Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: Tradwife Propaganda, Social Media & Yesteryear With Caro Claire Burke

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

Happy Wednesday EIChickadees! What a show we have for you today.To celebrate the release of her much-hyped debut novel Yesteryear, we sat down with the brilliant Caro Claire Burke to discuss everything from favourite tradwives to the process of selling the film rights to a novel. As well as being a phenomenally talented writer, Caro is also the co-host of Diabolical Lies- one of Ruchira's most recommended podcasts.A quick synopsis of Yesteryear: Natalie is a trad wife influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers. As far as her audience knows, Natalie loves her farmhouse, her well-behaved children, making sourdough from scratch and her perfect husband Caleb. But behind the scenes of her Instagram content, everything is very, very different. Then, one morning, Natalie wakes up in the 1800s. Her phone, her assistants, they’re all gone. Is it a hoax? A reality show? A test from God? Natalie just knows she has to escape. And don't worry- no spoilers!Vanity Fair - Lifestyle Creator Nara Smith... Wants to Clear Up Some ThingsSpotify - Diabolical Lies Waterstones - Yesteryear Indie Wire - Anne Hathaway’s Controversial New Horror Movie About a ‘Tradwife’ Is Already Hell OnlineSubstack - Matriarchal BlessingSubstack -Matriarchy Report 'What's so scary about a tradwife?' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Ruchera. I'm Anoni. And I'm Carol. And this is Everything in Conversation. This is The Snack Before Your Friday Main. This week, we're chatting to Kerro Claire Burke, the talented author behind this year's busiest debut yesteryear. She's also the co-host of Diabolical Alize,

a podcast I adore and have recommended on the Friday episode earlier this year. A quick synopsis of yesteryear, Natalie is a trad wife influencer with hundreds of thousands. thousands of followers who love her farmhouse, fresh sourdough and adoring relationship with her husband. But behind the scenes of her Instagram account, everything is very, very different. One morning, Natalie wakes up in the 1800s. Her phone, her assistance, they're all gone. Is it a hoax?

A reality show? A test from God? Natalie just knows she has to escape. So we know lots of you have read yesterday year already, but there is also a film adaptation in the works starring Anne Hathaway. We cannot wait to ask Kerr about that along with all of your questions but before we do remember to follow us on Instagram at Everything is Content Pod

and hit follow on your podcast player app so you never miss an episode They finished it before me and Bath is saying how much she had the ending and she wasn't expecting it so then about three quarters the way through I was trying to guess the ending for ages and I did not get it right

What was your guess? Well I was like maybe she's in a video game like in tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and I was like that could be it and then it's so much worse. It's awful. I'm really upset me. It's terrible.

I'm so sorry, but also thank you. Thank you for reading. That's the thing. I feel like it's impossible not to start the book without having these preconceived. Just like, I wonder if it's going to be this. I wonder if it's going to be that. And none of the things I thought were right, not even close.

I mean, that makes me really happy. I think it's because I had no fucking clue what I was doing while I was writing it. And so it was hard to leave breadcrumbs. And then I had to do that in retrospect. I really, that's so into it. so clever because it's such a whiplash situation. It's just normally you feel like you can it gets then you're like okay and then it happened and I was like excuse me. How are you? How is your book tour,

your UK tour going? I'm definitely out of my mind. I just like I just ran to make this. I was just judging a like 150 person bakeoff competition at Herbert Collins and I was like where am I? Like what am I doing with my life? So it's been I feel like that has happened every single day. where I have a moment where I'm like, what, what is going on? Like, it's so, it's been so crazy and so much fun, but I certainly haven't processed any of it. Because of the themes in the book are loads of your activations that you're having around the book, like are people trying to make you make sourdough and stuff?

I mean, thank God, no one has made me do sourdough yet. But yeah, I didn't know that the baking thing would be a lot of people have, this is actually kind of funny, like at signings. People bring me like little animal chotchkes. Like I have like needlepoint chickens and like a really cute origami. Tommy cow. And like, so that's fun. That's like exactly the level of gift that I'm interested in. Like homemade butter. I'd like that. Home churned. Yeah, yeah. But then it's like, what am I going to put that in my suitcase? We know that you have something ready in terms of what you've been loving this week. So that is

a question that we always start every conversation with. What have you been loving? Okay, easy answer to the pit. I've never watched it before. I've never watched it before. And my friend before I left, she was like, there's going to be a moment on tour where you're going to want to shut off your brain and watch something for 15 hours and you're going to pick the pit. And she was right. I watched like nine hours of it this weekend. Is it stressful? It looks so stressful. And I say that only watching the trailer, I felt my cortisol rip out of my body and like hit the sky. It very well could be stressful. I don't know what it says about where I am at this point in my life, but it feels very soothing to watch people go through major medical emergencies. So I don't find it stressful, but I think it's because it's so, it's just like

totally transports me in a really fun way. And it's like, it's really smart. but it's not difficult to process. Like, Succession is an amazing show, but you have to pay attention. With the pit, I'm just kind of like riding along with them in the emergency room, and that's what I mean. Do you guys know what the pit is? Have you seen it?

