Under the Influence with Jo Piazza
Episodes
We Need to Talk About Spencer Pratt
21 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Years ago, Spencer Pratt was dismissed as a fame-hungry reality TV idiot with frosted facial hair and a crystal obsession. But looking back? He may ha...
What to Read After Yesteryear and the History of Tradwives
19 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you loved Yesteryear — or absolutely hated it — a lot of you have been asking the same question: what should I read next? This week on Under t...
Pregnancy in the Age of Social Media
14 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Social media has changed pregnancy in a big way. Between picture-perfect bumps, “effortless” births and endless advice, it’s easy to feel like y...
Why Does the World Hate Ambitious Women?
12 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There's a very specific kind of rage that comes from realizing that the rules were rigged against you the entire time. As women, we were told that ...
A Sneak Peek of THE PARISIAN HEIST
09 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Happy weekend! Here's a sneak peek of the first chapter of Jo van Gogh's story in The Parisian Heist. Just in case you needed a little taste before ge...
Hating on the 3-Hour Mom—We'd Never Do This to a Man
07 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A Wall Street Journal headline about a powerful female executive spending “only” three hours a weekend with her kids turned into an internet bloo...
Visit Ballerina Farm With Me
06 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when you step inside the internet? In this episode, we head to the Ballerina Farm farm shop in Midway, Utah and the Ballerina Farm Dairy ...
Art is For Everyone With Liz Lidgett
30 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Art has a branding problem. Somewhere along the way, we decided it was only for rich people, or academics living in their ivory towers Liz Lidgett i...
Moving at a Human Pace With Isaac Fitzgerald
28 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to move through the world at a human pace? To ramble and wander and chat up strangers in real life? This week, we sit down with wri...
Money, Marriage, And The Myth of “Having it All — Ask Jo Anything
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Ask Jo anything this week. We've got a grab bag of audience questions and completely unfiltered responses to things like: What’s the biggest lie...
Let's Read Alone Together a Chat With the Co-Founder of Silent Book Club
21 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There's nothing I love more than quietly reading. I love it alone. I love it in groups. But I especially love doing it in public, with the rest of the...
Get Outside! The Indoor Epidemic Is Real and It’s Wrecking Our Brains
16 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve become an indoor species and it is making us sick and burnt out. Today we're chatting with Dr. John La Puma about the indoor epidemic and wh...
My New True Crime Obsession in Utah—the Kouri Richins Murder Trial
14 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Jo’s new true crime obsession started with a trip to Midway, Utah. She was there for an event at Folklore bookstore and a visit to Ballerina Farm D...
Gen Z Men Are Getting More Conservative. What the Hell Happened?
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A third of Gen Z men think wives should obey their husbands. This generation of young men, ages 14 to 29, is getting more conservative by the day. How...
The Fine Line Between Cult and Wellness Movement—One Woman's Escape From One Taste and Finding Humor in the Aftermath
07 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How does something marketed as healing, empowerment, and connection start to slide down the slippery slope of becoming a sex cult? That's just one pa...
The Chess Queen Who Wants Women to Stop Waiting for the Perfect Move
02 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
How do you make a move when you have no idea what comes next? Jen Shahade has spent her life inside the world of chess as a two-time U.S. women’s c...
Why So Many Mothers Are Unraveling and Filled With Rage with Libby Ward
31 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We're often told or indoctrinated to believe motherhood is supposed to be magical, fulfilling, your highest calling, the thing that finally makes ever...
Gossip is Good For You! Dissecting Taylor Frankie Paul and the Justin Timberlake DUI Video
26 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Time to do a deep dive into breaking celebrity news and what it’s revealing about our culture right now. Our guest is Dan Wakeford, a longtime forc...
The False Choice Between Tradwife and Girlboss
24 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Why have women been told the only choices are girlboss or tradwife, lean in or opt out, burnout or retreat? We're chatting with author and coach Megan...
Taylor Frankie Paul is a Bingeable Trainwreck and ABC and the Bachelorette Knew That Going Into This
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
An emergency episode is needed because the Bachelorette just got canceled before it even started and it's just so Secret Lives of Mormon Wives...... ...
How the Right Won the Attention Economy
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The right did not accidentally win social media and the internet. They built an entire influencer machine, and the left is still acting like a few spo...
Sunday Nice Things: Creation Myth
15 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
You all loved hearing Helena DeGroot's episode about not having kids so I wanted to drop the first episode of her series Creation Myth here for you to...
Women Are Being Gaslit About Birth, a Chat With Dr. Jennifer Lincoln
13 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The internet is full of terrible birth advice, and pregnant people are paying the price. This week, we’re joined by OB-GYN Dr. Jennifer Lincoln to b...
