if you have a sushi-loving toddler or one who eats three beige foods. There is judgement and stigma about everything and it is easy for moms to feel like they are constantly failing. Today we talk to author, podcaster and substacker Virginia Sole-Smith (author of Fat Talk and substacker of Burnt Toast) about how kid food influencers on social media can make mothers feel shame and promote diet culture and anti-fat bias from an incredibly young age. BUY Virg...
The robots are coming for all of us. Companies like Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, are using books to train their AI machines without asking for permission. Jo did a search on The Atlantic's database of books that AI is using to train its robots to steal our livelihoods and found FIVE of her titles on there. We are now clearly living in the Matrix. It begs the question of what else are these companies hiding and what else could they be stealing from us. We have to care about how Meta...
Munchausen by Proxy has gotten a lot of attention lately with Patricia Arquette's star turn in the series The Act. MBP refers to when a caregiver abuses a child by pretending they are ill in order to get attention for themselves. With the rise and prevalence of social media there are more and more cases of Munchausen by Proxy and Munchausen syndrome happening in the digital world. There are cases of people pretending to be sick themselves to get attention and cases of caregivers pretending their...
You can download all of the Infamous episodes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-the-future-and-everybody-is-thin/id1652941051?i=1000628712174 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Well we just had too much to say about Ballerina Farm to keep it to one episode. Her brand has become a mini empire and I look at it a little like Ree Drummond meets Laura Ingalls Wilder meets the personality of Emily in Paris. Prairie life nostalgia is currently big business and that's why I had to call our very own Wilder/Prairie Life expert Glynnis MacNicol to figure out why so many people have such strong feelings about this woman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/a...
Buy Sara's book y'all. MOMFLUENCED is an incredible read. You can also subscribe to her substack here . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Quick update on the Ruby Franke story wherein everyone throws everyone else under the bus. Kevin Franke says he and Ruby were separated! He has been in "a fog" for the past year. Her sisters call her a narcisscist who should be put away forever and her sister-in-law just says Ruby IS NOT her cup of tea. My takeaway? Everyone in this story is awful in their own special awful way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...
Thank you to Jessica Grose for joining me on today's adventure. BUY HER BOOK. She is a national treasure. Screaming on the Inside was just released in paperback . We used a very brief clip from ABC News. Their coverage of this story is impeccable. You can read more here . Transcripts of this episode are available to paid subscribers of my Substack, Over the Influence . I mentioned my new book, The Sicilian Inheritance. It is available for pre-order now . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit p...
Laura Ingalls Wilder probably couldn’t have imagined the multi-million dollar media empire that would emerge from her books. From the television show to prairie chic dresses to dolls to tin cups bearing her name, Laura is a brand, a business and, dare we say it, an influencer. Her stories have spawned industries large and small, both directly and indirectly for nearly a century. In this very special episode from the new podcast, Wilder , Jo discovers how the fantasy of a simple prairie life got ...
But it is coming. We decided that maybe Jo's birthday isn't the most impactful day for women to shut down the Internet and truth be told we also got cold feet since we've seen a lot of failed internet strikes this summer. But don't worry, we picked a new day for all of us to shut it the f*ck down. In the meantime Jo did a guest appearance on Bridget Todd's podcast "There Are No Girls on the Internet" talking about a strange corner of the Instagram influencer world dedicated to #tradwives, women ...
The social media influencer has officially replaced the plucky girl journalist as the heroine of choice in women's fiction. The latest and most hilarious example of this is Jenny Mollen's new novel City of Likes, a wickedly funny story about a woman just like us who gets sucked into the maddening web of a mom influencer. Jo got to hop on Jenny's podcast "Third Wheel" this week to chat all about influencers, female friendship, the attention economy and Mormon momfluencers soft swinging with each ...
Jo and Glynnis are making a new show and they need your help... See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Holly Frey, host of Stuff You Missed in History Class , sits down with Kris McDaniel and Andi Gordon, two winners of Seneca Women to Hear: Search for the Next Great Female Podcasters See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
As women’s rights are eroding in the United States, our Women’s Day Off (the Internet) is becoming increasingly necessary. While we plan it, we take one more look at Iceland as a model for how to build a better society for everyone and particularly for women. Luckily we don’t have to go too far back this time. We can look at the women who are there right now–specifically Iceland’s first lady, Eliza Reid. In her book, Secrets of the Sprakkar , she tells the stories of extraordinary Icelandic wome...
Prepare your flux capacitor because we’re going back to the future. In the final episode of Season 2, Jo talks to experts in social media to predict what’s to come in the influencer world. Right now, social media could be compared to the Wild West: unregulated, unpredictable, and quite frankly, unfair to a lot of people. But luckily, with the help of some incredible women, influencers and consumers are starting to fight back. This episode features Lindsey Lugrin who is working to eliminate unpai...
These days it seems like everyone’s houses look remarkably similar. White kitchens, brushed brass accessories, exposed beams and all the shiplap. Why, you ask? Because we are all under the influence of design influencers. These people log on to Instagram every day and show you, yes you, how to take your older home and make it look newish, modern, but still cozy and old-timey. In a lot of ways this has been a revolutionary and wonderful development: free advice on how to renovate your home at you...
There truly is an influencer for everything! After spending a week in the hospital when her son got a concussion (don’t worry, everyone is ok), Jo left with a glaring realization: Rule 35 even applies to the medical industry. The nurses in the ICU revealed that they all follow nurse influencers, even post on Instagram during their breaks, and some have over a million followers. But nurse influencing isn't all scrubs sponsorships. COVID-19 and vaccine hesitation have created a social media battle...
Influencers pop up where women need them most. They create a space to discuss taboo topics and provide resources when social structures fail us. Fertility is one of those topics, and fertility influencers have a large community of women flocking to them for answers, advice, and support. But not all women feel the same about this content. Are fertility influencers good? They destigmatize the topic and offer free information for an otherwise pricey process. Or, are fertility influencers bad? They ...
It is nearly impossible to find a therapist that is covered by insurance, doesn’t have a waiting list, or even just returns your phone calls. Nowadays, we tend to rely more on people we know through social media to provide us with the alleviation of our mental struggles rather than traditional paths such as face-to-face therapy. What are the dangers of this? Being diagnosed by unlicensed advice givers? Being given recommendations for prescription medication that will mess with your brain? Develo...
Last week we dove down the rabbit hole of mental health Instagram. We're all in the midst of a mental health crisis right now and frankly we could all use a little help. While social media is often a major contributing factor, if not the source, of these mental health problems, there is also the flipside: comfort creators. These are the people who use social media to post content that you turn to when you are feeling down and need a pick-me-up. They are not necessarily there to give advice like ...