We do have it now on HBO Max. I've been HBO Maxing. I'd already watched the first season. And so I will watch the second, but I've been watching every show. I've just rewatched true blood. I'm completely out of my mind. But yes, the pit is fantastic.

It's kind of like 24 from back in the day. It's like that real life, or it's like hour to hour that shift in a hospital. in Pittsburgh, I'm going to assume. I'd never watched it. And weirdly, I was just at an event earlier. And one of the women there was quite pregnant. And another woman was going, I really want to recommend this show for you to watch, called The Pit. But whatever you do, don't watch episode. I'm not sure what episode it is, but apparently there is a scene where someone's giving birth and it's really graphic

and it's full, like, head coming out of vagina. I have not yet seen that. But I will say, I think we, I got to say, I feel like I'm not as someone I'm currently pregnant. And I don't think we know enough about giving birth. So I'm like, maybe you do have to shoehorn that into the occasional pop culture moments that I have more clarity of what I've gotten myself into. Then all the other words, I've never had a baby, but all the other women there had had babies. And this one was pregnant. And they were going, what so weird the woman talking about it was saying, I've never seen.

She was like, I've had three children. I've never seen a baby coming out of the vagina. And we were all saying, how odd is it that as a mother, it's very rare that you actually, unless you're in a same-sex relationship, that you get to stand down that end. and see it all come to life. The first time I saw any representation depiction of, I think, was knocked up, which is not, it's played for laughs. And you're like, this is the extent of my...

I was going to say, I remember at my version of PHSC at school, they played a video out of somebody in Labor and the baby coming out, but they'd gone too fast. They reversed it. So the first time I saw it was the baby going back in in reverse. Which rarely happened. Yeah. Very rarely. Like one in ten.

It happens. It happens. I was going to say the only time that I was. I've ever seen it. Well, the first time, and this ruined me for life, was I was going through my parents' old photo albums up in the loft, which is what I used to do if I was in a strok, like as an early tween Asia. And I was looking through these lovely pictures, my mum and dad on holiday.

And then the next thing you know, it's me coming out. And my dad, for some reason, had taken photos. And I remember being so horrified and disturbed. No, it wasn't nice. They were really, because it was all bloody and, oh, it was awful. Maybe now I could look at it and be like, that's beautiful. But at the time, I was like 12. and I wasn't happy. Maybe this is quite a nice way into yesterday, talking about children, mothers, childbirth.

We have all read and loved yesterday. Just before you got on the call, we were all gushing about it. It was like a five-minute book club. It was fantastic. Before we dive into that proper, we wanted to pick your brain about lots of themes, but mainly tradwives. To start with, what is your relationship to them now? And do you have a favorite? Great question. I have no relationship to them. them now, which I feel like people wouldn't believe, but that's show business baby. I feel like I followed a lot of them in the winter of 2024. And then when I started yesterday year, I really wasn't on social media. I just didn't have time to be like I was so, you know, invested in the novel. And now I just kind of like care about different stuff. But in terms of my favorites, I mean,

I certainly was like radical. I was a ballerina farm convert. I will say I was very, very invested in Ruby Frankie. Are you guys? Do you follow Ruby Frankie? Do you know about her? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So for anyone listening who doesn't know Ruby Frankie, she was a deeply popular YouTube influencer. And she was popular before the term trad wife. But that's basically what she was. You know, she had a family of six kids and she was Mormon. And I mean, long story short, and it's a very long story. And people should watch the documentary. She is now in prison for child abuse. And so that was something that I was really, really immersed in. And then, you know what I grew up on was the Duggers. So I don't know if you guys watched 20 kids and counting. Heard of them never seen. Oh, yeah. Heard of them not seen as well. That was, I mean, Ballerina Farm has like 10 million followers. The Duggers were huge for, you know, I want to say a decade.

They were on a reality television show, a television network we call TLC. And it was called, you know, it would be like 16 kids in counting, 17 kids in counting, 18 kids in counting because they kept having more and more children. And all of their children's names started with Jay. And they were just huge, deeply popular. and it has since come out that two of the sons, two of the Dugger sons have been charged with child, like sex abuse images. And so there, I believe one of them's in jail or one of them is being charged,

but it has been a huge American story that has slowly unraveled over the years. What do you think it is about child wives, especially in this current climate, that has us all obsessed. But similarly to you, and it's so interesting, so I think it's also such great time for this book to come out because I feel like there was such a crescendo with people being obsessed.

And slowly, but surely people are starting to be like, wait a minute, I'm not sure. Not that any of us subscribe to child wife living, but it certainly got sucked in to wanting to watch them get up to their shenanigans. Yeah, I mean, I think first and foremost, if you follow someone online, it doesn't necessarily mean you endorse their politics. And so, like, if someone likes watching someone make sourdough, like, I don't think that's the end of the world. I follow. I'm a Kardashian devotee and they have plenty of ethically questionable practices. So no judgment. I think there was a period of time in 2024, which is when I became interested, where people thought this was kind of just like a frilly women's issue.

