Hannah Wright was born to be a star. Her life was movie-esque. Her talent for Ballet was unrivaled, she received a scholarship to the Juilliard School while competing in the Miss New York pageant. She was on an upward trajectory to stardom with endless opportunities.
Then she met Daniel Neeleman.
The pair met in her home state and married three weeks after. Eight children and almost ten million followers later Hannah Neeleman is known by her moniker: Ballerina Farm–the queen of the trad-wives.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8L4jtnq/
Trad-Wives or Traditional Wives, is a lifestyle popularized on TikTok that subliminally emphasizes traditional gender roles for women: homemaking, child-rearing, and a romanticized submission to a male breadwinner. This aesthetic glorifies the realities of 1950s domestic life through a curated and visually appealing narrative. Ballerina Farm presents an idyllic vision of traditionalism: beautiful landscapes, wholesome family values, and a rejection of the perceived chaos of modern values rooted in progression. Although some TikTok users are infatuated with this aesthetic and have praised the conservative lifestyle, the Neeleman family faced mild backlash following a July 2024 Times article, which Neeleman claims unfairly portrayed her as captive and restrained in her marriage due to the obvious oppressive gender roles it reflects (Agnew, 2024). Trad-wife influencers are using TikTok to glamorize patriarchal values and conservative lifestyle, subtly reshaping cultural and political norms and marking America’s return to conservatism.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8L4FGXB/
Neeleman is not the sole perpetrator of this rising trend. Notable creator Nara Smith has also gone viral for her stay-at-home mom content. These creators spend their days at home filming their routines and compiling snippets into polished 60-second videos portraying their lives as flawless. Both creators emphasize to millions of viewers the happiness that they have found from spending their early-twenties in motherhood.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8L4eQva/
TikTok creators, like Neeleman, and celebrities role’s in society has been a research point for cultural studies scholars–especially with how easy it is to become ‘celebritizcized because of TikTok. (Sharma, 2021) Scholars have cemented that celebrities, simplified to the state of being celebrated (Celebrity Definition, n.d.), function as a genre of representation (Turner, 13) . Celebrities and influencers play an integral role in cultural and social formation, implicitly setting expectations on what is attractive and desirable. Celebrities flaunt cues on how to act, live, talk–they inadvertently influence how we live life. They flaunt their happiness in an insatiable manner that causes the masses to aspire toward their lifestyles (Turner, 14).
At first glance, the aesthetic seems harmless. However, it is crucial to acknowledge the role that media and trends play in society outside of social media, and how that can lead to detrimental effects.
Critical theorists Adorno and Horkheimer state the monotonous and pacifying nature of the Culture Industry produces monolithic content that enforces dominant and often oppressive ideologies. In contemporary application, TikTok assumes the role of the Culture Industry to push trad-wife content that repackages patriarchal values as fresh and new, despite them being historically opressive. Adorno and Horkheimer argue that passive audiences are susceptible to propaganda.Many TikTok users may not realize they are being subtly exposed to political messaging through visually appealing videos that promote conservative propaganda. The range of trad-wife creators gives audiences the option to engage with their content individually, but collectively, their conservative ideology is subliminally promoted as the dominant and aspirational culture. Culture Industry gives them the illusion of choice, through the means of ‘choice’ to follow a multitude of creators, however Adorno and Horkheimer state that in reality, these ‘diverse’ voice are pre-packaged into mind-numbing content to prevent the audiences from questioning the system (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1944).
Trad-wife content serves the dual purpose of maintaining social patriarchal hierarchies while distracting individuals from systemic inequities that exist within traditionalism. The idealized portrayal of trad-wife lifestyles tells young women that personal fulfillment is achievable through conservative lifestyles. Users are desensitized and often un-educated about the conservatism embedded into Trad-wife content and will carry the glamorized imagery through their lives.
