December 12, 2022 • 25 mins
From pressure to create the perfect holiday scene for family, or the most over-the-top instagram post for “the internet,” the holidays can be a stressful time. As usual, gendered labor like cooking, presents, and kin-making most often falls to women and moms. Social media companies love to monetize our anxieties in order to sell stuff, and the holidays are no exception, but social media can also help us feel connected and learn tips like how to set boundaries around gift giving. Bridget talks with three women about how, and with whom, they navigate the holidays online.
The Kardashian’s over the top Easter: https://www.tiktok.com/@plantawhisperer/video/7087734906087853354?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1
An Elf breakfast: https://twitter.com/OnPunsnNeedles/status/1600905934678548480
The Gendering of Holiday Labor: https://daily.jstor.org/the-gendering-of-holiday-labor/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of I Heart Radio and unbost Creative. I'm Bridget Todd,
and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Snow is falling, bells are ringing. Yes, it's the holiday
season and I wanted to do a special holiday themed
(00:24):
episode exploring a thesis that I have had in my
head for a while now. Social media is making the
holidays worse for everyone, especially for women. Now, I'm not
a hundred percent certain about where I stand on this,
So in this episode, we'll be looking at some research
and we'll also be hearing from three women about their
thoughts about the holiday season. So I first got to
(00:45):
be in my bonnet about social media's impact on the holidays,
not about Christmas, but it was actually from last year's
Easter season. You know, I don't think of Easter as
a holiday where there is a ton of pressure to
like go big, even if you have kids. It's traditionally,
I think, been a fairly straightforward holiday celebration. You know,
you get one of those egg kits from the grocery store,
(01:08):
maybe you do an Easter basket. If you're really trying
to go all out, maybe somebody dresses like an Easter
bunny and surprises the kids. But you wouldn't know any
of that from the photos that the Kardashian family posted
from their Easter celebration on social media. It was predictably
very over the top. A link to a photo of
it in the show notes because it really needs to
be seen to be understood. But the display is beyond opulent.
(01:32):
They've got four pink Cruiser bikes lined up in a row,
several massive Easter baskets filled to the brim with candy
and toys, personalized chocolate eggs the size of your head
as dinner table play settings for hot pink full size
gumball machines. Now, obviously we're talking about the Kardashians here,
(01:52):
and there are a family that I don't really think
is known for being understated, And of course they are
fabulously famous sleep very wealthy, so obviously they could afford
such a lavish display. But when they posted it to
social media, I think they were probably expecting the usual
ooze and as from onlookers, but the response was really
(02:13):
more like yah. One TikToker responded saying, quote, the people
and the planet need a cultural shift of the way
that we think of consumption. At what point will we
not post hyper consumption? And this TikToker wasn't alone. I
actually think the response to the Kardashian Easter video shows
that maybe we're at a point where we're asking some
(02:34):
questions about these digital displays that just screamed bye bye bye,
and instead of being impressed by opulent, over the top
displays for the holidays, I think people are just kind
of over them, or at least being honest about the
way they make us feel, particularly during a time of
economic instability and uncertainty. I think opening up a social
media app and seeing opulent displays just hits differently, and
(02:58):
so I think when it comes to holidays, like Smiths,
social media can add pressure to over consume, over plan
over by a burden that falls mostly on women. Like
if you're not planning out and posting a cute picture
of your whole family decked out and matching reindeer pajamas,
you're doing the holiday season wrong. Or if you don't
have that picture perfect tree full of gifts, you're doing
(03:20):
it wrong. Or if you don't spend the holiday season
with family at all, or don't celebrate them at all,
you're doing it wrong now. None of this is really
all that new. When I was a kid, folks would
take Christmas family pictures down at the J. C. Penny
and maybe do a holiday family update letter or Christmas card,
and just like on social media today, it was meant
to be a highlight reel of the family, not really
(03:43):
awards at all, accurate accounting of the year everyone actually had.
And while those cards and letters would go to a
hand selected batch of friends and family, the addition of
social media means that now it's algorithms and platforms deciding
how and to whom that content is served up to.
