Under the Influence with Jo Piazza

Is it just us, or does American culture have narcissismfever? Between 2004 and 2016, the volume of Google searches for the word “narcissist” grew exponentially. Thanks to factors like the rise of therapyspeak, TikTok mental health diagnoses, and badly behaving reality stars-turned-world leaders, discourse about this buzzy, yet poorly understood phenomenon has exploded. Are we as a society becoming more narcissistic? Or are we now over-using and misusing this term to the point of meaninglessness? Wait, is obsessing about other people's narcissism its own kind of narcissism?? In an effort to soothe these thought spirals, host Amanda (@amanda_montell) settled in for an illuminating chat with her debut guest, psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula (@doctorramani), author of the New York Times bestseller "It's Not You" and one of the world's foremost narcissism experts. Tune in for a relatable, brain-tingling, and clarifying discussion about this confounding topic, complete with questions submitted by the "Magical Overthinkers Club" and bits of wisdom to help us overthinkers get out of our own heads. - Join the "Magical Overthinkers Club" by following the pod on Instagram @magicaloverthinkers.- To access early, ad-free episodes and more, subscribe to the Magical Overthinkers Substack.- Pick up a hard copy of Amanda's book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, or listen to the audiobook.- Sources: What Is Narcissism? Science Confronts a Widely Misunderstood PhenomenonTime grows on trees: The effect of nature settings on time perceptionTherapist Aisha's Instagram

Let's talk about Harrison Butker's viral graduation this week where he informed women graduates that their highest career calling was to be a wife and mother. If you got #tradwife vibes from that sentence, you aren't alone. The Internet is not happy and here to dissect the politics and the culture wars of it all is none other than Emily Amick, author of Democracy in Retrograde and the guru behind the account @EmilyinYourPhone.We also explore the broader context of Christian patriarchy, authoritarianism, and the pushback against progressive gender narratives. Additionally, we touch on the emotional labor and societal expectations imposed on women, the allure and pitfalls of the 'Trad Wife' lifestyle, and the rise of polarizing ideologies in digital spaces.Sigh.ORDER DEMOCRACY IN RETROGRADE TODAY.Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to Greenlight.com/Influence.Get warm weather ready with Quince! Go to Quince.com/influence.Watch MY Graduation speech here.  

The new hit romance The Idea of You has everyone buzzing about so-called middle-aged women and the pursuit of pleasure. What kinds of pleasure do we deserve? Which ones are taboo, and who decides? Today we talk all about the movie with resident lady pleasure expert Glynnis MacNicol of the new book I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself.Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to Greenlight.com/Influence.Get warm weather ready with Quince! Go to Quince.com/influence.BUY I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself today. 

For today's Sunday Nice Things I get to chat with Rachel Hirsch, one of the incredible audiobook narrators of The Sicilian Inheritance. I love audiobooks. I often toggle between the audio book and the print version for efficiency. I also sometimes listen to the audio book AFTER I finish the print version because it is simply relaxing. I love chatting with Rachel today about how audio books get made and the incredible actors behind them.You can get The Sicilian Inheritance audiobook here.And learn more about Rachel here.Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to GREENLIGHT.com/influence.

What would you do if you discovered your therapist was on TikTok? And worse than that...what if they were talking about things YOU told them in therapy. Today we are talking with Bustle writer Kate Lindsay about her reporting on the mental health TikTok stars and the patients who are concerned. There are so many ethical and practical issues surrounding mental health content on social media these days and we are going to dive into all of it.To read Kate's Bustle piece go here.Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to GREENLIGHT.com/influence.

If it exists in the world there is an influencer for it. And Genealogy and family research is no exception. I found Crista Cowan (The Barefoot Genealogist) while I was trying to solve my great great grandmother's murder for the Sicilian Inheritance true crime podcast and I became fascinated by how she uses her platform and her position as Ancestry's Corporate Genealogist to help people climb their family trees, but more importantly to help them shape their identities and how they move in the world. Learn more about Crista's work as The Barefoot Genealogist here.Listen to The Sicilian Inheritance true crime podcast here.This episode is sponsored by Greenlight, which I am using to help teach my kids financial literacy. Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to GREENLIGHT.com/influence.

