The business of tradwives—and why brands keep working with them

On social media, it’s relatively easy to find breadwinners cosplaying as homemakers.

Call it the rise of the “tradwife” on social media, where women have, in recent years, grown huge followings posting content showing themselves participating in “traditional” gender roles, like making food from scratch or raising a gaggle of kids.

Where there are viral accounts, there are often brands galore. Model and mother Nara Smith, whose from-scratch cooking videos have repeatedly gone viral, has posted paid ads for brands including Marc Jacobs, Prada, and Ruggable to her 15+ million followers, and has modeled for brands like Aritzia and Hunter Boots.

Meanwhile, Hannah Neeleman, who posts about her Utah farm and her family of 10 to her more than 20 million followers under the handle @BallerinaFarm, has promoted brands like Ogee skin care, as well as her own brand, Farmer Protein Powder, and her family’s Ballerina Farm Store, which sells everything from aprons to ground-beef subscription boxes. Smith and Neeleman’s content often evokes nostalgia for the (largely fictionalized) 1950s nuclear family, but the reality is that brand partnerships, monetized views, and their own brands represent big business for those creators.

“They are entrepreneurs, so it’s kind of a big contradiction …We need to be traditional housewives at home being kept,’ but realistically, you are co-opting that lifestyle,” Krysten Stein, assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College, told Marketing Brew.

As creators like Smith and Neeleman become celebrities in their own right, the brands that partner with them are wading into controversial waters, participating in performances of domestic life that stand to have real-world consequences in a post-Dobbs world.

“I think that a lot of people understand that Nara Smith doesn’t really make pancakes in an evening gown,” Molly Barth, brand strategy manager at Gale, told us. “But some people might not really get that. They might see that as her real life, and that’s where it gets dangerous: where people start believing that that’s a realistic depiction of what being a trad wife or a stay-at-home wife is.”

Happy tradwife, unhappy tradlife?

Like a lot of online content does, the tradwide life requires performance, and some viewers may view the content as a kind of escape from the drudgeries of modern life, Stein said.

But tradwife content can also set unrealistic expectations by reinforcing certain messages about women’s domestic roles and duties. In a recent New York Times article, a mom shared that she “can barely cook one thing most days, and there [Neeleman] is looking perfect and teaching herself to make mozzarella.” (In a viral Sunday Times article from last summer that Neeleman has since denounced, Neeleman’s husband shared that she is sometimes so exhausted that she becomes bedridden.)

“It really comes back to, ‘What are we communicating that’s normalized and popular?’” Stein said. “I think it can be really problematic when brands are also promoting this type of lifestyle and maybe not other types of lifestyles as well.”

That hasn’t stopped companies, including the diaper brand Coterie and hair-care brand K18, from working with Smith. Michelle Miller, who was until January CMO of K18, told us late last year that the brand was motivated to work with Smith because she’s “at the center of culture” and gets people talking. Any associated political message, she said, “was not something [K18] sought out through working with her.” (Miller is now CMO of the vegan hair-care brand Vegamour.)

“When someone is very influential, there’s a lot of polarization that can happen, and I think with Nara specifically, there’s a lot of debate on what a tradwife is and what constitutes a tradwife,” Miller said. “We see Nara as a really successful, working creator who…makes amazing content and really gets behind what she does.”

Zari Taylor, assistant professor at NYU, said that brands working with tradwives are probably interested in the engagement and intrigue that comes from their large audiences.

“There’s a way that everyone can do their part to make sure that anything that they’re doing, any brands they’re working with, any influencers they’re working with on the corporate side, reflect their actual politics, instead of just throwing money at something to get people’s attention very quickly,” she said.

Trad carefully

When working with tradwife accounts, some brands have been able to jump on the more comedic side of tradwife content, like Liquid I.V., which sponsored Smith for videos where she revealed she didn’t like the taste of water. But even with lighthearted content, Barth said brands working with tradwife accounts risk appearing less relatable while also potentially sending a message about their values.

“You have to understand as a brand, you are going to be tapping into these very inherently conservative values,” Barth said. “Maybe that’s what the brand wants to do, but you do have to understand the cultural undertones there. You’re not just tapping into that aesthetic.”

Even if tradwife accounts do not explicitly share political messages on their accounts, there may be other signs. Neeleman recently appeared on the cover of Evie Magazine, which has identified itself as pro-Trump and has published, among other things, anti-LGBTQ articles and content containing misinformation about abortion and birth control. In November, meanwhile, internet sleuths discovered Smith’s husband, Lucky Blue, engaging with conservative content.

As some brands grow quieter on progressive causes, and with Trump’s return to the White House, Barth said it will be interesting to see whether tradwife content continues to thrive as part of a cultural shift toward conservatism or if more accounts pop up. Beyond Neeleman and Smith, there are plenty of similar creators for brands to partner with; Jell-o and Sprouts are among the brands that have worked with tradwife creators including Alexia Delarosa and Ivy Van Dusen.

Some audiences aren’t entirely oblivious to (or comfortable with) the financial realities of some of the most popular tradwives. Critics and observers, for example, have noted that Neeleman’s Aga cast-iron stove retails for around $35,000, and that her husband is the son of JetBlue founder David Neeleman, who has an estimated net worth of $400 million.

In other words, it might look easy to perform on a tradwife account when there is plenty of money—and brand deals—to fall back on.

As Morning Brew’s Katie Gatti Tassin wrote last March, “If you’re taking your cues from the fleet of fringe tradwife influencers, you might hear something about how this is just part of [women’s] role. But that’s easy for them to say—if things don’t work out, they’ll have the cushion of affiliate income and a personal brand to soften their fall.”