And because we're talking thing about social media here, that
means that the more excessive and over the top the content,
(04:04):
the better that content performs. Dr Steve rath Jay is
a psychology researcher at n y U. He wanted to
answer the question why do influencers who show themselves making
iced coffee on social media always use so much coffee,
like more iced coffee than you would ever want to
drink in one sitting. What his research found is really telling.
(04:25):
He found that on social media platforms, content that is
quote excessive, extreme, or intense is most likely to go viral,
and that even though most people are aware that this
is the kind of content that goes viral on social
media platforms, we don't actually want that to be the case.
In other words, as Dr rath Ja puts it, we
might not actually want to watch people making elaborate excessive
(04:46):
ice coffees, but we find that when they do, we
can't look away. And this leads social media companies to
prioritize content that might be good at capturing our attention,
but that we don't actually want to see and doesn't
always leave us feeling so good about ourselves. So now
apply all of this to the holiday content that we
see on social media. Algorithms and platforms amplify excessive displays
(05:08):
of holiday cheer, that massive, perfectly decorated tree, overflowing with gifts,
the ordinate tables, gape that looks like it's something out
of a magazine that probably took hours to set up.
And also is it just me or are some of
the holiday displays not just getting more over the top
but also just getting weirder? I saw a holiday display
themed around the movie Elf. If you've seen Elf, you
(05:30):
know that Will Ferrell is half Elf, and that its
favorite ELF meal is spaghetti topped with syrup and candy
rather than spaghetti sauce. So in this social media photo,
someone took a photo of different colored spaghetti oozing out
of these three big pots all over their stove and
onto the floor, decorated with marshmallows and candy. Again, a
link to the photo in the show notes because it
(05:52):
needs to be seen to be understood, and honestly, it
seems like the only reason someone would do something like
this is because the excessive nature of the photo pretty
much guarantees that it'll get traction on social media. But
would anyone actually ever do that in real life, if
not simply to take a viral photo for the Graham
platforms prioritize this content so we see more of it,
(06:12):
and I think it creates a cycle where these excessive
displays are normalized and then they become the normal way
to do the holidays. I don't feel like I need
to tell y'all. Social media makes it so easy to
compare our holidays with the holidays of other people. Here's
how Megan, a mom of two in Washington, d C,
explains it. Man Megan and I live in Washington, d C.
(06:34):
With my husband and our two young children at ages
five and two. Of course, social media invites comparisons. That's
that's why we're all on it, right, That's why we
post on it is so that other people will like it,
and that we will feel good when other people like
and comments on our posts. And I'll be the first
tray bit that I I really enjoy the validation that
I get when I post a cute craft that my
(06:55):
kids do on social media or a really nice picture
of my family. I like those that affirmation UM and
I think that everyone does. I feel really lucky in
some ways that I'm not Christian and my family doesn't
celebrate Christmas, because I do feel like Christmas is a
very pressure cooker kind of situation for a lot of
families and moms in particular, and by virtue of the
(07:19):
fact that we don't celebrate Christmas, I I'm a little
bit absolved of that UM and I very much feel
like it allows me to enjoy the holidays that I
do celebrate in the wintertime or fall in winter a
little bit more because I'm not sort of anxious about
what does my Christmas posting going to look like. This
(07:39):
is also a gender issue because if you're a parent,
and you're a woman raising a child with a man,
all of this excessive holiday cheer is really just mom work.
So the normalization of this need to create excessive holiday
displays are not created by elves or pixies or don't
just appear via the power of Christmas magic. It really
does falls on moms and it makes additional labor for them.
(08:03):
Christmas here is really the labor of a probably very
tired mom. Here's Megan again. I don't want to speak
universally for all moms, but I would say that personally
as a mom or in my role as mom, I
definitely feel like I take on more of the burden
of making holiday times special and fulfilling traditions or following
(08:27):
through on different ideas to make the holiday time special
that I've either seen on social media or that I've
seen friends and family do that I want to emulate.
I guess you could call it a burden, except that
it's something that I feel like I'm choosing to do
and choosing to take the lead on. But it absolutely
is I think something more unique to women and just
(08:51):
the nature of the conversations that they're having that you know,
it does kind of become more um that invisible mental
load for women, because you know, it's like a Thanksgiving,
a lot of the moms are sitting around talking about
what toys their kids are playing with, what size clothes
(09:12):
the kids are in. Now you know, oh, this is
um what their friends are into. And I just don't
know that the dads are having that same kind of conversation.
