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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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Today · 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
Tuesday · 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
September 6 · 33 min
Sunday Nice Things: Did Emily Ruin Paris?
Today we're sharing an episode from another podcast I think you'll enjoy: The Global Story from the BBC. The question they’re tackling is a great one: Did Emily Ruin Paris? Whether you love Emily in Paris, hate-watch it, or just can't escape it, there's no denying it's had a huge impact. The show has turned cafés, streets and neighbourhoods into tourist hotspots, and even won praise from French President Emmanuel Macron for putting France in the global spotlight. But what happens when a TV show becomes so popular that it starts changing a city in real life? Are all those new visitors a blessing... or a headache for the people who actually live there? In this episode, co-hosts Asma Khalid and Tristan Redman - who lives in Paris himself - dig into what’s been named the "Emily effect”, and explore the surprising ways TV shows and movies can shape how we see places, sell places, and sometimes transform them altogether. Have a listen, and if you enjoy it, search for The Global Story wherever you get your podcasts - every day they cover one big story at the intersection between America and the world. Here's Did Emily Ruin Paris? from The Global Story. Listen to more at https://link.mgln.ai/Influence-TGS 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 3 · 37 min
The Tradwife Era Is Over. So Why Are We Still Obsessed?
Why are smart, progressive, left-voting women are still watching tradwife content? Even after the trend has peaked? Author Claire Swinarski has also written a tradwife novel entitled The Supper Club Saints. Today we're chatting about how Yesteryear became such a phenomenon and whether the book's success is really about giving women a socially acceptable place to put their rage. We also get into why the girlboss-versus-tradwife binary is failing everybody. Claire's new novel is The Supper Club Saints. Find her at claireswinarski.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
September 1 · 38 min
An OBGYN's Cheat Sheet for Getting Taken Seriously
Dr. Tracy Shevell is an OBGYN who has spent 25 years in women's intimate spaces, and she has watched the system fail women over and over. Her goal is to help women get them better care by telling them how to work within a broken system. Tracy tells us the exact phrasing to use going to the doctor or walking into an emergency room, and why describing your symptoms honestly and expecting the system to respond correctly is not always the best strategy. She talks about why many OBGYNs are not trained to treat menopause, what is genuinely changing in endometriosis research right now, and the maternity care deserts spreading across most of the country. Her first book, Labor and Deliverance: Reclaiming the Healing in Women's Health, is out January 26. It's nine patient stories plus the decade she spent being dismissed by other doctors while working as one herself. 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
August 26 · 49 min
Pour Yourself a Cup of Ambition: Remembering Dolly
Dolly Parton died on Tuesday at 80, and she may have been the last thing Americans agreed on. We're replaying this episode in her honor. Our conversation with Will Bonfiglio, the WashU lecturer behind a wildly popular college course on Dolly, is about how the country icon became a cultural unifier across politics, class, gender, and generations. From Dollywood to "9 to 5" to her million-dollar vaccine donation, this is a conversation about kindness, capitalism, and why Dolly Parton was an uber influencer in the best possible way. 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
August 25 · 35 min
Why We Need Paid Leave Right Now
The United States is basically the only country in the world without paid family and medical leave, and we are not okay with it. This week, Dawn Huckelbridge of the Paid Leave for All campaign joins us to break down what paid leave actually is (no, FMLA doesn't count), who it's really for (everyone — parents, the sandwich generation, gig workers, you), and why it's a winning issue with 91% of Americans behind it. We bust the biggest myths, including the lie that it hurts small businesses, celebrate the wins in 42 states and DC, and talk about why paternity leave might help fix the male loneliness crisis. Plus: raising boys in the age of the manosphere, AI anxiety, and exactly how to hold your elected officials' feet to the fire. Learn more about Paid Leave for 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
August 23 · 19 min
Sunday Nice Things: A New Book You'll Absolutely Love
This week on Under the Influence Sunday Nice Things, we have a book rec you will LOVE. Jennifer Herrera’s Siren Says, a magical, sexy, gloriously witchy novel about embracing your power and finding your confidence as a woman. We have a quick chat with Jennifer about the ancient story that inspired the book, botanical magic, the wisdom women pass down through generations, and why so many of our myths about powerful women have been lost or overlooked. Plus, spell jars, the power of belief, and why we could all use a little more magic and sparkle right now. If you love Practical Magic, fierce women, gentle men, plant magic, mythology, and a delicious escape from the dumpster fire of the news, add this one to your fall reading list. ORDER SIREN SAYS 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
August 20 · 40 min
Why We Keep Underestimating Conservative Women
