Anne Helen Petersen unpacks burnout, mommy wine culture, the lies of "having it all" and why we need to pay attention to what the rise of Peloton is saying about our society.
“Rachel Hollis is a manifestation of a larger ideology about women's place in society. That if you just try hard enough, all of these structural issues that are making your life really, really hard can be solved if you just wash your face. .” - Anne Helen Petersen
Anne Helen Petersen is one of our most essential cultural observers. Her work at Buzzfeed culminated in her 2020 book, Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. Now she’s using Culture Study, her Substack newsletter, to explore everything from The Unified Theory of Peloton to how to make friends.
In the episode, Laura and Anne unpack the faux empowerment of Rachel Hollis, the ways we sell quick fixes to systemic problems (like how a bath bomb will overcome the ways our society devalues women, and, particularly mothers) and the myth of “having it all.”
More than ever, this is one to share with your favorite people!
Readings mentioned in the show:
Culture Study - AHP’s newsletter and community.
Towards A Unified Theory of Peloton by Anne Helen Petersen
How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen
“Girl, Wash Your Face” Is A Massive Best-Seller With A Dark Message by Laura Turner
A Quick Explainer On Why People Aren’t Happy With Rachel Hollis
If you care about these kinds of conversations, we hope you’ll become a TMST Plus member.
Episode link: https://www.tmstpod.com/episodes/60-anne-helen-petersen-on-burnout-and-the-myth-of-having-it-all
Spotify playlist for this episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/56aVWMg3xGWSWGCXZzlVa3
Here’s the transcript:
Tell Me Something True is a 100% independent podcast. There are no corporations or advertisers backing this community. We are 100% funded by the TMST community. Become a TMST member today so you can hear the uncut interviews and help keep TMST ad-free.
Support TMST and keep it ad-free: https://tmst.supercast.com/
TMST Anne Helen Petersen (final)
[00:00:00]Laura McKowen: Hey, it's Laura here this week, we are revisiting one of our absolute most popular episodes. My conversation with Anne Helen Petersen, we recorded this about a year ago and it's a zinger. And also frankly, it's aggravating how much her observations still cut to what we are experiencing and what really matters
[00:00:27]Anne Helen Petersen: to me, Rachel Hollis is a manifestation of a larger ideology about women's place in society.
[00:00:33] That if you just try hard enough, all of these structural issues that are making your life really, really hard in America in particular, they can be solved if you just wash your face.
[00:00:46]Laura McKowen: Anne Helen Petersen is a journalist, an author, and a professional culture writer. She got her start in academia and the subject of her doctoral dissertation is, well, you will hear it in the episode.
[00:00:59] her [00:01:00] January, 2019 Buzzfeed article, how millennials became the burnout generation gave voice to the experience of millions and became a book that is still making waves. She's a delightful person to talk to. So it was no surprise that we covered a ton of ground, including that bit. You heard a second ago where we're digging into the question.
[00:01:22] What does the cautionary tale of Rachel Hollis tell us about hustle culture and the lie that we can have it. All this conversation with Anne is exactly why we make this show to highlight brilliance, interesting people and connect you to their. Work that can make a huge difference in your life. You can support the show.
[00:01:44] If you wanna become a TMST plus member your support at five, 10 or 20 bucks a month really makes it possible for us to do this very uncommercial kind of podcast and keep it all ad free. You can head on over to [00:02:00] TM, MST, pod.com to make it happen, or just check out the show notes. It means a lot. And thank you.
[00:02:07] And here is Anne.
[00:02:19] It's good to meet you. First of all, instead of just, I just tend to jump right in. I've loved going through your work. And I was laughing because I just recently read your Peloton piece
[00:02:30]Anne Helen Petersen: and like what? Here's the Peloton . Yeah, well, and I just
[00:02:35]Laura McKowen: did a ride earlier today. Michael knows I'm obsessed with Peloton from a culture standpoint, like how they fucking do what they're doing.
[00:02:44] And it's a little creepy, but a little great. And you did, you did it so well,
[00:02:50]Anne Helen Petersen: I mean, there's so much like the reason I didn't write it for so long was because there's so many components and the like the way I finally prompted myself to [00:03:00] do it, I was like, fine. It'll just be a series, right? Yeah. Because otherwise there was no way that I could get it all into what I wanted to do.
[00:03:06] And that is my privilege as a newsletter writer. It is your privilege. Yes.
[00:03:11]Laura McKowen: So let's start with a wide frame and I want people to know you and how you think, and what's behind your work. So what is the driving idea behind culture study and what is culture study?
[00:03:25]Anne Helen Petersen: I think that there's two things that I primarily engage with when I, when I try to think about like what the work I do is, is first of all, that, like, everything is interesting.
[00:03:35] Like if you just think about it for a while, like every single thing, there's a history there's sociological implications. Like you just have to drill down a little bit. And mm-hmm , I think that the interestingness of it blooms out the other thing too, is that like it's beneficial or useful and, and interesting and, and worthwhile to think more about the things that surround us and especially the culture that surrounds [00:04:00] us.
[00:04:00] And the name of my newsletter is kind of a play on the larger field of cultural studies. Mm-hmm , which really flourished and still flourishes today. But it's began to flourish in the 1970s in the UK. And it's guiding principle was that like pop culture is worthy of study, right. That like things that are popular are worth thinking about, and there had been.
[00:04:23] A historical dismissal of things that were popular just in terms of like, if they had any sort of value, if they were worth a place in the academy as objects of study. And so to me, I try to like take some of the advice that I also gleaned at Buzzfeed, which is that like, we think about low culture in a high culture way and high culture in a low culture way.
[00:04:44] I really rejected any sort of very firm understandings of like what low culture, like low brow culture, middle brow culture, high brow culture is like the traditional understanding is that like something like
[00:04:59]Laura McKowen: opera [00:05:00] is
[00:05:01]Anne Helen Petersen: high brow and then reality television is low brow Uhhuh uh, and so if you're just thinking into those terms, you wanna look at reality television using tools like that you would usually use to analyze something like opera or a novel.
[00:05:19] but then what, if you look at opera or politics or anything that is usually serious art and you use like, memes to talk about it, right? I think there's oftentimes really interesting analysis that comes out of approaching topics in a way that you don't usually approach them. I think culture
[00:05:38]Laura McKowen: for a lot of people is just something that's there and I'll just go out and say, you're foolish.
[00:05:43] If you think culture doesn't affect you, no matter who you are. Yeah. But I'm definitely guilty of the, you know, looking down upon low bro culture, especially celebrity type culture, but it's real and it matters. And I. Tend to shy [00:06:00] away, I think from culture analysis explicitly, but I dove into your work and you're incredible at what you do.
[00:06:09] So how, how did you get here? Like how did you become this person doing the thing you're doing
[00:06:16]Anne Helen Petersen: well first, can I ask why you shy away from culture analysis just generally?
[00:06:20]Laura McKowen: Um, God, that's such a good question. It's this? I care a lot about music mm-hmm and maybe you can find another what this really is. I didn't watch, for example, the AIT brothers.