How Reality TV Changed How We Consume Stories with Survivor's Stephen Fishbach
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What’s harder: winningSurvivor or writing a novel? According to former Survivor runner-up Stephen Fishbach, it’s writingthe novel by a billion...
Is This Actually a Love Story? JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, the Nineties and Parliament Lights
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Are you watching Love Story? This week we're chatting with our resident ’90s guru Glynnis MacNicol about Hulu’s depiction of JFK Jr. and Carolyn B...
Not Having Kids Is Not a Tragedy
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What if you do not want kids, but everyone acts like you are making a mistake? This week, we’re talking with Helena DeGroot, creator of the podcast...
How Vulnerable Kids Became Clickbait
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Content featuring sick, sad, or injured children usually performs best online. Let that sink in. That insane fact is just one of the unsettling real...
How History Erased Mothers
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Motherhood makes history, but history keeps trying to erase mothers. In this episode of Under the Influence, feminist cultural historian Elinor Clegho...
Grab Bag: Where Did Love Taza Go?
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Who was your gateway influencer? For us, it was Love Taza—Naomi Davis—the Juilliard-trained ballerina (yes, a different one) turned mommy blogger...
Sunday Nice Things: Birth With Babylist
22 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Jo has been working on a brand new podcast about birth for the past year and she is so excited to share it with you all. Today we are sharing the v...
Can You Actually Retire Early When You Have Kids?
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Financial advice for parents usually lands in extremes, either panic-inducing warnings about how expensive kids are, or unrealistic frameworks that do...
How to Be a Rich Old Lady
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Close your eyes (not if you’re driving) and picture your old lady life. You wake up when you want. You wear glorious caftans. You’re strong and yo...
Toe Pick!
12 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In celebration of the Winter Olympics (the best thing to ever happen to Peacock) we are bringing back one of our favorite episodes of Committed with p...
Grab Bag: The Ballerina Farm Raw Milk Scandal, Hating on the Katies & Intellectual It Girls
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s episode is a grab bag — a hodgepodge of the stories people have been asking me about in my DMs for the past week. First up: the Balleri...
Moms Drive the Economy. So Why Are They Still Underpaid?
05 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Moms drive the majority of household purchasing decisions. Recommendations from mom influencers outperform traditional ads. They even convert better ...
Why Planning Summer Has Become a Nightmare
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Every January, parents are asked to plan the entire summer for their kids months in advance, spend a lot of money, juggle waitlists, and pretend this ...
From Momfluencers to MILFs: Who Gets Labeled a Bad Mother
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve had kids, you’ve probably wondered at some point if you’re a bad mother. I would say this is true for 99.9 percent of us. And the othe...
Moms Just Want (Deserve) to Have Fun
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
No one is going to check in with you to make sure you're enjoying your life. What if fun—not self-care, not optimization, not doing more—is t...
Perimenopause, GLPs, and the Medical Gaslighting of Women
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There are only a few topics women in their forties can’t stop talking about right now: perimenopause, hormone replacement therapy, and GLP medicatio...
The Heated Rivalry Episode
20 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Three things are happening in the group chat right now: perimenopause, ICE, and Heated Rivalry. That’s it. That’s the list. And yes, I am late to ...
Sunday Nice Things: Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
I’m really excited to introduce you to a new show today. It’s a smart podcast about trashy books: Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, created by my good...
Just a Busy Season and Other Lies We Tell About Motherhood
15 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Taylor Wolfe, better known as The Daily Tay, has built a massive following online by helping us laugh about the hardest parts of motherhood. In this ...
My Most Anticipated Book of the Year
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There are so many “most anticipated” lists about what to read this year. We have one book at the very top of ours: The Fountain by Casey Scieszka....
More Joy in January
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
January should officially be Women’s Rest and Recovery Month, because after December most of us are sick, behind on work, emotionally fried, and try...
Tidying up in the New Year with Tidy Dad
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
January feels like a real dumpster fire so far. It's supposed to feel like a reset, but instead it feels chaotic and messy and exhausting. Today we a...
What We Want Less of in 2026
01 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We’re kicking off the new year by talking about something we both love and hate: “resolutions.” Or, more accurately, a list of what we don’t w...
Holding Rosie: A Mother’s Story of SUDC and Survival
30 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this heartfelt conversation, Dr. Florencia Segura shares her personal journey of losing her daughter Rosie to Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood...
How to Build Deep Friendships Without Burning Yourself Out
25 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does friendship actually look like in the messy middle parts of midlife, when time is scarce, energy is finite, and relationships have to earn th...
How to Travel with Kids
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Traveling with kids is not a vacation. It’s work. It’s labor. It’s also one of my absolute favorite things to do. In this episode I talk about h...
Sunday Nice Things: Dissecting Tradwives and Feminism
21 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today I'm dropping an interview that I did with the Love-ly podcast into our feed. This week on Love-ly, Mehak sits down with bestselling author,...
