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Under the Influence with Jo Piazza

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 everyone (but mostly women and mothers) a little insane.

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Yesterday · 42 min
What the Hell Do We Do With All This Rage? With Gemma Hartley
Gemma Hartley, author of No One Loves an Angry Woman: An Ex-Vangelical Coming of Rage Story, joins us to talk about why women have been taught to swallow their anger, what happens when we finally stop doing that, and how the stories we’ve been told about being “good women” have kept us quiet for a very long time. We talk evangelical Christianity and purity culture, the lies we’ve been sold about motherhood, why women are still held responsible for men’s behavior, and the exhaustion of feeling like we’ve been fighting the same fights forever. And most importantly: what the hell do we actually do with all this rage? ⁠Grab a copy of No One Loves an Angry Woman here.⁠ Follow Gemma on Substack 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
Thursday · 44 min
Democracy, It Works: A Midterm Postmortem with Katie Harbath
Has democracy been saved? Did it need saving in the first place? Can we finally feel hope again? We almost don’t know what to do with all this hope. We recorded this the morning after the midterms, running on very little sleep, and called up Katie Harbath, who was up just as late as we were. Katie was one of Facebook’s first employees in Washington and spent a decade building its approach to elections, which means she had a front row seat when everything went bananas in 2016. She writes all about it in her new book, Disrupting Politics: A Front Row Seat to the Collision of Technology and Democracy. We talk about what was different this time, who was working behind the scenes to keep things from falling apart, how James Talarico won Texas by talking to people who disagree with him, and why AI influencers are the thing keeping her up at night now. Get your copy of Disrupting Politics 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
November 3 · 46 min
Is Adult Reading Camp Is the Answer to Loneliness? Plus Croatia!
What if the best way to make friends as an adult is to go to summer camp? Think cozy cabins, excellent books, whitewater rafting, crafting, and hundreds of women who share yourn views and vibes. Jo talks with Mackenzie Newcomb, founder of the Bad Bitch Book Club, about how a book blog that turned into a 51,000-member community with reading retreats across the country. Then, Jo talks with Kristen Vukovic, founder of the Adriatic Writers Conference, about the power of writing alongside other people. From finding breakthroughs in a manuscript to navigating a publishing industry being transformed by AI. Join the Bad Bitch Book Club 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
November 2 · 44 min
Katie Sturino on “I’m Fine,” Midlife, and Not Giving the EFFs - PLUS A COVER REVEAL FOR THE LAST RIDE!!!
We’re kicking off with a cover reveal! People magazine debuted the cover of The Last Ride, our new murder-for-hire thriller set at a high-end Wyoming dude ranch. Think Yellowstone meets White Lotus with the right amount of Dirty Dancing. It comes out July 6, and preorders are open now wherever books are sold. Then we sit down with Katie Sturino, founder of Megababe, to talk about the two words women say way too often: “I’m fine.” Megababe’s research found that 96% of women say they’re fine when they aren’t at least once a week, and 81% will sit in physical discomfort for hours rather than complain. We get into why we feel so much pressure to be low-maintenance and agreeable, how to give someone an honest answer without trauma dumping, and why Katie chose to team up with Lancôme instead of picking a fight when the brand launched a campaign similar to hers. We also talk about why middle age is secretly the best age, the superpower of no longer giving the F’s, reinventing your life at any stage, self-tan hacks, and Megababe’s new Coldies cooling collar (which may or may not be making a cameo in The Last Ride). Follow Katie on Instagram and check out Megababe. 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
October 27 · 40 min
Can We Go Back to the Office Without Losing Our Flexibility?