Let's journey into a strange corner of social media filled with uncomfortably buff men chowing down on raw meat. Yes, meatfluencing is a thing. My special guest is Nick Aster, my very own husband, who I will try to convince to become a meatfluencer to put our kids through college.

There is a prevailing narrative around women and money that says women are a mess financially. It isn't true! And we are talking about that today with Her Money podcast host and personal finance guru Jean Chatzky. We dispel the myths that women aren't good with money. We talk about how to save for college and retirement and we dive into why influencers can create dangerous expectations when it comes to investing.Follow everything Jean does over at Her Money.Subscribe to the Over the Influence newsletter here.

For a long time every novel I read or rom com that I watched contained a lady journalist, or a hard-hitting ad executive. And about two years ago all those characters became influencers. Now about every other novel I read has an influencer character and I don't know if I like it. Today I talk to the journalist and novelist Sheila Marikar about her decision to write influencers into her new book Friends in Napa. I also have a bonus conversation from the car (DRIVING IN CARS WITH JO) with Glynnis MacNicol about why she is taping her mouth shut when she sleeps. The answer has to do with Gwyneth Paltrow. Buy Friends in Napa here.Buy I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself here.And order nine copies of The Sicilian Inheritance here.

I'm touched out. I say that all the time. Before I became a parent I didn't know that was possible. But once I became a mom my body was no longer my own; it belonged to my children. But I didn't have a way to talk about the feeling of being touched out until I read the stunning book by Amanda Montei of the same name—TOUCHED OUT. There is an expectation gap between what we imagine motherhood looks like and what it actually is and the cultural script for motherhood has often been written by men.Today we get into the loneliness and alienation of motherhood, what it means to be touched out and what sex looks like after becoming a mom.Treat yourself to the best bras on the market and save 20% Off at HONEYLOVE.COM/INFLUENCEGrab Amanda's book here!Subscribe to our newsletter Over the Influence here.Order The Sicilian Inheritance here.

Bestselling author Elle Cosimano (of the famed Finlay Donovan series) was miserable in her job working in real estate. Then her mother offered to care for her children for the summer and take on the physical and mental load of parenting so that Elle could try to write her own book. That moment of receiving permission to do something for herself, completely changed Elle's life and put her on the path to writing her first book, to finding an agent, to publishing a book and then many books and then hitting the bestseller lists.And along the way Elle connected with other women who were also blowing up their lives to switch careers to become authors. Those women inspired her every single day to keep going.This is about women lifting each other up and supporting one another unconditionally. It is about the fear and shame and guilt many of us have about doing something that seems selfish, that is for ourselves.Elle Cosimano has inspired me so much on my own journey and I know that she is going to inspire you.VISIT OUR SPONSORS:Treat yourself to the best bras on the market and save 20% Off at honeylove.com/influence. Go to quince.com/influence for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.Learn more about Elle and buy all of her books here.Subscribe to the Over the Influence newsletter here.Order your Sicilian Inheritance here.

