Based Camp - The Ballerina Farms Controversy & The Tradwife Cargo Cult

00:00:00.000 I actually think that this narrative was intentionally crafted in order to make the other scandal impossible.

00:00:05.620 You think this is a 4D chess situation?

00:00:08.340 There was something that happened in the piece that made me think that this was definitely a 4D chess situation.

00:00:12.640 You really think she was baiting the reporter with this?

00:00:15.440 I do think she was baiting the reporter with this.

00:00:17.480 I think that they actually wanted to create this narrative that's being created right now.

00:00:22.780 It's the type of thing you and I have done.

00:00:24.360 Oh, tell me more.

00:00:26.320 I have a secret theory on what the trip to Greece faux pas was all about.

00:00:30.500 And I'm going to get into it in this video because I do not think it's what you think it is.

00:00:35.820 I don't think she was saying that to her husband.

00:00:37.680 I think she was saying that to somebody else entirely.

00:00:40.320 But who could it be?

00:00:41.540 Would you like to know more?

00:00:42.840 So Malcolm, I was...

00:00:44.900 Actually, Simone, I need to speak here.

00:00:46.580 I don't think any of your opinions matter on this.

00:00:49.380 So we had to do a little skit here.

00:00:51.320 We had to prep for that.

00:00:53.060 Anyway, go ahead.

00:00:54.240 To demonstrate the trad wife dynamic, I was cruising YouTube as is my want.

00:00:58.780 And I found that three of my favorite YouTubers all had done, in the span of the last few days,

00:01:04.520 Ballerina Farms analyses.

00:01:06.540 And I thought, oh my gosh, what is going on?

00:01:08.880 For those not in the know, Ballerina Farms is a very popular...

00:01:13.680 We're talking like 9 million followers.

00:01:16.220 Trad wife, influencer, Instagram.

00:01:18.560 They don't refer to themselves as a trad wife or a trad couple.

00:01:23.420 And I say they because we're talking about...

00:01:25.680 Sorry, Hannah and Daniel Nealman.

00:01:28.380 They are two Mormons, married couple with eight kids living on a beautiful property outside Park City in Utah,

00:01:36.940 running a farm with dairy cows and chickens and pigs.

00:01:40.480 We had an experience recently that was very similar to an experience that we went through.

00:01:46.000 So yeah, these three YouTubers were all doing an analysis of an article that came out in the Times,

00:01:50.180 which involved a reporter coming to visit them, who then spent the day with the family,

00:01:55.920 and then published what many people are calling a hit piece.

00:02:00.020 And what's really interesting is that we're sort of looking at this from people who have seen the exact same formula.

00:02:05.320 British journalist, wants to cover an alt-right adjacent subculture, targets a family, goes to spend time with them,

00:02:14.640 probably comes with an existing agenda, or at least their existing cultural baggage,

00:02:18.940 is probably a pretty progressive female journalist. 0.99

00:02:23.980 And then subsequently writes an article that is beautifully written, interesting, florid, whatever, very evocative.

00:02:31.500 But it, you know, frames the target family in a controversial right and the target movement in a controversial right.

00:02:37.620 And pro-natalism and trad wives, they're very, they're like cousin trends, if you know what I mean.

00:02:44.440 You know, they have a lot of, they rhyme.

00:02:46.820 There's not a lot of intermixing, but they are.

00:02:49.920 There kind of is.

00:02:50.640 I mean, there kind of is.

00:02:51.600 And I would say like any sort of progressive journalist that's like trying to explore

00:02:56.100 and possibly criticize rising conservative movements that are sort of rebutting progressive ideals

00:03:03.220 is going to look at both pro-natalism and tradwifery.

00:03:07.360 So what would have happened to that family is very similar to what had happened to us

00:03:10.760 in various hit pieces that have been written about our pro-natalist advocacy and our family in general.

00:03:16.540 So it's like, I feel like we have insights into what's happened with the Nealmans 0.98

00:03:21.020 that other people don't have because they haven't had the experience of a journalist

00:03:25.040 embedding with their family for a day, asking them questions,

00:03:28.800 seeing the full range of the experience the journalist had that day,

00:03:32.220 but then seeing how the journalist chose to frame that experience later.

00:03:36.480 Because what people aren't seeing is everything that that journalist chose to not write about.

00:03:41.920 Well, not just that, but I want to, I want to make one a clarification here.

00:03:46.660 So there was one instance in which she was asked, her and her husband were asked,

00:03:50.800 but she was the one who was directly asked.

00:03:52.660 And then her husband butted in and answered first.

00:03:54.740 Does she consider herself a trad wife? 0.99

00:03:56.700 The husband said, well, the term came up after we started doing what we were doing.

00:04:00.380 So it's not like we were aiming to be trad wives, but I guess we sort of are now.

00:04:04.800 And then she clarified further that she didn't fully agree or identify with the title.

00:04:10.660 So you are a trad wife as much as she is a trad wife. 0.95

00:04:15.380 To a progressive, you would be a trad wife. 1.00

00:04:17.780 But we have mentioned many times on the show, we should do a full episode on this concept that the trad wife movement as it exists now is a bit of a cargo cult.

00:04:27.420 So for people who aren't familiar with what cargo cults are, this is like in these islands during World War II,

00:04:35.260 they would, there were like natives who weren't really familiar with Europe or European cultural value system or anything like that.

00:04:41.260 But all of a sudden these bases were set up with food and supplies and everything like that.

00:04:45.680 And they'd be airdropped supplies regularly or planes would fly in and drop supplies.

00:04:50.120 And so after the Europeans left, they sort of like built religions around them to try to bring back the prosperity of those times,

00:04:57.400 like making runways out of like stones and stuff like that, or trying to recreate some of the European rituals that they remembered from that period.

00:05:06.620 And I think, but all of it was sort of a mock of a time that they didn't fully understand or know.

00:05:12.720 And it is all the modern image of what that time was.

00:05:16.000 Yeah. And that's sort of similar to sympathetic magic. Like, you know, I want to fly, so I'm going to eat a bird, you know, something like that.

00:05:21.620 Of like, well, like, let's try to bring that back, like just by doing things that are kind of similar.

00:05:26.180 Let's, let's try to bring back the, the, the wholesomeness and the prosperity where you could genuinely have, you know,

00:05:33.880 your average American family and the whole family could survive off of the husband's income.

00:05:38.000 And like, and a lot of people think that we are fully against stay at home moms.

00:05:42.500 I'm not, I just don't like elevating this image because I don't think it's attainable for the average person.

00:05:48.200 And I think it leads people to make very poor financial decisions.

00:05:51.720 Well, and creative decisions, there's a lot of risks with stay at home parenting,

00:05:55.080 which is that like sort of the dynamics that can be built among a couple,

00:05:59.640 especially when there's one breadwinner and then one homemaker,

00:06:02.380 there can be a lot of like misunderstanding of the roles that each person is playing.

00:06:06.720 Then a lot of resentment building.

00:06:07.900 Like you don't understand how much work I put into this family either as the breadwinner or as the homemaker.

00:06:13.680 And then later after the homemaker partner becomes an empty nester, 0.99

00:06:18.160 suddenly the value that they brought to the table is sort of lost and their career is lost.

00:06:23.200 And they're a little bit aimless dynamics are just super screwed up.

00:06:26.100 So it's just, we're concerned about adverse incentives.

00:06:28.220 We're concerned about unsustainable relationship dynamics.

00:06:30.740 And that's another concern, but not everybody has that.

00:06:33.060 Some people don't have, what I'm saying is we don't actually,

00:06:34.780 like some people have been on our discord, like, well, you know,

00:06:37.300 you probably disapprove of I'm doing this.

00:06:39.220 And I'm like, no, like if you can make it work, you've won the lottery.

00:06:42.760 Right.

00:06:43.360 And especially we'll get into her situation,

00:06:46.700 but I think she's really gone above and beyond in terms of like moms that have my respect,

00:06:50.840 the ballerina farm lady, like, oh my God. 0.50

00:06:52.620 Hannah Nealman is insanely awesome. 0.98

00:06:55.820 And she doesn't use nannies, by the way, she uses nannies once a week. 1.00

00:07:00.080 She has eight kids.

00:07:01.080 She doesn't live like around their parents or around anyone she can fob the kids off onto. 0.91

00:07:05.580 And it's not like, even if she did live right by her parents,

00:07:08.520 no one's going to take eight kids. 0.98

00:07:10.020 So they're on their own, you know?

00:07:11.960 Well, and, and she helps with the farm's operation. 1.00

00:07:14.300 So, you know, she's, she's doing the whole package.

