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SMNTY Interviews: Jo Piazza · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stephan Never Told You plecture Ihart Radio, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: today we are so thrilled to once again be joined
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: by friend of the show, hopefully real life friend you
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: can never meet in person.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: I'd love that.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, me too, Joe Piazza. Welcome, Joe, Hi,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Thank you for coming on.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: You have been on the show before.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: I have.
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: I have.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: It has just it's been a minute, and it's been
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: too many minutes, I think, because I love chatting with you,
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: and we should just be friends in real life too.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: We should just do this in person, like in a bar.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: That would be fun, That would be a delight. I
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: was gonna say for me because I have. I was
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: not on when you came on, but I'm like, you
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: have a celebrity to me because I'm like, in our world,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: podcast world, you're such a big name. So I'm like, ooh, oh,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get the insight we wouldn't get like the
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: real pro tip.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Here because I've been doing this forever and mostly because
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: it's the only skill that I have. I can make
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: podcasts and I can write books and in the zombie
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: apocalypse or the chat gpt apocalypse. There I have nothing left,
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Like I have no skills. I'll just be irrelevant.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: To be honest, I don't know. Those are pretty big skills,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Like someone needs to tell the stories when all of
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: us but one person dies, you have to leave that story.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Just guys. I just pictured me running around chasing zombies
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: with like a microphone, with like my zoom microphone, me like.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Hey, do you feel the day?
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Are you feeling at the end of the world.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: You get on social media.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Today, braids, braids frads, Well, oh my gosh, you have
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: been on here before, but it has been a minute. Yes,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: But for people who don't remember because that was before
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the apocalypse or missed that episode, can you introduce yourself
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: to our listeners?
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Hi, listeners, I am Joe Piazza. As we mentioned, I've
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: been making podcasts for a while, for about seven seven
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: years now. I started out making the podcast Committed and
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: now I produce Under the Influence, which is about all
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: of the ways that the Internet and social media are
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: ruining our lives on a daily basis. And I'm also
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: an author. I write novels about kick women doing adventurous
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: things and The latest one is The Sicilian Inheritance, which
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: is just a delicious romp and murder mystery in Sicily
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: that comes out in April.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: So the delicious romp makes me know that you really
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: are an author.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Exactly, exactly, just a delicious romp everyone, of a murder mystery,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: of a murder mystery.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, on that note, can you tell us more
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: about the book, because I was reading the description and
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I'm very interested.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, guys, it's so good. So I will
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: tell you this, and I don't say that lightly, but
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: The Sicilian Inheritance is the best book that I've ever written,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: and I've written a lot of books. At this point,
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: I finally just sat down and I wrote the book
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: that I would want to read. I want to read
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: something that is fun, that is fun, but also that
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: doesn't make me feel gross or bad about myself. So
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: not just a bunch of smut, even though we've got
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: some smut in the book, but not it's not too
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: much and that you walk away feeling kind of smart.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: So it's set in two different timelines, and it's loosely
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: based on my own great great grandmother's murder in Sicily
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: about one hundred years ago, and the modern day protagonist
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: returns to Sicily to try to solve her own great
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: grandmother's murder, and they both are confronted with the nefarious
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: forces of the modern day mafia. And they're both strong,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: headstrong women trying to make it in very male dominated fields.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Sarah Fina from nineteen o eight is trying to be
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: a doctor. Sarah is a restauranteur who you know, she's
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: a chef in the very male restaurant world. And it's
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: all set on the beautiful, rugged, and sometimes slightly terrifying
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: island of Sicily. Oh okay, can you guys tell I'm
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: still perfecting my elevator pitch.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: No, that was great.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: You got me hooked. I'm like, wait what, I have
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: so many questions because also, like you said, loosely and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I was like, loosely based on what? How much? How
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: much of it?
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: So so loosely based? Actually, so it's really and we're
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: gonna we're about to get into podcast territory here. So
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: we All I knew was that my great great grandmother,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Lorenza had been murdered back in Sicily. Her husband came
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: to America all her children came to America, she stayed behind.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: We didn't know why, maybe to sell land or because
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: it was safer for a while, and she was killed
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: before she came over. It's just family life. And for
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: all I knew, it could have been made up because
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: my family's Italian American and their liars they just like
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: they make up stories, right, And so I didn't know.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: But I was fascinated by this idea of this woman
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: alone in Sicily, and I based my book off that
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: without knowing anything else. But because I'm a massive ambition
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: podcast monster, I decided to create a true crime podcast
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: where I try to solve the actual murder. Oh that
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: we'll be coming out in March before Sicilian Inheritance. The
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: book comes out in April, and we went back to
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Sicily this summer to try to solve the murder and
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm closer to doing it that I know. I
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: found out so much but digging around in town records,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: like we found like the entry for her death in
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: the book of deaths in this little Sicilian town, and
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: my producer, Kate Osborne came with me and she recorded everything.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: So so Cilian Inheritance will be your next favorite novel
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: and also maybe your next favorite podcast. Again, I'm just
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: I'm a monster, I'm a content monk.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I let it know that was gonna be. My next
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: question was like, did you actually try to solve this murder?
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: And here we are with a great teaser, and so said,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I have to wait until next year.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: But as an adventure, it's it's actually an adventure, and
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I think, I mean, I genuinely think all of us
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: kind of want an adventure right now. Life has been weird,
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: so weird lately that I just wanted to create some
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: things that would bring people joy and the right amount
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: of escapism, and I think that we managed to do it.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: So I'm just I'm really excited about about these these
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: things coming into the world.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: That's amazing. So I have I have many follow up
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: questions about that, but one of them, oh I will
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: So you have written a lot of books. You have
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: written a lot of books in a lot of different genres.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: How was this different? You've said like, it was nice
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: to get to write something you really want to read.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: But also every time I watch like any kind of
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: mystery or a murder mystery, I'm always like, how did
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: did you know the ending? When you started out like
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: leaving all these clues. No, no, I please explain.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: So I am not woo woo about anything, except now,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: after doing all of this research, I think I may
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: be like a Sicilian witch or something because some of
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: the stuff that I wrote without in the novel again
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: fiction fiction. It's the Sicilian Inheritance is fiction. But then
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: when I started reporting out my great great grandmother's murder,
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: some of it was the same. Isn't that creepy? It's creepy.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: But so when I write, and sometimes I co write
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: with another person, my co writer, Christine Pride, and we've
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: done two novels together. We are not like them and
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: you were always And she's an outliner and I drive
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: her crazy because I won't outline. I have a general
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: idea and then I sit down and I write two
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: thousand words and I don't know what's going to happen next,
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: like have a vague But with the Sicilian Inheritance especially,
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: I did not know the ending, like it just popped
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: into my head. And I'm only woo woo about the
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: fact that I think that ideas come when you just
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: like start putting in the work, when you start creating
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: the characters in your head, and it did. It just
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: started coming to me in bits and pieces, and the
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: ending is a real banger. But it was not where
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: I thought we were going. Okay, yeah, yeah, so I know.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: But most writers that I know like to plot and
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: outline the whole thing and like really know exactly what's
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: gonna happen. It does drive my editors crazy sometimes too,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: because they're like, so, what's gonna happen at the end
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: of this book that we just bought, And I'm like,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Your guess is as good as mine.
