Under the Influence with Jo Piazza

Latest Episodes:

Jane Green on Rewilding, Reinvention, Mushrooms, Tattoos and Midlife Freedom Jun 16, 2026

Show notes

Bestselling author Jane Green spent decades looking like she had the perfect life: a beautiful house, a successful career, a long marriage, children, stability, all of it. But behind the scenes she was drowning in financial fear, people pleasing, resentment, perimenopause, and the terrifying feeling that she had completely lost herself.

Then she walked away. She Rewilded herself.

In this deeply honest conversation based on Green's new memoir Rewilding, Jane talks about leaving her marriage, running away to Marrakech, experimenting with mushrooms, tattoos and reinvention in midlife, navigating the hormonal and emotional earthquake of menopause, and learning how to stop caring what everyone else thinks.

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Sad Beige Babies With Sad Beige Parents Jun 11, 2026

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Sad beige motherhood helped inspire this podcast.

This week we're diving into the internet aesthetic that convinced an entire generation of mothers that parenting should look like a luxury hotel lobby in Denmark. We talk with Hayley DeRoche, aka The Official Sad Beige and author of Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe, about how influencer culture turned motherhood into a perfectly curated performance built on guilt, consumption, and extremely expensive neutral-toned stacking cups.

We get into the rise of sad beige motherhood, stealth wealth aesthetics, why every stroller suddenly costs as much as a used Honda Civic, and how social media sold women the lie that if we just bought the right swaddle, sleep suit, or baby carrier, we could somehow control the total chaos of early parenting.

There’s also a lot about community: why modern motherhood feels so isolating, why moms desperately need real-life support systems instead of influencer advice, and why we may all need to start forming feminist mom communes immediately.

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Girls Gone Wild Go Feral—Behind the Scenes of the Show That Shaped a Generation Jun 09, 2026

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What if the women from Girls Gone Wild finally got the mic?

This week we go all the way back to the horrifyingly normalized misogyny of the early 2000s with author and podcaster Courtney Kocak, who spent seven deeply unsettling weeks working on the actual Girls Gone Wild tour bus.

Courtney takes us inside the world Joe Francis built: drunk college girls signing contracts they didn’t understand, creepy power dynamics disguised as “fun,” and the moment she realized the entire machine was designed to separate women from their agency while making terrible men rich.

We get into feminism’s branding problem, the manosphere, abortion shame, sex positivity after trauma, why women are exhausted from watching men face zero consequences, and whether the left needs to stop eating its own alive every five seconds online.

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Sunday Nice Things: Family Money Jun 07, 2026

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So excited to drop Family Money from Babylist into your feed!

Having a baby comes with real money questions, no matter where you're starting from. Welcome to Family Money, a new podcast from Babylist, because it shouldn't feel like only some people know how to play the game.

Family Money is the podcast about the financial side of family life that parents think about constantly but rarely say out loud. Childcare costs. Saving strategies. What it actually means to give your kids a good life.

Each episode brings together parents, economists, therapists, and financial advisors for the conversations you've been carrying around. No judgment. No shame. Just honest answers.

In our very first episode, we're tackling the question every parent asks: are kids actually more expensive than ever? Yes—but the reason might surprise you. We hear from an economist who reframes what that actually means for your family's finances (hint: you're not burning money, you're investing it), and a mom of three who proves you don't need a huge home, a fancy car, or a perfectly curated nursery to raise a happy family.

Because here's the truth: kids will flip your finances upside down. And they're worth every penny.

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Royals Were the Original Reality Television Stars Jun 04, 2026

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Before there were influencers, there were royals.

For centuries, the British royal family has provided the world with fashion trends, family feuds, public scandals, doomed romances, and enough gossip to fuel generations of headlines. Long before social media, people were obsessing over what royals wore, who they married, and what happened behind palace walls.

