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SMNTY Classics: An Interview with Jo Piazza · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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