[00:06:34] Who's one of my very favorite bands documentary for like four years, because I just, I was like, I don't want to see all, like, what if I, I just don't wanna see it as too much. And I do that with a lot of music, so I shy away from. uh, for, for that reason, like, like I want just, I want it to change the way I view it.
[00:06:58] Right,
[00:06:58]Anne Helen Petersen: right, right, right, right. Experienced. But people, [00:07:00] some people don't want it spoiled. I mean, the interesting thing about that documentary is that it was not, you know, it was a documentary with their full participation. So I don't think it was any form of analysis. It was just like, let's have more footage of the avid brothers looking sad songs.
[00:07:17] You like lots of facial hair and looking sad when
[00:07:28] ruin all time. There's no part of it left. Give there's no part of it left to give. Whereas I think there is this reticence to have things spoiled, right? Like whether it's something that you think of as a guilty pleasure that you don't wanna be like, oh, here's the capitalist feminist to. Critical race theory, critique of this.
[00:07:53] Yeah. And one thing that I think I learned, and this is a way to answer your, your original question. I learned [00:08:00] when first, when I was an undergrad and studying film studies. And then as I went into grad school and really dove into cultural studies, is that analyzing doesn't destroy pleasure. It just textures it.
[00:08:15] Right. It makes it richer. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I also think that we, as humans are really complicated and as complicated. People can hold the critique and the appreciation side by side. Right? So like I understand that John Mayer is a douche and also a genius in his way. I love his music. Like I, I, and that is attention.
[00:08:38] That is really interesting for me to push at, to be like, here are all the ways that I understand who this person is and like why there are things that I really dislike about that person. And also things that I find endearing about his TikTok presence and just kind of layer that like have this layered understanding of him.
[00:08:55] And I don't think that, you know, we used to use the word [00:09:00] problematic to discuss some of these texts. I don't think that that word necessarily has the currency or clarity that it once did, but the tagline to culture study is like, think more about the culture that surrounds you. And so instead of avoid.
[00:09:13] thinking more about, say Peloton right. Instead of being like, oh, this is something that I'm kind of embarrassed about. You can be like, huh. Well, here are the ways that like, like, why am I addicted to it? Yeah. Or why do I hate it? Why, why do I hate everything that it represents? Like again, pushing at that thing a little bit more,
[00:09:32]Laura McKowen: and this is me coming from someone who's never actually thought about this stuff before.
[00:09:36] Not explicitly, I think a lot about alcohol culture a lot. Right. Because that's the world I, I live in, but there are certain areas where I, I think I previously, prior to maybe the last 10, 5, 10 years thought of it is just a not serious thing. Right. And I think that's what you're hinting at. How did you get this way?
[00:09:57] Like how, how did this come to be that [00:10:00] you've done this work.
[00:10:01]Anne Helen Petersen: I think that my academic training like that, you know, I have a PhD in media studies. I wrote my dissertation in the history of celebrity gossip, like looking at a hundred years of celebrity gossip. And that's, that's the greatest thing I've ever heard.
[00:10:12] They're like, how could you write a dissertation on that? And I'm like, how do people write any sort of like long thorough, uh, history of any part of media, right? Like there's history, there's evolution there's yeah. The way that, uh, our norms about like what stars look like and, and what their lives are like, like there's all these different shifts in the way that we understand them and the way that that information was transmitted and the way that people reacted to it, like, yeah, it's just history.
[00:10:40] And so that really has informed the way that I approach pop culture just generally as I always think, like, okay, if there's an object in front of me, like, let's say again, going back to the example of Peloton. Yeah. And I'm writing like a series on Peloton right now. I know that there is like an iceberg underneath it in terms of history.
[00:10:59][00:11:00] Right. So when I wanna write about it, I'm going to look at like the history of exercise culture. Like, how did we get to this point of these kind of parasocial relationships with our trainers, um, coaches as they're called or, yeah, but then also like just the, the evolution of home fitness and how is this substantively different from say what Jane Fondo was doing in the 1980s.
[00:11:21] But then also, I, I try to think horizontally in terms of how does Peloton fit into our broader societal moment, right? Mm-hmm like, it is both a symptom of the way that we conceive of exercise and self optimization, but also a very particular symptom of exercise and self optimization during the pandemic, right?
[00:11:42] Yes. Like pale Alto was popular before the pandemic, but it did not become a societal phenomenon in the way that it has. That's kind of my approach to all, I call them texts or objects. You call them texts. Yeah. Like I, it's a remnant of my academic training is that. [00:12:00] Just like any book, like you think of a book as a text, right?
[00:12:03] A film is a text, a star image, which is like the whole constellation of information about a celebrity. Yeah. That's a text. You can read it and analyze it. So got it. Peloton is a text. Can you, uh,
[00:12:15]Laura McKowen: give people sort of a timeline of your work, where you started, you know, talk about Buzzfeed because that
[00:12:23]Anne Helen Petersen: feels important, important and then,
[00:12:26]Laura McKowen: and then where you are now and, and how you're operating as a journalist now.
[00:12:30]Anne Helen Petersen: So I got my PhD in 2011. That market was crap. Uh, I did not get a job. I went and taught at a hippie progressive high school. That's a working dairy farm in Vermont. I got a job in academia, teaching out my Alma mater for two years, and then again, didn't get a job. But during this time I also, this is a crucial part of the story.
[00:12:53] I first started blogging on like an old school WordPress blog under mm-hmm I have one also any celebrity [00:13:00] gossip academic style. This is when like academic blogging was very popular before it got cannibalized by Twitter mm-hmm . And then from there, you know, post recession, there was a bunch of websites that popped up that were very bare bones that paid little to nothing that gave springboards to a lot of writers who were willing to write for little to nothing.
[00:13:20] And a lot of those people were academics. Yeah. And I have a lot of mixed feelings about that in hindsight, but writing for the site, the hairpin, which was a sister site to the all was my first experience with public facing writing. And I wrote this series for them called scandals of classic Hollywood that looked at old scandals in Hollywood and why they happened the way that they did, why different things are considered scandalous at different moments, that sort of thing.
[00:13:48]Laura McKowen: Okay. I have to ask you, have you ever, do you read Taylor Jenkins read. It's work. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:52]Anne Helen Petersen: I, I, that was the first book I ever blurred was, um, seven husbands of 11 ago makes which was
[00:13:59]Laura McKowen: fucking [00:14:00] phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah. That book was great. I, I, I just keep thinking, as you, as you're talking about your PhD in your work, that like she made she deep dives into this, into that
[00:14:11]Anne Helen Petersen: world.
[00:14:11] Yeah. She, she is able to fictionalize it yeah. In a way that I never could, you know? Yeah. She's very good.
[00:14:17]Laura McKowen: Yeah. It's it's fascinating. Anyway, I go
[00:14:20]Anne Helen Petersen: ahead and like the first time I got paid to write one of those pieces, I got paid a hundred dollars. I was like, this is the best day of my life. Right. wow. Like I got paid.