00:07:16.740 But what I was going to say here is while I think that the modern tradwide movement

00:07:20.300 is a bit of a cargo cult,

00:07:21.900 that doesn't mean that there aren't valuable things that can be taken

00:07:25.640 from earlier traditions that are social technologies that we have lost over time are discarded,

00:07:32.000 that now I think there is a broad understanding that the feminist movement

00:07:35.680 threw out a bunch of stuff that was actually really useful for women's mental health.

00:07:39.820 I mean, as we can see by the terrible mental health statistics in progressive women 1.00

00:07:43.780 was over 50% of progressive white women under 30 having a serious mental health issue.

00:07:48.580 Well, I think that's, that's where this is, this becomes a really interesting interplay is

00:07:52.500 I think there's this tension between progressive women and more traditional women

00:07:59.780 where they're flirting with this idea of tradwifery. 1.00

00:08:03.160 They're flirting with the performative dream of tradwifery, 1.00

00:08:07.680 which is why other tradwife influencers like Nara Smith and also Mormon, 1.00

00:08:11.480 but not as like hard on the Mormon part are very popular.

00:08:15.080 There's, it's the same kind of fantasy that Martha Stewart in her time,

00:08:18.840 popularized, which is taking the concept of homemaking and making it impossibly aspirational

00:08:24.060 where people used to, when they did Martha Stewart parodies, they would like, you know,

00:08:28.040 joke, just like people joke about Nara Smith now of like, well, first I'm going to grind the wheat

00:08:32.060 to make my bread, which I will then, you know, everything's made like impossibly from like scratch,

00:08:37.720 which is something that Hannah Nealman. And I think it's this, this, this fantasy it's drawing in

00:08:43.500 progressive women who know that things aren't working, but those progressive women at the same time 1.00

00:08:47.720 feel a lot of tension around this concept of having a partner who might speak for both of you,

00:08:54.680 which shows up in this article again and again, the journalist brings up how David keeps answering.

00:08:59.920 Hold on, hold on, hold on. Before we go to this, I wanted to briefly bring up an anecdote from your life.

00:09:05.600 So Simone, you know, she tries to do, you know, when we have time because we don't have time for all of the traditional trad wifey stuff, 1.00

00:09:15.560 but you know, she likes to try to make her own bread at home and stuff like that with the kids. 1.00

00:09:19.860 It's a fun activity on weekends. And you had somebody come to you and they go, well, did you mill the wheat?

00:09:25.860 Like, how did, how did this go?

00:09:27.680 Yeah. They commented on an Instagram post I made where I had a picture of the kids making bread or something like that.

00:09:32.860 And she was like, well, you should really consider, you know, milling your own wheat because the nutritional value is lost in three days.

00:09:38.500 And I'm just thinking to myself, like, I just, I don't know where I'm going to get like the, where does one get wheat?

00:09:44.280 I think I even asked her this because I'm just, yeah. Like, do I pick the wheats? Like, where is it? And how, like, is there like a KitchenAid mixer add-on that like, I do have like a KitchenAid mixer meat grinder.

00:09:55.020 Like we could make her on hamburger meat if we wanted to, but I don't know how I would mill my own wheat.

00:10:00.640 Before we go further, what I really want to do is go into the specific controversies that were created by this piece and try to dissect what was really happening in these moments,

00:10:11.420 even from the writing of the piece, because I think similar to the pieces that covered us, it was clear if you are reading them with a critical mind that the journalist never specifically outright lies.

00:10:23.140 They just cover things in a way that will lead you to misinterpret what's happening.

00:10:27.960 Well, and she, she, she highlights and observes things in a way that, that has her interpreting them, even though they're like very subtle things.

00:10:36.160 Like she, at one point highlights how Hannah repeats something that her husband, Daniel says, and she highlights that and she doesn't add any commentary.

00:10:46.040 It's very like show, don't tell it's, it's well-written, but that's, these are all things that she selectively chooses to present in a way that's like, look at that.

00:10:54.280 You know what I think that means instead of just actually the really funny thing is that the YouTubers that we've talked about in another podcast,

00:11:00.040 Jordan and McKay were talking about this and they were talking about that exact sentence and they're like, oh, you see, and a lot of Mormon mothers do that.

00:11:08.000 And the, the wife actually repeated something that the husband said, like he said something like, yeah, a lot of Mormons do that.

00:11:14.480 And she said, yeah, a lot of Mormons do that completely unironically, like there was no wink to it. 0.98

00:11:19.280 It's just something humans do.

00:11:21.100 But because this was highlighted as such in the article that it was presented as this thing of like, oh, she's this brainwashed wife who, you know, is being completely controlled by her husband when I don't think that's the case. 0.91

00:11:34.680 So go over the arguments they use for her being controlled by her husband.

00:11:37.700 Yeah. So in, as this journalist visits, she becomes increasingly frustrated as she's going throughout the day.

00:11:44.400 And in, in many cases, it's Daniel answering questions that she is asking while making eye contact or like looking directly at Hannah.

00:11:52.800 It's Daniel who, while Hannah is making lunch for the kids, is driving this journalist around the property to show, to show her irrigation ditches, much to her great frustration.

00:12:03.540 It's often the kids who are answering for them.

00:12:05.480 So she gets really frustrated by that.

00:12:07.940 And she also notes multiple times in the article how he appears to have gotten his way with things, with the way that they chose to date.

00:12:14.680 Hold on. So before we go into that, I can also understand the journalist's perspective here, which is to say she went out to talk to the trad wife. 0.94

00:12:24.120 The female influencer, of course. Yes.

00:12:25.820 Right. And then her husband cuts in and is one, answering questions directly being asked of the influencer.

00:12:32.380 And two, drives the journalist all around the property.

00:12:37.240 So she becomes, yes.

00:12:38.600 So she becomes increasingly frustrated because she does want to talk with this female influencer. 0.94

00:12:42.900 And the way that she interprets it is this is a controlling husband.

00:12:46.380 This is actually a serious trad wife situation where women are being disempowered. 1.00

00:12:49.860 And as I'm reading this, I'm thinking about what it's like when we have journalists visit us as people who are also like part of their let's explore the lives of conservatives journey as journalists and what they must be thinking.

00:13:04.580 And often what happens is Malcolm is answering a lot of the questions and I disappear for a while to take care of our infant while Malcolm, you know, takes a journalist out for lunch.

00:13:14.040 It's like a common format that we use when they're visiting.

00:13:16.460 Why is that the case?

00:13:17.620 Because I want to get some freaking work done.

00:13:19.500 And also because I don't really like talking with with journalists or being around people at all.

00:13:23.220 I want to be alone for a little bit of the day.

00:13:24.680 And often journalists are visiting all day.

00:13:26.380 So always, inevitably, the night before a journalist comes to visit, I tell Malcolm, oh, my gosh, I'm so stressed out.

00:13:32.640 I don't want to be around this person all day.

00:13:34.280 I just need to get work done.

00:13:35.420 I have this, this and this to do.

00:13:36.820 And Malcolm's like, don't worry.

00:13:38.200 I will run interference.

00:13:39.340 I will give you the time that you need to get your stuff done.

00:13:41.940 And we'll still make sure that you have plenty of time to talk with them.

00:13:44.660 But I know you don't really want to do this.

00:13:46.580 I'm happy to step in.

00:13:48.460 And so probably what's happening is a lot of these journalists are thinking, oh, you know, how, you know, how dare he, you know, hide her away or something.

00:13:55.760 And this may happen with Hannah.

00:13:57.340 I could totally see Hannah being an introvert. 1.00

00:13:59.060 I could totally see Hannah also being like, I just want to feed my kids lunch without a journalist breathing down my neck or criticizing me for the way that I'm feeding my kids, you know, or seeing the way that I feed my kids and then writing about that.

00:14:10.820 Like, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of criticism that could come from that.

00:14:14.800 Also, I was going to talk about how if you look at the actual incidents that she uses to try to make it look like Hannah is being controlled, they are things like, you know, the husband saying, well, she does, I guess we're trad, she's a trad wife, given this new term that's come up.

00:14:33.560 And her saying, I'm not a trad wife as indicating that the husband wants her to be more traditional than she is, but it really could just be the husband is just like, I guess she's a trad wife.

00:14:45.560 Like he's a busy guy running a thing and she's like, yeah, but you know, I don't really fully identify with it.

00:14:52.600 Very similar to us where it's like, I guess to you, she is a trad wife, but she doesn't like aspire to be a trad wife. 1.00

00:15:00.800 And then you have other instances in which she's talking about how, like, and she writes in the piece, how they both talk about how they gave up something to start this, that he gave up a career in finance and she gave up a career as a ballerina.

00:15:17.380 And she keeps trying to frame it as like, look at everything she lost with this career as a ballerina.

00:15:26.100 And I find this like uniquely insane.

00:15:30.480 This is like, so for people who don't know the lifestyle of a ballerina, this is like, you know, a little boy when he's young, he wants to be a soldier and fight on the front lines, but oh no, he married a billionaire heiress and now has to live in a farm.

