From Nara Smith to Gwen The Milkmaid, tradwives make up some of the biggest influencers on social media – but why are we so invested in their lives?
It’s a strange chapter in late capitalism when one of the most successful influencers on social media is a Mormon tradwife who posts videos of herself making Oreos from scratch. With over 2.2 million followers on TikTok, Nara Smith, an IMG model currently living in Los Angeles with her husband – the model Lucky Blue Smith – and two young children, began surfacing on the For You Page in V1 of this year, known for her viral content that sees her make elaborate home-cooked meals in silk feathered bathrobes, narrating each video with soothing vocal fry. “I wanna be like her when I grow up,” says one user. “I aspire to be like you,” writes another with a crying face emoji.
Smith is part of a growing trend of TikTok #tradwives and #SAHG (stay-at-home girlfriends) performing domestic labour for the feed, preaching the ‘good life’ with aspirational clips of high-end skincare routines and sourdough starters. Another is Gwen the Milkmaid, who recently traded an online presence as an OnlyFans creator in exchange for tradwife TikTok, where she posts domestic clips of herself baking bread in floral tea dresses. “Once upon a time, I was a man-hating feminist,” she says, in one video that sees her carefully crafting lasagna sheets with the help of a brand new Kitchenaid. “Now I’m happily spending hours in the kitchen making my husband whatever he wants for dinner.”
On the surface, these women claim to retreat from capitalism into a slower life away from the grind. Back when women didn’t have careers but rather stayed at home to rear a family. “But the home and the family and the body of the woman herself has never really been a place to escape from capitalism,” says Rachel O’Dwyer, a lecturer in Digital Cultures at Dublin’s NCAD who spoke on the topic at this year’s transmediale festival in Berlin. “It was always ground zero, the place where the good feelings for the good life and capitalism were shored up and set afloat.” Anyone who’s shared content onto TikTok will know that filming and editing videos takes work, and tradwives are no exception. “These girls are doing a job; they’re the latest form of content creators. This work is its own hustle and produces its own income,” agrees O’Dwyer.
Tradwives have admittedly been around for some time now – I recall the first wave of internet tradwives in 2022 brought on by the likes of reactionary podcasts like Red Scare and alt-right pundits. While the content itself follows the same blueprint (sharing content about what a great housewife you are), what’s different is the socio-political atmosphere surrounding them: conservatism is growing among young men, hate speech and extremist content is rampant across X (formerly known as Twitter), and censorship is on the rise. Last month, Meta announced that it’s no longer recommending posts about political and social issues, though this has less of an impact on conservative creators since their content is less explicitly politically charged (compared to, say, topics such as abortion and gun control). As influencers who make content about homemaking, tradwives do not appear explicitly political, but the conservative subtext cannot be ignored.
@gwenthemilkmaid weird how that happens 😅 make homemade lasagna with me in my latest YouTube video!
♬ It's Been A Long, Long Time - Harry James and His Orchestra, Vocals by Kitty Kallen
As with other (questionable) girl online archetypes such as the E-girl military waifu, this makes the internet tradwife a deceptive aesthetic. She appears domestic and submissive, polishing her already spotless marble countertop under the soft glow of a Diptyque candle, yet never fully having to get dirty with actual domestic labour, such as cleaning the toilet or pulling clumps of hair from the drain. She plays the role of a young, hot homemaker, positioning herself as a counter to the neoliberal girlboss, or worse, the angry millennial feminist with her purple hair and pronouns. While the former lives a life of excess – think liberal celebrities like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift flying on private jets – the tradwife adheres to a pious set of principles, like dressing modestly, mothering hoards of children, quoting Bible verses. The libs hate the tradwife because she stands for everything they despise (AKA the reversal of feminist values), yet condemning the tradwife will inevitably give ammunition to the sort of online puritans who believe liberals have ruined society along with sex scenes and gentle parenting. In short, the same 4chan bros looking to ‘dignify’ your thirst traps using AI probably love Mormon TikTokers sharing GRWM clips on their way to Sunday service.
What makes a bunch of affluent women cosplay 1950s housewives for the feed is a tricky case to unpack. Almost all of these neo-tradwives come from money – Smith married rich and Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm, another Mormon influencer, is heir to a billion-dollar fortune. As one commentator pointed out in a viral response video, “They’re not better than us because they can make their children’s cereal from scratch, they’re better than us because they are so wealthy that they have nothing more important to worry about.” Also, do I need remind you that #tradwife content pulls in digits (if the millions of page views are any indication), which is particularly useful for any aspiring businesswoman wanting to launch her personal brand.
“These girls are doing a job; they’re the latest form of content creators” – Rachel O‘Dwyer
Instead of looking at why there’s an uptick in tradwife content, perhaps we should ask ourselves why it’s so popular, even among left-leaning users who don’t necessarily believe in its values. Sure, there’s plenty of trad parodies on the feed with millions of views, but there’s clearly something about these women and their lives that keeps us coming back for more – whether that’s as an escape from the harsh demands of late capitalism, or plain voyeurism, a blemish-free peek through the curtain to the lives of the wealthy. As the viewer, there’s an obvious allure to this lobotomised vision of domesticity for the same reason that we obsess over the interior lives of the rich and famous. We know it’s unrealistic but it’s also a soothing way to tap out of our own less-than-satisfactory lives for the same reason you might tune into an ASMR video or watch an ambient show on Netflix. “I understand that I am being sold a lie but I don’t want to think. I want to vibe. I want a date night. I want to get ready with her. I want an expensive candle,” says O’Dwyer.
@naraazizasmith what‘s a nostalic food to you? 🫶🏽 #easyrecipes #baking #dessert #fypシ #marriage #poptarts ♬ Spark - Asti Fajriani
Ironically, the unquenching appetite for this sort of online content is getting bigger as women’s reproductive rights in the US are being stripped back in real-time – Alabama has just ruled frozen embryos are children, while in other states birth control is becoming harder to access. Clearly, the system is broken, yet we continue to hold onto the promises of capitalism against all evidence, instead funnelling our apathy into tradwife cosplay, and the illusion that our lives might be better if we resign ourselves to the care of a strong male provider.
Beyond tradwives, however, the internet is amok with capitalist fantasies, whether it’s the self-help guru instructing you on ‘how to create your dream reality’, or TikTok subliminals promising wealth and prosperity through hot girl clips and ‘444’ angel numbers. “What’s new today maybe is the hyper-commodification of this content,“ suggests O’Dwyer. From bimbos to E-girls and Pinkydoll, girls online are embracing the smooth-brained agenda, which doesn’t seem too far detached from the tradwife’s own lobotomised credentials. But perhaps we should be asking ourselves why we feel the need to relinquish our thoughts in the first place.