A Very Mrs. American Ballerina Farm

So many of you have asked me to do an episode on Ballerina Farm....so here we go! Meet Mrs. American…or rather the winner of the Mrs. American pageant, Mrs. South Dakota, better known as Hannah Neeleman or by her Instagram and TikTok handle, BALLERINA FARM. But why are we talking about a beauty pageant on this podcast? It’s a topic for UTI because Hannah Neeleman as Ballerina Farm is a mom influencer on social media. And she isn’t JUST a mom influencer. She is one of THE most successful mom influencers in the world with 6.4 MILLION followers on Instagram….that’s an insane number for followers for someone who was not a celebrity prior to joining social media.

She has also skyrocketed to this level of influence in a very short period of time going from about 100,000 followers to 6.4 million in a little over two years. Ballerina Farm seems to inspire adoration and ire in equal measure and I want to get to the bottom of both emotions.

I asked friends who regularly consume her media why they can’t look away. One attorney told me it feels like a brain break from her urban life with two kids. She said it was like a quick hit of a Hallmark movie. Quiet simplicity…easy happiness that you feel a little guilty about enjoying later on.

Joining me today is my friend Sara Petersen, author of MOMFLUENCED and the incredible substack In Pursuit of Clean Countertops.