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: There will be an ending, but I don't know what
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: it is. They're like, Okay, we have a lot of
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: faith in you, okay.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, well by now, yes obviously, because you've written a
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: ton of books that have been successful. So I'm sure
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, okay, we know where we get it.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: We don't want this process.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: But we know very anxious with this process, but we
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: will get it.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: That's interesting because I sort of do both. Samantha knows.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I'm a planner, like I plan, I outline, but a
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: lot of times when I write, I'm like, you just
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: have to write and see what happens.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: That's the thing, right, Like you don't know what I
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: just I think that there's magic in it. I really do.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: I think there's magic in the process and that the
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: reader can also kind of feel that magic. But I
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: will say that I read some novels and I'm like, oh,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: I can tell you were like sticking to a script,
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: like you had you had an idea of where this
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: is going, and like you just wrote to it. And
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: that's fine, but they you feel a little less magical.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: To me, right. But then on the other side, you
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: can read things and you're like, you clearly had no
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: plan and thought this was such a moving ending, but
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: it happened.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: There was nothing that left up to it, but it
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: didn't deliver, didn't.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: So it's a balance. It's a balance.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Its balance, although I will say so I have a
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: lot of the book is out with early readers right now,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: and we've got I've got a lot of people telling
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: me they end up in tears, and I'm like, good,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: that's what I want to make you cry. I want
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: to make you cry, so.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: One of those that's fun, like.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: A good cry at the end.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: I was invested in this and so I had a
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: good cry. It also makes people hungry, so it's so
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: filled with food. And when I went I wrote it.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: I wrote most of it before I went back to
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Sicily this summer. But the only things that I added,
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: and I kept pulling it back from my editor, were
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: more and more food, like I would have one meal, like,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh, we have to put these to write
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: buttery delicious, like Cornetto's in there, and she's like really,
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: and I'm like, yeah, it matters. So I'm telling people
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: like I'm issuing a warning. I'm like, don't read this
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: book if you don't have access to food, like right
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: next to you, like cheese, a nice cheese plate, because
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: you will be starving the second you start reading it.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: You're gonna eat all things. Well, when you described it
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: as a delicious romp, I was going to ask, is
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: it including a lot of descriptures for Italian food, because
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: that's like the first thing that pops into my head.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: But no, no, no, that's too cliche.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: It is soche and that's the thing. I'm like, you
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: know what, I love it filled with food, filled with wine.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: There's like a sexy Italian dude who's kind of mysterious,
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: like it's got all of the things that you want.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And from an Italian, I'm like, I just want to.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Deliver man like and you're like, I'm kind of like,
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: this is what I hope for. You're gonna get it.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Right, and if it's really well written, that the script
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: is gonna make you want that pasta immediately, like I'm
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: gonna need to fly to Sicily. Actually she's writing about.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Well, so when I do all my book clubs, because
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: I've also I mean, I've written a lot of books,
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: and I've done a lot of book events and they
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: can be really boring, and I don't want to do
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: boring book events anymore. So I'm going to be doing
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Sicilian wine tasting, canola making, pasta making classes, or just
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: events where we just eat and we could talk about
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: the book, but we don't have to. We could just
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: eat food and stare at each other.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: You're gonna give us a personal invice. You're there friends.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, because we're friends in real life. Now exactly,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I'm just nothing. I think now that in my approach
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: to middle age, I have decided I'm not going to
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: do things that don't bring me joy anymore. And like
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: just standing in front of a crowd and reading a
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: book and hate it. So I want to stand in
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: front of a crowd and eat a cannoli or eat
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: nine canolis. That's what makes me happy as.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: You talk about the book. Maybe maybe not as it
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: would make everybody else happy as well.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Who doesn't want a cannoli?
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: Everyone wants a cannoli? Like what brings you? What brings
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: my reader's joy? Food? So yes, I will bring that
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: to them. Blows my mind that ninety percent of the
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: events that I have, either they've been my events or
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: I've gone to other people's events, ninety percent of them
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: don't have any wine. And I'm like, this is ridiculous.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: No one wants it's a crime. It's like, what's a crime?
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: I compare it to children's birthday parties that don't have
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: adult beverages. Oh, I go to a lot of them
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: because I've been breeding for seven years. So I have
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: a six year old, a four year old, and an
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: almost a year old. And when I show up at
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: a kid's birthday party at a play space or something,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: they don't have wine for me, And like, what do
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: you want me to do for an hour?
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: Here?