Work is broken for most of us. The modern office was built for men with stay-at-home wives. School lets out at 3, childcare costs a fortune, and we’ve all gone a little feral since the pandemic. But we’re also lonelier than ever, and we’re losing something real when we never see each other in person. This week we talk with economist Natalia Emanuel, co-author of In Person, about why being together makes us smarter, more creative, and less miserable. We get into why we hate a Zoom (there’s brain science behind it), how young people are supposed to find mentors and make friends when they only see their coworkers on a screen, why the fight over remote versus in-office misses the point, and what a workplace built for actual humans, not shareholders, could look like. Find the book at inpersonbook.com. 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
October 22 · 45 min
The Wild Courage to Go After What You Want (with former Google Exec Jenny Wood)
What does it really take to ask for what you want—and actually get it? Jenny Wood, former Google executive and author of Wild Courage, breaks down why fear of judgment, failure, and uncertainty keep so many people stuck. This episode dives into the surprising science of ambition, why women are still penalized for being "bossy," how guilt and comparison steal more from us than failure ever could, and why being a little shameless might be the smartest move you make. Plus: what chasing a stranger off a subway platform can teach you about betting on yourself. Buy Wild Courage here. Join our newsletter community here. Pre-order EVERYONE IS LYING TO YOU here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
October 22 · 32 min
We’re Done Smiling Through It, with Hillary Frank
This week we talk with Hillary Frank, the creator of The Longest Shortest Time, a podcast that got us through the miserable, sleepless, who-is-this-tiny-alien early days of motherhood. Hillary has a new thriller out called Wedlocked, an original audiobook that is Promising Young Woman meets Get Out. The protagonist, Zara is an instructor on Uplift, a fitness app that promises to lift your weights and your spirits, and she’s married to Ezzy, the app’s founder. (Do not mix work and pleasure, people. It never ends well.) Her job is to stay relentlessly peppy no matter how sore, sad, or furious she is. Then something shifts, and Zara starts feeling genuinely, wildly happy for the first time in forever. She also starts getting scary symptoms, suspects someone is stalking her, and has to deal with an ex who shows up and thinks her new bliss is seriously weird. We won’t spoil anything, but let’s just say her happiness probably isn’t coming from a good place. We talk about why women are expected to smile through everything, from chronic pain to random dudes on the street telling is to smile to the Instagram algorithm that only promotes youth and beauty, and what it actually costs our bodies when we stuff down our anger. Plus, we found out The Longest Shortest Time is back and now covering perimenopause and reproductive health! Wedlocked is available wherever you get audiobooks, and that includes your library, y’all. 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
October 20 · 40 min
Let's Get More Moms in Office!! Chatting With Vote Mama
What if moms were in charge? This week we sit down with Liuba Grechen Shirley, founder of Vote Mama, who ran for Congress in 2018 while nursing two toddlers and became the first woman to win federal approval to use campaign funds for childcare. That ruling changed how parents run for office, and the fight has since spread to 41 states and DC. We talk about why there are more millionaires in Congress than moms of young kids, why childcare and paid leave are economic issues and not “women’s issues,” and what it actually takes for a regular person to run when the job is basically an unpaid two-year interview. Liuba shares stories from the trail, including a congressman who called her an “illegitimate constituent,” and introduces us to some of the incredible moms on the ballot this November. We also get into the very real safety threats women candidates face, the state legislators who earn more teaching classes at the Y than they do in office, and whether we should finally throw our own hat in the ring. With 202 Vote Mama candidates on the ballot and less than three weeks until the midterms, this is your sign to check back in. Host a Moms’ Night Out (rage rooms encouraged) at votemama.org/ready, follow @votemamalobby on Instagram, and sign up to volunteer at votemama.org. 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
October 15 · 38 min
Men Who Call Women Whores Are Pathetic (with Nick Aster)
We had a whole different episode planned, and then Shane Gillis stood up on SNL and called women who wear shorts to the gym whores. So we’re doing another emergency episode, and this time Nick Aster joins us to talk about why this matters so much right now. We get into what a joke like this on live network television tells young men in the wake of the Cornell Seven group text, why Dan Levy’s call for more men to speak up is exactly right, and why we think the most effective response isn’t just calling this misogyny but calling it what it is: sad, pathetic, and dumb. We also talk about raising a boy and two girls in a house full of ’80s comedies and boob jokes, how a MAGA-coded comedian getting this platform before the midterms feels like a distraction, and what a more nuanced conversation could look like. Plus, our rescue kitten Geoff makes his podcast debut, and we’re putting on our whore shorts and heading to the gym. 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
October 13 · 55 min
Everything Bookish: How to Read More, Find Great Books, and Write Your Own
Today we're talking about one of our favorite things in the world. BOOKS. Lauren and Garri from The Everygirl Book Club join us to talk about how to build a more bookish life, even when you're juggling kids, work and everything else. We're talking about finding time to read, where to get great recommendations, why it's perfectly fine to abandon a book halfway through, and why audiobooks absolutely count as reading. Plus, the importance of always having a book handy, preferably in a pocket big enough to accommodate some cheese. Then author and former book editor Christine Pride joins us to celebrate the release of our new novel, I Never Knew You at All. We talk about writing a book with your best friend (not always advisable!), the secrets we keep in marriages, what makes a book marketable, and what aspiring authors should know before trying to get published. A little something for everyone who loves reading books, talking about books or dreaming of writing one. Listen to the Everygirl Book Club Podcast here. Check out I Never Knew You at All 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
October 8 · 42 min
Are You Ready to Run for Office?
Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something and author of When We’re in Charge, joins us to talk about what the hell we can actually do when everything feels terrible. How do you run for local office? How much does it cost? Can you do it while working a full-time job? And what if you don’t want to run but still want to help? We talk about why local races matter so much, why younger candidates may have a real advantage right now, where your time and money can actually make a difference, and why Amanda thinks we might actually win. Most importantly, what can each of us do right now to help make that happen? Get a copy of When We're in Charge today. Visit Run For Something. 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
October 6 · 47 min
The Truth About Sex and Money After 40 (The Midlife Plot Twist Part Two)
What if you're not having less sex because of perimenopause? What if you're just tired of your husband and the pile of dirty laundry on your bed? And while we're at it, how the hell is everyone on Instagram affording those vacations? Our friend Lindsey Goldwert is here to talk about my two favorite taboo subjects: SEX AND MONEY. Lindsey is the co-author of The Midlife Plot Twist and writes the excellent sex newsletter Dear Star 69. We talk about why perimenopause gets blamed for every sexual problem in middle age, why you might still be horny but not particularly interested in having sex when there's a mountain of dirty laundry on the bed, and why Lindsey thinks we should replace maintenance sex with maintenance intimacy. Because nothing says romance like a calendar invite for intercourse. Then there's money. Why are we all convinced everyone else is richer than us? Why are we still measuring success by houses, marriages, children and retirement accounts? And what if your dream retirement doesn't involve golf or a condo in Florida but playing drums in an all-women band called Pelvic Ultrasound? ORDER The Midlife Plot Twist 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
October 1 · 42 min
In the Wake of the Cornell 7, How Can We Raise Good Men?
What happens when boys learn about masculinity from the internet before they learn how to understand their own emotions? Jo talks with Peggy Orenstein, author of Boys & Sex, about the forces shaping young men long before they reach college, the locker room or the frat house. They dig into the extraordinary influence of figures like Andrew Tate, how social media algorithms can turn curiosity into increasingly extreme ideas, and why simply keeping kids away from harmful content is no longer enough. The conversation also explores why boys are often taught to see anger as their only acceptable difficult emotion, and what gets lost when they learn to shut off everything else. It’s a conversation about how we raise boys, what the internet is teaching them, what parents can still influence, and why some of the answers may begin much earlier than we think. 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
September 29 · 43 min
You Don't Have to Burn It Down: The Midlife Plot Twist, Part One
This week we start a two-part series on how not to blow up your life in midlife, with Gabrielle Moss, co-author of The Midlife Plot Twist: How to Reboot Your Life Without Burning It Down, Even If You Really, Really Want To. Gabby spent her career writing about pop culture, so she knows exactly how badly it has served women over forty. We get into why the midlife crisis went from a serious idea to a punchline about men and convertibles, why the '80s sitcoms were doing this better than anything on streaming right now, and why Anne Hathaway in a string bikini is not quite the representation we were hoping for. We also talk about the question at the center of the book, which is whether the life you built is actually yours or just the one you were told to want. Plus the nine-job economy, the career ladder that no longer exists, what retirement is even supposed to mean for our generation, and the surprisingly hard question of what you actually like. Part two with co-author Lindsey Goldwert is coming next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
September 24 · 41 min
The Last Free Women of Afghanistan
Rebecca Blumenstein helped get 124 people out of Kabul when the city fell. Diana Kapp had been reporting on Afghan girls since 2012. Their new book, The Last Free Women, follows four of those young women through five years of starting over in America, learning English, going back to college, and carrying the weight of everyone they left behind. We talk about what's happened to women in Afghanistan since 2021, why the five-year anniversary went almost uncovered, and why this story deserves a spot on your book club list. 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
September 22 · 42 min
Chasing Cozy: The Birthday Episode With Jane Green
We’re coming to you poolside on Jo's birthday from Marrakech with bestselling author Jane Green for a conversation about the things we learn as we get older, wiser and more bad ass. We talk about choosing the people who choose you, trusting your gut, learning the art of discernment and realizing you’re allowed to build the life you actually want. We get into raising independent kids, why they need room to fail, friendships that have seasons, learning to say no and why aging makes it much easier to walk away from people and situations that don’t feel right. Jane also opens up about leaving her marriage, finding herself again in midlife and the story behind her memoir Rewilding. Then we get into her new novel, The Many Private Lives of Missy Cooke, female friendship, Working Girl, our feelings about plastic surgery and identical Instagram faces, Fleabag and how many tagines are simply too many tagines. 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
September 17 · 44 min
Can a Chatbot Love You Back?