00:15:46.260 He doesn't get to fight on the front lines of war.

00:15:56.100 Like, people aspiration, like, it's not even like a long term career, you were telling me.

00:16:03.480 Well, it can't be.

00:16:04.280 I mean, yeah, you basically have to be young to be a ballet dancer, primarily because after a while you accumulate so many injuries that you can no longer dance.

00:16:14.120 And also it is one of the most kind of similar to cheerleading.

00:16:17.740 You know, you think it's all fluffy and pretty and it turns out to be like the most dangerous sport, like probably worse than football for head injuries and probably not as worse.

00:16:25.200 And the stats, I don't know.

00:16:26.800 We have to look at the stats for cheerleading versus football, but they're both extremely dangerous.

00:16:30.400 So I looked this up in post and ballet injuries are around comparable to football injuries.

00:16:35.840 Being a ballerina is harder on your body than being an MMA as a man.

00:16:39.480 Again, I looked this up in post and while the rate of injuries per hour fighting slash dancing is higher in MMA, you do more hours dancing in an average ballerina career.

00:16:52.520 So when you calculate from that, the rate of injury is higher in ballet than MMA for the average amount of hours you are going to do of one of them per day.

00:17:02.720 It's terrible.

00:17:03.700 I mean, so something that always stuck with me was Michelle Yeoh, who is a very famous actress now, who first, I think, hit American Mindshare with her role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, was a ballet dancer in her youth until she sustained a serious spinal injury.

00:17:19.860 So then when she go to like acting in martial arts films, because doing all that stunt work was way lighter on her body. 0.96

00:17:25.920 She said that she was really having the shit kicked out of you is easier than being a ballet dancer. 0.98

00:17:32.280 So, yeah, it's punishing and it's a lot like modeling too, where like a lot of the cachet that you can bring to the table, you know, is your youth and that's only going to last for so long. 0.98

00:17:44.240 So her days were numbered from the very beginning and the fact that she instead, you know, has been able to have an insanely influential career as an influencer, in addition to having a pretty picturesque life, you know, on this gorgeous ranch.

00:17:58.880 I want to elevate this as well. Why does a little girl want to be a ballerina? In the same way, like, why does the little boy want to be a soldier, right?

00:18:06.440 Like, it's because they see it as beautiful and elegant and aspirational and everyone looks up to them.

00:18:13.120 And yeah, like how many ballerinas can you name? How many ballerinas do little girls look at now and think, I want to be like her?

00:18:19.040 No, they're on freaking Instagram. She's living the dream.

00:18:21.940 Well, and I think how non-committed to this ballerina lifestyle actually slips across in the piece.

00:18:27.980 So she mentions in one part that she was going into, they had this barn set aside to be her ballet studio.

00:18:33.400 But then she's like, yeah, but then it got converted into the place where we educate our kids. 0.96

00:18:38.800 And partially a gym.

00:18:39.820 Yeah, partially a gym. And the journalist was sitting there like, you know, this is a monument to like the horror of her life.

00:18:51.340 That the one little part of a thing that she could have had to herself.

00:18:55.440 The one barn that was supposed to be dedicated to becoming her ballet studio host, become a school for their children, and now a gym for Daniel.

00:19:02.360 Or Daniel, which by the way, they share. The gym has tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment in it.

00:19:08.440 If they wanted to put in mirrors and a bar for ballet exercises, they would have done so.

00:19:14.060 Like this is clearly just a lot of priority.

00:19:16.780 They have hundreds of acres of property and they have to have at least a billion dollars.

00:19:22.240 And I'll talk about why I believe they have at least a billion dollars in a second.

00:19:24.860 If she actually was committed to building herself a ballet studio, like this was more than a passing fancy when she's just like, eh, I guess I don't have time between teaching the kids and doing the other stuff.

00:19:36.400 It would be trivial for her to do this.

00:19:40.180 She has intentionally decided to not build this ballet studio.

00:19:45.500 Yeah, ballet studios of all the types of studios you might design are extremely low maintenance.

00:19:49.940 All you need is a bar and some mirrors, like, and a good floor. That's it.

00:19:54.540 Yeah, and so I just, I think what it is, is she just doesn't care that much.

00:19:59.500 Especially given the public attention that she is already getting. 0.79

00:20:04.420 Now, I want to talk a bit about them dating and their background.

00:20:07.900 So I actually have a personal connection to this, and you may not know this.

00:20:11.720 Did you know that we pitched to her, to the guy's father when we were raising money for our search fund?

00:20:16.540 He was a guy in Salt Lake City.

00:20:19.140 No.

00:20:20.380 I'm looking up, okay, I'm checking our CRM.

00:20:22.620 I need to see if this is actually true.

00:20:24.460 So his dad was one of the founders of JetBlue.

00:20:27.780 And not only that, he was one of my teachers at Stanford Business School.

00:20:31.660 And so he then, and what this guy did, so I can go into a bit of the career trajectory,

00:20:36.420 because a lot of people don't understand why he might have been working in Brazil.

00:20:40.100 Because this is what they did early in their relationship.

00:20:41.720 They went to work in Brazil to run a company that his dad had founded, or I suspect actually purchased.

00:20:46.900 This is the news is just misreporting it, is his core business now.

00:20:50.580 So first he founded JetBlue, and now he invests in search funds, which is the industry that you and I were in.

00:20:56.300 And so what his son was doing was acting as a search fund operator.

00:21:00.060 Now, this to me signals something quite different than it would to a general population.

00:21:05.520 I'm actually, like, if I have one complaint about the Ballerina Farms couple, it's when the son, when she was like,

00:21:10.320 well, I gave up my dreams of being a ballerina, and he's like, well, you know, and I had to give up my job, too.

00:21:14.720 And I was like, you didn't really, though.

00:21:18.580 Well, apparently after they got engaged, he said he wanted to be a pig farmer, so this actually was his dream.

00:21:24.980 Yeah, this is him using his billions of dollars to start the type of company that somebody else couldn't start.

00:21:30.980 He should, like, I just, as somebody who comes from, like, a similar background to him and didn't end up using my family's money to cheese, you know, my early life or my existing career,

00:21:41.160 I, like, he should be doing more in the world than just this one job.

00:21:45.160 Yes, he has a big footprint, but, like, really, he could be doing a lot more than he is right now to try to fix the world, whether it's politics or, you know, it's not just the podcast that we run.

00:21:56.300 We also operate a search fund right now.

00:21:58.140 We also operate a daily podcast.

00:22:01.440 We also have Simone running for office right now. 1.00

00:22:04.300 We also have written five bestselling books.

00:22:06.720 Like, why don't you get a job? 1.00

00:22:09.420 Get a goddamn job, Al. 1.00

00:22:11.560 You got a negative attitude. 1.00

00:22:13.460 That's what's stopping you.

00:22:14.780 You got to get your act together.

00:22:16.620 I'm going to push back on that.

00:22:17.880 Can I do it now or should I do it later?

00:22:19.640 No, push back now.

00:22:20.900 Okay, so one of the theories that's going on in the Reddit snark dedicated to Ballerina Farms,

00:22:27.840 because, of course, there has to be snark about this, is that the Mormon Church has assigned to Hannah and Daniel their, like, calling of being influencers for the Mormon Church, for the LDS Church.

00:22:42.480 Oh, that would make sense.

00:22:43.560 And they have a huge, they have 9 million followers.

00:22:47.560 This is a huge number of people.

00:22:49.360 The vast, vast, vast majority are not even remotely.

00:22:52.260 I mean, the first time I heard about them was from one of our gay friends who lives in California and has nothing to do with any of this, right?

00:22:58.020 You know, like, totally not Mormon. 0.96

00:22:59.100 And the theory that actually was first posted in the subreddit from an ex-LDS church PR person is that the church has assigned this as their calling,

00:23:10.940 and the church actually does actively work with a bunch of Mormon influencers actually, like, coordinating on, like, I would like you to send this message.

00:23:18.400 I would like you to do this.

00:23:19.720 And it would make, it would be dumb if the church didn't do this with people who have- 0.55

00:23:23.100 Yeah, I know, don't see this as a theory.

00:23:25.380 This is confirmed for me.

00:23:26.320 It would be insane for the church not to do this.

00:23:28.220 It is weird that he isn't still doing something in the search fund industry, because that was, it seemed to be where he was working.

00:23:34.580 And so the question is, or as an operator for a private equity firm, like, he can do that stuff remotely.

00:23:39.260 So, like, why isn't he doing that stuff?

00:23:40.940 He's in a unique position.

00:23:43.580 Yeah, this is, this is something that very few other people can do.

00:23:46.980 Very high barriers to entry.

00:23:48.380 Getting this kind of following is very difficult.