For years we've been laughing at tradwives. We've mocked the prairie dresses, the sourdough starters, the "submit to your husband" content, and the endless parade of blonde influencers telling women to embrace traditional femininity. Meanwhile, conservative women have been building one of the most effective political movements in modern American history. Today's guest, sociologist Katie Gaddini, spent nearly a decade embedded with Christian conservative women across the country. What she found challenges almost everything we think we know about who these women are and how they wield power. We chat about the influencer ecosystem shaping political beliefs, the pageant-to-politics pipeline, why appearance can be a political strategy, and why reducing conservative women to tradwives may be blinding us to what's actually happening. Because while everyone was busy making fun of the aesthetic, these women were building institutions, winning elections, shaping culture, and changing the country. Order Esther's Army 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
August 18 · 45 min
The Joy of Giving Fewer F*cks
What happens when good girls grow up and stop apologizing? For generations, women have been rewarded for being agreeable, being accommodating and being grateful for what they have instead of asking for more. And yet many women reach a certain age and find themselves less interested in being nice. Our guest is comedian, storyteller, and longtime public radio host Ophira Eisenberg, whose new comedy special is called I Used To Be Nicer. We're chatting about the cultural expectations placed on women, the pressure to be endlessly grateful, and why so many of us are pushing back against the idea that being pleasant should be our highest calling. Find Ophira 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
August 13 · 38 min
The Dark Side of Being a Good Girl
For years, women have been told that success means being chosen. Chosen by a partner. Chosen for the promotion. Chosen by everyone except ourselves. This week we're joined by Sabrina Bendory, author of The Feminine Code, for a conversation about self-worth, attachment styles, toxic relationships, and the ways women are conditioned to over-give, over-accommodate, and lose themselves in pursuit of love and validation. We talk about why so many smart, successful women stay in unhealthy relationships, what Sabrina calls "light" and "dark" feminine energy, the mother wound, people-pleasing, and how childhood experiences shape the way we show up in adult relationships. Along the way, we unpack anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, why emotionally unavailable people can feel so magnetic, and what it actually takes to build healthy relationships without abandoning yourself in the process. Order The Feminine Code 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
August 11 · 43 min
Grudges, Revenge, MLMs and Book Recs with Emily Paulson
This week on Under the Influence, bestselling author and recovering MLM insider Emily Paulson joins us for a rage-filled chat about revenge fantasies, influencer culture, tradwives, motherhood, social media lies, and the absolute exhaustion of watching terrible men fail upward forever. Plus: a huge stack of summer reading recommendations, including books about momfluencers, bad mothers, feminist rage, internet culture, and the patriarchy’s long, weird history of ruining everything. Grab Emily's new novel The Revenge Party. 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
August 6 · 36 min
Book Tour Brain & Majoring in Influencing
It's been a blurry week. Jo and Nick share behind-the-scenes moments from The Parisian Heist tour, announce the Catskills Book Festival, and talk about what' books Jo is working on next. Then Nick leaves to pick up the kids and Jo digs into Arizona State's groundbreaking degree in content creation and why she actually thinks it is a brilliant idea. (And they should hire her to be a professor). 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
July 30 · 41 min
The Art of an Adventurous Life
This week, we're sharing a special crossover episode with Get a Life, the new podcast from Jo's best friend, women's wellness coach and positive psychology practitioner Jackie Cascarano. Together, they explore the forgotten women who inspired The Parisian Heist, the myth of the male genius, why travel has shaped Jo's life and writing, and how curiosity, creativity, and adventure can help women build richer, more interesting lives. Binge Get a Life 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
July 28 · 48 min
Get Out of the Waiting Room of Your Life
Jess Ekstrom, the author of Making It Without Losing It: How to Stay Motivated in a World Where We Are Never Done, grew up in the shadow of one of the biggest financial scandals in American history. After her family lost everything to Bernie Madoff, she eventually sat across from him in prison and asked him why he did it. His answer was slightly heartbreaking and it became the lynchpin of Jess's personal transformation. What if the next promotion, bestseller list, milestone, or parenting phase isn't the thing that's finally going to make you happy? This week we're talking about the pressure women feel to constantly strive for more and to achieve external validation. We chat about the "arrival trap" that keeps so many of us convinced that real life begins after the next achievement, why motherhood can completely upend our sense of identity, and how to stay ambitious without tying your self-worth to your accomplishments. Order Making It Without Losing It: How to Stay Motivated in a World Where We Are Never Done 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
July 23 · 38 min
The Best Ideas Come at 3 in the Morning with Allison Winn Scotch
Nobody talks honestly enough about the 3 a.m. wake-up—the sweating, spiraling and sometimes creative genius that strikes women in the wee hours of the morning. This week we’re joined by bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch to talk about insomnia, midlife, creativity, and how all of it inspired her latest novel, The Insomniacs. What starts as a conversation about melatonin, mouth guards, indica gummies, and why husbands seem biologically engineered to sleep through anything turns into a much bigger discussion about ambition, burnout, publishing, found family, and why some of the best ideas arrive in the middle of the night. Buy The Insomniacs 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

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