We've Reached Peak Tradwife
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The trad wife trend has finally hit its ceiling. After years of algorithm-friendly homemaking, the movement is showing the cracks in its seams. The p...
Holiday Rage, Hormones, and the Power of No
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Holiday joy is supposed to feel cozy and magical. Instead, a lot of women spend December simmering with quiet (or not so quiet) rage. Let's dig into w...
Sunday Nice Things: Inside the World of a Teenage Tik-Tok Star
14 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In light of the news about Australia's social media ban for teenagers we are resurfacing an episode with a young creator. This is a deep dive into t...
Australia Just Banned Social Media for Teens. What Happens Next
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Australia just became the first country in the world to ban social media for anyone under sixteen. It’s a sweeping, messy and imperfect law. But it'...
The Books by Women History Tried to Forget
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Quite Literally Books is doing something rare in publishing. They are bringing back books by American women who were once widely read, widely praised,...
Sunday Nice Things: The Nanny Wars
07 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week we’re bringing back one of my favorite episodes because it has only become more relevant. On the surface, it is a story about “bad nanny...
The Author Who Took On AI and Won
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when a thriller writer discovers her novels have been quietly fed into AI without her consent and decides to fight back. In this episode,...
You're Not Broken, Our Idea of Motherhood Is
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
W're told that motherhood is supposed to feel natural, fulfilling and instinctive. If it does not, our culture tells you the problem is you. Jo and li...
All the London Recommendations with Three Feral Kids
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This episode dives into the joy of planning a trip, because there really should be a German word for the absolute delight that the anticipation of tra...
Sunday Nice Things: Uncover
23 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You may think you know the NXIVM story. The secretive self-help empire. The sex cult headlines. The downfall of its leader, Keith Raniere. But the mos...
Do I Need a Hobby?
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Do you actually have hobbies, or do you just have things that feel like self-improvement projects? In this episode, Jo kicks off an “Adventure Year”...
The Women History Forgets
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The stories we tell about women matter. How we amplify and promote those stories matters. To that end we are considering how to resurrect a history se...
Can Instagram Ever Be Safe for Teens?
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Can parents ever really know what’s happening inside their kids’ phones? This episode takes a hard look at how Instagram says it’s protecting te...
Guns & Gossip: My So Called Life Rewatch Episode Three
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We’re heading back to 1994 for My So-Called Life episode three, “Guns and Gossip.” A gun goes off at school, rumors spread, and Angela Chase is ...
Rewatch My So Called Life With Me
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been thirty years since My So-Called Life premiered—thirty years since Angela Chase fell for Jordan Catalano and quietly redefined what teena...
We’re Not Going Quietly Into Perimenopause
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, menopause has been treated like a medical afterthought—a punchline, a whisper, or something to “just get through.” But millennial w...
The Antidote to Tradwife Economics
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tradwife influencers are selling women a dangerous fantasy — that dependence is aspirational. It’s not. In this episode, we dig into the real cost...
How to Unf*ck Your Conditioning as a Mother
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Therapist, writer, and content creator Vanessa Spinarsky helps women untangle the cultural scripts that shape how we mother. Her viral message to “u...
How to Find an Agent and Sell a Book
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The publishing world can feel like an exclusive club: one where the rules are unwritten and the gatekeepers speak a different language. In this episod...
Sunday Nice Things: Heart Trouble
26 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Our friends at Tink Media and the Resonate Podcast Festival have launched something called Pitch Party—a brilliant idea that gives independent audio...
Want to Feel Human Again? Break Your Phone Addiction
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We spend nearly two months a year on social media. Two months!!!!That’s how much time the average person gives to an algorithm built to hijack their...
So Your Parents Are Old
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We talk a lot on this show about women doing too much. About the impossible math of modern life—motherhood, work, ambition, marriage, self-care, fr...
Sunday Nice Things: Taylor Isn't a Tradwife
19 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Taylor Swift isn’t a tradwife. She’s the opposite. She’s a woman who waited, who dated the douchebags, found herself, built an empire, and then ...
Gabrielle Hamilton on the Myths That Make a Family
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Every family runs on a kind of mythology — the stories we tell about who we are, where we come from, and what we’ve survived. For Gabrielle Hamilt...
I Bought a Vintage Trailer… How Can I Turn it Into a Bookstore?
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I finally did the thing. After years of dreaming about a Philly bookstore, Nick and I bought a vintage trailer and christened it The Bookcase, a pop u...
Divorcing Heterosexuality (and Other Data-Driven Decisions)
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Wharton economist Corinne Low wrote a viral article for The Cut titled “This Economist Crunched the Numbers and Stopped Dating Men.” Low, the aut...
