Sunday Nice Things: Women's Work

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza

Jo Piazza, Influence Inc.

Technology, Kids & Family, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Parenting

4.3 • 834 Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today we are revisting the second ever episode of UTI! Mom influencing is a multi-billion dollar industry. How the hell did we get here? How did influencing become a job? Why doesn’t Wikipedia mention mom bloggers in their history of women and what does the 19th Century economic philosopher Thorstein Veblen have to do with why we are so enchanted by people who seem wealthier than we are. Consider this your history lesson of women influencing other women to attempt to lead more perfect lives. We start in 1896 with the creation of Vogue, wonder if Lucille Ball was actually the first mom influencer, and scroll all the way to the the beautiful mess of the early Mom Internet. Moms have been commodified since the beginning of moms, the only difference now is who is making the goddamn money. And if past is prologue, will answering all these questions help Jo figure out how to become the influencer of her dreams? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello all. Welcome to Sunday Nice Things.
0:05.0	As I continue to tour the country for everyone is lying to, as I keep giving interviews,
0:10.0	I am constantly asked one question.
0:14.0	How did we get here?
0:16.0	How did mom influencers and in particular tradwife influencers become so influential?
0:23.8	It's a great question.
0:25.3	It's also one I've reported on a lot.
0:28.3	A few weeks ago, I dropped the very first episode of Under the Influence in this feed
0:33.2	to try to give a little bit of background where this is all coming from, how it got started.
0:39.2	That reporting is from five years ago, but it still really holds up.
0:43.4	A lot of you have been writing to me asking for more.
0:46.4	All these episodes are available, but they do get buried in the feed, so I wanted to resurface them.
0:51.2	This is the second ever episode of Under the Influence.
0:55.4	I love this one because we include the theories of 19th century economic philosopher Thorstein Veblen, which truly apply
1:01.4	to why influencer content seems so aspirational to us today and why it actually does make us buy
1:08.5	things. I quote Thorstein Vebllin a bunch in my other interviews,
1:13.3	and it always kind of blows people's minds.
1:15.4	They're like, what do influencers have to do with this 19th century white dude?
1:20.8	And I'm like, oh, my God, so much.
1:22.7	So much.
1:25.0	The crux of this episode, which we call women's work, is that moms have been commodified
1:29.6	since the beginning of moms. And the only difference now is who is making the money.
	...

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