"Everyone buckle up for the godly gingham girlies retreat"
Redditers and their love of Kelly Havens Stickle, the Anne Shirley of trad wives
Hello to a bunch of new subscribers! I imagine you found me through this essay on patriarchy, boring/bad men, and why it matters that nearly 10 million people are entranced with Ballerina Farm. Welcome!
I’ve been writing about Ballerina Farm since wayyyyy back in the before times of 2019 when she had a mere 100,000 followers. My early fascination with BF led to this Harper’s Bazaar piece, which led to a book deal for Momfluenced, which is a deep dive into the baffling and sparkling world of mommy influencers. If you’re into my Ballerina Farm analysis, I think you’ll dig the book, which interrogates themes of whiteness, gender performance, capitalism, and domesticity (themes also very much present in the Ballerina Farm discourse).
This newsletter is about the mamasphere, but it’s also about social media’s role in our lives, maternal advocacy, pop culture, bad ads, and good books. Each week I send out an essay on Friday and a community discussion thread on Wednesdays.
And every Tuesday, I send paid subscribers a freeform essay about whatever’s on my mind followed by 5 Pretty/Ugly recommendations.
Sometimes these are perfect tshirts. Sometimes these are hideous (and perfect) kitchen accessories. Sometimes these are links. Sometimes it’s butter! I love the Tuesday Pretty/Ugly essay because it allows me to experiment with topics that feel urgent to me in the (highly specific and subjective) moment and work through them in real time. The Tuesday musings are also harder to contain and less likely to be the type of thing you’d see in mainstream media simply because they’re weirder, sometimes more niche, and always driven by my particular obsessions.
Today’s is about trad momfluencer Kelly Havens Stickle, who I also wrote quite a bit about in Momfluenced. She’s a trad Anne Shirley lookalike - right down to the 19th century aesthetic, the calico skirts, and the candlelit reading habits. She’s very Christian, very earnest, and very much into traditional gender roles and “choosing to be led” by her husband.
It's not me - it's God
Trad momfluencers decry women actively seeking power and agency outside of the home. Trad momfluencers actively seek power and agency outside of the home via their social media platforms. Therein lies a contradiction central to my continued fascination.
Anyway, Stickle held her first bona fide momfluencer retreat last week, and I HAVE THOUGHTS. So do a bunch of frankly hilarious commenters on Reddit, which makes me wonder, as I twirl a nonexistent Carrie Bradshaw curl on my finger, can Reddit snark threads be places of wholesome delight?