00:23:50.280 And they put in their posts, in their content, they talk a lot about the Mormon religion.

00:23:56.680 They talk about the church.

00:23:57.920 They talk about, you know, the, he talks about how, like, the barn they had was inspired by the architecture of the barns of original Mormon settlers.

00:24:06.400 Like, this is definitely something that's worked into their work in a way that also implies that this isn't just that they happen to be Mormon.

00:24:14.440 Yeah, so we need to talk about the dating and also the Mormon-ness of their early relationship.

00:24:18.200 Because it horrified the journalist, but it's actually very normal for Mormons.

00:24:22.040 Yeah.

00:24:22.100 So the first part is the dating, right?

00:24:24.420 Can you talk about the dating story?

00:24:26.760 Yeah.

00:24:27.260 So in the article, the journalist covers how Daniel had met Hannah.

00:24:31.720 They met at a basketball game and he asked to go on a date with her, but she was kind of busy with school.

00:24:36.500 She was at Juilliard in New York at the time.

00:24:38.660 He was 23.

00:24:39.440 She was 21.

00:24:40.080 So for six months, he wouldn't go on, she wouldn't go on a date with him.

00:24:44.260 Finally, he learns that she's going to take a five-hour flight from home in Utah back to New York for school.

00:24:50.040 And he decides to get on the same jet blue flight, pull some strings with his family to make sure that he is in the seat right next to her for those five hours.

00:24:57.800 And that was their first date.

00:24:59.040 There's some things I want to note was this.

00:25:01.160 He admitted to it immediately on this date that he had done this.

00:25:04.680 He's like, I pulled some strings.

00:25:06.380 She didn't know.

00:25:07.500 So here's also an interesting thing in their courtship.

00:25:10.640 When he was trying to date her and she wasn't saying yes to him that six months period, she didn't know he was the son of a billionaire.

00:25:18.860 She didn't know about his jet blue connections.

00:25:21.560 She didn't know how fabulously wealthy this guy was.

00:25:24.320 And I suspect the reason why things changed so quickly after that was she found out, oh, not only that, he's a handsome looking normal.

00:25:35.300 His family, like I know his dad's reputation on campus and everything like that.

00:25:39.600 He is seen as like a wholesome, upstanding, good person.

00:25:43.460 Very, very respected, very good people.

00:25:45.540 Very respected, yeah.

00:25:46.220 And she also, in a separate social media post, unmoored from this article made a long time ago, talked about how at the airport, I think in Salt Lake City, she happened upon some family who was like, oh, you do not want to let this guy slip away.

00:26:01.180 I think maybe that was the point at which she was informed that he, like, do you, you know who he is?

00:26:06.540 Do you know who this guy is?

00:26:07.620 In addition to this, you've got to think about this act he did for her.

00:26:11.340 So, so often, you know, when you have these billionaire, non-billionaire relationships, you get this idea that the non-billionaire was like chasing them to try to like take their money or something like that, where there's always this fear in the background.

00:26:27.740 One of the most romantic things anyone can do for you is a huge, like, act like this.

00:26:34.580 Like, like, the older women are pretending like, oh, how gross that he basically went on a non-consensual date with her, right? 1.00

00:26:42.620 But you said it was a first date as well.

00:26:45.280 She could have chosen not to talk to him if she wanted to on the airplane.

00:26:49.320 It could have just been an awkward flight.

00:26:52.080 No, I really think any of these reporters or any of these people online who are acting horrified about this, it's like, so you really are mortified that an attractive, wholesome, well-mannered, billionaire's son who is well-respected in their community does this huge act to try to be close to you and show you then and forever that he desperately wanted you.

00:27:20.040 You specifically. And I actually think that, you know how we say, like, when you're doing stuff with media relations, sometimes you need to lean in the opposite direction and create a scandal that makes the more natural scandal impossible.

00:27:34.540 The natural scandal of their relationship is she was a gold digger. 0.91

00:27:39.280 But they have, through this narrative, made that natural scandal impossible.

00:27:45.360 And so I actually think that this narrative was intentionally crafted in order to make the other scandal impossible.

00:27:52.020 You think this is a 4D chess situation?

00:27:54.560 There was something that happened in the piece that made me think that this was definitely a 4D chess situation.

00:27:59.120 Ooh, tell me more.

00:28:00.280 So this is when she was sitting with the woman and the woman was like, well, so you gave birth without pain medication, right?

00:28:11.800 Which you tried to do the first time. You went into, like, women choose to do this on their own. 0.99

00:28:16.020 Totally.

00:28:16.840 Did I pressure you to try that the first time you wanted to have kids? You were devastated, if I remember.

00:28:21.460 I was devastated. You did not pressure me.

00:28:23.460 Yeah, she was, I had to make the final call to be like, you need to get an epidural and you need to get a C-section because the baby's life is at risk.

00:28:30.940 And then after that, there just wasn't really a reason not to do it because, well, then the second pregnancy was complicated, so we had to get a C-section.

00:28:36.620 And after that, it would be on place not to do a C-section.

00:28:39.640 So with us, we didn't really have a choice, but you wanted to tank it because, like, and you're not even like a Christian whatever. 0.85

00:28:46.120 You're just like, well, I fully, I don't know what the effects are.

00:28:49.080 Why did you want to do it without payments?

00:28:50.920 So I was concerned about the, you know, what we'd read about, you know, how much the epidural can accumulate in the baby, especially if you're doing a vaginal birth and not just a quick C-section.

00:29:02.660 So that's for a long period of time, potentially.

00:29:05.160 And epidurals can slow down birth, making it take longer.

00:29:09.200 Plus, I was afraid of actually just getting a needle in my spine.

00:29:13.420 You know, I'd never done it before and it seemed scary at the time.

00:29:16.020 It's not a big deal, by the way.

00:29:17.320 But then there was also the instance of her, so there was one time.

00:29:21.860 So she did unmedicated births and then she talked about this one time where she did get an epidural and it was kind of great, she said.

00:29:29.280 And she apparently whispered this to the reporter while the husband was in another room on the call.

00:29:33.840 Now, either the reporter is lying or she was baiting the reporter with this.

00:29:38.920 You really think she was baiting the reporter with this?

00:29:41.760 I do think she was baiting the reporter with this.

00:29:43.800 I think that they actually wanted to create this narrative that's being created right now.

00:29:49.080 It's the type of thing you and I have done with journalists.

00:29:51.160 Like once you get good at journalism, when I say journalism, I don't mean being a journalist, but like catching and writing press.

00:29:56.660 Manipulating the media.

00:29:58.020 Well, and I mean, already they've shown themselves to be extremely good at, at least at this point in their careers.

00:30:04.100 Now, there are slip-ups that they've made on social media before and even possibly.

00:30:07.440 We'll talk about one slip-up and it's actually a big deal.

00:30:10.480 They're known among their critics for being incredibly press savvy and incredibly controlled with their image.

00:30:16.700 They have engaged with the media a lot.

00:30:19.240 So this is possible.

00:30:20.300 And they may have learned what we've learned, which is that courting controversy is how you get things to spread a lot.

00:30:26.200 There's also another reason why they might want to have courted controversy and been framed as like creepy conservatives, because to a normal conservative audience, every criticism in this article is completely like non-issue.

00:30:40.380 Like, what are you talking about?

00:30:41.440 Nothing you hear is weird.

00:30:42.540 They're being completely normal.

00:30:43.800 And here's what just happened.

00:30:45.060 They opened a dairy and they're going to be selling raw milk to Utah.

00:30:48.340 How else are you going to reach and resonate with the conservative Utah audience, aside from being attacked by a bunch of progressive nuts online?

00:30:56.500 Well, and if people aren't familiar with like what we're talking about here, we did a video on it called The Art of Media Baiting.

00:31:02.040 This is perfectly played, perfectly played to go along with a brand launch.

00:31:06.840 The one big mistake I think they made, because I just think that maybe they thought this was normal, is she mentioned that she occasionally gets so sick she can't leave her bed for a week.

00:31:16.060 So exhausted, yeah.

00:31:17.100 Well, that's not normal.

00:31:20.520 That doesn't sound good.

00:31:21.420 That's not normal.

00:31:22.620 That sounds like a medical issue.

00:31:24.580 And I would guess that either she has some undiagnosed disease, or maybe you shouldn't be drinking raw milk.

00:31:30.520 People have also noted sores around their mouths that look kind of like herpes sores, which can be caused potentially by raw milk as well.

00:31:38.560 And they're really big.

00:31:39.380 Well, now they have to kind of dig into it because they're going to be trying to sell it.

00:31:43.300 So.

00:31:44.200 Yeah.

00:31:44.580 I should put some skit here about like disgusting raw foods that people drink. 0.77

00:31:49.980 Because to me that's just.

00:31:50.980 Oh, that short.

00:31:51.660 By that, there's this, that short that I shared with you.