So then when it comes to gift giving, you know,
moms are in more of the position to you know,
be seeking out those gifts because they know what the
kids and the family are into where they you know,
(09:33):
they've been paying attention. And it's sort of just part
of the discourse among moms, I think, to talk about
their kids in different ways. And and of course those
traditional gender roles are there too, where mom is the
person that kids included on the you know cousin gift swap,
(09:54):
or mom is the only one whose email address is
getting the you a class list from the school about
you know, what we're supposed to do for teacher gifts,
or they're the ones being reached out to by after
care about X y Z. You know, it's just it
doesn't matter if you put both parents names on it.
More often than not, Mom is the only one who
(10:16):
gets emailed or who is the one who gets called,
And so it's sort of defaults to that position of
putting mom in the driver's seat around a lot of
child rearing decision making and that invisible mental load um
around your kids. And that's even more true, I think
around the holidays. There is a fascinating article that breaks
all of this down called the Gendering of Holiday Labor. Basically,
(10:38):
they found that in heterosexual relationships, women still do the
bulk of the domestic labor, and that labor multiplies during
the holidays, and that even if tasks and labor are
split between parents, women still take on the role of
the warrior or the person who really feels the emotional
burden and weight of whether or not tasks are getting
done around the house. When it comes to what's known
(10:58):
as kin keeping, or the social role that women usually
take on of promoting and protecting relationships between family members,
women are basically doing it all. In a twenties seventeen
study on kinkeepers, Dr don oh Braith, wife who studies
personal and family relationships at the University of Nebraska Lincoln,
of self identified family kinkeepers are women. Dr braith wife
(11:23):
writes quote, for women who are already stretched thin during
the holidays, as so many of these activities converge at once,
kinkeepers would likely to be stretched even more. And think
about it, like, moms have already had a pretty tough
go of it. A lot of the consequences that we're
still dealing with from the pandemic were just meant to
be absorbed by moms picking up the slack with very
(11:44):
little institutional help or support. And when you layer on
the pressures of social media, the work of kinkeepers can
become even more fraud Let's take a quick break at
(12:09):
our back. We feel extra pressure to share our families
and homes during the holiday season, which can just kind
of be a bummer if you're already feeling burdened by
I don't know everything else happening around us. Michelle Janning,
a sociologist and professor at Women College, studies how contemporary
families define themselves through domestic objects, and she said that
(12:30):
this stress can add to women feeling even more burnt out,
burden and stressed emotionally. Quote if you add that the
holidays are a difficult time emotionally, for many people. It
makes a lot of sense for me to believe that
the difficulty of this season emotionally is heightened, and if
you have groups with different stress levels, it's heightened for women.
The pieces fascinating will link to it in the show notes,
(12:50):
but it goes on to say that even if you
enjoy holiday merrymaking like decorating and buying gifts and cooking,
the enjoyment or gratification that you get for it can
end up being combined with stress. But that because we
really might genuinely enjoy doing this work for our families,
because it can give us a sense of accomplishment or
be an act of service or care, a way to
(13:11):
show our family that we love them, but that can
get all mixed up with the social and societal obligations,
which again are often gendered. Stephanie Coont's director of research
and public education for the nonprofit group counts along contemporary
families as quote, it is real emotional work and the
pleasure is accompanied by much more stress than men feel.
There's a pressure, she explains, that comes with the tremendous
(13:33):
weight of a hundred and fifty years of being told
that this is our special skill. As women our special
contribution to family life and community life, which can be
very gratifying, and it's also why women hold onto it
very often. So I want to be clear. I don't
want to suggest that no mom out there is doing
holiday domestic labor purely because she genuinely loves and enjoys it.
(13:55):
But the added pressure of societal or social obligation, which
I think social media amplify eyes can really take the
fun out of a task that would otherwise be enjoyable.
And people just want to provide fulfilling, happy holidays for
their families. Here's how another mom explained it to me.