[00:14:29] Yes. Because academics are so used to not getting paid for their writing. Uh, and I, I wrote for a couple other places, Buzzfeed asked me to write a piece. This was when Buzzfeed was first like really trying to venture into things that weren't less mm-hmm . And I wrote about Jennifer Lawrence and the history of cool girls, like looking at other.
[00:14:50] famous stars who had a similar image. This was like peak Jennifer Lawrence time back in 2014. Mm-hmm . And the piece was one of the first long form [00:15:00] pieces for Buzzfeed that went viral. Hmm. And essentially wrote my job description. Like Ben Smith called me up who's the editor then and said, why don't you come and do what you do?
[00:15:10] So that was very broad yeah. I could kind of poke around and do different things that I wanted to do. Yeah. And I gave my last final and got on a plane the next day and moved to New York. And I learned so much at Buzzfeed. I learned how to report, I learned what a lead was. . I mean, like I had been writing leads.
[00:15:30] I just didn't know that that's what it's called. And the reporting part was really essential though, because I had done a ton of analysis that just basically requires you to like read things and then decide what they mean. And reporting requires you to talk to people and. I feel sick to your stomach because you're nervous.
[00:15:49] yes. Like, yes, it really pushed me. And I think that that push made me develop as a writer and as a thinker. And, um, and I worked at Buzzfeed for six years [00:16:00] and then last summer I had been writing, uh, a subst for some time, just like an unpaid sub where I just kind of like cataloged thoughts that weren't really a Buzzfeed piece.
[00:16:11] Yep. And they had recruited me for some time trying to get me to go all paid. And I had been like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna make people pay for this if I'm still working at Buzzfeed, because it will be a huge, additional obligation. And they offered they're essentially like runway deals. So what they do is they make it so that you feel comfortable in leaving your full-time job and coming over to go full-time for them.
[00:16:37] Mm-hmm . And so they gave me health insurance and. Similar salary to what I was getting at Buzzfeed. Oh, interesting. Or like, promise that for a year. I mean, and this is the thing about a lot of people in media. Like I wasn't gonna go and do this venture where I was like, relying on people converting to paid to subscribers, like right.
[00:16:57] I was in academia and then digital media, if there's one thing [00:17:00] that I know is the overarching precarity of the industry. So for me, in order to make that sort of risk, especially with like my internalized fear of always losing my job, which is just part of being a millennial, I think, um, mm-hmm, I, I needed some sort of runway.
[00:17:18] Yeah.
[00:17:18]Laura McKowen: It's awesome. I think it's, it's the right way
[00:17:21]Anne Helen Petersen: to do well. And I did like, this is kind of a meta discussion, but like the way that people talk about the subs pro deals is that like, oh, subst stack is throwing money at people. And like, what they're doing is they're trying to make. Feel safer to people, a sustainable way
[00:17:35]Laura McKowen: to actually work while yeah.
[00:17:38] You're an author. So tell us quickly about the books. I forgot about all those you're an author
[00:17:43]Anne Helen Petersen: by the way. Yeah. I've uh, written three books. One is scandals of classic Hollywood, which was a reworking and addition to the columns that I had written for the hairpin. And then I wrote a book called too fat, too slutty, too loud, the rise and rain of [00:18:00] the unruly woman, which is looking at a group of 10 female stars, uh, from the late two thousands and early 2000 tens.
[00:18:10] And looking at the various ways that they were unruly in their, in the way that their bodies work, the way that their humor worked, just like their place in culture. But then also looking at the way that, that incited a backlash as well. And then my last book is called can't even how millennials became the burnout generation.
[00:18:30] And then I have a forthcoming book that I wrote with my partner. That's coming out in a couple months. That's called out of office, the big problem and bigger promise of working from home. And it's really about, I wait to read that the future of work flexibility, and, and, and also just reconsidering our relationship with work broadly.
[00:18:48] Yeah. I can't wait to read
[00:18:50]Laura McKowen: that. So I'm in your sub community. What is that like, like having your, having a community now as a writer, [00:19:00] because that's different, right? Like from your
[00:19:02]Anne Helen Petersen: prior, it's really different because these are people who I'm interacting with a lot. Right. Because I have two weekly threads where people get in these intense conversations.
[00:19:13] Yeah. And also in the comments. And then also we have this discord server. where a certain, you know, probably 20% of subscribers are ever on there at any given point. And it's gotta be
[00:19:24]Laura McKowen: an age breakdown cause I can't, I can't get myself to go
[00:19:28]Anne Helen Petersen: disc discord. It's great. I mean, it's just, the funny thing is that I think some people who are older are like, I can't deal with discord.
[00:19:35] What's this discord and it's just AOL chat rooms. It is just an AOL chat room. Like if there is anyone who knows how to navigate this space, it is someone who hung out in AOL chat rooms in the late nineties and early two thousands. Yep. And I did
[00:19:50]Laura McKowen: maybe that's why I just, I it's like it's going back or something.
[00:19:54] Do you sort of feel like it's a symbiotic relationship between your work and the community?
[00:19:59]Anne Helen Petersen: [00:20:00] They give me ideas all the time. I noticed a lot in the discussions on discord, but also in the threads and that sort of thing. It's a lot of questions about money and how to deal with money, how to deal with this feeling of Briar.
[00:20:13] And so it seemed like a really good idea. Have a finance column. So I have that sought out like a, a, a rotating cast of people who are going to answer finance questions. And then all of the questions are sourced from subscribers. Yeah. And like, even just now I was trying to figure out, like, what are we gonna call?
[00:20:33] Like, what's a, a penny name to call the series. And so they came up with a bunch of ideas and then like, I'm, I'm having a graphic designer who is actually part of the community and paying them to come up with a, a logo and he's gonna come up with three and then I'm just gonna let, let people in the community vote on it.
[00:20:51] You know that to me, I like, I don't really care ultimately, which one of those three that we choose. Yeah. But it helps people feel like, oh, I'm [00:21:00] involved in this, you know? Absolutely. Like this is something that I am participating in. I haven't had any of the, the toxic, like, how dare you write about this? Or like, you know, I think sometimes people really think that when people are paying them directly for their work, that they're.
[00:21:16] This feeling of beholden. This comes, yeah. That has not happened. You haven't experienced that? No, not at all. Wow. That's great. If, and like the times, like I just took a week off, um, for just kind of 4th of July ness. Yeah. And, you know, I announced in my newsletter, I was like, I'm taking a week of like my first week, totally off the newsletter.
[00:21:38] I haven't taken a full week off since, since Christmas. I'm like so many people just emailed back and were like, enjoy your break, get some rest, you know, like there's no resentment of taking a week off because I think part of it is that. The gospel that I try to preach with the newsletters. Yeah. Like we need to have healthy relationship with work.
[00:21:58] So yeah, it would
[00:21:59]Laura McKowen: be very, be [00:22:00] odd if your community based on your work bitch that you, how dare
[00:22:04]Anne Helen Petersen: you, how dare
[00:22:05]Laura McKowen: you. I love that you qualified it though. You're like, I haven't had a break since Christmas.