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know anything people, And so just to stare
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: at my children's sober makes small to other parents. I'm
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: not here for that. I am not here for that.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: I have my four year old's birthday party this week
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: which we we just like go in the park across
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: the street. Like I will not like you know, throw
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: like a bar mitsv level party for these children at
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: this point, but I will make a signature of cocktail
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: for that event. I will indeed for.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: The grown nuts.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Then it's really just and a poloma is what it's
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: going to be.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: The three pieces, three piece, very important.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Delightful, so important.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And that's the one I would go to. Like I
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: typically don't go to gatherings in general if they have children,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not probably not gonna come just because I'm like,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I don't what to do there. But if they offer drinks, yeah.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: And I hate it. But it's like a.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: No, you don't have open bars off we with our wedding,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: we decided to keep the bar open during the vows.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: So Glennis McNicol, who you know is like my collaborator
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: on so many things and my best friend she married us,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: but she was encouraging people. She's like, if you'd like
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: to go get some more champagne. Cool, Like this is
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: part of it isn't really for you, it's for them.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: So like you know, mill about get some more drinks
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: and like people still say it was the best wedding
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: they've ever been to.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, agreat the first so formal host Kristin Conger. I
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: went to her wedding and they had a pre bar
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: opening so that we wouldn't just stand there and we
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: would have drinks when they were walking down. The all
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: was like, yes, this, I'm in favor. Yeah, let's heave it.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Yes exactly. I had champagne while we were sitting up there.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Well yeah, yeah, we did a Quaker ceremony. We're not Quakers.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: I'm just a fan of them. And in a Quaker ceremony,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: we brought in all of my favorite cultural and religious dropes.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Like we did we like sat on chairs and people
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: hoisted us up. And we're definitely not Jewish, but there's
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: so many Jewish friends that they were so skilled about
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: it that they're like, yeah, of course we want to
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: do this at your wedding.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: We'll help.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: But we borrowed parts of the Quaker ceremony where anyone
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: can stand up at any time and say anything about you.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: So it's like the whole crowd does your vows with you,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: and it's it's really weirdly beautiful, like and people say
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: the wackiest things like my husband's much older half brother
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: so up and was like, I will always help both
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: of you sort out your frequent fire miles, and I
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: was like, thank you. That is also appreciated. Appreciate it,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: Like I feel like a welcome member of your family.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Now that's amazing. Like this entire wedding sounds like another
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: adventure that I'm like, did you write about this as
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: well as part of like a novel? Because it should be.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: I know, I did write. I wrote about it. I
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: wrote the book How to Be Married, where I traveled
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: around the world asking for advice on how to be
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: a married person because it's so weird, and and I did.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: I wrote I wrote a little bit about about the
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: wedding in there, but it was it was just a
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: good wedding. It was just fun. Again, like, why would
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: you do something that's not going to be fun?
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: Yes, I don't get it, agreed.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And now I'm I'm kicking myself that I've never
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: had a night where I just have a cheeseplate and wine,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: read a book. Why have I not done that? That
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: sounds amazing.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Exactly exactly. You deserve that. Everybody deserves that. If I'm
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: just gonna I'm gonna start randomly when people start pre
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: ordering the book, if they let me know, if they like,
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: send me a receipt, I'm going to make sure that
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: a cheese flight is delivered to their house when the
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: book gets delivered, like yeah, at pre order it and
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: then you'll be like, oh my gosh, this cheese plate
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: from do Bruno brother just arrived. I guess it's time
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: to sit down and read the Sicilian Inheritance and eat
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: some cheese.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: That sounds so cooky.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Now that I LEAs me want to order like five
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: so I can get five.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: I have.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: It's a special delivered from the author.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: Because I'm because she's good. Yeah exactly.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited about it, honestly, so.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: With the book. Has any of your family read it yet?
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah? They have? My mom has read it. She just
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: I just gave her. She stole a galley from my house,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: wasn't I had limited galleys and one was missing, and
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: I'm like, Mom, did you just take this and she's like, yeah,
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: I did it. I'm like fine, but like I might
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: have to reuse it. I might have to give it out,
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: like you know, maybe don't eat cheese with your copy
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: of the book.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: But no wine, white wine only.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: So she's texting me, She's texting me constantly to be like,
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: oh my god, this is really good. And I'm like,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: why do you sound surprised in all of your texts
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: and I know how to how to write a book
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: at this point. But then also she's like, wait, wait,
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: is this person an chio that guide that we had
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: when we were in Sicily. And I'm like, no, it's
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: a totally different person. It's fiction. It's a novel. But
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: she likes it so far. She's she's very into it.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: And my family is also very into the fact that
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: I'm solving the murder because all of them are on
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: the podcast. I invited all of them to come on
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: the podcast to tell their version of the story, all
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: of which are completely different. And my uncle Jimmy is
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: the best because he starts out our conversation saying.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: Joanna, I can't believe that you're you're digging up these
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: old wounds and this could be this could be really dangerous,
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: like I can't go back to Sicily and end this vendetta.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, what are you talking about, Uncle Jimmy.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: You're a like eighty year old judge in Iowa. You're
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: not going to Sicily to do anything.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my goodness. Yeah, he's sounding full gangster at
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: this point.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Because he still smokes like nine packs of Marlborough's a
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: day again, Judge Iowa, And yeah, and the whole family,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: like everyone. Some people are like, well, she was definitely
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: a witch and that's why she was killed. And other
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: people are like, well it was the mafia and that's
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: what happened. It was a hit job. But I also
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: I was instantly during the research. But I also worked
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: with Ellis Island and they're amazing. Their researchers are bad.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: So they could pull like the exact dates and ship
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: manifests for when all of her children came and her husband,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: and they also checked to see if her husband went
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: back to see if maybe he was the one that
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: murdered her. Like there were all these little things and
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: they got like weirdly invested in it too, Like by
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: the end they're like, well, I think this mighty what happened.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Everybody has a theory.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I love that everybody has a theory, and like I
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: still I have a couple of theories. We're Kate, my producer,
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: and I are going to go back, I think in
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: January and like do some final digging with the police.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Reports are really hard to find if they exist at all,
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: but they might because Italians will love keep records. The
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: coolest thing really was we found what is their book
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: of deaths, which is a handwritten but interesting with every
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: death recorded in the town. It doesn't say how they died.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: That's the thing. But there are two books of deaths,
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: and I'm not giving too much away here. One book
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: is for people that died in the home of natural
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: causes and the other book is for people that died
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: outside of the home of unnatural causes. And she was
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: in the second book.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there is a bigger mystery.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, so she was definitely definitely was not natural causes. Like, yeah,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: there's there is The mystery is indeed there. So that's
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: what we're and we know where she died. We went
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: to the place where she died.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, did I miss it? Did you actually solve it?
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Or I haven't solved it. I'm still on the road.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: I'm still on the road to solving it. No, so
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: we're going.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Back in January multiple seasons.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: I think that we're going to have some good answers
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: in this first season that'll start in March for multiple seasons.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: I do want to do other family mysteries, though, because
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: I feel like all so many families have unanswered weird
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: questions that like, if we can like solve family mysteries
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: for them, that could be fun.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is the like intriguing and fascinating journey,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: especially since it's your great grandmother.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: And we found so many crazy cool pictures of her too,
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: like she looks she looks like a bad like she
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: looks like she could kill you with her eyes.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: So maybe she was a witch, which is even I know,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I know, if you find out that she's a witch,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: you have to take that title on, like somehow put
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: that into.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Business cards. No shame Anywerelian witch?