My name's Michelle. I'm married with two young kids, a
(14:16):
six year old boy and a two and a half
year old girl. We celebrate Christmas. The holiday season and
the preparation entails seems to change every year with young children,
because you pass through various phases of them having no
idea what's going on, and then they start to get
really into it and start asking questions about Santa and
(14:38):
all that's involved in that, and you're trying to do
it right and not be flat outlining to your kids
but also still allowing it to be exciting. I don't
think that social media has too much of an effect
on the expectations that I'm setting for myself around the holidays.
The pressure I feel comes, I think, more from trying
to keep up certain family traditions and make it all
(15:00):
as magical and exciting for my kids as my parents
made it for myself and my brother. I do think
that moms really bear the brunt of the holiday work,
and speaking for my own family, both growing up and
the family I have created, mom is definitely the one
doing the vast majority of it, and I can certainly
(15:21):
see how moms could see the things that others are
posting on social media about their holiday celebrations and feel
like they are not doing enough in comparison. According to
the authors of the article the gendering of holiday labor, basically,
even if this labor is sometimes stressful, women can still
feel the need to do it because of this gatekeeper
(15:41):
role that we sometimes adopt. You know, even if the
work is stressful or anxiety inducing, we may still want
to be recognized as the person who is in charge
of giving people a good Christmas, and this tension can
really be heightened around the holidays. What's also kind of
interesting is that the article goes on to say that
things are different when it comes to same sex bowles,
who generally tend to carry out housework and domestic labor.
(16:03):
More evenly, the real unevennus is in heterosexual couples. Stephanie
Coon says, so add in social media pressure to what
is supposed to be a full and holiday season, and
I think it can just kind of end up feeling
like extra work, stress and obligations for moms in particular,
and honestly, it's not just moms. I also think that
social media can create a lot of pressure for people
(16:24):
who are not married and don't have kids, or people
who have non traditional holidays celebrations, or don't celebrate the
holidays at all. More, after a quick break, let's get
(16:48):
right back into it. Social media tricks us into thinking
that there is one right way to do the holiday season,
when in reality, there are so many valid ways to
celebrate or not celebrate. In my own holiday experience, you know,
my family doesn't really celebrate Christmas in a traditional sense.
We used to when I was a kid. We did
the tree in the presence and all of that, but
(17:09):
as we got older, we just kind of stopped my
dad is disabled and my mom dedicates a lot of
her time to his care on top of working, and
it just became too much. And if I'm being honest,
I used to kind of resent it and feel a
little bit left out when I would be scrolling social
media and seeing all my friends with their families in
matching holiday pajamas or with their parents doing special holiday traditions.
(17:32):
But as an adult, I can really understand why taking
on the extra labor of holiday magic making for their
adult children is just no longer on the table for
my parents. Also, like a lot of queer people, I too,
really value my chosen family and friends and people who
are not my actual family but that feel like family,
you know, hold the role of family in my life,
(17:53):
and sometimes scrolling social media during the holidays can make
it feel like that doesn't really count, like the holidays
are some how less special if they're not spent with
actual family. I am not alone in this. Here's Allison,
a queer woman living in Chicago who's in our thirties.
I also see lots of photos on Instagram of people
I used to go out with in matching pajamas with
(18:16):
their new significant other, And when I see this, it's like, Okay,
I get it, You've officially moved on, and the pajamas
are communicating what you want them to. Separately. I love
how people myself included, are celebrating with friends or doing
something more low key on the holidays, and it's interesting
(18:41):
how as that gets normalized now I see advertisements glorifying
the anti traditional celebrations as well. The bottom line is
that everyone deserves to feel good during the holidays, whether
you're a mom, single, in a relationship, whatever, And I
hate that social media platforms are offiting off of us
feeling like crap, comparing our holidays to each other, or
(19:03):
stressing ourselves have to create the most perfect holiday season
even if we don't really have it in us to do.
It just feels like yet another way that our negative
feelings are stoked and then monetized by tech billionaires, many
of whom, let's be real, already belong on Santa's Naughty List.
So what do we do? How do we combat this?