00:31:54.360 It was like.

00:31:54.680 Okay, well, we'll do that one.

00:31:55.860 This one simple superfood will change your life.

00:31:58.320 Raw milk.

00:31:59.120 Packed full of nutrients and enzymes that aren't found in any other food.

00:32:02.060 That's why we founded Odin's Juice.

00:32:03.700 100% raw milk.

00:32:06.180 Made by cows from America.

00:32:07.740 100% American.

00:32:09.160 100% non-woke.

00:32:10.900 Store-bought milk is full of chemicals and microplastics.

00:32:12.940 Making you susceptible to all diseases. 1.00

00:32:15.260 Making it easier for gay communists to control you. 1.00

00:32:17.420 Over 50 million people die each year from store-bought milk. 0.99

00:32:20.640 Raw milk is the healthiest nutrition available to man.

00:32:23.120 That's why all doctors and so-called health experts will tell you that raw milk is unsafe.

00:32:28.060 Because they want your money.

00:32:29.080 We don't.

00:32:29.560 We only care about your health.

00:32:30.680 And if you sign up for the Odin Deluxe plan, you will also receive this one-of-a-kind Kyle Rittenhouse mug.

00:32:34.980 If you're sick and or desperate, please contact us immediately.

00:32:37.840 God made us.

00:32:38.660 And God wants us to drink raw milk.

00:32:40.420 The government doesn't want you to have raw milk.

00:32:42.240 Cure yourself with raw milk.

00:32:43.420 They want you sick.

00:32:44.400 With Odin's Juice.

00:32:48.140 Yeah, but yeah, we are not about that type of stuff.

00:32:50.660 I don't eat disgusting stuff just because it's like, like, we do natural eggs and stuff like that.

00:32:55.020 But that's because-

00:32:55.780 I don't think raw milk is inherently disgusting.

00:32:57.660 I just think that there's a bacterial risk.

00:33:00.240 You know, it's just one of those things.

00:33:01.940 We're like, we love our eggs from our coop.

00:33:04.500 But we also do not, we do not have them raw because the risk of salmonella is high.

00:33:09.340 Like, it's just one of those things.

00:33:10.780 You know, we pasteurize and we cook for a reason.

00:33:12.980 But I, well, and if it's Simone, have you ever told me I'm so exhausted I can't work for a week?

00:33:17.180 I'd be like, I'd have serious issues with that.

00:33:19.300 Oh, even when I was on death's door with pneumonia, I still did podcast recordings from my deathbed.

00:33:24.320 Well, and this is another thing, like, with them that I love, right?

00:33:27.040 Like, yeah, you were really, really sick then.

00:33:29.420 If you typically go back to work the day after you give birth and you even, you know,

00:33:33.600 were doing, like, sales calls through contractions with some of her births and stuff like that.

00:33:37.780 So she, Simone's an absolute monster with that stuff. 1.00

00:33:40.400 And so is a ballerina farms lady. 1.00

00:33:41.760 You know, she, one of the quote unquote controversies is she went to a pageant, a beauty pageant,

00:33:47.160 and got through the first round immediately after having one of her kids.

00:33:50.840 Two weeks after pregnancy.

00:33:51.600 Yeah, good for her.

00:33:53.060 And what was it, two days or two weeks?

00:33:54.900 Two weeks.

00:33:55.800 That's not even that bad.

00:33:57.620 Yeah, I mean, that's two weeks after my most recent delivery of Indie, I was at the primary at the Pulse.

00:34:03.860 And the French news crew was there filming us.

00:34:06.340 Yeah, so, like, you do this as a clean thing.

00:34:09.500 Like, once you make fertility a yearly thing, it's not really a big deal.

00:34:14.620 Yeah, and this was her eighth kid, you know, and it was a home birth.

00:34:18.800 So she probably had a lot less swelling because she wasn't on an IV, which is big. 0.98

00:34:24.480 So it's rough, but, I mean, it's still super doable.

00:34:27.600 And I think it's important to normalize this.

00:34:29.540 We shouldn't be making pregnancy out to be this big, horrendous thing.

00:34:32.640 I think that's one of the reasons why people have so much trepidation about going into pregnancy because, basically, society lies to them about how hard it is.

00:34:39.900 And, like, nobody has, like, a vested interest in being like, well, I mean, you know, people used to do this every year.

00:34:46.060 It used to be part of the natural yearly cycle of a woman's life. 1.00

00:34:48.740 Like, what are you guys on, you know?

00:34:51.920 That's what makes the controversy so interesting around this is that it shows, it lays bare the tension in society between this aspiration and realization of you can do it.

00:35:02.580 You can be in a beauty pageant two weeks after delivering.

00:35:05.540 You can look young and beautiful and still be a mother of eight kids.

00:35:09.760 You know, this is possible.

00:35:11.800 Parenting and pregnancy don't have to be unsustainable.

00:35:15.340 But then there's also this desire among those who feel like they can't or don't really want to push through that cognitive dissonance or even try to say, no, it's not possible.

00:35:25.840 She has had help or she isn't okay.

00:35:28.360 And there's, you know, I think that's part of what the journalist was trying to do was to demonstrate, no, she's not okay.

00:35:34.500 No, she's secretly crying for help.

00:35:36.920 I mean, she, through acts like that, is basically hitting the journalist on the head with a bonk stick and being like, you know, in society. 0.99

00:35:43.520 And it hurts them.

00:35:44.360 It hurts them when they realize that these lies that they've brought into are just that they are lies and they are lies that have cumulatively built up in society because, you know, no woman ever historically had a reason to be like, well, it's really not that big a deal, you know, because, you know, you, you get all this sympathy, you get all this.

00:36:01.880 So why not lean into it?

00:36:03.000 And if you go more progressive, then you get all these insane lies like, oh, well, like you can't be pregnant without getting fat afterwards.

00:36:09.280 Like it just naturally happens.

00:36:11.200 And it's like, no, it doesn't just naturally happen.

00:36:13.420 It happens because you created that standard for yourself and you realize now that, well, you don't have to worry about your husband leaving you.

00:36:19.780 So you don't need to hold yourself to any sacrificial standards anymore because you don't respect your relationship in the way people like her respect her relationship and her husband.

00:36:29.680 And I'd also note here that here you have the, the, the issue of them freaking out about how quickly they got married, how quickly they started dating and everything.

00:36:37.960 Oh, and that's just a Mormon thing.

00:36:39.780 You know, that's, that's not, yeah, that's not a weird thing.

00:36:42.660 Yeah.

00:36:42.800 That also gets framed in the articles.

00:36:44.520 Like those kind of.

00:36:45.240 But I don't even think it's a Mormon thing.

00:36:46.600 Like you and I decided to get married within a few months of dating at least.

00:36:50.980 Yeah.

00:36:51.100 But we waited for your brother and sister.

00:36:52.380 Cause we're nice.

00:36:53.020 Yeah.

00:36:53.180 But that wasn't like, we would have gotten married earlier, but we specifically, so people who don't know this,

00:36:57.880 we waited about a year to get married.

00:37:00.140 I think more than that.

00:37:01.340 We were, we were engaged in 2013 and then we didn't get married until 2015.

00:37:07.580 Cause we waited.

00:37:08.760 Yeah.

00:37:08.880 So, and for people who don't know is my brother wife had told him because they had been dating since their first day of college that she would be upset if I got married before them. 0.70

00:37:21.060 Because, you know, I would have met you years after they met, I would have started dating years after they started dating, but she was unable to get married while they were at Stanford business school together because she was on a scholarship.

00:37:34.920 And so if they got married and they combine their finances, she would no longer qualify for the scholarship anymore.

00:37:40.240 And so as an act of sort of solidarity with them, I decided to wait until one day they had gotten married for us to get married.

00:37:48.180 So we got married the day after them, but yeah.

00:37:50.700 It was a day in between, but yeah.

00:37:52.420 Oh, there was a day in between.

00:37:53.280 So two days after them, we had to allow.

00:37:54.940 Very respectful.

00:37:56.200 Yeah.

00:37:56.480 Good 48 hours.

00:37:57.920 I wouldn't, I wouldn't get to wait any longer than that, but I, I, we could have gotten married much earlier.

00:38:02.700 I actually think that this is just like, these people don't know what it feels like to really care about somebody and want to live life together.

00:38:09.500 Or, or to even date to marry.

00:38:11.080 And I think that's also very different is, is people don't realize that there, there is this life you can choose to live in which you, you date partners because you were trying to find a spouse and trying to start a family.

00:38:24.140 And once you know, you found the right person, it's a bad idea to wait because fertility only gets worse.

00:38:29.520 You know, you only lose your optionality as time goes on.

00:38:33.180 Well, and, and this is another thing that she did, which I have immense respect for.