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: Hi?
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you uh in the lineage of.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Witches exactly exactly.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. I'm excited to hear both the podcasts and
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: read this book. Phenomenal. I'm also excited for the cheese
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: plate in the wine that goes with both and showing up.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: At your house and like cozy pajamas with both of
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: them being like heyes.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Please, it's time to read. That's the way, and he
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: does that. She'll just show up with pajama pants.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: And do you really do you like? Do you Kimmy Gibler?
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: I call it giblering from full House, where you just
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: show up unexpectedly at a friend's house.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Expect always in pajama pants.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Pajamas so.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Maybe last night.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: And when when I was a kid, my friends and
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: I used to do that. We would just like read together. Yeah,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: so I would be very into it.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah yes, yes, but they would surprise me if I
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: saw you at the door, like hey I'm here. I'm like, okay, come.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: On, yeah, okay, great, let's sit on the couch. All
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: I want to do now is sit on the couch
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: with my friends or have low key hangs with my friends.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: One of my friends I ran intoor. We were both
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: working at a coffee shop the other day. She's like,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna get my nise done. Do you want to
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: get your nails? And I'm like, yeah, I do. And
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: then we just like walked around into errands together and
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: that was really fun.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: It was really a perfect day.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a perfect day.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: It's nice and I love that I have a friend.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: There's so I'm again very excited about this book. I'm
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: very excited about this whole concept because it's such deep,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: like such a deeper meaning. It's not even though it's
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: fiction is bigger than fiction. That means it's just expanding,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: it continues to grow. But kind of in general, again,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: like I said before, you are to me a kind
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: of the celebrity podcaster in my world because I knew
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: your name be where I jumped in, I knew about
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: your shows committed it was an amazing show and it
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: was so amazing, Like, the concept.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Was so amazing people, the people were so good.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: You as a podcaster, you really do bring in some
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: brilliant adventures in itself, like in this conversations that you have,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: including what you're working on today right now, which is
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Under the Influence. Can you talk a little bit about
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: that podcast?
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Under the Influence is also also a ton of fun.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: I started it three years ago when I had my
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: second baby, or I'm like, oh my gosh, it must
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: be four years ago, because I'm having her Pinata's Paloma's
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: birthday party tomorrow, yeah four years ago. Wow. So she
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: wouldn't sleep. She was a really crappy sleeper, and I
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: would hold her because all I could do at night
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: while she was screaming is hold her. But then my
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: only appendage available was my thumb. So I'd also be
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: scrolling through Instagram because I'm a very involved in present parent,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: and I would all I was getting served on Instagram
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: were picture perfect images of influencer moms in their beautiful
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: white linen dresses with they're all white houses. None of
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: them were covered in pee or puke or anything, and
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: like their kids were all very well behaved, and my
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: kids have feral animals. And I wanted to start reporting
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: on it because I was so confused by it. And
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: the original intention of Under the Influence was to expose
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: this world of mom influencers to be like, this is
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: all both and some of it is, And we discovered
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: that in the first season some of the world of
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: mom influencers and influencers in general is absolutely bull shit.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: But we learned a lot more about what it means.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: And so many women are dropping out of the workforce
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: because the workforce is not kind to women and mothers
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: and becoming content producers so they can be entrepreneurs and
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: work for themselves. And we learned a lot about how
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: the algorithm in all social media platforms is constantly, constantly
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: manipulating all of our brains and telling us what to
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: think and telling us how they think we should be.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: And so the podcast just expanded from there into looking
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: at all kinds of digital influence, all kinds of social media,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: everything from teacher Graham to nurse Graham to Sobriety Graham.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: And we relaunched two months ago, going from seasonal to
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: weekly and now do two shows a week of Under
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: the Influence, and we're just doing interviews with everyone from
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: tradwives who are conservative Christian influencers who portray womanhood as
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: these ideals from the nineteen fifties, to experts who will
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: tell you how to talk to your kids about sexting
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: and in a really empowering way. And it's so fun.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: I learned something in every episode. And I think it's
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: really important for us to cover influence and cover social
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: media the same way that journalists would cover anything else,
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: because it impacts way more of our lives than any
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: of us want to admit in the same way that
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: I used to be a celebrity journalist, and I thought
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: that job was very important because celebrities like do have
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: such a huge impact on humanity and culture and what
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: people think that they deserve a check and balance system,
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: and I think influencers deserve that now too, So we're
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: trying to do that on the show with an also
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: a dose of joy and hilarity. So I also recommend
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: people eat cheese while they're listening to under the influence
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Everything with Jesus, Everything with cheese is better. We should
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: let's make t shirts that say that.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Yes and think you get us.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: I think you do. I think you do.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: Everything is better what she's I'm gonna make one right now.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I need this, need you know before we kind of jump,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: because there's other things, Like you said, so many things
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: that I want to talk about, including your Halloween costume.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: But before that, can you kind of break down mom
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: influencing a little bit because you talk about it and
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: just kind of how we got here because you tried
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: to expose it. What is it? And how are we here?