And so they were like, why does anyone care about this? And I think we just liked the aesthetics. And I think it tapped into this idea of safety and security and relaxation and pleasure at the heart of your life. And I think so many, I will say, I'll speak for American women, but I'm sure that this is true here as well. So many women are overworked, underpaid, undervalued, feel like they're at a breaking point. we don't have any paid maternity leave really. It's so hard to be a working parent. And so I think that this idea of just escaping

and having everything work out and having it be that simple is really intoxicating. And I think in the last two years, we've seen that it really, it actually wasn't a women's issue. And it actually wasn't just an aesthetic. It was kind of a canary in the coal mine for a pretty intense political regression

that we're going through. One thing that I would love to hear your thoughts on is I'm obsessed with who gets to brand somebody a tradwife. And I keep thinking about Nara Smith. You know, she recently had a talk with Vanity Fair where she said, I don't really understand why people call me a tradwife. You know, I'm a full-time working, mom, we have a very modern relationship. And for somebody who is in our minds the peak tradwife to say, I've never been a tradwife, I've never considered myself a tradwife. It makes me wonder who gets to brand people that and is there kind of, you know, we project a lot when we use

that term and it's quite derogatory, I think, for the most part when we say it. Do you think there's a danger in us labeling women that and I guess who gets to do that? I mean, I don't think anyone has the right to do anything. I feel like the internet has kind of spawned just this whole world where anyone can say anything. I mean, there are, for me, I'm, I'm a reality show junkie. And there are probably 10 different reality show crises taking place. We make assumptions about people all the time online. So that's not just Nara Smith and Han and Eilman. Like, we make assumptions about people's character. I mean, think about Taylor Swift, the things people say about her, I will say, I don't really care what these influencers think in terms of whether they think they're tradwives.

I think that the tradwife is an idea. I don't know if anyone is actually a tradwife in the sense of what it was meant to be. It was a phrase that was coined by men to describe a type of woman that didn't exist. It was like a woman who never complained and a woman who always smiles and she'll always have sex when you want to and she'll have children. So I don't know if anyone's really a trad wife. I think it's an idea. But with Nara Smith and Hannah Nealman, these are two women who benefited directly by the amplification of conservative voices. So whether or not they associate with those ideals, it feels a little bit silly to me that they can exist outside of it because they both gained millions and millions of followers, massive, massive attention capture.

They now both probably have eight-figure empires because conservative voices were amplifying them, even before the controversy. Like Fox News was pushing ballerina farm in profiles and articles before she even had a million followers. So they are beneficiaries of this kind of regressive politics and whether or not they associate with it, they don't reject it. And so they do benefit from it. Whether that means that they think all women should work at home is kind of beside the point to me. Yeah, I think it was Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA that was, yeah, profiling by the army farm. And I was reading what's so scary about a tradwife by Elaine Anson on Substack.

and she writes, the American Frontier fantasy is not a woman's dream per se. It's a man's dream that requires a woman's sacrifice, which is, I think, true for every woman who is not a content creator with 10 million followers. But in these specific cases, it's the reverse. And even in the case of Natalie, I hope I'm remembering this correctly, trad wife is something that when she's blowing up, a man on a talk show kind of bestows upon her this title, and she's the one that runs with it. And I think what is always worth remembering, it's not just clever angles,

it's not just a social media facade. It is propaganda to some degree, or at least it's so easy to repurpose it as propaganda. And I wonder if, with the weight of your research and the work that you've done, what should we consuming this, especially very young women, be looking out for in this content that should ring the alarm bell of, I am being sold, something which for me will not come true.

Yeah, it's such a good point. And I think this, again, gets into the idea of whether or not someone is consciously repackaging a propaganda ideal or a symbol is, again, to me beside the point. Because I also, like, I have no interest in saying whether any of these women are bad people or good people. Like, that's not really interesting. I think that all of these influencers who lean into, and more than just tradwives, like fitness influencers, celebrities, people who lean into into the idea of being perfectly dressed at home, of having your children always behave and performing this idea, you are leaning into this kind of propaganda machine that has always been

around. I mean, the 1950s housewife was an advertising campaign. It was not real. And so I always feel like there's a little bit of a conflict because, again, it's so impossible to be like politically pure online or in life. And I never want to hold myself to that standard or anyone else. But I do think when people push back against the idea of discourse, it's like, well, but that's, that is the balancing act. Like, these women make millions of dollars. And in exchange, we will have eternal conversations about it. And this was happening with Martha Stewart. You know, it has. happens all the way back. And so I guess my only thought is like if I were to have daughters who were consuming it, I would probably just be asking them a lot of questions. And I think I would

wait to see how they were consuming it. Because a lot of people just think it's pretty and then go back to their lives and don't change their lives. But some people, I think if someone started to say, yeah, actually, I feel like birth control is a really bad idea for people, then I would be like, cool, let's talk about that. Like, where did you get that idea? Because then you see that the algorithm is taking them down kind of a rabbit hole. Yeah, I think it's so interesting. Because luckily we're at an age and not naive enough probably now to be kind of brought in by that. But it doesn't take much. You can have these kind of softer touch.