Bridget Todd used to read the headlines about people proposing to ChatGPT and write those people off as sad and strange. Then she heard tech leaders describe AI companionship as the future they are building for everyone, and realized dismissing it was not a plan. This week we talk with the award-winning podcaster behind There Are No Girls on the Internet about her new audiobook, Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy, written with social scientist Michael S. Amato and published by Simon & Schuster Audio Originals. We cover the numbers, which are bigger than most people assume, and the surprise in the research, which is how many women are using AI for romantic and erotic role play and why the romance matters more than the sex. Bridget describes trying to talk ChatGPT into bed herself and discovering she had to lie, neg, and wear it down, which felt uncomfortably familiar. We talk about why the people living these relationships almost never get asked about them, why shame is blocking the regulation we need, and where kids fit into all of this, including the day a nine-year-old typed a question into Google and had Gemini start asking him how he felt about it. And Bridget talks about the part she never intended to report. After her mother died suddenly and she became her father's caretaker, she found herself unloading everything into a chatbot at three in the morning rather than calling the people who love her. She is still working out what that cost her. Love at First Prompt is available at loveatfirstprompt.com and wherever you get audiobooks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
September 15 · 47 min
The Lone Liberal on Fox News Wrote the Book on Disagreeing Better
Jessica Tarlov has one of the strangest jobs in American media. Five days a week she sits at a table on Fox News' The Five as the lone liberal, arguing in front of millions of people who mostly do not agree with her. Everyone asks her the same question, and it comes from both parties: how do you do that without losing your mind? Her new book, I Disagree: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends, is her answer. This week we talk with Jessica about building a data-based worldview, the hardest days she has ever had on air, and why staying silent is often the most powerful move in an argument. We also get into the lie our generation was sold about leaning in and having it all and the tightrope women walk every time they open their mouths at work. I Disagree is out now wherever books are sold, and it belongs in your book club, ideally with people you disagree with. 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
September 10 · 45 min
How Can We Save Child Stars ? Would You Buy Sydney Sweeney's Underwear? And a New Royal Tell-All
We're dropping an episode of a brand new celebrity news podcast in your feed today. Celebrity Intelligence: The Lowdown. Jo's a lead producer and host on this one and she's joined by her longtime colleague and dear friend, Dan Wakeford. What happens when you become famous before you know who you are? This week on Celebrity Intelligence: The Lowdown, we dig into the darker side of growing up famous and ask whether there's any way to make child stardom less toxic. Could AI be the answer? One expert says yes. We're also talking about Sydney Sweeney's lingerie brand and whether it can compete in a very crowded celebrity market, the strange business of the Beckhams owning the commercial rights to their children's names, and whether the British royals are ever going to kiss and make up. Plus a new royal tell-all from Diana's brother. And finally, the answer to a question no one asked: what does Harry Styles think about in the shower? ⁠Subscribe the Celebrity Intelligence newsletter here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
September 8 · 44 min
"How Not to Look Like Shit": Bobbi Brown on Makeup, Aging, and Being Scrappy Forever
Bobbi Brown started Bobbi Brown Cosmetics out of her garage while pregnant in 1990. Four and a half years in, Estée Lauder called and said we want to buy you, and she said okay, mostly because she did not really know what a brand was yet. She stayed on for 22 years as an employee of the company that owned her own name. When she finally left, she still had four and a half years left on a non-compete, which meant she was legally not allowed to make a single beauty product. So she renovated a hotel, sold vitamins at Walmart, did an eyeglass line, and then launched Jones Road in October 2020, one week before the presidential election, when everyone told her she was out of her mind. Bobbi is a force of nature and her memoir Still Bobbi: Lessons on Building a Beautiful Life is a book club must read. We talk about the lab screwup that turned into Miracle Balm, what she does instead of Botox and which laser she will never touch again, why the phrase anti-aging makes no sense to her, and what 38 years of marriage plus running a company with your husband actually looks like. 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

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