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Mom influencing And it started to get really big about
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: eight years ago. Mom blogging has been a thing since
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: the beginning of the Internet, and in fact, it was
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: the mom bloggers that were among the pioneers blogging. And
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: there were women who were writing really openly and honestly
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: about the good but a lot of the bad of
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: motherhood and kind of breaking down the stigmas of how
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: difficult it can be to be a mom, and their
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: sites took off like wildfire, and they were really among
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: some of the most popular bloggers out there, and I
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: don't think they get enough credit for that. In the
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: early in the histories of early blogging and the early Internet,
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: I think mom blogging gets very ignored. And then when
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: social media came around, it started morphing into less words
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: and more images and particularly beautiful images. And Instagram was
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: launched with the intent of being a beautiful photography app.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: It was supposed to be the vogue of photography apps.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: That's what the ten year old male founders wanted it
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: to be. So mom blogging in a lot of ways,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: the trajectory then moved into this imagery of motherhood that
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: wasn't as much talking about the things that are difficult,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: but just posting beautiful pictures of it. And in addition
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: to those pictures, adding branded content to it. So selling
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: us things, selling us those beautiful linen nursing dresses, selling
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: us all manner of the organic pacifiers and blankets and
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: things none of your kids actually need. Because kids would
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: be happy sleeping in a box and playing with a
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: box is my best wisdom as now a mom of three,
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: And like literally they will sleep in a box and
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: they will play with that box. And then you could
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: flip that box over and use this as a table
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: and they'll eat off the box. You just need one box,
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: one box for child. They can't share the box because
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: they love their own box. Can not share the box.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: But one box per kids. That's the rule in my house.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Get out of your sister's box. Oh, golden rule, gold
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: golden rule. People. So yeah, so I mean it took
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: off and now the mom influencing industry is a multi
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: billion dollar industry of brands desperate to work with these
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: very popular mom bloggers who can have tens of thousands,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: hundreds of thousands, millions of followers. And also they've set up,
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: you know, this kind of idea that this can be
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: a career for a lot of women, and it's a
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: lot harder than you think it's going to be. In
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: the first season, I tried to be a mom influencer.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: I hired. One of the secrets of it is none
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: of these pictures are taken in real time. They hire
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: professional photographers to take an entire week of pictures and
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: videos or an entire month of pictures and videos where
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: they change the kids outfits constantly and have them do
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: all sorts of different things. And we tried to do
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: that in my house and everyone put their foot down
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: after about ten minutes. Like, everyone was crying.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: You know what, I agree with the children of.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: This, including my husband. My husband was crying. Everyone was sad.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: So it was a lot and we talk a lot
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: about the dangers for these kids too, like content babies,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: kids that are being used as content, and what are
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: the implications down the road for their privacy, for their
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: self esteem, for just you know, generally having their entire
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: lives put on as a show for complete changers eighteen
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: years and there are a lot of concerns with that.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: The first kids of mommy bloggers and early instagrammers are
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: finally starting to talk about it, and they're saying, I'm
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: not happy. I'm not happy that my potty training was
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: out there on the internet for everyone to see. But again,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: the flip side of this is that women are making
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: their own money and staying home and taking care of
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: their children, which often feels completely impossible. I've pulled it
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: off by making podcasts after podcasts and writing books, but
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine being able to juggle. And we have
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: full time help too with the babies. My mom lives
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: right in the next town over, and we have a
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: full time caregiver here who is wonderful, who we'd love,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: and we've been working with for four years now. Like,
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: we have so much help, and it's still I couldn't
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: imagine going to an office from nine to six every
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: day and also having these three children.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I think Jo, you and I are very similar in age.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think everyone's my age. By the way, it's
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: something that happens after you turn like forty. Maybe maybe
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: you're like.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: In my world, everyone's younger than me.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: See, I like I've started be like I'll talk to
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: see like thirty five year old and I'm like, we're
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: the same age, and they're like we're not. We're we're
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: like fifty year old women. And I'm like we're definitely
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: the same age and they're like we're yeah.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I think that for some reason, but when they're younger
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: than me and like, yeah, you're were definitely because I'm
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: like I think back when I like when I was
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: thirty five, I did do things like that today that
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: makes me tired, Like.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: The truth that different? Yeah, yeah, well I I'm forty
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: three now, Yeah, we're the same age, the same age. Yeah, Okay,
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: We've been through something including seeing this play out, like
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: we were at the very beginning with the Facebook, with
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: the Facebook, with the Facebook, with Facebook, with the Facebook,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: and yeah, my space. I was talking about my zena
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: site at one point, which is still I thinks floating
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: out there that I can't find anymore.
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: So bad but.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: It will it will haunt me one But like we did,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: we saw this trend go from uh the blogs to
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: to the to faith to the faith place in my space,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: uh to Instagram to now TikTok and now we're having
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: this comeback conversation of what happened to those kids? Uh
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: where we're going back to like how they're reacting to
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Also the one extreme of like this was a beautiful
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: thing because it did give uh so many women opportunity. Unfortunately,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: this beautiful thing was limited to very heteronormative CIS white women,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: and so that look like there was big narratives like
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: this could be a good thing, but it's not broadening
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: as it's as we would had hoped with the Internet world.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's not. And it's the the Instagram algorithm
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: is so specific. It also shows you images of people
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: that it believes are like you I or people that
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: it believes are perhaps aspirational to you because the algorithm
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: tells you that, that tells them that that will keep
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: you scrolling as we're constantly trying to look for aspirational
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: images even though it breaks our brains. And so I
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: have a lot of people ask me, no, well, I know,
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: they say, I never see influencers of color, And the
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: fact is, yes, like the highest paid influencers are shame
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: shamefully typically these white women who look like the white
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: women that were put in commercials in like the eighties, right,
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: And that's finally starting to be exposed. But the fact is,
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: there are so many awesome mom influencers out there, women
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: of color, queer women, There's like so many. It's just
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: if you happen to be a white CIS woman. You're
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: probably not being shown them by the Instagram algorithm because
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: the Instagram algorithm doesn't think that they are similar to you.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: So it's like you have to dig a little deeper.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: And that sucks, right, because I want to be shown
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: so many different types of mothers, so many different models
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: of parenting. I want. I want to see two moms,
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: I want to see two dads. I want to see
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: all of these different ways of being a parent in
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: the world. But it only chooses to show you parenting
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: that it thinks is very similar to you.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: One thing we talked about a lot on the show.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: To be clear, even though a lot of people mistake
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: this because of the name of the show, Somantha and
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: I are not moms.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: Do people mistake that.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: All the time, We've been put on list for moms
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: who listen.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: To mom influencers.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Just because the word mom is in it in Twitter. Yeah,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: on Twitter unfortunately, this mom podcast or mom stuff podcast.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a bad like it was way back when.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I think stuff mom never told you was taken or
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: something like that.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: So I've always thought of it as like your people
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: human beings in the world with mothers.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, if you read the title, yeah, that makes sense.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: But then like a lot of just and then we
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: get advertisers who really think we are too. We've gotten,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: we've had to. We we not had to, but we advertise,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: which we don't mind because we still obviously want to
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: talk about mothers because they are a part of this
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: conversation in the But like the fact that we're not. Yeah,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: like I'm not excluding that, But at the same time,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I'm yeah, but we're not experts. We don't know. I
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: was a nanny, yes, and I've worked with children. That
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: was my whole like field as a social worker, I
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: worked with children, But I'm like, that doesn't mean I
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: know it looks like to be a mother. I can
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: be a caretaker. That completely different.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: But again, well, and being a caretaker also hard, also
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: a pain. It's all a penny to be honest. I
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: love my children so much, but they're a.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Lot, that's honest. I like it.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: So, yes, you're not mothers, but we do talk about
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: motherhood a lot on the show, and we have. We
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: had a friend of the show guest Bridget come on
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: and she did a whole thing about influencing and how
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: it impacts children. She talked about that, but one of
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: the things I find really interesting about this conversation is
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: there's sort of a dichotomy and a complexity and a
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: nuance with Yes, there is a power of showing the
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: mess of motherhood. There is an absolute power of talking
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: about that, not having this perfect thing, because the pressure
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: for so long that we've seen in all kinds of
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: media is to be the perfect mother, that you're never
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: mad at your kids, you never have this anger. But
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: at the same time, it's also like you're bringing the
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: kids to show in that mess. So it's sort of
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: like the complexity there of there is something that is
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: really helpful in that, but what are the ways to
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: do that without harming the kids in question?