The Original It Girl: What Jane Birkin Can Teach Us About Fame, and Influence
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jane Birkin invented effortless cool before Instagram, before influencers, before French-girl chic was even a thing. But behind the Birkin bag and the...
Sunday Nice Things: Book Journey x Alka Joshi
05 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today we're dropping an episode of Book Journey into the feed, a behind-the-scenes podcast from editor and Northern California Writers Retreat directo...
I Miss the 90s. What I Really Miss is Real Life
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We are living in peak nineties nostalgia. Everywhere you look there are slip dresses, scrunchies, bucket hats, even Tamagotchis making a comeback. But...
The Bright Side of Not Drinking
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do you make sobriety cool? Suzanne Warye was one of the first influencers asking that question. On her account The Sober Mom Life and in her new ...
Sunday Nice Things: Let's Talk About Birth with Lo & Behold
28 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today I'm dropping an episode of Lo Mansfield's show Lo & Behold in the feed. Lo is a former labor and delivery nurse and current birth educator. You...
The Mental Load of Family Life: The Work You Can’t See But Always Feel
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Why does it feel like moms carry a running scroll of everything — the playdates, the vaccines, the permission slips, the damn pile of laundry on the...
Strong Enough to Survive Toddlers With Andre Crews
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Parenting is the hardest workout of all. Trainer and dad Andre Crews went viral for calling toddlers terrorists who hold their whole family hostage (s...
Sunday Nice Things: Women's Work
21 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are revisting the second ever episode of UTI! Mom influencing is a multi-billion dollar industry. How the hell did we get here? How did influ...
The Messy Truth About Potty Training
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Potty training has been sold to parents as a finish line — three days, one weekend, no more diapers. But what if that’s the wrong way to think abo...
How We Divide Household and Parenting Labor in Our House
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
So many women are exhausted by carrying more of the household labor, both the visible chores and the invisible work no one talks about. In this episod...
Can Creativity and Motherhood CoExist?
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The world loves to tell parents—especially moms—that kids and creativity can’t co-exist. Writer M.M. De Voe thinks that’s B.S. and so do I. M...
How Patagonia Rewrote the Rules of Influence With David Gelles
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Patagonia isn’t just an outdoor brand. It’s a company that has quietly shaped how we dress, how we think about the planet, and how business can ac...
Sunday Nice Things: Broadway Husbands
07 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen and Bret—aka the Broadway Husbands—have spent their careers lighting up the stage, from The Little Mermaid to Billy Elliot. But their most...
Here's What No One Tells You About Freezing Your Eggs With Danielle Robay
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when your peak career years collide with your peak fertility years? Journalist Danielle Robay shares her unfiltered story of freezing her...
Forget Perfect Parties—Here’s How to Celebrate Every Day With Grossy Pelosi
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve been sold the myth that entertaining means a spotless house, endless cooking, and perfection. Dan Pelosi—aka Grossy Pelosi—believes the op...
Sunday Nice Things: Totally Booked with Zibby
31 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we are sharing my recent interview on the Webby Award-winning daily podcast Totally Booked with Zibby. Hosted by Zibby Owens, Totally Booked ...
What No One Teaches You About Taking Care of a House
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most of us don’t know how to put on a duvet cover without swearing, let alone clean a dryer vent before it catches fire. Enter Casey Finn, creator o...
Why Dads Get a Medal and Moms Get Judged—Parenting Double-Standards and Back to School
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s episode is part back-to-school survival guide, part summer highlight reel, and part investigation of parenting double standards. We ref...
Instagram Made Me Feel Like a Bad Mom — So I Started a Podcast
21 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Five years ago, I was a new mom recording a podcast in my closet, wedged between a toddler and a baby who wouldn’t sleep. For the past few months I ...
Attainable Over Aspirational: How Kate Strickler of Naptime Kitchen Keeps It Real
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Kate Strickler started Naptime Kitchen in 2015, it was just a way to share the meals she cooked while her baby slept. Now it’s a thriving brand...
Sunday Nice Things: Death Virgin
17 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My friend Kristen is a woman in her fifties who has never lost anyone close to her. So her decision to embark on the journey of becoming a death doula...
Breaking the Cycle of More
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We live in a culture of more. More toys. More shoes. More jumpsuits buried in the back of the closet. But what happens when you try to break free from...
The Patriarchy’s New Branding: From Tradwives to Soft Girls With Dr. C. Nicole Mason
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The patriarchy is getting a rebrand. From tradwives to “soft girl” culture, conservative influencers are using the language of feminism to sell wo...
Sunday Night Things: The Billionaires Who Want to Live Forever
10 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week I am bringing back one of my favorite episodes of Too Much Money, the show I created with Doree Shafrir of Forever 35 about the ridiculous s...