On today's Sunday Nice things we have an episode of the podcast Your New Life Blend with my dear friend, soul mate and constant companion Glynnis MacNicol talking all about her new memoir about eating all of the cheese and delicious food and having all of the sex in Paris with host Shoshanna Hecht.Glynnis MacNicol spent the long stretch of COVID lockdown mostly alone in small Upper West Side apartment, mostly without really touching another person. So by summer 2021, after vaccines had rolled out and restrictions were finally lifting, she jumped at the chance to stay at a friend's apartment in Paris, and immediately bought a plane ticket out of her pandemic-imposed solitude. Landing in Paris she found a city just waking up from its own lockdown, and felt in Parisians all around her the same urgent, greedy desire to enjoy every pleasure life had to offer - food (cheese, croissants, chocolate), community (in-person, Zoom be damned), and connection (very much in person, very pleasurable, very much enjoyed). She recounts it all and then some in her joyful, decadent, and insightful new memoir, "I'm Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself: One Woman's Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris," coming in June, which dares to suggest that women have the right to enjoy themselves - and their choices - fully and gloriously, without needing permission. In this episode of "Your New Life Blend," Glynnis talks to host Shoshanna Hecht about how seeking & claiming pleasure is actually a radical feminist act; the power of a free woman freely making her own choices; the joys of embracing your life unfolding at any age; and why we all deserve to truly enjoy ourselves.Subscribe to Your New Life Blend Here.Order Glynnis's book I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself HERE. 

Renee Reina worked on her PhD in psychology for ten years. Then the pandemic happened and she started making TikToks and podcasts about mom life with her eighteen month old. When that started making money she decided to pursue content creation as a career path instead of what she refers to as a "real job." Why don't we consider what women do online a "real job?" That's just one of the things we are diving into today.Renee talks about ambition and guilt and shame and mental load and I would argue she is still using her PhD every day to help women and mothers. She simply isn't using it the way white men have used PhDs for the past 200 years. Just a little bit of what we are touching on in this episode:How can we enjoy our lives more?Does being the default parent make it harder to enjoy life?Are a lot of the things that cause us stress self-inflicted?Why do clean houses on social media piss me off the most?Follow Renee on all the things here.Subscribe to the Mom Room podcast here.Get our newsletter OVER THE INFLUENCE here.Pick up The Sicilian Inheritance here. 

 Sam Dogen offered himself up to me as a sacrificial lamb when he wrote to me and told me that he was the male equivalent of the trad wife.  He was kidding. But Sam is a stay-at-home dad who is the primary caregiver for his children and today we talk about the stigma and judgement he feels for having taken on that role. Learn more about Sam and The Financial Samurai brand and content here.Order a copy of The Sicilian Inheritance here, here and here.

Dropping the Sicilian Inheritance true crime podcast into your feeds while she is hot. This show is a gonzo adventure. It is White Lotus Meets Only Murders in the Building and I am Selena Gomez and Nick is Steve Martin and Charlie is Martin Short.Here is the official fancy description of episode two. Journalist Jo Piazza's family has been playing a hundred year long game of telephone about the murder of her great great grandmother Lorenza Marsala. Family members who have gone back to Sicily to discover the truth, including Jo's dad have been shut down by authorities and threatened by seemingly supernatural forces.But Jo is determined, maybe even a little obsessed, to cut through the stories, the lies and the mythologies to find out the truth, even if her family members don't want her to.Subscribe to The Sicilian Inheritance podcast here. 

 I love book influencers! They're my biggest hype people.  And my guest this week is Jordan Moblo, but you might know him better as Jordy's Book Club.Jordy's Book Club has more than 140,000 followers. That is a lot of influence and clout my friends. And I don't think it's giving him too much credit to say that Jordy's recommendations, really can help an author find new readers.  I love our conversation today because we're really gonna dig in to how we can create more respect in the book influencing ecosystem. How can we all meet one another's needs? And how can we value the people who are selling books for publishers and authors?  And also, what can we all learn from book influencers about growing our own personal brands online and how to share our passions with the world?

Hillary Wilkinson found the need to take a big look at technology when her children began asking for their own devices. Quickly overwhelmed, she found that the hard and fast rules in other areas of life became difficult to uphold in the digital world. As a teacher and a mom of 2,  Hillary believes the key to healthy screen habits lies in empowering our kids through education and awareness. We are the first generation to parent while balancing screens, life, and family. Each episode on the Healthy Screen Habits podcast features insights, tips, and takeaways to help parents make informed decisions on how to help their family live a healthy digital life.Parenting is hard. Technology can make it tricky. Hillary uses this podcast to help bring these areas together to help all families create healthy screen habits.For more on Healthy Screen Habits and to listen to all the episodes check them out here.