[00:22:11]Anne Helen Petersen: Right. Well, and I also think that sometimes cuz people are arriving at the community in different moments.
[00:22:16] Right. So someone who has been there from the start, they know, right. Yeah. Like the consistency, but let's say you just owned, like just paid your $50 yearly subscription and your next letter is like, I'm taking a break off you know, but I do think you're right. That I do like many people have a compulsion to, to make the case.
[00:22:52]Mikel Ellcessor: Hi, I'm Michael I'm the executive producer of tell me something true. And I co-created the show with Laura. You know, we have one goal here, [00:23:00] put something into the world that helps all of us figure out how we can have a better week. And we think that the best way to do that is to keep the pod ad free so that all of the work goes toward making something that's useful for you.
[00:23:13] Instead of hustling to keep advertisers happy. And this is where you come in. TMS T plus is the membership program that helps to keep this show going. Whether it's through a monthly membership or a one-time contribution, TMS T plus members are super important because they help to pay for the show's production and distribution costs.
[00:23:34] It's pretty sweet makes a difference and you can make it happen with a one time gift for as little as five or 10 or $20 a month. If your situation is such that becoming a member doesn't work, it's all good. We hope you enjoy the show. Maybe share it with a friend or two, and we hope you check out the playlist that we put together every week on Spotify.
[00:23:55] Just search the playlists for tell me something true it's free and we're thrilled [00:24:00] that you're here. And if you could become a member, well, you can find the link in the show description, head over to TMS. T pod.com takes less than two minutes. And thanks.
[00:24:26]Laura McKowen: I wonder if you'd be willing to sort of workshop a cultural thing with
[00:24:33]Anne Helen Petersen: me. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it
[00:24:35]Laura McKowen: and, and just do it in real time, because I think that's what I want people to get is a taste of the way that you think and the ways that we can think about, okay. Back up. I wanna talk to you about this, cuz selfishly, I wanna talk about it, but I also want them to, to feel how it, how you can look at culture and not take it personally or not be so attached to [00:25:00] a point of.
[00:25:01] As being, you know, that you have to fall on the side of right or wrong, or you have to, yeah. You have to know everything about, about something in order to, to study it or whatever it is, the sort of hangups that we have about culture. So I wanna talk about Rachel Hollis. Oh yeah. If you're willing and I wanna talk about it from a, a study standpoint, like what can we learn?
[00:25:25] What is the Rachel Hollis personality, empire, whatever we, we wanna call it and maybe look at, from, you said like the horizontal view and the vertical view and mm-hmm what a, what can we learn from it? I think it was a massive moment when she had this public sort of, I don't wanna call it a meltdown, but there was a moment.
[00:25:49] Okay. We
[00:25:49]Mikel Ellcessor: don't wanna slow down the whole conversation by going into the blow by blow of what happened with Rachel Hollis, but suffice to say, in a Instagram live, Rachel Hollis [00:26:00] mentioned having someone come to her house twice a week to clean. And when a commenter responded that mentioning having a cleaning person was quote, privileged and quote unrelatable, uh, Rachel Hollis took the to, to respond.
[00:26:15] The post is now deleted the whole thing. Didn't go well and, and might say it didn't go well. It was kind of the equivalent of driving the situation off a cliff, having it exploded into flames and then dropping a Boulder on it to fix it. But other than that, it went perfectly fine. If you really want to know all of it, we've got a link posted in the show notes.
[00:26:36] You can catch up there and then we'll continue with our convers.
[00:26:43]Anne Helen Petersen: some people had known the truth about, or had been doing this thinking before. I think that's why it was such a moment. Right. And then it turned for, uh, people who hadn't been doing that thinking yet. Right. Mm-hmm mm-hmm so the first thing I wanna say is that, like, I think there's a real difference [00:27:00] between like white ladies, not wanting to engage in like Rachel Hall's critique and people like struggling to engage in media that really dehumanizes them and threatens bodily harm or psychological, psychological harm.
[00:27:19] You know what I mean? Cause I think sometimes like these conversations about like wokeness and like, you know, the anti wokeness brigade or like, why can't you like not have a content warning on this or whatever, like oftentimes that comes from people. who are in positions of larger power who never feel threatened.
[00:27:40] Right. That's right. Never. Whereas like, ironically, I read something I read something as a white, straight lady. Like, I feel this when I read things that are about reproductive freedom, like, it feels viscerally threatening to me. And that's as like someone who has a ton of accumulated societal [00:28:00] power, like that's just one of the instances, like that's an instance that I feel, so if you are in a marginalized or like a, a disenfranchised community in all of these other ways, like, and you're like, yeah, this makes me feel like crap to read this.
[00:28:12] This makes me feel incredible threat. This person doesn't think I'm a person. Mm-hmm I, one thing that I've tried to do over the last, like, I don't know, an ongoing process is to continue to understand that. Like, just cuz I don't feel that like, because I can maintain that analytical distance when I'm reading.
[00:28:31] or consuming some peace doesn't mean that someone in a different position, like doesn't feel active harm from that, you know? Yeah. So with that said, I think Rachel Hollis is a great example because I think a lot of the people who feel threatened by critique her are her primary consumers, which are predominantly white ladies.
[00:28:50] Right.
[00:28:51]Laura McKowen: She's been around for a long time. And I don't even wanna think about her as the person, but sort of the messages. Right. I mean, right. She is a person and I don't, I, I, I don't wanna go into [00:29:00] shaming territory. I wanna go into like, what is this? Right? What fueled it, what's behind it. And, and what are the sort of big cultural, meta themes that we can learn from it?
[00:29:13]Anne Helen Petersen: To me, Rachel hos is a manifestation of a larger ideology about women's place in society, in the two thousands, the 2000 tens that if you just try hard enough, all of these structural issues that are making your life really, really hard in America in particular, they can be solved if you just wash your face.
[00:29:34] Right? Like if you just work hard enough. Yes. If you just like stop complaining and get your ducks in a row and just do it all hustle harder. Right. If you, if you hustle and, and you just try and stop complaining yeah. Then you can make it work. And I see her as part of this larger constellation that like includes someone like Cheryl Sandberg, who says, okay, I can see all the ways that I [00:30:00] am.
[00:30:01] I, I have less structural power within my organization. And instead of saying, we need to fix the organization, she says, I'm going to try harder to insert myself into those conversations. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so the message again is like, and this is very American, is that instead of addressing any sort of structural issues, the individual tries harder.
[00:30:25] Yeah. And if you fail. Then it's your personal failure. It is not that the system is set up to fail you.
[00:30:31]Laura McKowen: Okay. A yes. To what you just said. I, when I tried to boil down what the, the crux of the Rachel Hollis constellation is, it's an outgrowth of this. You can have it all, like as a woman, you can have it, all this idea yes.
[00:30:47] That you can. And if you can't figure out how to do that, you're failing.