Bestselling author Melanie Benjamin joins us to talk about her new novel, The Windsor Affair, which revisits one of the most consequential scandals in modern history: King Edward VIII's decision to give up the throne for Wallis Simpson.

Together we unpack why we're still fascinated by the royals, how the monarchy became the blueprint for celebrity culture, and what really happened between Wallis Simpson and the future Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. They also dig into the parallels between Wallis and Meghan Markle, the media's obsession with pitting women against one another, and why history keeps recycling the same female archetypes.

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What Killed the Girl Power Movement? Jun 02, 2026

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The greatest scam of the last 20 years is that women were told if we just worked harder, leaned in more, woke up at 5:00 AM, negotiated better, practiced enough gratitude, optimized ourselves hard enough, and girlbossed with enough intensity, equality and equity would finally be ours. That didn't happen, did it? This week we're talking about why the entire promise of girl power failed so many women. Not because our ambition was wrong or dangerous, and not because women did anything wrong or dangerous or because we failed, but because the systems around us just never actually changed to support us.

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MAHA Moms, the Influencer Election and What the Hell Will Happen With Midterms With Emily Amick May 28, 2026

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There’s a reason so many people are tuning out politics right now. Every day feels like another terrible headline, another scandal too big to process, another moment where you wonder whether we live inside The Onion.

But while everyone is overwhelmed and exhausted, the right has built one of the most sophisticated media ecosystems in modern history.

Emily Amick returns to the podcast to talk about Trump’s new loyalty settlement fund, the influencer-to-political operative pipeline, why “independent” MAGA creators are shaping public opinion more effectively than traditional media, and whether the MAHA moms are gonna jump ship.

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The Burnout Beneath Ambition May 26, 2026

Show notes

Why does success still feel so empty for so many women?

Executive coach Brooke Taylor says the answer is something she calls “the success wound”: the pain that comes from tying our self-worth to achievement, productivity, perfection, and external validation. In this episode, we unpack why so many high-achieving women are burned out, anxious, over-functioning, and terrified they’re never doing enough.

We get into Google hustle culture to addiction, motherhood, ambition, burnout, and the panic spiral that starts with one weird email from your boss.

We also talk about the deeper cultural forces shaping women’s relationship to work, why so many women are rethinking ambition in midlife, and how we raise daughters who know they are worthy even when they fail.

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We Need to Talk About Spencer Pratt May 21, 2026

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Years ago, Spencer Pratt was dismissed as a fame-hungry reality TV idiot with frosted facial hair and a crystal obsession. But looking back? He may have understood modern media better than almost anyone else on television.

Now he’s running for mayor of Los Angeles.

Jo digs into the strange pipeline from reality TV to political power, why audiences are drawn to “outsider” candidates they already feel connected to, and how the attention economy changed politics forever. Because as ridiculous as Spencer Pratt for mayor sounds, it also feels deeply, painfully American.

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What to Read After Yesteryear and the History of Tradwives May 19, 2026

Show notes

If you loved Yesteryear — or absolutely hated it — a lot of you have been asking the same question: what should I read next?

This week on Under the Influence, we’re diving into the ultimate post-Yesteryear reading list, from influencer thrillers and feminist rage novels to nonfiction deep dives into tradwives, Christian patriarchy, mommy influencers, and the very real cost of turning domesticity into content. We’re talking The Stepford Wives, A Well-Trained Wife, Like, Follow, Subscribe, Such a Bad Influence, The Mad Wife, and why Little House on the Prairie still has a chokehold on all of us.

And because so many listeners are newly entering the tradwife discourse, we’re also resurfacing an older episode from the archives that you might have missed: a fascinating conversation with journalist Clara Bingham about the real history behind the tradwife fantasy. Together, we unpack the myth of the happy 1950s housewife, the backlash against feminism, Phyllis Schlafly’s political machine, and why so much of today’s influencer culture is recycling old propaganda in aesthetically pleasing beige linen packaging.