Trad wife influences who aren't really saying anything political. And before you know, you have landed on a page where a woman's saying, I serve my husband. I always have makeup on when he gets home from work. And some of my favorite passages in the book are actually flashbacks to when Natalie goes to university. And she's kind of confronted with these young feminist women who are kind of like, I guess what we would have probably been like at university. And for the first time in my life, I felt that I could have been indoctrinated because,

Being those women through Natalie's eyes, I was like, well, that sounds awful, even though that is like my life. That's me. And I found it it was such a funny thing to think about it because when it's packaged up in the right way, and obviously you know that all of the travel wife stuff is a ruse, it is a dream. These women are working. And as the book, so cleverly kind of points out all the smoke and mirrors, but did you have fun writing from Natalie's perspective about these women because you're quite clever at embodying her and being scathing about some of the kind of like more modern feminist ways of approaching the world. And it did even make. me think in my own life how we can be quite quick to see things quite in quite a binary way so like even in my own head i've now decided that i think i want to have children and i keep thinking like can i can i say that because having children's quite traditional like it's it's kind of like you get a bit of like brain rot in a way but yeah i wanted to know about that i know i told my um my podcast co-host katie i was like i told her i was pregnant she was like what are you a mormon i was like i know i know um yeah i i i totally I had a blast. You know, I had a lot of fun. And I think, I think that someone, this book has had a lot of, I think there have been a lot of preconceptions about what it would be. And I think that there was more of a

preconception probably that it was going to be like this exclusive and explicit takedown of conservative ideologies. And for me, I felt like I was implicating myself almost as much, if not more so than the influencer in question. And I think that these scenes were really cathartic for me because that was what I grew up in as well. And I think I was probably quite judgmental at that age. And I think that I was raised in the, in the school of liberal feminism. And I no longer really, I mean, I'm very much an avowed feminist, but I don't, I think there's a lot of liberal feminism that I, that I take umbrage with or that I want to carry feminism forward from where it's like, that was great for that time period, but I think we need to keep moving forward. And so it was really fun for me to have moments of like skewering both

sides and also of to me it was almost like this double-edged sword where you're showing how much these women have in common where like they're both up against it even though they feel like they're in opposition to one another but also just kind of showing how you really can't win and and so it made sense to me when I was looking through Natalie's eyes I was like yeah that looks awful why wouldn't she want to get married like that doesn't look like fun and so I think when you have that perspective I think you need that for a lot of I'm sure a lot of liberal women will be reading this book and like to to have a moment to understand why someone would want to get married young and not complete their degree, even if that's an option to them. Yeah, I mean, leading on from that, there was a character

in the book that I found really fascinating. I can't remember if it was Shannon or another of the assistants that she works with, but they read into her way of living as one of the true ways to exit The Matrix. Yeah. And I thought that was such an interesting point because I feel like we're in this really confused point politically and socially where a lot of young people are subscribing to these bits and pieces of different politics and the way they understand it just, I can't, I can't get a read on it. I find it so confusing. You know, you get the women who are like, men should pay on dates because that's our way of tackling patriarchy. And it seems to be all these very bitty politics and social theories. It's very convoluted now. Yeah. I was wondering, what did you, what did you think about that?

And do you have a take on why you included that in the book alongside all of these other points? Yeah, that was Shannon. I feel like Shannon is kind of like a baby Marxist in a way, but she doesn't really have the terminology. I mean, I think that when I was in the tradwife discourse, I was consuming a lot of feminist arguments for the tradwife and this idea. And I was trying to really tackle how I felt about it, this idea of, well, this person runs their own company. They are, you know, controlling the means of production, which is a very Marxist theory. They are living off the land. They control their own hours. They have their children. Like, is this not the goal? Is this not like the exit from capitalism? Well, shouldn't we all be celebrating this?

And I think that is a really, really nice theory, but it's just not true. And I think, again, you look into these influencers. And number one, they really aren't, you know, doing everything off the land. They're outsourcing from a million other countries. They're paying people to do their content work. It isn't as clean, I think, as it comes across. And I think for Shannon, I liked the idea both narratively of having someone enter the ranch, which is like both in the present tense in the 1800s.

It's very secluded. You don't really have much interaction with the outside world. So Shannon entering the ranch is kind of like the ripple. I wanted. But I also just think politically having a woman who is represented of these younger generations who really are trying to move away from the binary we've been in over the last few decades, but we don't really know what comes next. And so it feels very muddy right now. It is such a, I think it's very clear-eyed. And I do think we were getting messages from people saying they felt very tenderly and very sorry for Natalie, which is how I felt, I think, most

readers at some point or another, it's impossible not to. And I do think it's very clear-eyed about the most extreme end of doing this. Were you in the research in touch with anyone who's lived or is planning to live a more traditional life, whether online or offline, or have they been in touch since with any notes, any vitriol or any sort of agreement of actually you're right on this? I haven't received any vitriol. I'm sure it exists on the internet. I mean, at this point, the book is reaching the level of like mass velocity where I feel like

it's inevitable. But no, I've had a lot of really wonderful conversations. I spoke to a number of women who had left Christian fundamentalist communities when I was doing research just for my job. Before I even started the book, I interviewed. There's this woman Celeste Davis who runs an amazing newsletter. I think it's called matriarchal blessing. And she has deconstructed with her husband. And so she was a wonderful resource for me.