[00:30:52]Anne Helen Petersen: Yes. And it's your fault. It's well, and, and it's your fault. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I was squarely
[00:30:59]Laura McKowen: in
[00:30:59]Anne Helen Petersen: [00:31:00] this space,
[00:31:01]Laura McKowen: you know, of, I graduated from, from college in 1999.
[00:31:06]Anne Helen Petersen: I shot high school in 1999.
[00:31:10] So
[00:31:10]Laura McKowen: high school, 1995. So I'm just slightly older than you.
[00:31:13] Yeah. We were going along the same trajectory and it's like you, yeah, you can have it all. And then, and then I became a mother and. You know, for me, the Rachel Hall's story is very interesting too, because it's so tied up in, in alcohol for me in drinking and drugs. Mm-hmm because something has to hold up the back end.
[00:31:34] Yeah. Right. Or diminish the, the fact that you can't do it all. Yeah. And, and the failure around that, or the voices are the all just there's there has to be something in there. So I inevitably also see this hustle culture type of thing, paired with
[00:31:52]Anne Helen Petersen: wine mom wine. Yeah. Yeah. 100 100%. [00:32:00] And like the fact that wine mom's stuff is like always these kind of cutey jokes is trying to deflect from the very real acknowledgement of our society.
[00:32:11] Doesn't like women and is particularly antagonistic towards mothers. Yep. As much as we like give the. I think lip service to the fact that we venerate mothers, like, it's kind of like how we venerate essential workers. Like the people that we venerate the most with words are the people who we actually value the least with the way that we arrange our various systems.
[00:32:33] Yeah. And the deck is stacked against mothers. It is particularly stacked against single mothers, the kind of ideological object refu that is left in its the trail of that fact is like tea towels that say like wine o'clock oh. Is pretty interesting. Right. but interesting. This is one word for it. Yeah. I, I think back to like the 1950s and 1960s [00:33:00] when there were also these incredibly constructive ideals of what, uh, like the ideal mom should be mm-hmm and how, at that time, you know, the, the problem that had no name like Betty for Dan's idea of like.
[00:33:15] This, the Oni that AF that afflicted women in these positions, like the way that those women deflected from it was alcohol was smoking and was like, pills. My, yeah, it was pills. Like my grandma was put like her doctor put her on pills. It just knocked her out. Totally. My grandma was
[00:33:33]Laura McKowen: like a legit drug addict at
[00:33:36]Anne Helen Petersen: nine 90.
[00:33:36] Cause they didn't know. They, they didn't know how to even speak the name of what was going on. Yes, yes.
[00:33:45]Laura McKowen: Yes. So is the, you can have it all this overcorrection of feminism that like
[00:33:53]Anne Helen Petersen: missed the March. Yeah. Well it's post feminism, right? It's the, so post feminism is this kind of like [00:34:00] vague ago, ideological.
[00:34:03] like cloud that blocks out the sun of feminism, uh, over the course of the late eighties, nineties. Yeah. And it's essentially, you know, it's very similar to the idea of post racism. It's we have solved patriarchy. Yeah. There's no longer a need for feminism. Yeah. And apart from the fact that like there, there was no accounting for the ways that, like the feminism that was seemingly solved was like a very like middle class white feminism that, that wasn't even solved.
[00:34:35] Right. Just because like, there were women lawyers now that doesn't mean that feminism was solved, but there was like this whole backlash against feminism, particularly in the, the early nineties. And you could see it in like a positive way in films, like pretty woman, but then you can also see it, like films, like disclosure.
[00:34:56] Do you remember this movie with like I do D me Moore and, and I do Kirk [00:35:00] Douglas. It's like. Women will use sexual harassment claims in the office to yeah. Like to murder men, right? Yes. To murder and like, I'm sure you remember this too. Growing up when we did feminism was a dirty word. Yeah. It was, was a word that you did not, you did not ascribe apart from, I think yeah.
[00:35:21] Nazi like people who were, that were still obviously feminist during this time. But I think in mainstream society, or like where I grew up in a small town in Idaho to say that you were a feminist was to like really ostracize yourself from the rest of society. Even though like my mom espoused, feminist ideals.
[00:35:39] And, and I certainly believed those things. I did not call myself a feminist until late into college.
[00:35:45]Laura McKowen: I don't know how much we wanna say about the Rachel Hollis thing. I'm very curious about the intrigue and I don't think the people who appreciate her work. Or followed her [00:36:00] are all stupid or ignorant or anything like that.
[00:36:02] I don't, I I'm genuinely curious about, I mean, I have friends that, that have liked her work and I have, you know, I think I'm aged out of her demographic quite a bit. Mm-hmm but I'm curious, like, what is that? And what's the upside of it or the,
[00:36:21]Anne Helen Petersen: well, I don't think there's an upside. I don't think there's an upside.
[00:36:24] Like, I don't think that like Rachel Hollis in particular was actually giving women any messages that were powerful. Really? Even they seemed powerful. Right. It was foe empowerment. But like the thing that I try to convey in my work and that I think creates a posture that doesn't feel like judgment per se.
[00:36:45] Yes. Is that like ideology is an incredibly, incredibly, incredibly strong force. And when you are deep within it, you can't see it. right. Mm-hmm it, the work that it does is it invisibilize itself and it makes itself into the status quo, which means that no one is [00:37:00] questioning it. So the idea that you should be able to be really hot, be a really good mom that does all of the things that we currently expect of like BWA motherhood, be credible at your job, have a side hustle, have a gorgeous home, like make homemade dog food.
[00:37:18] You know, that whole
[00:37:21]Laura McKowen: cook, all the meals, all the beautiful organic meals have this. Yes. You know, very successful dotting husband in her case.
[00:37:30]Anne Helen Petersen: There's very little that says to you, this is bullshit. Mm-hmm this is an unrealistic expectation and it is a symptom of patriarchy. And, and I have no support system.
[00:37:43] You know, I like we have no structural support systems that make this possible. There are other ways outside of the United States that, that have shown that there are, you know, there are other alternatives, but when you are deep in it, when all of your friends are also aspiring in similar ways. Yeah. [00:38:00] And there's no one who's saying this is bullshit.
[00:38:02] Like, it is so hard to see outside of that. And so something like what happened with Rachel Hollis as an individual, her quote unquote breakdown was enough of breaking that wall of like, of course you do this, like, of course this is how it is. Like, it was something about it that like punctured the etic seal.
[00:38:26] that made it be like, oh, oh yeah. Okay. So she also, not only is she not perfect, but like, I mean, this goes into larger conversations about. Authentically messy and like perfectly unperfect, which is also just like, a performance of, of like, oh, I'm so I'm such an imperfect mom, cuz like there's laundry on my bed.
[00:38:49] Right. right. I have stretch marks on my belly. Right? Yeah.
[00:38:54]Laura McKowen: I wanna come out with something helpful, you know about this because I don't want just say like, yeah, [00:39:00] that was a terrible moment. I think what I'm trying to say is like I realized I had my own moment of a, what is this thing we're saying about? You can have it all and it was really when I got sober.