Twenty minutes a day of mediation seems pretty out of reach for most moms. Frankly five minutes of meditation seems pretty out of reach. Today we are talking to clinical psychologist Kathryn Barbash about ways to bring mindfulness into your daily life that will actually work for you as a busy parent.Follow Kathryn's substack Mindful in the Mud here. 

Is a daily dose of uncertainty exactly what we need? Is embracing uncertainty instead of fearing it the answer to happier and  more curious parenting?I believe that my guest today is one of the most interesting writers and thinkers talking about social trends and technology's impact on humanity today. Maggie Jackson's new book Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure has shaken up my brain in many new and wonderful ways. Today we discuss how we can be challenged by uncertainty and also really thrive in it. Learn more about Maggie and order Uncertain and Distracted here.Grab your copy of The Sicilian Inheritance here.

Sharing an episode of another podcast Jo is loving: Pop Culture Moms. Andie and Sabrina are toddler moms and best friends of 20 years. They're taking their obsession with TV and movies to the next level by talking to celebrities, writers and fellow “scholars” of pop culture about what they can learn from the fictional moms they love most. In this episode: Some of the best moms on TV right now are cartoons. We hear from Deena Margolin and Kristin Gallant, the moms behind parenting resource Big Little Feelings and co-hosts of the podcast, After Bedtime, about what the mothers in Bluey and Daniel Tiger are doing right. Listen to “Pop Culture Moms” HERE.

It's finally here! The true-crime podcast where I try to solve my great great grandmother Lorenza's murder that The Sicilian Inheritance is based on. DO NOT WORRY there are no book spoilers. These were created to be enjoyed together...companions, not spoilers.Journalist Jo Piazza's family has been playing a hundred year long game of telephone about the murder of her great great grandmother Lorenza Marsala. Family members who have gone back to Sicily to discover the truth, including Jo's dad have been shut down by authorities and threatened by seemingly supernatural forces.But Jo is determined, maybe even a little obsessed, to cut through the stories, the lies and the mythologies to find out the truth, even if her family members don't want her to.If you love this and want more subscribe to The Sicilian Inheritance podcast here.Order copies of the book The Sicilian Inheritance for everyone you know!OH and did I tell you there is also a Sicilian Inheritance Olive Oil?      

Today kicks off our miniseries of women who have switched careers in midlife. My friend Corynne Cirilli used to be a gossip columnist and entertainment journalist with me. After having kids she took a career pause and then trained to be a post-partum doula! We dig into how Corynne decided she was passionate about post-partum care and how she used that passion to make a massive change in her own life after taking a career pause to have her babies.ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE SICILIAN INHERITANCE TODAY

Why do human beings make terrible decisions? Is it our fault or is technology programming us to be irrational? Let's get into it with Renaissance Woman Amanda Montell, podcaster, linguist and author of the new book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality. Why do we develop parasocial relationships with influencers and celebrities? Why do people have a baby to save a marriage? We may not have all the answers, but we do offer a little bit of hope for a more rational future.BUY AMANDA'S BOOK HERE -  The Age of Magical OverthinkingORDER THE SICILIAN INHERITANCE HERE 

All the latest on the dumpster fire coming out of Buckingham Palace. Apparently the royals think NOW is a good time to hire a new communications assistant. And Jo has applied for the job! Also Donald Trump has weighed in on Kate-gate and he has thoughts....thoughts that might surprise you. All that and more with our resident Kate expert Caro Claire Burke. Follow Caro HERE.Order your Sicilian Inheritance HERE.

