Under the Influence with Jo Piazza

I worked on both seasons one and two of Under the Influence as a mixer, sound designer and original music composer. Under the Influence is produced and distributed by iHeartMedia. Jo Piazza hosts the podcast, it is edited by Glynnis McNichol, and Emily Marinoff produces it.

Under the Influence is a deep dive into the Mom Internet, a place haunted by aspirational marketing where it feels like every other mom is a social media influencer trying to sell you something, all while posed in white kitchens that never seem to get messy… with toddlers in cloth diapers that never ever leak; a bastion of carefully curated lives that are #blessed.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 motherhood is driving mothers a little insane. And through it all she wonders whether or not she has what it takes to join the ranks of the momstagrammers, if she too can make thousands of dollars off beautiful photos of bath time, frolic-ing in fields of purple flowers and posing her newborn next to a beautiful latte.

Below are some of my favorite episodes.

Do No Harm

Influencers pop up where women need them most. They create a space to discuss taboo topics and provide resources when social structures fail us. Fertility is one of those topics, and fertility influencers have a large community of women flocking to them for answers, advice, and support. But not all women feel the same about this content. Are fertility influencers good?

The Women’s Day Off the Internet

Remember the day Instagram went dark last fall? We sure do. It woke us, and so many influencers, up to how precarious making your living off social media can be. It also reminded us just how dependent and addicted so many of us are to a platform that is indifferent about us at best. In season one of Under the Influence we learned just how much content women are creating and consuming on social media platforms, for better or worse. We have a lot of power to make these places better and we don't even realize it. So what if the world had no choice but to realize it? We might just have a plan for that. With a lesson from Iceland and some major planning, we’ve figured out a way to let women take the reins and show the men in charge of the socials how much power we have over their platform.

Burning Cats

It’s no secret the internet can be a terrible place to be a woman. Any woman who ends up in the spotlight faces an intense amount of criticism and hate. For many reasons, the majority of that hate tends to come from other women and in the mom influencer industrial complex it often comes from other moms.