00:38:37.540 So when the husband was thinking about marrying for her, she made one condition for him, which is we have to work together.

00:38:47.740 Because her parents did that. 0.69

00:38:49.160 She saw her parents do it similar to what Simone and I push.

00:38:51.800 You know, we run our companies together.

00:38:53.240 We do the podcast together.

00:38:54.540 We basically have a similar condition.

00:38:57.480 And I think it works amazingly well.

00:39:00.400 I think it's much more sustainable than other forms of trad wifery.

00:39:03.320 And I think that she really embodies this.

00:39:07.080 And this is another thing I respect about her is her and her husband, while they do live this sort of idealized lifestyle due to their wealth, they are not doing things in terms of how they are raising their family that leans into the wealth overly.

00:39:22.260 By that, what I mean is they still have the job running the farm, which seems like it takes a lot of work.

00:39:26.840 Same with the posting that takes a lot of work.

00:39:28.680 In addition to that, she doesn't hire nannies except for once a week. 1.00

00:39:33.160 With eight kids.

00:39:35.180 With eight kids.

00:39:36.100 Yeah.

00:39:36.680 And no school.

00:39:37.640 It's homeschooling, right?

00:39:38.780 So, like...

00:39:39.460 Yeah.

00:39:39.720 Now, there is a fellow Mormon who comes in a couple of days a week to do some homeschooling for them.

00:39:45.220 So, there's...

00:39:46.020 Oh, there's that.

00:39:46.780 Even so, it's all very financially sustainable for, like, a normal Mormon family. 0.89

00:39:50.800 Working together with your husband and hiring a tutor for a couple days a week.

00:39:58.340 Tutors don't cost that much because...

00:39:59.760 Well, and also, it's, like, it's Mormon. 0.50

00:40:01.980 It's Mormon tutors. 1.00

00:40:02.820 So, like, often that, like, they're...

00:40:04.680 You know, other people commenting on this have pointed out that, you know, when they babysat for fellow Mormons as a teen, they'd get paid, like, you know, 20 bucks for, like, five hours.

00:40:13.500 You know, it's just...

00:40:13.800 This is, like, within Mormon community, service provision is often at a high discount.

00:40:18.480 Elements of their lives are very sustainable.

00:40:20.300 I would argue that they're often criticized for living a sort of petite train-on lifestyle. 0.96

00:40:24.300 This is in reference to the way that Marie Antoinette made her little farmhouse and lived her little life pretending to be a peasant farmer.

00:40:31.560 And they are totally doing that.

00:40:32.740 But I would also argue that they are totally not hiding the fact that they are living, they are cosplaying as homesteaders.

00:40:40.560 I think Hannah even uses wording around that, like, you know, like, pretending to be a homesteader or, like, you know, trying to be a homesteader.

00:40:48.260 And they're not hiding the fact.

00:40:50.560 Like, she talks about the fact that they insulated the outside of their house.

00:40:54.440 She shares pictures of their renovations.

00:40:56.280 And she cooks in front of a $10,000 stove. 1.00

00:41:00.520 The AGA.

00:41:01.140 Like, this, like, the Rolls Royce of stoves.

00:41:05.560 And, you know, she doesn't hide the fact.

00:41:07.720 It's very clear that they're wealthy.

00:41:09.280 It's very clear that she, you know, is the highest echelons of social class. 0.97

00:41:14.680 And I think the fact that there isn't that lack of transparency, that there's no criticism.

00:41:19.700 And keep in mind, okay, just as, and this is a time-honored tradition of wealthy people cosplaying as poor people.

00:41:27.680 But keep in mind that poor people constantly cosplay as wealthy people, which is why we've had sumptuary laws, which is why food trends have constantly changed.

00:41:36.000 Explain what a sumptuary law is. 0.73

00:41:37.460 A sumptuary law is saying poor people can't wear purple because, damn it, we need to have something that they can't copy eventually. 0.99

00:41:44.320 And food trends constantly fluctuate if you look throughout history between very, like, weird, like, gastronomic gross food that's all weird and abstracted to, like, down-home country loaf. 0.93

00:41:54.720 Because as soon as poor people are able to somewhat copy what wealthy people are eating, suddenly wealthy people are like, that's disgusting poor food.

00:42:02.220 I must eat the opposite.

00:42:03.560 So there's always this game of cat and mouse.

00:42:05.620 And, you know, we can no sooner criticize wealthy people for cosplaying as poor people than we can criticize the poor people who are buying fake Louis Vuitton bags and, like, wearing, like, knockoff luxury stuff or even real luxury stuff.

00:42:17.960 Everyone's doing the other thing.

00:42:19.620 You know what I mean?

00:42:19.920 I'm going to argue against you here.

00:42:21.300 I don't think they are cosplaying as poor people.

00:42:24.240 I think that these journalists—

00:42:25.380 Oh, yeah, no, they are actually cosplaying as wealthy people.

00:42:27.840 Wealthy culture right now.

00:42:29.180 A key thing within wealthy culture right now is this aesthetic, this homesteading aesthetic.

00:42:35.700 I mean, look at us.

00:42:36.780 It's a flex.

00:42:38.020 No, it's a flex.

00:42:39.220 It's a hardcore flex to have a farm and chickens and live in the countryside now.

00:42:43.240 Also because you're not a wage slave.

00:42:44.800 You don't have to go into your office.

00:42:46.460 You're not obligated to go into these meetings because you have that much wealth.

00:42:50.140 And everyone's pointed out who's an actual rancher.

00:42:52.220 They're like, these people, you know, every, like, real, like, dairy farmer or person who has a farm like this, they're financing it.

00:43:00.240 They can barely make ends meet.

00:43:01.480 These people are buying it in cash.

00:43:02.820 They have all the most expensive high-end farm equipment.

00:43:05.340 This is very clearly a luxury endeavor, and it's probably not cash positive.

00:43:09.380 Well, no, I'm sure their channel is cash positive.

00:43:12.360 Sure, the content is cash positive, but their farm, I don't think—

00:43:17.660 Oh, no, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not cash positive.

00:43:19.180 Probably about breaks neutral, but that's not the point of the farm.

00:43:22.540 The point of the farm is the content, and that's very successful.

00:43:26.280 Well, and the lifestyle and the flex.

00:43:28.220 They are not—

00:43:28.780 And again, this is a calling.

00:43:30.260 I really think that the key career here is that they believe from an ideological standpoint that their work is spreading the word of the Mormon church,

00:43:39.700 showing the wholesomeness and attractiveness of that lifestyle, which is drawing people in,

00:43:43.760 which is why this controversy is here in the first place.

00:43:45.660 But I would note here that as a society—so if people wonder why wealthy people are doing this,

00:43:51.060 like why wealthy culture, as Simone has mentioned, historically what you have is wealthy people go more and more and more out there with their tastes

00:44:00.200 as poor people try to catch up with them, and then you get this reset where then wealthy people then go extremely simplistic and back to the countryside.

00:44:07.400 Like the reason why, like triump for whatever she's talking about, was a thing, was because that was the height of wealth,

00:44:15.660 was to pretend to be a poor shepherd, but with all of the nicest stuff.

00:44:21.460 Yeah.

00:44:21.720 This isn't like some new part of wealthy culture.

00:44:23.620 It's a cycle that we go through and you see historically where, you know, wealthy people go to like escargot or like crazy stuff,

00:44:29.880 and then they go back to meatloaf.

00:44:30.840 Because now all the poor people are eating—and you see this in society now. 0.99

00:44:34.220 Now that like brands like Louis Vuitton and Prada and like a lot of these like fancy brands have moved down market, down market, down market,

00:44:42.340 is how do you show your wealth?

00:44:43.940 Well, you do the things that poor people can't do. 0.81

00:44:45.760 You know, you see all this was like tanning.

00:44:47.720 For a long time, it was that having a tan was considered very lower class.

00:44:54.300 Because you had to go out on the fields and work.

00:44:56.020 And so the wealthy people had parasols.

00:44:58.060 And even masks.

00:44:59.560 Have you seen the creepy writing masks?

00:45:01.080 And the masks were very pale all the time.

00:45:03.420 But then office work started and only the wealthy people could go outside. 0.74

00:45:07.480 So then all the wealthy people started getting these ridiculous tans.

00:45:10.680 Like growing up, we had like a tanning booth in my house and stuff like that.

00:45:13.560 And then the poor people figured out, oh, we want to be like the wealthy people and be tans.

00:45:17.840 So they started to do like spray on tans and tanning booths themselves.

00:45:21.080 And then all the wealthy people were like, oh, being tanned, we can't do that anymore.

00:45:24.660 Now we need to go back to being pale again.

00:45:26.180 And so you have this little cat and mouse game.

00:45:28.680 And that's what they're seeing.

00:45:29.400 They're not pretending to be poor.