Today we're going to talk about two things that we don't talk about nearly often enough—career setbacks and women's ambition.  And these things have way more to do with one another than we might think.  I genuinely believe that our ambition only increases or has the potential to increase after a setback.  That's one of the reasons I wanted to bring on both of today's guests. We will be hearing from business strategist and all over hype woman Amanda Wagner about why ambition should never be considered a dirty word. We need to be allowed to be ambitious in all of the things—our careers, our parenting, our relationships and even our gardening if that is our jam.  We are also chatting with the author and journalist Amy Shoenthal. whose book The Setback Cycle is all about working through life's inevitable setbacks and coming back stronger than ever.  ORDER THE SETBACK CYCLE HEREFOLLOW AMANDA HEREGet 15% off OneSkin with the code INFLUENCE at https://www.oneskin.co

A lot of things get fetishized on Instagram and #farmlife is one of them. Farm life on social media is often portrayed as hazy, beautiful, aspirational leisure. We rarely, if ever, see the hard actual work that goes into farming, the backbreaking labor and the intense costs of maintaining a farm.  We do see a lot of chickens and beautiful blue eggs, but never the dirt under the fingernails or the fields that have failed due to unpredictable weather patterns.  We don't see these things because they aren't always pretty and perfect. And social media thrives on pretty and perfect.   Today we're talking about what it's really like to be a woman farmer. What it's really like to work your land and what it's really like to depend on your farm for a living. Our guest is Sayer Palmer, a vegetable farmer and  a mom who tries to juggle work-life with mom life.  This is the beautiful reality of living on a farm, not the dream of it. Follow Sayer here. 

Who wants to enjoy a little bit of nostalgia this Sunday morning? Join Jo on the magical and wonderful happy-making Stuck in Stonybrook podcast where they revisit our favorite childhood series through a modern (and often feminist) lens. Subscribe to more Stuck in Stonybrook here.

How do YOU discover new books that you love? I think that people want to read what other people are reading. I think we are desperate for water cooler conversation about books, the kind we used to have before everyone had Stanley Cups. Today we are digging into the world of book influence with Zibby Owens (AUTHOR OF THE NEW NATIONAL BESTSELLER BLANK). Zibby has been at the forefront of getting books to people for the past decade as a podcaster of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books, as an event planner and content creator and now as a publisher and bookstore owner. She freaking does it all. And today we are digging into it all, including spilling a little tea on how those celebrity book clubs actually work.She's done all of the things. She's been a podcaster, a content creator and event planner. And now she's a publisher and a bookstore owner.  This woman lives and breathes books.ORDER ZIBBY'S BOOK BLANK HEREVisit ETTITUDE to get $25 off your first order of delightful bedding.Visit Quince for all the easy luxury you deserve.Visit Honeylove for all your shapewear needs. Order The Sicilian Inheritance here.  

Very important topic today in this emergency episode—what the heck is going on with Kate Middleton? We do a deep dive into all the conspiracy theories (and how the Swifties are involved), the specifics of the photo manipulation, why people even give a flying eff and most importantly what this has to do with how we treat women in the media.We also have to talk about how we cover brands, because make no mistake the Royal family is a celebrity brand that is failing spectacularly at their crisis management right now.And of course...the question everyone is asking...is Kate Middleton a tradwife?Here to give us a primer and some incredibly astute commentary is none other than Caro Claire Burke, the only person I actually follow on TikTok.Follow Caro here!And order your copy of The Sicilian Inheritance TODAY right here.

"If we weren't so afraid of being old, we could have a vision in our head of what we could be when we are an older woman." — Lyn SlaterIn 2014, Lynn Slater became an accidental icon when she started a fashion blog and Instagram account in her early sixties. The media went wild and all of the stories focused on how she was an older woman who dared to talk about style and fashion and put it out there on the Internet. Lyn rode the influencing wave for nearly a decade before she decided she wanted to take more control of her narrative. As she approached her 70th birthday she began writing her new book How to Be Old.  I love this book. I love that Lyn is taking the piss out of everyone that only wanted to describe her as an old woman. And I gained so much knowledge  about how now in my forties, I can start to plan for who I want to be in my fifties and my sixties and my seventies.   This book is filled with so much wisdom for women of all ages and we talk about all of it on today's episode.Order HOW TO BE OLD here.Subscribe to Lyn's substack here.Visit ETTITUDE to get $25 off your first order of delightful bedding.Visit Quince for all the easy luxury you deserve.Visit Honeylove for all your shapewear needs. Order The Sicilian Inheritance here.  

