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PODCAST

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza

Under the Influence is a deep dive into social media, a place haunted by aspirational marketing where it feels like every other person is a social media influencer trying to sell you something, all while posed in perfect houses that never seem to get messy. And behind this airbrushed perfection is money, so much money. Billions and billions of dollars. Journalist and mom Jo Piazza looks at how we got here, what it all means and how the commodification of every single aspect of our lives is driving

society & culture personal journals

All Episodes

56:21

My New True Crime Obsession in Utah—the Kouri Richins...

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/04/14

Jo’s new true crime obsession started with a trip to Midway, Utah.She was there for an event at Folklore bookstore and a visit to Ballerina Farm Dairy, and within about five minutes of driving around town someone pointed at a house and said, “that’s the murder house.” At which point she needed to know everything. This is the story of Kouri Richins, the Utah mom who poisoned her husband with fentanyl (after sending a text to her drug connection asking for the "Michael Jackson drugs") and then

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44:35

Gen Z Men Are Getting More Conservative. What the...

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/04/09

A third of Gen Z men think wives should obey their husbands. This generation of young men, ages 14 to 29, is getting more conservative by the day. How? Why? And can we reverse it?To figure it out, we talk with Gen Z strategist and creator ⁠Haley Lickstein⁠ about what the hell is going on with young men and how much of it is the internet’s fault. And what about the women? Are they fighting back or also moving backwards? From the rise of the manosphere to tradwife thirst traps to the slow-drip

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46:57

The Fine Line Between Cult and Wellness Movement—One...

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/04/07

How does something marketed as healing, empowerment, and connection start to slide down the slippery slope of becoming a sex cult? That's just one part of Star Stone’s story inside OneTaste, the sexual wellness company built around “orgasmic meditation,” that sits right on that blurry line between wellness program and cult. Star takes us from the Bay Area wellness scene of the 2010s to today’s influencer-driven “healing” economy, where the same patterns of coercion and manipulation keep showing

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46:57

The Chess Queen Who Wants Women to Stop Waiting for...

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/04/02

How do you make a move when you have no idea what comes next?Jen Shahade has spent her life inside the world of chess as a two-time U.S. women’s chess champion and the author of many books about chess including her latest Thinking Sideways, a book that uses chess as a way to think better, live better, and stop pretending we can plan ten moves ahead in a world that changes nineteen times a day. Get Jen's book here! Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our

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53:33

Why So Many Mothers Are Unraveling and Filled With...

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/31

We're often told or indoctrinated to believe motherhood is supposed to be magical, fulfilling, your highest calling, the thing that finally makes everything make sense. And yet so many women are quietly unraveling and filled with rage. This week we sit down with Libby Ward—the hilarious creator behind Diary of an Honest Mom, and author of Honest Motherhood—to talk about the reality of parenting colliding with the expectations we’ve all absorbed. Libby shares the moment she realized she couldn’t

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44:11

Gossip is Good For You! Dissecting Taylor Frankie...

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/26

Time to do a deep dive into breaking celebrity news and what it’s revealing about our culture right now.Our guest is Dan Wakeford, a longtime force in entertainment journalism and one of the smartest editors to come out of the celebrity magazine era. He’s now launching a new newsletter, Celebrity Intelligence, built on real reporting, no rumor-chasing and no AI sludge. We dig into the cancellation of The Bachelorette after the Taylor Frankie Paul scandal and the difference between what audiences

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53:36

The False Choice Between Tradwife and Girlboss

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/24

Why have women been told the only choices are girlboss or tradwife, lean in or opt out, burnout or retreat? We're chatting with author and coach Megan Heller about why that binary is so false and so seductive, especially for women who did everything “right” and still wound up exhausted, anxious, and unhappy. Megan shares how she went from Stanford to a dream job at Google to panic attacks on the bathroom floor, and how that breakdown led her to build a different framework for ambition and success

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13:27

Taylor Frankie Paul is a Bingeable Trainwreck and ABC...

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/20

An emergency episode is needed because the Bachelorette just got canceled before it even started and it's just so Secret Lives of Mormon Wives......ABC pulled Taylor Frankie Paul’s entire season after a video resurfaced from a 2023 incident that was already public and very much part of her story on Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. None of this is new and ABC knew exactly who they were casting to try to revive the corpse of the Bachelor franchise. Also the bigger thing that is driving me insane,

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41:04

Women Are Being Gaslit About Birth, a Chat With Dr....