00:45:30.620 They're just not up to date with what is considered chic in wealthy culture right now.

00:45:35.360 And the way that they're acting is very chic.

00:45:37.560 Now, I want to talk about the one really bad incident where I'm like, this was actually

00:45:41.980 a mess up.

00:45:43.380 So go into this.

00:45:45.000 Right.

00:45:45.200 So they posted, and this is definitely something that both of them decided to do, a little

00:45:51.460 video short of Hannah receiving a birthday gift from her husband, Daniel, who's shooting

00:45:58.320 this as it's happening.

00:46:00.140 It was a package that he didn't bother to wrap.

00:46:03.280 And she's like, oh, like, what is it?

00:46:05.640 Could it be tickets to Greece?

00:46:06.840 Like, she just says multiple times, like, she's starting to rip it open.

00:46:10.660 There's fabric.

00:46:11.260 She's like, oh, it's a hat for our trip to Greece.

00:46:13.460 Like, she very clearly wants a trip to Greece for her birthday.

00:46:18.000 And then she opens it up.

00:46:20.160 And it is, you know, fresh out of the box from Ukraine.

00:46:24.280 And a really cute egg apron.

00:46:26.000 It's a little apron with a lot of little holes for eggs in it.

00:46:28.260 But people are like, how very dare he?

00:46:32.860 Because after she, like, you know, tries to look cheerful, like, she's clearly disappointed.

00:46:36.780 She tries to look cheerful.

00:46:37.660 She kind of, like, does a little jig with it, you know, holding it to her body. 0.99

00:46:41.400 And he says, you're welcome.

00:46:43.420 And in the sort of, like, passive-aggressive, smug way, which just comes across horribly.

00:46:48.820 And now it's this meme.

00:46:50.260 I was just looking through Hannah's, Ballerina Farms' Instagram account.

00:46:54.680 And now on, like, a bunch of her most recent posts, there are just people who are like,

00:46:59.240 where is her stage? 0.98

00:47:00.380 Where is her trip to Greece?

00:47:01.760 Just like, give this woman her trip to Greece. 1.00

00:47:04.620 Like, they're just like, justice for Hannah, you know, they're just, they're freaking out

00:47:08.020 that this woman hasn't been given her trip to Greece.

00:47:10.160 And it is weird that, like, one, she very clearly kept, it's like, if I, for some reason,

00:47:16.720 would not let die, that hopefully Dead Horse would be constantly being like, I wish we could

00:47:21.800 fly business class everywhere, which we can't, because it's too expensive.

00:47:25.580 And you being like, you know, giving me like a vacuum and being like, you're welcome.

00:47:30.000 You know, like that, it just, I don't know why they would post something like that.

00:47:33.940 It's not.

00:47:34.960 So I have a theory on this.

00:47:37.400 Okay, what's going on?

00:47:39.220 All right.

00:47:40.060 So first, something that the audience should know, I've checked, they do not appear to

00:47:43.500 have ever done this trip to Greece, right?

00:47:45.680 This apron is a trivial gift for them, right?

00:47:48.360 Like, it's not an expensive thing.

00:47:49.660 They are almost certainly billionaires.

00:47:51.720 That being the case, a trip to Greece would be a trivial expense for them.

00:47:55.800 So the question is, is why, if she really wants to do this, why haven't they done the

00:48:01.260 trip to Greece?

00:48:01.580 Because they have gone to like Paris with their kids.

00:48:04.000 This isn't an impossible thing.

00:48:06.680 My guess is it might actually be part of their calling to try to, I suspect maybe after the

00:48:13.320 trip to Paris or something, the church says you can't do things that aren't financially

00:48:17.060 sustainable for the average Mormon family.

00:48:19.420 So while they can learn the very best of lifestyle, it's supposed to be attainable.

00:48:24.980 And I suspect that that is what is going on here.

00:48:29.940 So she's not throwing shade at her husband.

00:48:31.900 She's throwing shade at the LDS church.

00:48:34.140 She's throwing shade at her handlers. 0.93

00:48:36.440 Yeah. 1.00

00:48:37.100 Because the husband, like, he's not like an idiot, right? 0.99

00:48:42.080 Like, he knows, you know, if she wanted to have an off stage conversation with him about, 0.99

00:48:47.820 hey, the cryptic Greece is actually really important to me, they would have that conversation

00:48:53.360 off air.

00:48:54.140 Especially because they are media savvy. 0.99

00:48:56.380 They're not idiots. 0.98

00:48:57.340 That's why this was so confusing to me. 0.98

00:48:59.000 Yeah.

00:48:59.160 And so she definitely knew how this would come off.

00:49:01.660 He who filmed this definitely knew who this would come off.

00:49:04.340 So who are they talking to in this video?

00:49:07.100 They are talking to somebody who is not their fan base and not themselves.

00:49:12.100 I bet it's their LDS handlers. 1.00

00:49:14.360 Oh, that's so interesting.

00:49:16.060 That is my bet as to what the trip to Greece situation was really about.

00:49:20.500 So yeah, they can't be. 1.00

00:49:23.420 They could have been that stupid, right? 1.00

00:49:25.300 No, no. 1.00

00:49:27.120 It's like with us in the bot.

00:49:28.540 People are like, oh, he lost people.

00:49:31.120 Yeah, how could he have slipped?

00:49:33.880 Yeah.

00:49:34.220 But you read the piece and it's very clearly like it was intentional.

00:49:37.620 I did not lose control of my anger.

00:49:39.040 And I knew what I was doing in the moment.

00:49:43.000 And you did it in public surrounded by people.

00:49:46.380 Yeah.

00:49:46.780 I could have done so many different things if I didn't want that to be in the piece.

00:49:51.660 I wanted that to be in the piece.

00:49:53.720 And actually, a lot of people can be like, oh, this was firmly a negative thing for them.

00:49:58.060 You've got to keep in mind the type of people who are going to freak out about something like

00:50:01.820 that are the type of people who are not going to support us anyway, given that it's something

00:50:05.520 the majority of Americans do, and the research now says it's the right thing to do, and most

00:50:08.700 conservative people do it.

00:50:09.940 So we had to look at how we were signaling to a conservative audience.

00:50:13.160 Keep in mind, we're always constantly signaling to two audiences.

00:50:15.740 The progressives who are interested in potentially getting into the conservatism

00:50:18.880 and doing this transition, but then also the conservatives who are so hard-lined that they're

00:50:25.220 costing the party votes and preventing us from winning elections, and they need to

00:50:29.320 understand a softer approach, right?

00:50:31.040 And so a number of those people who previously were like, I don't know if we can really trust

00:50:35.900 them, I don't know, they, after that happened, were like, okay, I trust them a lot more now.

00:50:42.920 Even Lyman Stone was like, well, there's one thing I can agree with you on.

00:50:46.520 Lyman Stone being a demographer who, in the pernatalist space, absolutely hates us and everything

00:50:50.880 we stand for.

00:50:51.560 He's like a socialist Christian. 0.69

00:50:53.380 So I guess he's like the one area where he's like, well, at least I'm a social conservative.

00:50:57.960 He's like far, far left.

00:50:59.340 Yeah, but at least he agrees that, you know, white corporal punishment is correct, you know, 1.00

00:51:04.120 for sustainable parenting.

00:51:05.720 Speaking of which, you know, another really common theme in the Ballerina Farm snark subreddit

00:51:10.940 is, you know, a child endangerment, essentially.

00:51:14.780 And, you know, it's very common top hits is look at what they've done with their children

00:51:18.400 now.

00:51:18.920 Look at their children close to a hot stove.

00:51:20.660 Look at their children chopping food in their home.

00:51:23.140 Look at their children getting injured.

00:51:24.900 You know, look at the, all these things, you know, oh, don't they have any idea of how many

00:51:28.580 farm accidents take place every year?

00:51:30.600 And I think this just comes down to, again, anytime someone sees a family with more than

00:51:35.020 two children and no helicopter parents, immediately they're like, this is child endangerment, call

00:51:41.100 child protective services, which to your point, what's the stat of how many, how many families

00:51:44.640 have had CPS called on them in the United States?

00:51:46.460 37%.

00:51:47.000 37% of children in the United States have CPS called on them.

00:51:50.620 That's not 37% of families, it's not 37% of children.

00:51:53.360 Yeah.

00:51:53.660 That's insane.

00:51:54.540 Yeah.

00:51:54.980 So I think that's the theme there is, you know, any criticism that they are mistreating

00:52:00.940 their children is really an inevitable product of them having more than like one or two children,

00:52:07.540 period.

00:52:07.780 Well, and also I will say that they earn high points on my social influencer index because

00:52:15.220 when this channel was still a lot smaller than it is now, I reached out to them about

00:52:19.460 being on the channel and doing an interview with us and they had the courtesy to respond.