Gen X is the scrappiest generation and we might just be the generation to change how we think about and treat perimenopause. Today we get to talk to my dear friend Stacy London about perimenopause and perimenopause influencers. When Stacy was going through perimenopause herself advocacy and education for women's healthcare became her new passion and her new business. Stacy has worked her ass off to break through the noise and the b.s. around perimenopause and we are going to get into all of it. ALL OF IT. There is value in age. As Stacy so wisely tells me in this episode: Menopause is Mother Nature's biological fail safe to make you sit up and realize that you don't have an expiration date but the values that you held when you were younger do. 

There is nothing better than leaving your children and going on vacation with your best friend. My own BF Jackie crashed my reporting trip in Sicily this week (much to my delight) and it reminded me of the importance of both travel and girlfriend time.This does not sound like  every other episode of UTI, but I thought maybe you might like to be in a car with us on this weird journey in Sicily. 

Social media is incredibly toxic for women and girls. I say this all the time,  and sometimes I start to feel like a real conspiracy theorist, like the social media version of a prepper telling you to build a tunnel under your house with lots of canned goods, but it is still something I truly believe. My guest today is Kara Alaimo, the author of OVER THE INFLUENCE (a book, not my substack).It looks at how social media is affecting every single aspect of the lives of women and girls from our parenting to how we date to our careers and our physical safety.  But it also gives practical tips about what we can do about it, as users, as creators and as lawmakers to solve a problem that is not just going to go away.You can order OVER THE INFLUENCE (the book) here.  

Today's Sunday Nice Things has everything that you want in a Sunday listen—swingers, the seventies and puritanical Minnesota.  From my friends who bring you the Terrible Thanks for Asking podcast comes a new show called Time Capsule: The Silver Chain.This is an 8-episode “true no-crime” documentary podcast that delves into the secret world of partner-swapping suburbanites in 1970s Minnesota. Newsletters from an abandoned safe deposit box set host Paul Ditty on an investigation to learn all he can about The Silver Chain – a suburban Minnesota swing club from the 1970s –  and its members.Paul attempts to reach several of the club's members. No one will talk until finally he reaches Carol, one of the club's founders who eventually agrees to talk. But just as Paul is on his way to Modesto, an email from Carol's daughter changes his course.Subscribe to Time Capsule: The Silver Chain here.

There is no one-size fits all cure for grief. It's something you just have to go through and we all go through it in different ways. There has recently been a rise in grief influencers on Instagram and some of them can be quite predatory, targeting people at their most vulnerable time to purchase things like course to overcome their grief. Some of them are also wonderful and helpful. Like everything on social media there is a spectrum. Here to talk to me about all of this today is Sloane Crosley, author of the gorgeous new book Grief is for People. You will want this book in your life and this conversation, even though it was about grief, brought me so much joy.Quick warning, this episode does talk about death by suicide so please take care while listening. You can buy Sloane's book, GRIEF IS FOR PEOPLE, here.

We've talked a lot on this podcast about using kids as content and where the line should be drawn.  We've also talked about mothers posting pictures of their sick kids to get attention. But there is another side to the story. What if your child had a rare disease?  What if one of the only ways to get the medical establishment and doctors to take notice of that disease was to shout about it at the top of your lungs, sometimes on social media? What would you do?It's an impossible question.Last November, Amanda Byerly's daughter Elin was diagnosed with retinol dystrophy, a disease that could ultimately make her go blind. And because the disease is so rare, there's not a lot of funding for it. So it is up to the parents to fund research and ultimately to find a cure.  Amanda made the decision to post her daughter and the diagnosis on Instagram to raise both money and awareness.But it's tricky, and Amanda has to draw new boundaries for herself every day about the things she should share to help educate people about Elin's disease and what might invade her daughter's privacy.You can learn more about the disease here.You can follow Amanda and Elin here.