[00:39:15] because I felt like a failure all the time, either as a mom or, you know, I worked this full time job in advertising and I don't even think I'm necessarily super primed for this perfectionism or wanting to, to do all the things. Right. But I cared enough that I felt like a failure all the time. How do you propose that women navigate this stuff?
[00:39:37] Like how do you find your center? You are very much a journalist and you have a beautiful way of writing about things that are difficult and opinionated with a lot of empathy. Mm-hmm where do you find your center and how do you hold that? When you're mired in the culture that we're talking about?
[00:39:59]Anne Helen Petersen: I think a lot [00:40:00] of it is rejecting individualism and like, thinking that like, this is just my problem or that a failure is my failure.
[00:40:11] and so a good way to illustrate this is larger thinking on burnout, which oftentimes, you know, in concert with what we've been talking about in terms of like having it all mothering burnout in particular, women's burnout is often the result of trying to do all of those things all of the time for a very extended period of time and always feeling like there's not really any other option, right?
[00:40:38] Like, of course, like I hit the wall and I keep going. I keep going. I keep going, cuz I have to wake up tomorrow morning and my kid has to get to school. And like I have to impact their lunch life still is going, yes, life still is going. And a lot of the responses or treatments to burnout are often individualistic.
[00:40:56] It's like have some me time take a bath with a bath [00:41:00] bomb. Like to me, the bath bomb is somehow this like this larger object. like, I hate the bath bomb so much cuz it's like, why don't you purchase this object? And put it in your bath and it also, it like, it takes 10 minutes for the bath bomb to dissolve.
[00:41:16] You're like, okay, my bath, my bath bomb's done. My rest is done. it? Doesn't shouldn't I feel better. Anything, it doesn't fix anything. Right. And, and most consumer solutions, like anything that requires you buying something or taking a course or doing a new regime or something like, like FA facial care, like any sort of skincare, it's not gonna fix it.
[00:41:39] Right. Yeah. But a useful way to think about these problems is instead of like a personal failure is, oh, this is a systems problem, right? This is something about the way that, that our country in particular or whatever country you live in, treats women values women, treats workers, values workers, treats my [00:42:00] profession in particular.
[00:42:02] And being able to think about that and like, okay, so what I want to do to cure it, like obviously I have to like do some things in my own life. But the structural cures are things that won't just alleviate my burnout. They're also going to alleviate the burnout of people who aren't like me, cuz they deserve it too.
[00:42:21] Right? Like if we are in a society of burnout, like if you carry your own, if you figure out some sort of work life balance, doesn't matter if like we are, everyone else is suffering. Where
[00:42:31]Laura McKowen: does individualism come in? How do you balance that? How is that not a hopeless feeling
[00:42:39]Anne Helen Petersen: stance? Well, and I also think that sometimes it can feed into like the selflessness that is expected of women in particular.
[00:42:47] Right. That like you should never care about yourself or your needs, but I'm not sure, but that's not what you're not saying that at all. No. Right. I do think it is oftentimes really hard, right? Like especially I think during the Trump administration, there was a real difficulty in finding, [00:43:00] finding hope and that things could change and maybe it's just my posture towards the world.
[00:43:09] I am a realist about what our politics are, but I also just feel so strongly that the way things are right now does not have to be the way that things will be like how much society has changed even over the last a hundred years, even over the last 50 years, like there is proof there that we can change.
[00:43:29] So there are times too, when I feel like we are still on a downswing, right. That like, it's still gonna get worse. Mm-hmm mm-hmm but then I also, there are thinkers that I admire who have looked at various economic indicators, just looking broadly, sociologically about like, maybe we are, we hit the we're hitting the trough, the historian, George packer calls it a plastic hour.
[00:43:55] Like this is a moment where change is possible. Mm-hmm and I do think that we are experiencing some [00:44:00] of that. It's not like seismic. Maybe it's just like a little bit seismic , but I, I do think this reevaluation is taking place. I'm
[00:44:08]Laura McKowen: just thinking of this through my own lens. I'll just compare it to a sobriety journey or talk through about how I would balance the collective massive problems.
[00:44:18] I see structurally with mm-hmm the way we view alcohol and women and all that. And then the internal, emotional, spiritual, psychological things that I have to walk through right. Individually and, and balancing that because it's very easy for me to lose hope or to feel very powerless when I think this system is completely fucked.
[00:44:42] Yeah. And there's nothing I can do about it, but individually, I guess what I wanna get at is how do you operate in your life? Yeah. A as a woman, knowing that, you know, even just the minute details of how you structure your time and yeah. Yeah. Like, do you spend time a lot of time online [00:45:00] and how do you manage that?
[00:45:02] And you know, when we talk about boundaries, like how do you approach your, your life as a mom? And a woman and a partner and someone who works because you're yeah,
[00:45:10]Anne Helen Petersen: you're in that. I'm not a mom. I'm not a mom, but I am a woman. Don't you have partner? Do you have a, they're not kids. I have dogs. okay. They just have like, people names, like one of 'em saying
[00:45:20]Laura McKowen: Steve, okay.
[00:45:21] Is one Henry or something or Charlie?
[00:45:23]Anne Helen Petersen: No, Charlie's my partner. Oh,
[00:45:26] oh,
[00:45:26]Laura McKowen: that Charlie's
[00:45:27]Anne Helen Petersen: your partner. I knew that. Sorry would terrible. My dogs are named, my dogs are named, uh, Peggy and Steve. So it would be easy to mistaken. That's what I did, but no, this is a great question. This is a great question. Uh, because like there is personal responsibility, right?
[00:45:46] Like there is personal action and volition and an agency with, and that's always true within these larger structures and maybe like something like climate change is, is an interesting thing to think about [00:46:00] because I think when you have the balance wrong, it turns into. shaming people about recycling right.
[00:46:09] About individual choices that they are are, are not making. Yeah. And the, the right balance is like, yeah, we have to be thinking about personal responsibility, but like in proportion to the larger societal stuff, but in my own life, I am constantly working on my own burnout and, and my own work life balance, and like very knowledgeable of the ways in which the mindset that I internalized about.
[00:46:36] Like, you must work all the time. Like that is, is a process to unlearn that. And other ideologies like fat phobia, which like millennials internalized this incredible, these incredible understandings of fat phobia over the course of our. Young adulthoods and same with gen X and boomers too. But like I was looking particularly at like a set of texts that were [00:47:00] incredibly influential in the nineties and two thousands that taught us the way that we should think about our bodies and about, I know I read that list and
[00:47:07]Laura McKowen: it was like, oh my God, it's right.
[00:47:10]Anne Helen Petersen: That was the water I have swam in. So I wonder, so that's the thing, the water you swim in, you can continue, like, it takes a long time to get outta the water, but you can continue to be like, there's the water? There's the water, there's the water to use the language of therapy. Like I'm always working on it.
[00:47:26] Right. I'm always working on that process and sometimes I'm bad at it. Sometimes I fail and sometimes I regress and then, but I acknowledge that it's a process. And I think for people when you can name the thing, right? Like you can name the thing when you can name it. When you can be like that's alcohol culture, that's fat phobic culture, that's burnout culture, that's hustle culture.