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/19

The internet is full of terrible birth advice, and pregnant people are paying the price. This week, we’re joined by OB-GYN Dr. Jennifer Lincoln to bust the myths, misinformation, and guilt that swirl around labor, delivery, epidurals, C-sections, and motherhood online. We talk about why so many women go into birth wildly underprepared, why shame has become its own cottage industry, and why dads and partners need to stop treating birth like a side quest and start showing up from day one. Dr

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48:00

How the Right Won the Attention Economy

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/17

The right did not accidentally win social media and the internet. They built an entire influencer machine, and the left is still acting like a few sponsored posts during election season might somehow be enough to compete in the attention economy. We're chatting with Emily Amick about how conservatives turned podcasts, wellness influencers, mommy bloggers, TikTok creators, and pop culture accounts into a political ecosystem that shifts peoples' politics and shapes culture. We talk about the

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42:49

Sunday Nice Things: Creation Myth

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/15

You all loved hearing Helena DeGroot's episode about not having kids so I wanted to drop the first episode of her series Creation Myth here for you to listen to.The show explores what life's purpose looks like without having children. After the decision not to have kids ended her marriage, 40-year-old Helena grabs her mic to find out: did she make a mistake? We hear from friends and family, and even a total stranger who reveals how he regrets his decision to have a child. Listen to more of

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43:52

How Reality TV Changed How We Consume Stories with...

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/12

What’s harder: winningSurvivor or writing a novel? According to former Survivor runner-up Stephen Fishbach, it’s writingthe novel by a billion. In this episode we talk with Stephen about his sharp new thriller Escape, which pulls back the curtain on the reality TV machine and the people trying to control the story behind the scenes. We get into why Survivor is still one of the most powerful storytelling engines on television, how producers turn a chaos machine into narratives and contestants into

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47:32

Is This Actually a Love Story? JFK Jr. and Carolyn...

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/10

Are you watching Love Story? This week we're chatting with our resident ’90s guru Glynnis MacNicol about Hulu’s depiction of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette's tragic romance and why that title feels either deeply ironic or just flat-out wrong. We talk about the mythology of John John and Carolyn , the downtown NYC glamour of it all, the slip dresses, the cigarettes (the sweet, sweet cigarette, and the media machine that chewed women up and spat them out. Join our newsletter community

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49:43

Not Having Kids Is Not a Tragedy

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/05

What if you do not want kids, but everyone acts like you are making a mistake?This week, we’re talking with Helena DeGroot, creator of the podcast The Creation Myth, about choosing a child-free life in a culture that refuses to believe that choice can be valid. Helena knew early that she did not want children. Her husband said he was on the same page, until he was not. After years of pressure, their marriage ended and she went on a deep, audio-documentary style search for the truth of what she

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45:34

How Vulnerable Kids Became Clickbait

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/03/03

Content featuring sick, sad, or injured children usually performs best online. Let that sink in. That insane fact is just one of the unsettling realities journalist Fortesa Latifi uncovered while reporting her new book, Like, Follow, Subscribe, a deep dive into the world of kid influencers and the children growing up as brands. In this episode of Under the Influence, Latifi explores why vulnerable childhood moments go viral, what happens to parent-child intimacy when a phone is always present,

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58:20

How History Erased Mothers

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/02/26

Motherhood makes history, but history keeps trying to erase mothers. In this episode of Under the Influence, feminist cultural historian Elinor Cleghorn discusses her new book A Woman’s Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering and unpacks how motherhood has been written and rewritten to strip women of agency. From ancient birth rituals and the long, maligned history of midwifery to the Virgin Mary as an impossible maternal ideal and the witch trials as punishment for women who refused the

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41:01

Grab Bag: Where Did Love Taza Go?

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/02/24

Who was your gateway influencer?For us, it was Love Taza—Naomi Davis—the Juilliard-trained ballerina (yes, a different one) turned mommy blogger and social star who made New York City look like a candy-coated dream of red lipstick, tiny apartments, and five kids in technicolor. And then she disappeared. This week’s episode welcomes author Ali Hoff Kosik to talk about her new book Too Blessed to Stress, to dig into some weird Love Taza conspiracy theories, and to explain the correlation between

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32:59

Sunday Nice Things: Birth With Babylist

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/02/22

Jo has been working on a brand new podcast about birth for the past year and she is so excited to share it with you all. Today we are sharing the very first episode of Birth with Babylist. In our first episode, we walk through what birth actually looks like, from early labor through delivery. We talk to experienced OB-GYNs and midwives as they break down the stages of labor, what’s normal, what’s unpredictable and what you can prepare for. And because no two births are the same, real parents

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53:17

Can You Actually Retire Early When You Have Kids?

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/02/19

Financial advice for parents usually lands in extremes, either panic-inducing warnings about how expensive kids are, or unrealistic frameworks that don’t account for how life actually unfolds. This week’s guests, Christy Shen and Bryce Leung became well-known after publishing Quit Like a Millionaire and retiring at 30 with over a million dollars invested, but their path started from a place of real financial precarity. Christy grew up in deep poverty, at one point living on just cents a day, which

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56:24

How to Be a Rich Old Lady

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza ·

2026/02/17

Close your eyes (not if you’re driving) and picture your old lady life. You wake up when you want. You wear glorious caftans. You’re strong and you’re rich because you built yourself a safety net.Today we’re chatting with Amanda Holden, the personal finance educator behind the new book How to Be a Rich Old Lady. We get into why women are trained to feel “bad at money,” how that keeps power in someone else’s hands, and what it looks like to take it back. Amanda breaks down her “10-minute missions,”

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