The Ballerina Farms Controversy & The Tradwife Cargo Cult

https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92

In this in-depth analysis, Malcolm and Simone Collins dissect the recent New York Times article about Hannah and Daniel Neeleman of Ballerina Farms, exploring the controversy surrounding their "trad wife" lifestyle. The video offers unique insights into media manipulation, the complexities of modern conservative influencers, and the tensions between progressive journalists and traditional families. Drawing from their own experiences with media coverage, the Collins couple provides a nuanced perspective on the Ballerina Farms story, discussing everything from Mormon culture to the economics of influencer farming.

Key topics covered:

* Analysis of the New York Times article on Ballerina Farms

* The "trad wife" phenomenon and its cultural implications

* Media manipulation tactics and influencer strategies

* Mormon culture and its influence on the Neelemans' lifestyle

* The economics of influencer farming and social media success

* Comparisons between Ballerina Farms and other conservative influencers

* The role of the LDS Church in shaping the Neelemans' public image

* Critiques of modern parenting and societal expectations

Whether you're interested in social media culture, conservative lifestyles, or media analysis, this video offers a thought-provoking look at one of the internet's most talked-about families.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I actually think that this narrative was intentionally crafted in order to make the other scandal impossible. You

Simone Collins: think this is a 4D chess situation?

Malcolm Collins: There was something that happened in the piece that made me think that this was definitely a 4D chess situation.

Simone Collins: You really think she was baiting the reporter with this?

Malcolm Collins: I do think she was baiting the reporter with this. I think that they actually wanted to create this narrative that's being created right now.

It's the type of thing you and I have done with

Simone Collins: Oh, tell me more.

Malcolm Collins: I have a secret theory on what the trip to Greece faux pas was all about. And I'm going to get into it in this video because I do not think it's what you think it is.

I don't think she was saying that to her husband. I think she was saying that to somebody else entirely, but who could it be?

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: So Malcolm, I was

Malcolm Collins: actually Simone. I need to speak here. I don't, I don't think any of your opinions matter on this, but here we had to prep for that. Anyway, go ahead.

Simone Collins: Straight. The trad wife dynamic. I was cruising YouTube as is my want, and I found that three of [00:01:00] my favorite YouTubers all had done. In the span of the last few days, Ballerina Farms analyses, and I thought, Oh my gosh, what is going on for those not in the know, Ballerina Farms is a very popular.

We're talking like 9 million followers Trad wife, influencer, Instagram. They don't refer to themselves as a tra wife or a trad couple. And I say they because we're talking about sorry, Hannah and Daniel Neman. They are two Mormons married couple with. Eight kids living on a beautiful property outside Park City in Utah running a farm with dairy cows and chickens and pigs.

An

Malcolm Collins: experience recently that was very similar to an experience that we went through. Right. So yeah,

Simone Collins: these three YouTubers were all doing an analysis of an article that came out in the Times, which involved a reporter coming to visit them who then spent the day with the family. And then. Published what many people are calling a hit piece.

[00:02:00] And what's really interesting is that we're sort of looking at this from people who have seen the exact same formula. British journalist wants to cover a, an alt right adjacent subculture targets of family. goes to spend time with them, probably comes with an existing agenda, or at least their existing cultural baggage, is probably, you know, a pretty progressive, you know, female journalist, and then subsequently writes an article that is beautifully written, you know, you know, interesting, florid, whatever, you know, very evocative.

But it, you know, frames the target family in a controversial right and the target movement in a controversial right. And, and perennialism and tradwives, they're very, they're like cousin trends, if you know what I mean. You know, they're, they're a lot of, they rhyme. There's not a lot of intermixing. But they are, there kind of is, and I would say like any, any sort of progressive journalist that's like trying to explore and possibly criticize rising [00:03:00] conservative movements that are sort of, rebutting progressive ideals is going to look at both pronatalism and treadwifery.

So what, what had happened to that very similar to what had happened to us in various hit pitch pieces that have been written about our pronatalist advocacy and our family in general. So it's like, I feel like we have insights into what's happened with the Neelman's that other people don't have because they haven't had the experience of a journalist embedding with their family for a day.

Asking them questions, seeing the full range of the experience the journalist had that day, but then seeing how the journalist chose to frame that experience later. Because what people aren't seeing is everything that that journalist chose to not write about.

Malcolm Collins: Well, not just that, but I want to, I want to Make one a clarification here.

So there was one instance in which she was asked her and her husband were asked, but she was the one who was directly asked. And then her husband butted in and answered first does she consider herself a trad wife? The husband said, well, the term came up after we started doing what [00:04:00] we were doing.

So it's not like we were aiming to be trad wives, but I guess we sort of are now. And then she clarified further that she didn't fully agree or identify with the title. So. You are a trad wife as much as she is a trad wife. Two way progressive, you would be a trad wife, but we have mentioned many times on the show we should do a full episode on this concept that, that the trad wife movement as it exists now is a bit of a cargo cult.

So for people who aren't familiar with what cargo cults are, this is like, In these islands during World War II, they would there were like natives who weren't really familiar with Europe or Europeans cultural value system or anything like that, but all of a sudden these bases were set up with food and supplies and everything like that, and they'd be airdropped supplies regularly or planes would fly in and drop supplies.

And so, after the Europeans left, they sort of like built religions around them to try to bring back the prosperity of those times, like making Runways out of like [00:05:00] stones and stuff like that are trying to recreate some of the European rituals that they remembered from that period and I think But but all of it was sort of a mock of a time that they didn't fully understand or know And it is all the modern image of what that time was

Simone Collins: Yeah, and that's similar to sympathetic magic like, you know, I want to fly so i'm gonna eat a bird You know something like that of like well, like let's try to bring that back.

Like oh Just by doing things that are kind of similar, let's,

Malcolm Collins: let's try to bring back the, t