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: Without harming them absolutely, I mean I think about everything
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: that I say, and I post way less of my
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: kids than I ever did before since I started reporting
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: on the impact of them emotionally, psychologically, and also just
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: the creepiness of strangers following you on the internet. My
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: rule is that before I post, I look at the
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: picture and I'm like, if I would not walk up
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: to the creepiest dude in Starbucks, like the guy who's
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: like sitting there staring on his phone, drooling a little bit.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: If I wouldn't show this picture to that dude and
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: be like, do you want to look at his picture
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: of my children, then I will not post it on
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: social media because that is clearly in my audience. And
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: I so I do post a lot less. But I mean,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: like I said, I talk about them all the time
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: and like, my kids are filthy animals, which they are.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: So I also think I'm like, all right, I am
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: I saying anything that I would be uncomfortable if they
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: heard me say about them, and know, like I tell them, like,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: you guys are filthy animals, and I'm very tired from
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: being your mother, and so I think those things are okay.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: But there's other lines that I see crossed all the time,
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: and I try not to be judgmental. I think I
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: think it's creepy to post pictures of your kids when
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: they're sleeping. You do, just like you know, they're so
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: innocent and they don't know what you're doing, like potty
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: training pictures and videos will come back to haunt them
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: later or they'll just be embarrassed.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: I was talking to a parenting expert or a social
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: media parenting expert the other day, and she said, you know,
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: even things as little as posting a picture of your
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: eight year old in their footy pajamas with their stuffed animals,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: they might not want you to do that because their
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: friends might not think they still sleep with stuffed animals
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: or footy pajamas, and what if their friends saw that, So,
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: you know, putting yourself in your kid's shoes. But I
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: do agree that I think it's important to share the
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: hard parts of motherhood and the messiness because the Internet
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: has just gone too far into making it seem like
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: we have to be perfect all the time and perfect
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: and beautiful and also smart and brave and funny and
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: just the best and also sexy, and so I try
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: to be really honest that, like, I love my kids
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: so much more than I thought I would love having kids.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: Like I was never a person that was like, oh
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: my gosh, I must must approcreate. But I love them,
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: and now there's three of them, which is way more
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: children than I expected to be in my house. But
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: I'm also exhausted and it's hard, and I wouldn't not
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: be their mother for anything, But like, sometimes I also
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: leave and I go on vacation without them and my
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: husband and that's really nice. So yeah, yeah, it's important,
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: so I have to leave. That's that's why I show
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: up ATR house with cheese plates. But they yes, I
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: think it's it's a double edged like how much should
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: we post about our lives as mothers and how much
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: should we protect our children? And it's something everyone needs
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: to figure out for themselves. But also I do think
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: that these companies that are just making money off of
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: the images of our children Instagram, Facebook, TikTok really should
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: put more guardrails in place about what kinds of images
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: of children are allowed and also then how early children
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: themselves are allowed to be on social media.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's this. There's a whole different level of conversation
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: when it comes to who has access, who has control,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: who's making money. Now with AI, it's even scarier because
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: people are able to use images to create their own
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: fantasy world. We recently talked with one of the I
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: guess they work with one of the bigger AI companies
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: right now, imaging companies, and I have someone that I
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: know has worked with them as well, and the amount
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: of real images they can backtrack to see some of
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the images that are on their AI, and no one's
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: stopping them them saying like there's no litigation or a
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: law saying that they can't use it. So that's even scarier.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: That's something that people need to realize. I don't think
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: when we as we use as the internet started and
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: we were like, this is cool, we can share things
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: with our friends, ever thought that this would be the
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: point that it could become.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: No, no, we did. We didn't. And I think about
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: that note now too, and that is something I did
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: not think about even six months ago, that every time
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: I post an image of my child, that image will
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: likely be used by AI in some way, shape.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Or form, right, yeah, which is scary.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: Which is scary? Yeah, yeah, which is a whole different cover,
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: a whole different conversation. And also everything is I mean
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: my When that list came out from the Atlantic recently,
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: of the books that AI was using, or that these
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: companies were using to train their AI machines, four of
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: my books were on there, and my first thought was
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: what was wrong with my other books?
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Wait? Did you not be like wait, fine.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it's terrifying. I think you know, our children's
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: faces can be used to train AI or they to
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: make deep fakes of our children. I heard some really
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: scary stories from influencers with large followings where strangers had
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: tried to imitate them because they knew enough about them
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: and their kids to try to pull their kids out
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: of school. Oh wow, but they know it because you
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: post the first day of school picture. They know the
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: kids teacher, they know where they go to school, they
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: know what they like and what they don't like. They
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: have a picture of it, and they have a picture
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: of the parents, and they know everything about the parents.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: So like, yeah, it's creepy. It's a creepy, creepy dark place.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, speaking of creepy.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: Dark places, my favorite.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: This is my transition because also I looked into your
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: sub sec and one of the things that we've talked
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: about recently is lot about Christian nationalism in our country.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: We've talked about religious trauma in itself, and of course
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: that brings us to the conversation of moms and tradwives. Yes,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: we had this whold like we went to the red
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: pill of everything, and you have been talking about trad
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: wives as well as In fact, if listeners, if you
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: have a chance go. If you're not already following Joe,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: you need to follow her both substack in Istoriam to
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: look at these amazing costume that she has created. You
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: done an amazing job. I loved your descriptor about having
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: the helmet, the bike helmet. Yeah, it was so good.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: And then by the way, I loved your book.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: Being the baby love crazy thing. So I will say,
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: but I've for under the influence of the podcast, I
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: have been talking about trade wives for the past two weeks.