And then I also spent a lot of time listening to podcasts and on Reddit forums for women who had left. Because I think if you're still in it, I don't really think that you have the perspective that at least I, would need as a novelist for this book. And if you've never been in it, and I will say I've noticed with like some of my reviews, I'm like, this feels like a very secular criticism. It feels like some, you know what I mean? I don't know if you understand it either. I certainly didn't. So I really needed to listen to the stories of women who had one foot in both worlds, because they can really shine a light on that kind of all the ironies that are at play. And no, I mean, it's kind of ironic. I feel like the women, again, like the criticisms that I have seen come from liberal women. I really have

not seen that many criticisms coming from Mormon women or ex-Morman women, like ex-evangelicals. I mean, Natalie is not a specific type of religion, but I think a lot of women see a lot of different religions in her. I've had Catholics, asks me if she's Catholic. I have evangelicals, say, is she evangelical? Is she Mormon? Is she Jehovah's Witness? So I've seen a lot of empathy for Natalie. And then I think, you know, I'm sure there are people who don't like her, but I haven't experienced any. And also, like, the book is such a mix of fact and fiction that I think it's not meant to be a actual recounting of one specific type of religion. Like it's about a woman who slowly falls down a rabbit hole, you know?

It's so, honestly, I was riffing through it. It's so good. It's so clever. And I just thought there was so many bits in there that were pulling from so many current day things. So like the interplay with politics and social media, like we've spoken about happens in real life. And the conversations around her husband, Caleb, some of my favorite passages, not to spoil the

book too much of everyone. I don't know how much we go into it. But there's bits where she's kind of not paying too much attention to Caleb. they've got yesterday ranch and he's on the internet with all his internet friends. And he's going to tell, yeah, I'm just talking to my friends. So in the manosphere and she's like, the manosphere, whatever. And then he's like, telling. And it's so funny because we as the reader understand like what is happening to Caleb,

how he's getting like radicalized online. And she's not really paying attention because she's obviously dealing with the pressure of having Caleb's father kind of funding them at this point. But it's there's so many things happening at once and it can feel quite overwhelming. And you realize this is kind of the reality that we live in. It's so unwieldly the places that people can go. from the comforts of their own home, the pass that you can get taken on in a way that historically, kind of you'd be living in the village or the area that you lived in with

150 people around you and you probably wouldn't stray too far from that. And it's so fascinating within the confines of quite a specific type of family at a specific place and a specific time, how they end up down all these paths. And I thought Caleb was such an interesting character as well. I love Caleb. Just he's such a sweetheart. He's such an idiot and he like, he starts out so gentle and he could just he could have turned out okay you know like and i again i won't get into spoilers either but like he i think he starts the novel with with many redeemable qualities and the fact that he you know his greatest flaw is that he has no ambition but there's something kind of anti-capitalist about him where he's like why why do i have to go get a job i have the money like don't shouldn't we just want

to enjoy our lives and natalie is is very much like no we work you know we work until we drop so yeah, there was just so much about him that I loved. And I think he was such a foil for Natalie in such a way that made every scene with them so much fun. Yeah, their relationship gives me shudders, but it's also just so compelling to read. I was addicted to reading them two together. And another thing that I was kind of obsessed with was the level of artifice in Natalie's life and how much performance goes on. It is the craziest shit I have ever read. I guess I was wondering, what do you think, about Natalie feels more comfortable in that level of artifice and orchestration and just kind of control, control, control, rather than living authentically or like living, embodying herself and I guess the realities of being a human. It was so much fun to write those scenes. I think, I think there are two levels to it for me. The first is that sex and the body and pleasure are very messy. They're very messy human experiences and they can't be optimized. Like, you, you know, you can try to understand yourself better.

You can try to understand your pleasure. But like there is so much about motherhood and about sex that you really have to be in your body for. And I don't think Natalie is ever in her body. So like I know a lot of writing about motherhood is meant to be very somatic and, and you know, describing how it feels. But I just, I was like, that's not how Natalie is going to process it. She's going to be very in her head.

She's not going to think about her changing body. She's not going to enjoy sex. And she has a very convoluted relationship to pleasure where it's like, only really associated with performing for God. So there was that. And then there was this level where I feel like Natalie craves power so much, but she can never acknowledge that to herself. And so I almost feel like her obsession with insemination and also with deciding when she doesn't want to get pregnant in the flip is kind of almost like her playing God without admitting it to herself and trying to have like the ultimate control.

But of, again, that's like the great irony is that she never actually has control. Even when she tries to be in control, it never works out the way that she thinks. But she just can't ever let that go. And I think she tries, she's the type of person who will grip tighter and tighter and tighter, even if like the point of the Chinese finger trap is you have to let go. It's like she'll pull it until it breaks. This is the kind of God of it all. I was very hooked by this idea of young woman relationship to God that is one of its traditional relationship,

it's judgment, surveillance, living correctly and kind of attaining safety via living correctly. and then into this relationship with social media that then becomes one of judgment, surveillance, living correctly, having to appear to live correctly, and it ends up this quite twisted situation where at once she is, I suppose, a kind of God to her followers, there is adoration and worship pouring one way, but then there is also that same level of judgment towards her.