Megan our mom and DC says that she actually curates
(19:26):
her social media feed to reinforce the kind of mom
that she wants to be, and that social media can
actually be a help to her this time of year.
I think holidays are a very stressful time for parents
in lots of different ways. Partly because you're trying to
create a sort of magical experience for your kids and
you want them to be having fun and you want
to be having fun as a parent, and also because
(19:49):
there's all these extra stressors like your kids being out
of school for extended stretches of time or off their
normal routine. There's lots of different whoo, you know, not
their normal meal schedule, or there are things that they
normally eat. They're seeing lots of different people that they
don't see us often, and that might, you know, cause
(20:09):
lots of emotions and different feelings for both you and
your kids. And so there's just a lot of stress
coming from lots of different angles. Is a very expensive
time of year. Um, there's lots of activities going on,
so to be honest, UM, I actually find social media
to be a really really valuable resource UH during the
(20:32):
holidays and year round, partly because I follow I choose
to follow a lot of UH social media accounts, particularly
on Instagram, who are I guess parent influencers whose parenting
philosophy aligns with my own and who present UM a
(20:54):
lot of different activities and ideas, tips and scripts and
ways that you can you prep your kids and engage
with your kids and talk to your extended family and
set boundaries with you know, for yourself and for your kids,
and teach them to set boundaries and be grateful and
be gracious and all those things UM like I find
(21:17):
really really valuable. And I choose not to follow people
on social media who don't reinforce the kind of parent
that I want to be or the kind of parenting
that I want to implement UM in my own family.
And whether that's people that I know, friends or family,
or professionals like professional influencers, whoever it is, I choose
(21:38):
to only follow people that support and endorse and reinforce
the kind of parent that I want to be or
that I aspire to be. So I think that social
media for me is really really helpful. It gives me
a lot of great ideas about different things to do
in ways to engage and UM, I'm very grateful for
the parent influencers who make up that sort of community
(22:00):
of people, UH that I find to be role models
and um I'm I think that a lot of other
people who follow them um also feel that way, So
don't let algorithms decide what kind of content you want
to see this time of year. Instead, curate your social
media feed to feel like it reinforces the kind of
(22:20):
parent that you're actually interested in being. I would also
add be gentle with yourself. You know, if you didn't
have it in you to go all out this holiday,
that is a okay. Whether it was too stressful, too expensive,
it's okay to play it a little smaller, even if
platforms are only rewarding and amplifying and showing you the
opulent and the excessive. It doesn't have to be opulent
(22:41):
and excessive to be good or meaningful. I would also
question and resist the need to overconsume, especially given that
we're in this place of economic uncertainty. Having a lower
key Christmas is just fine. Giving heartfelt gifts over buying
the newest flashy item is a okay. Your kids can
still have a meaning Christmas even if the tree is
(23:01):
not overflowing with gifts. And remember, whatever you do this
holiday season is valid. So if you're staying home alone
and watching Lifetime movies with your cats in your apartment,
good for you. If you're going camping with your friends,
good for you. If you're feeling sad or emotional because
you've lost your parents or maybe don't even have a
relationship with your living parents. If you're feeling sad or
(23:24):
emotional or grieving the fact that you've lost your parents,
or maybe that you don't really have a relationship with
your family in the first place, don't make social media
make you feel like your experience. It's only valid if
it looks a certain way. And one last tip, if
you're a parent doing the holidays this season, work toward
a balanced division of labor. According to Daniel L. Carson,
an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Consumer
(23:45):
Studies at the University of Utah, couples are happier when
the perceived breakdown is viewed as more equitable. And another
reason to make sure the division of labor is equitable
in your family is that his research also shows that
couples have more satisfying sex lives when the division of
labor is more equitable. So this might even help you
get your ho ho ho on this holiday season as well. Sorry, y'all,
(24:08):
I had to anyway. I want to hear from you
all Are you a parent who is so stressed out
doing the holidays for your kid this season? Are you
a parent who loves doing the holidays and gets nothing
but fulfillment and joy out of it. Are you someone
who is not really that excited about the holidays? Are
you doing something non traditional? I want to hear about it.
