Under the Influence with Jo Piazza

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, which is how fast women get shut down for being messy or angry while men just keep on… going. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 anti-birth-control messaging spreading through MAHA and wellness spaces, the money gap between right-wing and progressive media, why the left keeps talking mostly to itself, and what has to change before the midterms. Read Emily's piece on the influencer economy here. Follow Emily here. Buy Democracy in Retrograde here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 characters characters, and why reality TV was basically the beta test for the influencer economy we’re living in now. Order Stephen's book Escape here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 actually wanted, without the noise of strangers, expectations, and the myth that motherhood equals fulfillment. We get into doubt, identity, the “mother or selfish” binary, and why you can love kids, show up for them, and still not want to be a parent. Also, why the deepest personal stories often become the most universal mirror. Listen to more of Helena's story on The Creation Myth. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 “good mother” role, this is a conversation about why telling the real story of mothering is still an act of resistance. Grab a Copy of A Woman's Work here Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 share what it was really like for them. You can listen to all the episodes of Birth With Babylist here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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,” the order of operations for getting financially stable and then secure and how to start investing without turning your life into a spreadsheet. We also talk about financial “influencing,” scammy advice, and the kind of money resistance that hits corporations where it counts without blowing up your future. Get Amanda's wonderful book here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices