Spinning in the Spotlight: Trophy Wives, Ballerinas, and the Display of TikTok Feminism

Do you know that feeling when you see an INFURIATING take on social media and start to rile yourself up? No? Just me? The FBI agent stationed on my TikTok feed may have something against me because they tend to spew annoying propaganda straight at me, constantly. No matter how many times I click “uninterested,” it's as if they become more interested in my response. As I do my daily doom-scroll, I see an edit about a ballerina who didn't follow her dreams. Intrigued, I dig deeper and become infatuated with an online brand named Ballerina Farm.

Initially, what began as curiosity quickly spun into frustration. Ballerina Farm, run by Hannah Neeleman, represents an idyllic life of domesticity, motherhood, farm life, and tradwife content stuffed into Instagram and TikTok posts. On the surface, it's a very loving and peaceful lifestyle. Her videos are filled with images of freshly baked bread, barefoot children running across their multiple acres of land, and her endless ability to balance mothering her nine children, farm work, and beauty pageants simultaneously. In a world where people are constantly stressed about school and their future, it’s way easier to fall in love with a slower, simpler world where you don’t have to worry about money. Ballerina Farm sparked so many debates online because it lies right between women following their aspirations and women stepping into traditional roles.

I believe what makes this account so interesting is that you cannot tell what is satire or what is genuine. Influencers are notorious for showing the prettiest, aesthetically pleasing and calmest moments of their lives. When watching Ballerina Farm, it seems WAY too effortless. Not saying that women cannot do it all, but given that she states she does almost all the work, where is she getting time to edit videos? People also are into the content because it ties into the “tradwife” and “Mormon” aesthetic.

It’s a very loving and wholesome account, made to influence people to have what Neeleman and her husband have. It gives off the impression that it’s an easy lifestyle, and all you have to do to accomplish a lot as a woman is to bake sourdough, have many babies for your husband, and—oh!—live on a farm. It seems easy, doing all of that; and many mothers or families may feel inferior knowing that they don’t have that. The truth is that while she may be doing videos on running a farm, raising animals, maintaining land, and making you wonder where the hell her nine children are, more and more women are falling into the cycle of doubting their self-worth due to this content. Many tradwife videos on TikTok or Instagram make modernized women look unhappy because they chose careers or independence. The message is that women would be happier if they had just stayed home, cooked, and focused on their husbands. Most women cannot afford to live that way. In today’s economy, families often need two incomes to pay rent, buy groceries, personal amenities, and other bills. Selling the idea that a normal farm life can sustain a life of baking bread and churning butter is incredibly unrealistic for many.

This situation is not purely due to the content creator though. The viewer base also plays a pivotal role in the monetization of such a platform. It is all dependent on how much the public plays into the life of Hannah Neeleman. Kim Severson, a journalist and food writer for The New York Times who covered the Ballerina Farm phenomenon, proves how the brand has expanded beyond just videos on TikTok into a full business with a website featuring farm products, tours, and a café. It may come off as just a cute family channel, but Severson shows how Hannah Neeleman uses marketing strategies to maximize engagement, including reverse psychology and provocative content that sparks debate and criticism amongst viewers. The saying “any publicity is good publicity” really makes sense in this scenario because, no matter the reaction, positive or negative, controversy has helped their brand gain visibility. Social media thrives on engagement, and “rage-bait” content keeps conversation circulating longer, further increasing the brand’s reach and influence. In more ways than one, controversy is part of why Ballerina Farm is still relevant today. What Nonggol Darrapati, a media scholar studying digital influence and lifestyle branding, calls a “provocation trap” is incredibly accurate, because when watching Ballerina Farm you start to see why the soft voiceovers and aesthetic editing can trick people into not immediately experiencing frustration and self-doubt.

A thought I had before watching for myself. I understood why people found it easy to measure themselves against curated versions of life that were seemingly unrealistic. Yet, here is where wealth and privilege come into play. Ballerina Farm seems very rustic and simple, but influencers are notorious for presenting the best and most aesthetically pleasing version of their lives. Watching Ballerina Farm seems like just the right amount of reality and fairytale for many. This type of content is dangerous because it can play into insecurity and comparison for many people, primarily young women and mothers, who may feel inadequate compared to the lifestyle they see on platforms like Ballerina Farm. Anna North, a journalist and gender culture writer, explains that this is a common pattern within tradwife content. The videos suggest that women would be happier if they focused on domestic responsibilities and their husband rather than their own goals, whatever they may be. By suppressing the financial backing of her husband, the behind-the-scenes reality, and the endless labor, this content creates a distorted reality that leaves viewers wondering how she manages to “do it all.”

It is not just this editing that got the public infuriated. The larger conversation revolved around gender roles. People felt as if this content was showing all of the ways that Hannah Neeleman was being the “picture perfect wife” (like a wife from fifty years ago) while her husband, when shown on screen, was not playing the role of a traditional husband in return. People were also upset because of Neeleman's past. Hannah Neeleman graduated in 2012 from The Juilliard School with a BFA in dance. She met her now-husband Daniel Neeleman just before her senior year, and they married three months after meeting. She was a dance prodigy, and because of this, many find it troubling that she seemingly “gave up her dreams” for him. 

Regardless of whether or not this was the life she truly chose, users develop parasocial relationships and become incredibly emotionally invested, constructing their own narratives to make sense of what they see. Most simply find the content misleading for young minds, insinuating that no matter how promising your path, marrying a wealthy man is an easy way out.