Hit me up at hello at tangodi dot com and
(24:29):
let us know if you're making this holiday season? Maryan Bright,
got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi, You can be just at
hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tangodi dot com. There Are No
(24:51):
Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod.
It's a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative
Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tara Harrison is our
producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer.
I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help
us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app,
(25:11):
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of I Heart Radio and unbost Creative. I'm Bridget Todd,
and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Snow is falling, bells are ringing. Yes, it's the holiday
season and I wanted to do a special holiday themed
(00:24):
episode exploring a thesis that I have had in my
head for a while now. Social media is making the
holidays worse for everyone, especially for women. Now, I'm not
a hundred percent certain about where I stand on this,
So in this episode, we'll be looking at some research
and we'll also be hearing from three women about their
thoughts about the holiday season. So I first got to
(00:45):
be in my bonnet about social media's impact on the holidays,
not about Christmas, but it was actually from last year's
Easter season. You know, I don't think of Easter as
a holiday where there is a ton of pressure to
like go big, even if you have kids. It's traditionally,
I think, been a fairly straightforward holiday celebration. You know,
you get one of those egg kits from the grocery store,
(01:08):
maybe you do an Easter basket. If you're really trying
to go all out, maybe somebody dresses like an Easter
bunny and surprises the kids. But you wouldn't know any
of that from the photos that the Kardashian family posted
from their Easter celebration on social media. It was predictably
very over the top. A link to a photo of
it in the show notes because it really needs to
be seen to be understood. But the display is beyond opulent.
(01:32):
They've got four pink Cruiser bikes lined up in a row,
several massive Easter baskets filled to the brim with candy
and toys, personalized chocolate eggs the size of your head
as dinner table play settings for hot pink full size
gumball machines. Now, obviously we're talking about the Kardashians here,
(01:52):
and there are a family that I don't really think
is known for being understated, And of course they are
fabulously famous sleep very wealthy, so obviously they could afford
such a lavish display. But when they posted it to
social media, I think they were probably expecting the usual
ooze and as from onlookers, but the response was really
(02:13):
more like yah. One TikToker responded saying, quote, the people
and the planet need a cultural shift of the way
that we think of consumption. At what point will we
not post hyper consumption? And this TikToker wasn't alone. I
actually think the response to the Kardashian Easter video shows
that maybe we're at a point where we're asking some
(02:34):
questions about these digital displays that just screamed bye bye bye,
and instead of being impressed by opulent, over the top
displays for the holidays, I think people are just kind
of over them, or at least being honest about the
way they make us feel, particularly during a time of
economic instability and uncertainty. I think opening up a social
media app and seeing opulent displays just hits differently, and
(02:58):
so I think when it comes to holidays, like Smiths,
social media can add pressure to over consume, over plan
over by a burden that falls mostly on women. Like
if you're not planning out and posting a cute picture
of your whole family decked out and matching reindeer pajamas,
you're doing the holiday season wrong. Or if you don't
have that picture perfect tree full of gifts, you're doing
(03:20):
it wrong. Or if you don't spend the holiday season
with family at all, or don't celebrate them at all,
you're doing it wrong now. None of this is really
all that new. When I was a kid, folks would
take Christmas family pictures down at the J. C. Penny
and maybe do a holiday family update letter or Christmas card,
and just like on social media today, it was meant
to be a highlight reel of the family, not really
(03:43):
awards at all, accurate accounting of the year everyone actually had.
And while those cards and letters would go to a
hand selected batch of friends and family, the addition of
social media means that now it's algorithms and platforms deciding
how and to whom that content is served up to.
And because we're talking thing about social media here, that
means that the more excessive and over the top the content,
(04:04):
the better that content performs. Dr Steve rath Jay is
a psychology researcher at n y U. He wanted to
answer the question why do influencers who show themselves making
iced coffee on social media always use so much coffee,
like more iced coffee than you would ever want to
drink in one sitting. What his research found is really telling.
(04:25):
He found that on social media platforms, content that is
quote excessive, extreme, or intense is most likely to go viral,
and that even though most people are aware that this
is the kind of content that goes viral on social
media platforms, we don't actually want that to be the case.