She is both kind of like the god to her followers, but also they are a god to her. And I was reading this, and I was thinking, for all of my judgment to this character and to many people who live like this, I was thinking I kind of have that relationship too. I have this twisted relationship with social media wherein I want people to look at me,

but then I also don't. And what was it like sort of writing her relationship to social media as someone who has, you know, on TikTok and now with the podcast, but also can step away when necessary. Did it shine a magnifying glass on anything in particular? Totally. Yeah, completely. I mean, I think it's very easy for us to look at influencers

and try to claim that they have a different relationship to social media. They're addicted. They're performing and we're not. But as you know, we all are all the time. I mean, writing this book, I think really clarified to me the extent to which I think social media is just like a complete rot. I really do. And I'm not going to delete my account tomorrow.

I'm not trying to implicate anyone who uses it because it's just the world that we live in. But I spent a lot of time thinking about my own relationship to social media. and as, you know, this book has gained velocity, I have really had to erect like some significant boundaries for myself with how I spend time online. What am I going online for? And really trying to drown out the noise, both positive and negative, like positive affirmation can be as overwhelming and terrifying as negative commentary. And so, yeah, I spend a lot of time thinking about that. And I think that it has made me much more private. Like, I used to share a lot of my private

life online, even when I had a following, I would share friends. I would share my husband. I never do now. I just feel like there's a lot of, there's a lot of elements of being alive that are really sacred. And it's not like in every scenario, I'm just speaking for myself, but I have felt like I lose a lot by giving everything to, to the internet. And so, yeah, it just, I'm much more, I'm much more critical of myself now online. I totally relate. I used to share my relationships than the current relationship I'm in. I've never shared it because I realized that I was giving. I was giving, you're not sharing, it's almost like you're giving something away. Once you invite people in, you can't like put the lid back on and it's quite disconcerting. And you give so much of yourself

already. You should have something for you. I feel that way. Absolutely. And it's almost like if they can get in, I don't know. I feel that way. And now I'm like, oh, I don't think everyone to do it. But it did make me think so much to best point as well about how social media really is kind of like a god because we're judging each other all the time. Like we constantly before a pod, we're like crap. We've got to make sure we say this thing right because we do this wrong. Maybe let's cut that because actually that could be misconstrued. Because God forbid someone misunderstands. Exactly.

And even the way that sort of like Instagram face, the fact that it used to be you would put on a face to go out. But now it's like actually your face at all times, even when you're asleep, really should be looking kind of pauless and perfect. Everyone's getting Botox and fillers and like permanent makeup. It's kind of like the performance never ceases to end. And I do think that that has been enhanced through social media,

which kind of makes me feel like you're in Big Brother. And I have this to quite a heightened extent from like being on Instagram. for so long and posting about my life. And sometimes I actually have to remember that there isn't someone watching me just like when I'm in private. And I think it's so interesting that that marriage between religion and obviously in this book

it's just such an extreme, but I actually think like on a micro level, influence or not, social media, just a lurker or not, we have kind of infiltrated each other's homes to the point where it is, we are doing on a very small scale, a Natalie-esque performance every day, whether or not we want to think that we are. On that note, something I am really cognizant of now is that if I am watching an account that for whatever reason, I have negative feelings towards, but I'm like scrolling through all their reels, it really doesn't matter if I never buy one of their affiliate links or if I never buy their sourdough. Like I'm giving them my time. And not only does that time actually translate to something monetizable for them, but it is the most valuable currency I have. And that was something that I started to think about a lot when I'm giving them. And

again, no spoilers, but when I was thinking about the three-act structure of this novel, this book is really about time. You know, part one and part three are each one day in Natalie's life. They're probably the two most significant days of her life. And then part two is like her whole life in between. But Natalie loses so much time to social media. And it's, again, it's the one thing you can never get back. It's the one thing you can never make back. And it's so precious. And it really starts to feel not to be like annoying and sentimental. But I really do think about that now more where it's like, I just spent three hours on TikTok or recording TikToks. Like I just spent all this time doing discourse on TikTok and like my sister's two-year-old is

over there and I could be like with them, you know. So it is worth thinking about. Yeah, I mean, that was that was a big part of the grief of the novel, just realizing how much is lost to this life and not much to show for it. That was actually really painful. I was surprised by how sad I felt at that. Just to slightly veer off, I love diabolize. so much. Oh, thank you. I really love it. Like, these guys can attest. I bring it to this podcast

quite a lot. But one thing I'm curious about is you've made such a bold choice in not partnering with other media brands, having this independent media platform and not taking sponsorships. I love the bit at the beginning where, you know, you do your jockey jockey sponsorship bit. And that must be really difficult. And I just wanted, I guess, to hear what's that been like setting off and building something from scratch, not engaging in the sponsorship, collaboration. space, I guess. It was really scary. I mean, thank you. I think, I think it's scary no matter what. I'm sure if we could talk for another three hours offline, we would all have stories to tell about what it's like to be in the attention economy. I think that Katie and I both started it with no expectations,

and we both were basically not even necessarily planning on monetizing it. Like I had sold yesterday, so I knew I had, you know, a few years of runway to figure it out to sell another book or to find, you know, another job. And then Katie at the time had her, you know, her financial company money with Katie. And so I think that that allowed us to make a lot of reckless decisions that in retrospect, I'm like, like, girl wash your face. You have no clue what you're doing and you really should be thinking about this before you announce it. But there are a lot of elements of it that are really freeing. And so, I mean, I think the freedom, like you guys talk about, we worry quite a bit about what we say and how we say it. And it is exhausting having to deal with people policing your language.

that never ends, no matter who you are working for, so to speak. But it is nice not working with advertisers. And I think that the challenges we face of dealing with the unknown, of not having any business partner to help us build anything out. Like we're looking into video right now. We have to like find a video editor. We don't have any of that pre-established stuff. So that is really hard.