On today's episode of Sunday Nice Things we are bringing you the series Momplicated where host Dana Phillips dives into the dumpster fire of motherhood with women who aren't afraid to swim around in the muck and pick trash out of your hair. Today she is joined by the hilarious Caitlin Murray, who is best known for her wickedly funny Instagram account Big Time Adulting! Dana and Caitlin discuss vacationing with kids, the awfulness of sick and snow days and why it is OK to not love the baby stage of childrearing.Follow Dana on Instagram @dana.p.phillipsFollow Caitlin and Big Time Adulting here.Subscribe to Momplicated on your favorite podcast app!

Pandora's Box is open. We will never go backwards in terms of technology. Social media literacy is media literacy. There are more eyeballs on small screens scrolling through influencers than people reading political news or watching television shows. Influencers have more of an impact on people than most politicians and traditional celebrities. We need to talk about how to talk about them. Today we are joined by media critic and writer Caroline Burke about the different ways to parse the social media industrial complex to make it healthier for us. Our brains are not up to the task of dealing with the level of manipulation happening on the socials.We dive into:The lack of literacy in Congress around social mediaWhy Ballerina Farm should be called a brand, not a person. Also, let's remember that its followers outnumber the population of many small countries.Why does our brain feel like it is overheating when we are on social media for too longWhy don't we teach tech literacy in schools?How our parasocial Instagram relationships make us buy more stuffWhy is jealousy inherently a moral negative?You can follow Caro on Instagram here.Subscribe to the Over the Influence newsletter here. 

The former family Youtuber and vlogger Ruby Franke has been sentenced to up to 60 years in prison for felony child abuse. And frankly, I'm just going to say it here—I hope she serves the maximum sentence. This comes after Ruby has admitted to punishing her children in a variety of horrific ways. Quick update on the news and the ripple effect it could have in the parenting influencing community.

Have you ever rewatched a beloved movie as an adult and then been shocked, absolutely shocked by the behavior of the parents in it? A great example is The Parent Trap (both versions) in which two parents choose to abandon one of the children because they don't like one another. Today we are getting into which pop culture representations of parents do and don't hold up with Andie Mitchell,  and Sabrina Kohlberg, the hosts of Pop Culture Moms. We're talking problematic parents and awkward parenting storylines. I also get them to go deep into a very important subject—hot TV dads. So sit back and relax and let's take a break from #tradwives to enjoy a little pop culture nostalgia.You can subscribe to Pop Culture Moms Here  

Each week on the SSR (Shit She Read) podcast host Alli Hoff Kosik will challenge a guest to reread a literary throwback or to experience for the first time ever a book they may have missed as a kid. The show covers everything from The Baby-Sitters Club to Holes to Nancy Drew and Harry Potter.Guests are asked to spill all the feels and all the opinions about their throwback read for your podcast-listening pleasure. A glass of wine is not required, but it's certainly allowed. This week I happen to be the guest talking about none other than Little House in the Big Woods in all its prairie problematic glory.You can subscribe to SSR here. 

Welcome to Friday Quickies....the Daily for influencer and social news with more foul language and swingers. This week we talk about Taylor Swift giving her boyfriend's podcast a boost, Minnesota joining the good fight to pay influencer kids and why Instagram is censoring your politics and how you can keep following the accounts you love. We also have the trailer for the new narrative swinger podcast (yeah you heard that right) Time Capsule: The Silver Chain.You can subscribe to Time Capsule here.Follow Emily Amick of @EmilyInYouPhone here.Follow Fortesa Latifi here.And pre-order The Sicilian Inheritance here.You can also subscribe to our substack Over the Influence here.