The not-so-secret lives of Mormon women
It's Been a Minute
NPR
4.6 • 8.8K Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
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Summary
From Hulu's The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives to your favorite homemaking TikTok influencers, the women of the Church of Latter Day Saints have been gaining massive audiences for over a decade. Brittany is joined by Jana Riess, senior columnist at Religious News Service and author of The Next Mormons: How Millennials are Changing the LDS Church to discuss how Mormon culture provides some of TikTok's most powerful influencers with heavenly tools for viral success.
This episode originally aired on November 12, 2024.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I gotta say, I am kind of obsessed with Mormons. And I'm not alone. The Church of Latter-day Saints |
| 0:08.4 | has been a source of public fascination for years. There's the hit musical, The Book of Mormon, |
| 0:14.5 | HBO's Big Love, about a Mormon fundamentalist family that practices polygamy, and of course, |
| 0:20.4 | former presidential candidate Mitt Romney. |
| 0:23.6 | But lately, there's been an influx of content around a specific part of the Mormon church. |
| 0:29.2 | It's women. And people have been eating it up. This year, Mormon women have been everywhere. |
| 0:37.4 | They are dominating reality TV on who lose the |
| 0:40.6 | secret lives of Mormon wives. Do you think I'm a bad person for those mistakes that I did? |
| 0:45.8 | I don't think you're a bad person. I just think that you've done a lot of bad things. |
| 0:50.8 | And two of the biggest tradwife influencers on TikTok are Mormon. |
| 0:55.8 | Nara Smith. |
| 0:56.8 | My toddler stumbled into my room this morning asking for cereal for breakfast. |
| 1:01.5 | So I caved and just made her some. |
| 1:04.1 | And Hannah Nealman, better known by her handle, Ballerina Farm. |
| 1:08.3 | Today we're making some Turkish eggs. |
| 1:10.7 | Hannah is a former Juilliard trained dancer turned TikTok influencer, and she got insanely popular. |
| 1:16.6 | I'm talking 10 million Instagram followers and even the stamp of approval from the Martha Stewart, |
| 1:23.6 | all by making little bite-sized videos about how she raises her eight kids on the prairie in Utah. |
| 1:29.6 | You guys want to go get eggs with your brothers? |
| 1:32.3 | So every day the kids have to gather eggs. |
| 1:35.0 | Hannah's ballerina farm is like a portal to what some people imagine life was like maybe 80 years ago. |
| 1:40.9 | Lots of kids, a strong dedication to her husband, Daniel, and making food from scratch. |
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