But I'm sure that podcasts that have advertisers support have their own challenges. You know, like you're dealing with a lot of oversight. you have to deal with, you know, X, Y, Z. I know that each company in the U.S., like Dear Media and Fox, they all have their own set of terms and conditions. So I think no one gets out, again, no one gets out completely clean. But it has been really, really fun to have something that feels completely ours. And as the podcast has started to succeed, I think we are trying to hold on to that

and be like, don't make decisions just for growth because that was never the point of this. And that's hard. Because when you have success, you, you, there's an instinct. we definitely both feel a little bit of like a girl boss instinct to be like, how big can we make this? But the thing I love the most is we don't have a social media account, which is like I will fight for the death for us to not have one because then I don't want to deal with it. It's so funny. On the podcast, by the way, I was just at an event.

I'm really sorry I've got to go and recording a podcast. Oh, that's cool. And I was like, yeah, I'm interesting interviewing Carrie Clair-Clauerk. And this woman goes, oh, my God, I love diabolical lies, then reached in her bag and pulled out yesterday. Oh, my God. Wow, that's incredible. That is amazing.

But yeah, she was sick. Because it's so incredible because you guys really do do all the research that long, their thought out podcast. It's really, it's so good. One thing I realized we didn't ask that I did have on the desk to ask you is, so Anne Hathaway has bought the rights to yesterday. Is that right? Her production company bought it with the backing of Amazon MGM.

I don't know like the exact language, but that's kind of like they bought it in partnership. And so this is in, do you have a timeline for when this is going to be happening? I mean, I go, the thing is, I was so, this book to me was so visual that I know exactly what Natta looks like. I know exactly what Yastya Ranch looks like that even with Anne Hathaway's pause on it, I'm going to be cross because it's not going to be what I've painted in my mind. I think it'll be different. And I'm not saying that as a warning.

Like I hope it will be different. I think yesteryear is written. It's so interior. Like I learned once in grad school that the one benefit or the one advantage a novel has to other art forms is access to consciousness. So that's the one thing a writer should always be taking advantage because it's The one thing you can do that you cannot do in any other art, in different art forms have their own advantage.

So I think that this novel has access to Natalie's consciousness and in a way that wouldn't work exactly on a film. And so when I was looking, when we were talking to people for this film rights, whenever anyone said, we're going to make it completely identical. I was like, I don't believe you. There's no way. You can't make it identical.

Otherwise, it would be the worst movie ever. So I think that they are going to make certain changes in order to make it a good movie. And I hope that's true. And I hope that they can exist kind of next to one another as opposed to kind of being like almost like an eclipsed bastardization. But I don't I don't have a timeline to share, but I know that they are moving very aggressively and there is a script that they're working on, which is really exciting. That is so exciting. It's interesting you say that because I'm in the process of working on my first piece of fiction.

Oh, congratulations. Thank you. I mean, it's going very slowly. That's how it goes. You sometimes hear as I love being inside people's minds and I think you do balance it really well. But a lot of times you do feel like novels and fiction are actually being pushed towards becoming more like scripts where it's like total action, total dialogue, total scene setting. Because people have either more visual minds, they want more action or because they have that expectation of stories being told in a way that does feel like a film. Was that ever, how was the process of selling yesterday?

Did you write it then sell it? Did you get approached? Like, did you have anyone in your ear trying to be like, we want this from you? I wrote the first draft like completely inside. I mean, I had an agent and I knew we were going to, like, I knew, I knew very early like, okay, we're going to try to sell this. Like my agent really believes in this. That's great.

But I didn't, I mean, I had no clue. I had no idea of the timing, none of that. And so I wrote it in silence and then we finished it. And I went to auction May of 2024 in the U.S. And then the UK. And then literally like a weekend passed and we went straight into film rights. And so I kind of remember it as like one big month. in my head where it was just like all these meetings, all these moments. So I certainly wasn't

writing it for the screen, but I think I've always kind of written or I've tried to write kind of visually. I think they found it, or not they, like the proverbial they, scouts found it. And there are scouts that move between Hollywood and the publishing industry because like they're always looking for more IP and more material. So as I understand it, a scout found yesterday year. And this, it's not, it's lucky, but it's not entirely uncommon that they buy the IP when you have an auction. I think I'm just lucky that I found a team that like actually want to make it because that can be tough. So we put a call out to our subscribers and we had so many questions for this book, mainly that people adored the book. So yeah, we had one from Daisy

that said, I wonder if Caro seems, sees Natalie as a product of her parenting. What motivates Natalie's fixation with the tradwife lifestyle? That's a really good question. I think generational trauma and generational healing are both major threads I was thinking about in this book. I think Natalie inherits a lot of dogma from her mother. And her mother is also probably one of the nicest people in the book. Like her mother is very redeemable to me, even though she is the one who basically passes on so much of this damaging ideology. And I think that that was really complicated for me. Like I had a complicated relationship with Natalie's mother in a way that I loved where I really, I really loved her. And I really, really felt sad for her, but I also think that she really wasn't necessarily there for her daughter.