00:52:23.760 And a lot of influencers don't, they do not respond.

00:52:27.560 And we tried to, we're going to be moving to stock responses soon, but it was like a, oh,

00:52:32.760 we don't do appearances like that.

00:52:34.340 Like that was basically the gist of it.

00:52:35.960 So I'd still love to have them on if they're ever open to it, but I don't know if a channel

00:52:40.180 like ours would do anything other than hurt them because they try to keep a really clean

00:52:45.420 brand for their, they don't talk politics.

00:52:48.700 They talk about raw milk and baking and, you know, there's, she, Hannah does some, you know,

00:52:56.120 very typical female influencer content, things like get ready with me.

00:52:59.480 In fact, her response to this article was her doing a voiceover commenting on what the

00:53:04.320 journalist wrote over a get ready with me video format, which since you're not a female 0.95

00:53:10.320 on constantly on Instagram, get ready with me is basically where women record their like 1.00

00:53:15.460 morning routine, how they put on makeup, what they like, how they go to the gym, what

00:53:19.420 they eat for breakfast.

00:53:20.940 Yeah.

00:53:21.400 It's, it's, I think it's really fun.

00:53:22.880 I love watching this stuff.

00:53:23.900 I mean, I love it when I love it in movies.

00:53:25.880 I love it in dangerous liaisons.

00:53:27.300 I love it in the devil wears Prada.

00:53:29.160 Like this is, but anyway, like she does stuff like that, but they do not talk politics. 0.99

00:53:34.740 They do not talk like, aside from talking about how great the LDS church is, it is not,

00:53:39.880 they're not on brand.

00:53:40.600 They shouldn't be talking with us.

00:53:42.220 Yeah.

00:53:42.480 And I want you to respond to, because you had taken a quote from the article that we haven't

00:53:47.400 touched on and put it on our show notes.

00:53:48.960 So in a follow-up article that the author of this art times article wrote, she commented,

00:53:56.180 but it was also a life of contradictions.

00:53:58.820 Children not allowed screens, but who are reality TV characters online for millions, a

00:54:04.120 stay-at-home mother who has made a career out of being so an analog old fashioned farm 1.00

00:54:09.380 only working because it was underwritten by social media cash, a choice modern in her ability

00:54:15.320 to have one, to do something very traditional.

00:54:17.560 And this is something that shows up in some articles that have been published in relation

00:54:23.480 to us, this like pull, like, oh, they have kids, but they don't seem to like them.

00:54:28.180 You know, the journalists seem to feel like they, they have to like catch us in our hypocrisy.

00:54:35.480 And I think they're really trying to catch Hannah in her true woman having it all. 0.96

00:54:40.920 Oh, but she can't have it all.

00:54:43.080 Just like they wanted to catch us.

00:54:44.480 Like they say they want to have kids, but surely they just hate their kids.

00:54:48.340 Like they, I think they really progressives covering these conservative moments in these

00:54:52.820 whole little journeys of like, I'm going to go cover and, you know, go profile the family.

00:54:56.880 They want to try to catch them in a lie and they come in planning to do so.

00:55:02.740 And just looking to fill in the little Mad Libs article doing so.

00:55:07.460 Yeah, I absolutely agree.

00:55:11.780 And I mean, I'm not sorry this happened to them because I read it was all planned and

00:55:15.200 it worked exactly the way they wanted it to.

00:55:17.260 No, it generated a ton of more interest.

00:55:19.560 It's great.

00:55:20.680 And given your new theory, I used to be like, get a job, man, with this guy.

00:55:25.440 But now I am much more, oh, you know, he is actually, if he was given that calling,

00:55:29.360 and of course he probably was, he is living sort of the perfect life, you know, in terms

00:55:35.140 of achieving his goal and, you know, acting as probably the single biggest advocate in

00:55:40.600 the world right now for the LDS church.

00:55:42.360 I mean, he's probably close to Mitt Romney in terms of, you know, the, the positive reputation

00:55:47.760 that he has gained the church among the type of people who might convert.

00:55:51.200 Keep in mind, like he doesn't care about the type of people who wouldn't convert.

00:55:54.040 Therefore, they are not like the target of articles like this for him.

00:55:57.680 Therefore, if they get mad at him, that's no sweat off his back.

00:56:01.560 I think he's more influential than Mittens because specifically he shows an intimate view

00:56:07.900 into his life.

00:56:08.740 You can see the inside of his house.

00:56:11.100 You can see his bathroom.

00:56:12.740 You can see his children and his wife.

00:56:15.420 The, the key thing to pronatalism, I think when it comes to propaganda is showing what it's

00:56:20.920 like, you know, making it feel relatable, making it feel real.

00:56:24.040 Because people are so unmoored from that.

00:56:26.720 You and I didn't spend a lot of time around kids at all.

00:56:29.460 We honestly didn't know what parenting would be like.

00:56:31.560 And here are a bunch of people often watching this out of like rage bait or just curiosity

00:56:37.420 or just the sheer novelty of it suddenly becoming like normalized to this concept of having kids

00:56:43.620 young, getting married, young, living a more wholesome life, connected and oriented around

00:56:47.840 family instead of around achievement and selling and business and all these other things.

00:56:52.000 He is incredibly, like talk about impact plus quality of life.

00:56:56.360 Like actually just being out there, handling pigs, handling cows, handling chickens.

00:57:00.140 That is a very satisfying life for any human where you get to see the results of your labor.

00:57:06.280 Rewarded by God when they live their calling well.

00:57:08.560 And I think that, you know, he seems to be doing that.

00:57:12.340 So, and this is what we mean, you know, we believe that Mormonism is one of the true faiths.

00:57:16.300 So I think that he is, you know, actually called by God to do this and he's doing a good job

00:57:21.440 at it.

00:57:21.800 So good on them.

00:57:22.860 Good on not engaging with weirdo shock jocks like us.

00:57:26.180 And I love you to death, Simone.

00:57:29.260 This has been a fantastic conversation.

00:57:31.640 Thank you for bringing this to me.

00:57:32.860 And I will rush to see if I can get this posted tomorrow.

00:57:35.920 I love me crazy controversy around conservatives and progressives fighting.

00:57:41.560 So thanks for this, Malcolm.

00:57:42.860 Loved it.

00:57:44.080 Love you too.

00:57:44.760 Bye.

00:57:45.460 Bye.

00:57:47.160 I really do love you though.

00:57:49.600 You're so pretty.

00:57:51.220 What do you want to talk about next?

00:57:52.440 Uh, I want to do the, uh, how Catholics transformed.

00:57:56.620 I've been told in the comments, you guys like the little scenes of our family after video.

00:57:59.920 So I've added one here.

00:58:01.060 I would note that this one is from a recent family reunion.

00:58:04.200 We went to where the kids met up with all their cousins and everything.

00:58:10.200 Oh my goodness.

00:58:19.640 I'm out of fuel.

00:58:20.800 I'm out of fuel.

00:58:21.660 I'm out of fuel.

00:58:23.240 I'm out of fuel.

00:58:41.340 I got it.

00:58:48.620 Yeah

00:59:14.000 Yeah, I'll start to the kids I'm doing filming here

00:59:18.620 I was thinking about the way that we're handling sex ed with our kids

00:59:24.500 And I realized we're not sex positive, we're not sex negative

00:59:27.020 We're sex realists

00:59:28.160 And I just wish that more people were sex realists

00:59:31.520 What do you mean by that?

00:59:33.560 Well, people are either like, you know, let's not talk about sex

00:59:38.500 It's dangerous, it's, you know, it's a sin

00:59:41.140 Or they're like, sex is a beautiful thing

00:59:43.700 It's about making love

00:59:44.960 It's, you know, like, it's sacred

00:59:47.500 It's a sacrament

00:59:48.440 Or, you know, it's whatever the hippie free love version of this is

00:59:52.740 And, you know, in the end, it's a biological process

00:59:56.480 It is not, I think, something that we should be moralizing

01:00:00.420 I think it's something that we should be understanding

01:00:02.560 Just like we understand hunger and digestion

01:00:05.380 We'll do an episode on, you know

01:00:08.480 Actually, you know, I have an idea for an episode on that

01:00:10.860 That we could even do today if you wanted to

01:00:12.300 On sex realism

01:00:12.980 All right, so why don't you jump us into this

01:00:17.320 And I'll interrupt you

01:00:19.040 To be like

01:00:20.720 Okay

01:00:22.480 I like the guy

01:00:23.020 Okay

01:00:23.420 Yes

01:00:24.100 Congratulations

01:00:25.300 Thank you

01:00:25.540 Thank you

01:00:26.260 Great

01:00:26.940 Thank you

01:00:27.580 Thanks

01:00:29.020 Thanks

Based Camp - August 02, 2024

The Ballerina Farms Controversy & The Tradwife Cargo Cult

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