[00:47:48] Mm-hmm . That's post feminist culture. Like that allows you, it's like in some way naming, it allows you to see it it'll
[00:47:58]Laura McKowen: well, and to see yourself [00:48:00] as not it yes. Like as, as some, as a separate autonomous being that can extract yeah. That you can
[00:48:08]Anne Helen Petersen: extract yourself from it, you know, and it acts on you and sometimes uses you as its vessel.
[00:48:14] right. Mm-hmm like it sometimes, like you become part of that force. Yeah. But you can separate yourself too. Yeah. You know, like sometimes I'll be like, oh my God, that's a burnout behavior. Like when I have a book that I really wanna read at my bedside table, and I'm just scrolling through Instagram, I'm like burnout behavior, like right there, you know, that's helpful.
[00:48:36]Laura McKowen: There's a lot to complain about. And there's a lot of things that are broken and there's a lot of, there's a lot of systems that are broken. And I don't want people to feel hopeless or that it's just one big, you know, we're doing one big list of why Rachel Hollis and that constellation, all the others are a problem.
[00:48:55] It's more like, how did this happen to us? And can I call [00:49:00] it, can we call it out so that you can see can, you can see it and name
[00:49:03]Anne Helen Petersen: it? Yeah. Well, and I feel like I've used so many different like discipline names, but it is a form of like archeology, right? You're like kind of unearthed. Interesting. Yeah. Like where did Rachel halls come from?
[00:49:16] And there's a whole long history there of women who are preaching very similar ideas and yes. And other like cultural texts that she's building on. And when you see that she's standing on the shoulders of like thousands, hundreds of thousands of other women, it it's easier to not be like Rachel hos is the devil and be like, no, this entire like structure.
[00:49:38] Yeah. She's really hard.
[00:49:40]Laura McKowen: She's a participatory sacrificial. When that Instagram post came out of that TikTok video, it was like, oh, okay. She just said the quiet part out loud. Like I was not surprised,
[00:49:51]Anne Helen Petersen: you know, not,
[00:49:54]Laura McKowen: but there it is
[00:49:56]Anne Helen Petersen: now we've heard it a piece that was written several years before, [00:50:00] you know, this recent blow up on Buzzfeed is the author, Laura Turner.
[00:50:05] Cause you know, Rachel Hall kind of operates in these Christian spheres as well. And Laura, who is firmly rooted in that I'm
[00:50:13]Laura McKowen: deeply interested in that, you know, that, that I see Glenn and Doyle is coming out of that.
[00:50:22]Anne Helen Petersen: And like Glen and Doyle though, I think has done a lot more thinking on all of this stuff.
[00:50:26] Yes. Like a lot more in self interrogation. I, I agree.
[00:50:30]Laura McKowen: Yes. I totally agree. But
[00:50:32]Anne Helen Petersen: she came from that world. Yeah, totally. That's where I first saw her speak was like at one of those tours where like, Female Christian influencer to speak. I was there to do a report or like I was reporting on female Trump voters.
[00:50:46] And I went to one of those events, cuz I thought it would be a really interesting place to like see how women at evangelicals were, were approaching the election. So how do you,
[00:50:56]Laura McKowen: how do you look at or think about, I guess we can [00:51:00] call it influencer culture. I would never ever call myself an influencer, but I built, I built to something on Instagram.
[00:51:08] It started there and, and on writing blog posts and then yeah, you know, now, now I have a book and, and a company and stuff, but I'm also super critical and I feel very dubious about influencer culture and like what what's done to people and what, what it's doing to us like that to me is a big water.
[00:51:28] We're swimming in conversation.
[00:51:30]Anne Helen Petersen: Yeah. It requires oftentimes opening up every part of your life as, as content. Right. As fodder for content. and this was true with reality celebrity as well. Yeah. But that was kind of the precursor, huh? Yeah, totally. And it, uh, it's just accelerated with influencer culture and I think it's really corrosive and leads to bad places.
[00:51:54] And so I don't have conscious boundaries. I'm not like [00:52:00] this is part of my life that would never, like, I have not written out a list of things that I would never put on social media, that sort of thing. But like, I think I subconsciously do shelter things. Yeah. And I'm careful about the way that I, I talk about things I don't have as big of an Instagram following as you do, but like sometimes I'll be hanging out with my, my friends and their kids and like, they don't have a, no kids on social media policy, but like if I ever take cute picture of their kids, I'm like, is it okay?
[00:52:28] Right. Mm-hmm because to them, it is really weird to. A thousand people, they don't know like a picture of their son. They're like, here's a picture of my son eating a cord on the cop, you know, like, why do these people like this? Yeah, it's a weird dynamic. And I think the more that people are mindful, thoughtful about it, the easier it is to kind of preserve that part of yourself that feels essential well.
[00:52:53]Laura McKowen: And not even for the people that are doing that work, but for the people taking it in. So you said, you said it can [00:53:00] be really corrosive. So talk about what, some of the ways that you see that being corrosive, either for the people doing it or the people taking it in.
[00:53:09]Anne Helen Petersen: Well, I think that one thing that I have seen actually several influencers.
[00:53:15] over the past years, like this is not the whole of my life. Like whatever assumptions you are making about the whole of my life and the whole of my person you are doing so through a limited representation of my life. And so I, but I think that the illusion with influencers with reality television is that you are getting the whole of a person's life mm-hmm
[00:53:34] And so you can make judgment. That's the, that's the, but you can make promise judgements about the, you can make judgments about them accordingly. So if something is not represented in their social media in some way, then that's something that they don't care about. Right. When there are all sort things you talk about, right?
[00:53:52] Yes, there are all sorts of things that I talk about that I care about that are crucial to me and who I am and my thinking. [00:54:00] Are not part of my social media. Right. Because I'm not documenting all that,
[00:54:04]Laura McKowen: so ruin them and yeah. They can't even be reduced nor, nor would you want to? I, yes. Okay. Yeah. I, I heard a Rob bell podcast recently.
[00:54:11] We was talking about, you know, people that live on the edges where they, they live on the edges of where they meet the, the outside world all the time. Mm. And it's that, it's very hard to have a center in that way. Mm-hmm . And now there's increasingly, there's millions of people that you could aspire to be like, right.
[00:54:32] Or look to as role models versus smaller segments that, you know, even 50 years ago, you wrote about like, Hollywood's celebrities used to be this sort of larger than life. We can't be like them. No one can be like them. Yeah. You know, and, and we have limited access to them and now those boundaries are all destroyed.
[00:54:56] Right? Yeah. You can tune into almost anyone's life that will allow [00:55:00] you. mm-hmm . And so like, what does that do to us?
[00:55:05]Anne Helen Petersen: Uh, well, I think it creates a, a sense of intimacy that is sometimes great. Um, and sometimes powerful and meaningful, especially if you don't feel like you can find friendship or comfort in the place that you are.