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: These like most mainly pretty conservative Christian influencers who are
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: submissive to their husbands. They you know, they have all
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: of these rules of like I don't do anything without
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: asking my husband permission, I don't have my own finances,
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: I don't work outside the home, very devoted to being
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: in the home and raising children. And I like to
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: make the distinction that is very different than a stay
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: at home mom, Like I respect the out of stay
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: at home moms. You are the CEO of a household
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: that is a hard job, like that is tidwife is
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: not stay at home mom. They're very very different things.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: We've been talking about a lot of them, and they
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: also they're very into homesteading, they make a lot of
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: their own food from scratch, but they also project all
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: of these what I think can be very dangerous values.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: A lot of them are anti vaxers, a lot of
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: them are very anti LGBTQ. You know, there are behind
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: all of the beautiful baked sourdough loaves, there are some
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: nefarious influencers there, influences there, and I've been talking about
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: it so much. I was like, well, this is obviously
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: my house Halloween costume. What else would I be for Halloween?
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: And so I put on an applaid nap dress and
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: I stuffed. A lot of them are pregnant constantly. They
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: have a lot of content babies because they get more
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: attention every time they get pregnant. And also they likely
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: don't believe in birth control, and so yeah, there's that
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: part of it. And so I was like, I looked
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: like I was thirteen months pregnant with this bike helmet in,
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: my spanks in under my nap dress. And then I
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: made like an Instagram frame to go around me. Yes,
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: but it was really funny because that is a costume
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: and I couldn't carry the Instagram frame, like I had
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: a cardboard cutout of like hashtag chad wife. I couldn't
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: carry it while I was trigger treating with three kids,
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: and so it was a hard costume to explain to people.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: And like a lot of people just assumed I was
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: pregnant and offered to get me a chair and I'm like, no,
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: I'm a conservative Christian influencers kind of like oh what okay.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: And then it didn't help that that I was carrying
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: a can of beer down the street and I forgot
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: that I had this pregnant belly, and so then people
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: are really looking at me and I'm like, what's Halloween.
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: Everyone's drinking here. And then I'm like, oh, they think
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: I'm mind pregnant. So yeah, that was It was a
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: great costume. But I as I was dressed up, I
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: was like, I know that this will break the d
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: like break my Instagram feed because the Instagram algorithm loves
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: pregnant bellies. They love pregnant bellies. They love it when
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: you say that like a baby was just born, birth announcements,
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: they love newborns. So I was like, what if I
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: with it because my book posts about Sicilian inheritance, like
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: get like moderate attention because Instagram doesn't think that's interesting,
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: and so I'm like, what if I pretend I'm giving
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: birth to my book? And so I do that as
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: like a book reveal. I originally had like a whole
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: home birth like video that I was gonna do it.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: I'm like, it's too much, it's too much, and my
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: husband's like, it's already too much. Stop and I'm like,
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: you know who you married, It's okay, knew you knew
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: what you were getting into. I wrote a book about
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: our first year of marriage. But yeah, I but then
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: I did do a book reveal of me holding the
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: book like it was a newborn baby, and my Instagram
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: feed went wild. I got it's not just that people
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: liked it, like and people liked it because it was funny,
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: it was a joke and like a lot of my
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: friends liked it. But you can look at the insights
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: and the statistics, and Instagram showed it to more people
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: outside my feed, and it's ever shown to people outside
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: my feed. It chose to share that content, and I
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: think that's what's interesting, Like it chooses to give you
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: more reach if you are this constantly pregnant woman showboating
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: your newborn baby, and that's a problem and that's something
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: that we should all talk about.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: That's too much work. It's too much big and smy,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: I won't have to worry about me doing that. That's okay,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I'll just benn. It's okay, good.
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, back to the trad wives, because it is. It's
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: a fascinating conversation. We had that conversation about a lot
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: of the reason. Part of the reason that they're having
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: so many children is part of their conspiracy. Could lead
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: to the fact that they think that the supreme race
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: is dying off, so now more white people need to
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: be having babies, and that being a part of that conversation.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: The pipeline from being a yoga mom to trad wives
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: is very is shorter than you would.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: Sure then you would expect, you would expect.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Can you kind of talk about all of that there?
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: So there's something also called soft girls on on the
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: tiktoks and the instagrams. I'm so old and like the
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: tiktoks and they so soft girls are. They're like soft
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: girls are very similar to and not all so it's
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: kind the language is so confusing, and I'm constantly convinced
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna get canceled. At this point, in time. I'm like,
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: I don't care, but like I'll go do something else.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: It's fine, you can't see me. I'll become like a
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: dog walker or something. I don't give a show, but
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: I just say what I want. But so there's soft
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: girls who say I want to drop out of the workforce.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: I don't want to hustle. I don't want to be
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: your girl boss. I'm just gonna like do my yoga
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: and my pilates all day and like meditate and lay
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: in the grass with my lover and stay at home
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: girlfriends who are the trad wife version of a girlfriend,
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: where they're just they live to serve their boyfriend. And
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: there's all these videos of like, my boyfriend takes me
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: on expensive vacations, if I pack for him, and if
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: I do all of this stuff, and like videos of
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: them cleaning the house all day and cooking for the
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: boyfriend all day. And you know that does seem to
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: then evolve often into the tradwife's submissive wife lifestyle. And
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: like you said, there is this undercurrent of you know,
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: restoring the patriarchy, restoring a very male dominated white world. Yes,
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: you should have more white babies. Why aren't you out
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: there pro creating for the race, and there is it's
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: a dark, scary rabbit hole to go down. And I
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: think the messaging is so hard to parse sometimes because
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: it comes in a beautiful package. And that's what I
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: think is the most dangerous about it. And when I
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: say beautiful, I mean, you know, not even beautiful in
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: my definition, but in this esthetic that the Internet likes,
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: and so it comes in that package. That's like, you
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: too could stay at home and look like this and
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: have all of your lovely, quiet children running all over
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: the place. Why would you ever want to be on
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: the birth control pill? And I meanwhile, I'm like, do
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: you want to look at my house? Because that'll make
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: you get a sec to me. I mean, there's a
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: reason Nick finally got snapped. He's like, well, you're not
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: doing this again. We didn't think it was going to
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: happen the third time. We were all old when that happened,
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: but we were just old. It's perfect, no, never too
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: old apparently to make a third baby Inargo, North Dakota.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: But they yeah, it's a it's a really, it's just
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: it's it's a scary part of the Internet and also
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: a fascinating one, like I have so many people that
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: listen to uh under the Influence or followed the pot
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: the substack, Like I didn't know anything about this. Screw you.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: I've now lost hours of my life going down this
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: rabbit hole. And I'm like, yeah, I know, sorry, not sorry.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: I mean now that I see everyone will see it.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Right, we all suffer together, we.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: All suffer together. Yes, we suffer equally.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And I think listeners you should definitely go
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: check out Under the Influence because you do talk a
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: lot about mom influencing, but you also talk about cancer
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: influencing or just various ways like tradwives and and all
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: these ways which the internet is harmful in ways that
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: you think like there are benefits to it, but also
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: these real dark sides because people are trying to make
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: money ultimately, Like they're trying to make money.
