Ill Conceived

·S2 E14

Ballerina Farm / Hannah Neeleman

April 11
1h 41m

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Episode Description

Natalists have an ideal life and an ideal wife: rugged, individualistic, and dedicated to self-sufficiency. Perhaps nothing epitomizes this ideal better than Ballerina Farm, the popular social media account of dancer and pageant queen Hannah Neeleman that is growing into an influential direct-to-consumer food and lifestyle brand that no longer sells raw milk. This week, Josh and June look at the history of Ballerina Farm and try to understand how its strange brand of seemingly apolitical tradwifery serves as a stalking horse for the natalist movement and reactionary politics more broadly.

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EPISODE ART: Hannah Neeleman in a professional headshot. After graduating from Juilliard's dance undergraduate program while pregnant, Neeleman moved to Brazil then back home to Utah, where she and her husband Daniel purchased a farm along the east side of the Wasatch Range. Her Instagram account Ballerina Farm has over 10 million followers.

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ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

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