By promoting traditional gender norms while glamorizing motherhood, Trad-wife influencers have popularized conservative values in an aspirational manner. Trad-wife influencers send the message to their impressionable audiences that fulfillment and happiness are achieved through embracing a romanticized vision of conservatism. Trad-wife influencers have aestheticized and beckoned young women to return to patriarchal ideals that force women into subservient societal roles.
With this ideology ingrained in the minds of the masses, they go about their daily lives and civic duties. Because their ideals are shaped by traditionalism and conservatism, they are more likely to align with the ideologies and policies of the Republican Party. They see motherhood as their duty and will likely oppose abortion accessibility. They see familial domesticity as a reward and will see the Republican Party's goal to ‘preserve American values and traditions’ (Republican National Committee, n.d.) as aspirational rather than a way to spread harmful anti-immigrant rhetoric. The Trad-wife trend subtly influenced cultural norms and political behaviors while showiung that there has been a societal shift toward conservatism in the United States. This was cemented by the ideology of Republicans in exit polls. Following the historic 2024 presidential election and the Republican sweep in government, exit polls revealed that President Trump performed better with young women than in 2020 (Sherman, 2024). Among voters who believed that ‘America’s best days are in the past,’ 67% voted for Trump (CNN, 2024).
The 2024 presidential election results reflect a growing embrace of traditionalism and conservative lifestyles, fueled by media glamorization and the appeal of nostalgia. Figures like Ballerina Farm and Nara Smith are not the cause but tools leveraged to propagate an ideology that historically restricts women and minorities. While the trend's allure may obscure its roots, the romanticization of traditionalism reinforces oppressive roles. It’s time to critically question the trad-wife content and challenge the narratives that glamorize inequality, ensuring that progress and equity remain at the heart of our political choices.
References
Adorno, T. W., & Horkheimer, M. (1944). The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. In Dialectic of Enlightenment. https://canvas.upenn.edu/courses/1788301/files/135307966?wrap=1
Agnew, M. (2024, July 20). Meet the queen of the 'trad wives' (and her eight children). The Times. https://www.thetimes.com/magazines/the-sunday-times-magazine/article/meet-the-queen-of-the-trad-wives-and-her-eight-children-plfr50cgk
Celebrity definition. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster.com. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/celebrity
CNN. (2024, November). Election 2024: Exit polls. CNN.com. https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0
Republican National Committee. (n.d.). WHO WE ARE/ OUR PLATFORM. rnc.org. Retrieved November 19, 2024, from https://www.rnc.org/
Sharma, Y. (2021, October 6). Instagram has largely replaced TikTok in India, and erased working-class creators. RestoftheWorld.org. https://restofworld.org/2021/instagram-and-class-in-india/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Sherman, C. (2024, November 6). 2024 US elections takeaways: how female voters broke for Harris and Trump. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/06/election-trump-harris-women-voters
Vanderhoof, E. (2024, October 1). The Ballerina Farming of America: How JD Vance, Elon Musk, and the Entire GOP Want to Trigger Mommy Mania. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/ballerina-farm-jd-vance-babies
I enjoyed your exploration of the dangers of Tik Tok not only promoting but encouraging trad-wife content. While I agree that content creators such as Nara Smith and Ballerina Farm have seen a rise in popularity because of their "soft, desirable lifestyle" I also find that viewers are not easily convinced. With the rise of trad-wife content there also seems to be a rise in memes as well. For example, content creators have been making videos mimicking Nara Smith trying fast food with her husband Lucky Blue Smith. There is even a trend of women making fun of the "from scratch" videos cooking in ridiculous outfits with their head tilted to the side. The memes even found their way to Twitter with a screenshot of Nara Smith laying a cutting board on her counter overlayed with a text that begins with "Making a......from scratch" (For example, a post I had seen said "Making a will to live from scratch."). These memes have become a social phenomenon with the videos becoming more chaotic and driving further away from the creators intended display of the conservative lifestyle. All of these memes encourage participatory culture, a hallmark of Web 2.0. There is an interaction between the creators of the memes and users. The memes are shared, imitated, remixed - with users building upon one another's creations.
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