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: Ultimately the goal for most people as money. That's the thing.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: Like I think that's just what everyone has to remember.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: I think you can still enjoy social media, but you
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: have to think about who makes money off what. Yes, right,
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: So it's and I like you mentioned, I just did
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: an episode on cancer influencing when I had on this
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: woman Kelly, who was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: started following a lot of cancer influencers and at first
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: it was great because she's like, oh my gosh, like
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: there's a community here and that that should be wonderful.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: And she was getting tips on diet and tips on
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: coping with different kinds of chemo and things like that. Again,
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: good things, right, And then all of a sudden, she
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: just kept following more people and the advice that she
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: was getting was very con inflicting. There were people who
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: were telling her not to do traditional treatment, that doctors
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: were the devils, convincing her to essentially eat nothing but
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: raw vegetables all the time, so that she just had
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: a fear of any other kind of food. And it
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: got to be too much, and she said she saw
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: a lot of people in the cancer community reject a
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: lot of traditional treatments, and then she saw some of
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: them even pass away. And she's like, these influencers have
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: so much power, so much power, and none of it
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: is checked. No one is saying, hey, you're an expert
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: in this, go forth and talk. It's just like anyone
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: can say anything they want on the internet.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's is terrifying and has been the case.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: Lawsuits have been brought against people, but it's true, like
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: you trust people that you see online, you form these
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: parasocial relationships. And if they're telling you like, oh no,
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: I you know, I'm with you. This is community by
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: this at work for me. But if there's no checks
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: on that, if they're just saying that because they're going
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: to get that day check, then it's irresponsible and dangerous.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, irresponsible and dangerous exactly exactly. Oh, guys, from cheeseplates
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: to irresponsible and dangerous dark places of the Internet.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: We did. We should all get a cheese after this.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: Let's all just go eat cheese. It's all eat cheese
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: and drink wine in a dark room. In a dark room.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna whisper these pajama pants. Absolutely absolutely, I'm.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: Wearing pajama pants right now. I haven't gotten out of
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: my pajamas today.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Is how in Atlanta right now?
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: It's cold and hiley right now.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I will.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: I will be doing something in Atlanta for when the
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: Sicilian inheritance comes out, So we.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: Will cheese plate.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean there's that, That's the reason I'm coming.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: But then I may also obviously be doing a book
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: event and Alive under the Influence podcast event down there.
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: So we're planning all these things, so you will have
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: to come and be on the show with me.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: Let us know.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: On the show, Yeah an cheese and yeah, perfect follow
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: She'll bring you cheese.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: She'll bring you cheese. She endorses everything with live of
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the followers. Well, it's gotten all the followers and me
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: as the best. Yeah, I've got please got you.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: No, I don't want.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: To make such of influence people.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: You've learned for me, it's just to stalk them and
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: tell them with friends until they the cheese approaches better.
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: I mean better.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: That's how I made friends with Annie.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: You also do the cheese approach. You also do the
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: cheese approach, Samantha, I did.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: That's how I got friends with Annie.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: It's true, and now she's on the show.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I had two giant platters. Look at it and now
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: show Jesus the way, Jesus the way.
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: That is a pun Jesus the way, anyway, Jesus the way.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: We We did have more questions for you, but we've
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: already taken it up so much of your.
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Time, so you just you'll just have to come back,
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: come back, guys, I will always come back. I love
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: it here ken.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: Awesome, awesome.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: You know, I think we've been talking for a good
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: two hours.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: We've been talking for an hour and a half. Guys,
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: keep going. You never Actually I have to go pick
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: up my kids from school at some point.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: So yeah, well all right, then I can always pick
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: everything up. Well, can you tell the good listeners where
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: they can find you, what they can look forward to
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: from you?
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: Of course, Like we talked about a lot, the Sicilian
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: Inheritance is coming out in April, but you can all
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: pre order it now, which really matters because it determines
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: where we go for events, and like I said, those
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: events are going to have wine and cheese, So order
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: your copy now. Let me know. I'm on the Instagram
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: at Joe Piazza author. I always think that it's ironic
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: that the best place to find me is Instagram because
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: I hate it so much, but it is. It works,
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: and until there's something that works, you know, in the
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: same way, I'll just keep doing it. But I'm also
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: I also have a sub stack over the Influence that
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: is linked to the Under the Influence podcast, which comes
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: out twice weekly and is everywhere that you find your podcasts.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, awesome, awesome, Thank you so much for being here.
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: Guys, this was so fun. I can't wait to see
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: you in person. We're gonna have so much fun when
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: I come to Atlanta.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, yes. And if you would like to find
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: us listeners, you can. We have an email at a
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: stuff media Momsteff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: us on Twitter at mostaf Podcasts, or on Instagram and
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: TikTok at Stephane never told you. We do have a
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: tea public story. You can get merchandise, and we all
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: have a book. You can get it wherever you get
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: your books or audio books. Thanks as always to our
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya, and her contributor Joey.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Thank you and thanks to you for listening. Stefan never
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: told you the production of I Heart Radio. For more
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: podcasts or my Heart Radio, you can check out the
• 1:00:14
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• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: favorite shows.