[00:55:19] Right. So like that, would've been really important to me growing up the way that I did. Like, if I could have found people online that were more like me, right? Yeah. Or like just represented different ways of being, so there's that positive aspect to it. And I think this is so true with like L G B T kids, like kids who are growing up in isolation and in one way or another people who are adopted, like, you know, just finding your community, like there's a real strength in that.
[00:55:47] Yeah. At the same time, I think that sometimes it allows the in person strength, like our in person relationships to atrophy. and relationships that have a real two way dynamic, a real give [00:56:00] and take, instead of just a give, give, give on the part of the individual or on the part of the influencer. And so I think that like, if you let allow those to atrophy, you're, you're losing a part of yourself.
[00:56:11] And I don't even mean like, go hang out all the time. Like not everyone wants to hang out all the time. Right? Yeah. It can just mean talking on the phone with someone for 30 minutes, like talking on the phone with someone who is, it's just you and that person, and you are having an exchange of information, ideas.
[00:56:24] Like it is a, a not public conversation. Yeah. Yes. And a not performative. Like there's so many things that we do that are performative so many things that don't involve influential cultures. So I like, I don't wanna say that like, only things that influencers do are performative, but I, I do think that there is something about actual intimacy and community that is not for performance.
[00:56:50] Yeah, right. It is just for the strength of being with one another and, and, and creating support systems and yeah. And feeling loved and known. And, and that's hard to [00:57:00] do. I think if you're only forms of relationships are parasocial relationships with influencers. Yeah. That's a
[00:57:08]Laura McKowen: great way of putting it and, and, you know, the upside that you've talked about, I, I mean, I found sober people that yeah.
[00:57:16] If, if I was limited to my town, say, you know, to go to meetings in my town, it was a tiny universe. And I might have, I felt a lot of, you know, despair about that because yep. I didn't see people that I felt I could be friends with, frankly. Yep. Yep. Whether that was true or not, who knows, but it matters, you know, so it, it widens the lens on the aperture and the types of people you could connect with and the topics you could talk about.
[00:57:47] In close communities. So the positives are easy to see. I think, I don't think we have even a, a slight grasp on the, the ways that we're
[00:57:55]Anne Helen Petersen: affected by it negatively. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think like, even like circling [00:58:00] back to our discussion of like the community around culture study, I really try to like decenter myself.
[00:58:06] It's never about like, what does Annie say about this or whatever. Like, it's, it's very much, not only do I like give the, the newsletter over to Q and a, that are almost every, like, it's another person's words for seven eighths of the thing. And I do that, you know, almost every other week, but then also, even in something like the threads, like I wait purposely wait 20 or 30 minutes, so that my comment on like a threat about like a prompt is not the most important that right.
[00:58:35] I am just one. I am part of the community and the community is only as strong as the people who are participating in it. Which is important, right. Because if it's just me, it's worthless, you become the guru
[00:58:47]Laura McKowen: and you become the thing that you didn't intend to become. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm taking notes because that's something that I, I'm still trying to figure out how to do if I can do social media and be a sane person.
[00:58:58] Yeah. Uh, so [00:59:00] I'm taking notes
[00:59:00]Anne Helen Petersen: on that. What do you hope the
[00:59:05]Laura McKowen: next, what are the next chapters looking like? Or at least the next one?
[00:59:09]Anne Helen Petersen: Well, I'll tease something that I have not said out loud before, which is that I think I might write a book about Taylor swift. Oh my God. Stop. Stop.
[00:59:22]Laura McKowen: Oh my God. Okay. I I'm saying that screaming.
[00:59:25] I don't even know if you fall on the. Fan side or just to coach
[00:59:28]Anne Helen Petersen: with phenomenon on both, both like the way, like my like very preliminary way, which might end up being the subtitle or something is like seven ways of looking at Taylor swift. Yeah. And looking at her and her career, which is so multifaceted through like a lens of personal artistry, but then also politics.
[00:59:48] And like how she thought of politics, genre, whiteness, femininity. Mm-hmm , you know, like this tradition of romance and, and narrative that has surrounded her. Yes. So that just seems like a very [01:00:00] fertile text. Oh my God,
[01:00:01]Laura McKowen: please do it. Please do it. There are a few things that I have just sort of obsessed about at culturally.
[01:00:10] One has been Peloton I'm just as someone who runs a community and a brand, not my personal brand, but my company's brand, the, the luckiest club. Seeing why it's the phenomenon that it is. And I, yep. I want everybody to, to read
[01:00:25]Anne Helen Petersen: your series, I'm going to do an installment on their, the way they've done community, because yes, it is very effective and they have countered effectively countered.
[01:00:37] I think so many of the criticisms that were lobbied at them. Yeah. They're just really good.
[01:00:44]Laura McKowen: You've done a great job of breaking down some of the pieces of that. So I, I want people to go ahead and read that, but Taylor swift is another one, you know, as a person who loves music, just admiring her music and her songwriting,
[01:00:54]Anne Helen Petersen: but she's many so freaking good at social media.
[01:00:57] Like the way that she has like made [01:01:00] herself into and over the course of time, like really changed her social media strategy, but also like made herself into a elusive commodity the way that she teases things like. There's very little there, but it's really interesting. She's at
[01:01:15]Laura McKowen: this sort of mega mega megastar status
[01:01:18]Anne Helen Petersen: and there aren't a lot at her level
[01:01:20]Laura McKowen: anymore.
[01:01:21] No, no, there aren't. It used to be that there was a small pool, you know, and, and big stars. And there's just a big pool now and yeah. Very small
[01:01:31]Anne Helen Petersen: stars. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:01:33]Laura McKowen: I hope you write that book. So where can people find you your subs stack? Yeah, I,
[01:01:39]Anne Helen Petersen: my subs stack, you can either Google culture study, or you could it's Ann Helen, which is my name attac.com.
[01:01:45] And then my Twitter is Anne Helen and my Instagram is Ann Helen Peterson. Okay.
[01:01:51]Laura McKowen: Well, I can't wait to see what else you keep doing. I was, I was very grateful to Michael, our producer for turning me onto your work and I'm a fan now, [01:02:00]
[01:02:00]Anne Helen Petersen: so awesome. This has been wonderful. I had a really great time. Thank you.
[01:02:05] Thank you for being here. Yeah.
[01:02:17]Laura McKowen: Thank you for being with us today. If you want more TMS T head on over to TMS T pod.com and become a member members, get access to the full uncut versions of these conversations. Opportunities to submit questions for AMAs and invites to join me for members only events, we decided from the beginning to make this an independent project, we don't have sponsors and we don't run ads.
[01:02:45] This means we can make the show all about you and not what our sponsors are advertisers want, but it also means we're a hundred percent reliant on you for support. So my requests and my invitation is [01:03:00] simple. Support the show by becoming a member, you can do this for as little as $5 a month. I cannot stress this enough.
[01:03:09] You could make a huge difference for as little as $5. Please head on over to TMS tpo.com. Right now, tell me something true is engineered and mixed by Paulo Michael El assessor. And I dreamed up this show and we're looking forward to joining you online and next time on tell me something true.