So, and then Natalie has her own complicated parenting relationship with her daughters, where she then tries to teach them the rules of performance and surveillance. So I think that there is kind of like this, this dance that takes place where we pass along all of our most damaging beliefs, but also the only way that you change these beliefs is really through generational change. It's not that I don't believe people can change. I think people change all the time. But I think it's hard for mass change to take place in a single generation. I think those things change over time. So that was what I was thinking a lot in that sense. And the extent to which Natalie is a product of anything,

I kind of want to leave that to the reader because I think she could be a product of many things. And I don't think one is more correct than another. I think that's true. I think if there's, and people will read this and feel a lot of things, hope and lack of hope. But I think if there's when there's a hopeful message, to be found. It is if you sort of apply yourself to these changes, you can break these chains, but it is difficult. Yeah. And there are characters who escape. Precisely, I think it is.

It's not a roadmap, but it's very much, it's like the human will, which I think it's the human will to change, but also the human will to stay exactly where you are bound to your sort of belief system. We got a message from Katie who says, Natalie has no positive female friendships. Was this intentional? Yes, it was. I think female friendships are the most important thing in the world. I think they're very sacred. And I think whenever I come across someone who says, I'm just not a girl's girl. And I think that the whole girls girl thing has been kind of like it's turned into a discourse machine, which I hate. But Natalie's cold. She's a very cold person. And she's also very insecure. And I think that female friendship is so intimate and very intense.

Like I think a lot of men will sometimes be like, whoa, you guys talk about a lot of shit, you know. And I think that that's awesome. But if you're not able to excavate your own insecurities, your own worries about your failures, your stresses, your fears, I think that it's very hard to have a friendship in any sense. And I also think just from a narrative perspective, on a serious note, it was important for me that she kind of be isolated. But on a less serious note, there are so many characters in this book to name. And I was like, I've got to minimize. I can't have any additional character. We've got like 50 kids.

Like, I've got to keep this simple. we had a message from Becky that said Natalie is too real to hate doesn't she remind you of your worst hidden parts so funny and bleak and dark and it was funny because we had quite a few messages with people being like I really relate to Natalie and before you came and I was like what I was like I don't think I relate

to Natalie and then Ruchero was like no you know the bit when she's in the supermarket and she sees that friend and in her head she's thinking you stupid cow and I was like actually yes I do get that because on like a macro level I do not relate to Natalie whatsoever but then actually on a micro level she is the worst bits of us isn't she really? Yeah, I mean, I think some of the fun of literature that has, maybe my hot take is I feel like

a lot of that has kind of disappeared in contemporary literature because we're so afraid of being misunderstood or canceled or not having a moral right now. But like, there is a lot of catharsis of reading literature that allows you to admit that like humans are kind of messed up. And like we all think terrible things. Everyone thinks things that are as terrible as what Natalie thinks. The distinction is whether you act on them, of course. And like, I mean, I was just reading this in Lena Dunham's incredible memoir fam sick, how her father always tells her, there are no bad thoughts, only bad actions. We're living through a time period where there are people who think there are bad thoughts. I don't think there are. I think people are not in control of their thoughts and that like we don't

think in politically correct ways. And the way that you behave well is by monitoring that and by not letting it escape. But we're living in Natalie's head. And so you're going to hear all of her worst thoughts. And I think I certainly related to her in that way. And I think that just that sense of just kind of feeling a little snarky from time to time, I think is a thing that we can all relate to. Definitely. And it's really interesting because that also reminded me of the drama. I don't know if you saw... I was just going to say that. Yeah. I loved the drama. Love the drama. So good. And it feels like exactly what you said. There are no bad thoughts. There are only bad actions.

With fame sick, with the drama, with your book, it really feels like people are, you know, ready to have that conversation. I don't know whether people are ready to listen, but we're starting to kind of explore that thought process. maybe we shouldn't be policing thoughts in the way that we ought to police actions. It's so, oh my God, I'm not even going to get into it because I would be talking to you guys about the drama for like five hours. Oh, I wish we could do that, to be honest. It's so good. Do you have anything you want to leave people with for the book?

No, I think I have no expectation for how people should engage with this book or walk away from it. I think for a writer, you always just want someone to get to the final page. And anything else is superfluous. It's like, if you liked it, if you didn't like it, if you want to talk about it, if you don't, that's all extra. but I'm just really happy that a lot of people seem to be getting to the last page. If you've enjoyed the podcast, please do leave us a rating or if you really want to spoil us, leave us a review on your podcast player app. Please also follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is Content Pod.

See you on Friday. Bye. Bye.