In other words, as Dr rath Ja puts it, we
might not actually want to watch people making elaborate excessive
(04:46):
ice coffees, but we find that when they do, we
can't look away. And this leads social media companies to
prioritize content that might be good at capturing our attention,
but that we don't actually want to see and doesn't
always leave us feeling so good about ourselves. So now
apply all of this to the holiday content that we
see on social media. Algorithms and platforms amplify excessive displays
(05:08):
of holiday cheer, that massive, perfectly decorated tree, overflowing with gifts,
the ordinate tables, gape that looks like it's something out
of a magazine that probably took hours to set up.
And also is it just me or are some of
the holiday displays not just getting more over the top
but also just getting weirder? I saw a holiday display
themed around the movie Elf. If you've seen Elf, you
(05:30):
know that Will Ferrell is half Elf, and that its
favorite ELF meal is spaghetti topped with syrup and candy
rather than spaghetti sauce. So in this social media photo,
someone took a photo of different colored spaghetti oozing out
of these three big pots all over their stove and
onto the floor, decorated with marshmallows and candy. Again, a
link to the photo in the show notes because it
(05:52):
needs to be seen to be understood, and honestly, it
seems like the only reason someone would do something like
this is because the excessive nature of the photo pretty
much guarantees that it'll get traction on social media. But
would anyone actually ever do that in real life, if
not simply to take a viral photo for the Graham
platforms prioritize this content so we see more of it,
(06:12):
and I think it creates a cycle where these excessive
displays are normalized and then they become the normal way
to do the holidays. I don't feel like I need
to tell y'all. Social media makes it so easy to
compare our holidays with the holidays of other people. Here's
how Megan, a mom of two in Washington, d C,
explains it. Man Megan and I live in Washington, d C.
(06:34):
With my husband and our two young children at ages
five and two. Of course, social media invites comparisons. That's
that's why we're all on it, right, That's why we
post on it is so that other people will like it,
and that we will feel good when other people like
and comments on our posts. And I'll be the first
tray bit that I I really enjoy the validation that
I get when I post a cute craft that my
(06:55):
kids do on social media or a really nice picture
of my family. I like those that affirmation UM and
I think that everyone does. I feel really lucky in
some ways that I'm not Christian and my family doesn't
celebrate Christmas, because I do feel like Christmas is a
very pressure cooker kind of situation for a lot of
families and moms in particular, and by virtue of the
(07:19):
fact that we don't celebrate Christmas, I I'm a little
bit absolved of that UM and I very much feel
like it allows me to enjoy the holidays that I
do celebrate in the wintertime or fall in winter a
little bit more because I'm not sort of anxious about
what does my Christmas posting going to look like. This
(07:39):
is also a gender issue because if you're a parent,
and you're a woman raising a child with a man,
all of this excessive holiday cheer is really just mom work.
So the normalization of this need to create excessive holiday
displays are not created by elves or pixies or don't
just appear via the power of Christmas magic. It really
does falls on moms and it makes additional labor for them.
(08:03):
Christmas here is really the labor of a probably very
tired mom. Here's Megan again. I don't want to speak
universally for all moms, but I would say that personally
as a mom or in my role as mom, I
definitely feel like I take on more of the burden
of making holiday times special and fulfilling traditions or following
(08:27):
through on different ideas to make the holiday time special
that I've either seen on social media or that I've
seen friends and family do that I want to emulate.
I guess you could call it a burden, except that
it's something that I feel like I'm choosing to do
and choosing to take the lead on. But it absolutely
is I think something more unique to women and just
(08:51):
the nature of the conversations that they're having that you know,
it does kind of become more um that invisible mental
load for women, because you know, it's like a Thanksgiving,
a lot of the moms are sitting around talking about
what toys their kids are playing with, what size clothes
(09:12):
the kids are in. Now you know, oh, this is
um what their friends are into. And I just don't
know that the dads are having that same kind of conversation.
So then when it comes to gift giving, you know,
moms are in more of the position to you know,
be seeking out those gifts because they know what the
kids and the family are into where they you know,
(09:33):
they've been paying attention. And it's sort of just part
of the discourse among moms, I think, to talk about
their kids in different ways. And and of course those
traditional gender roles are there too, where mom is the
person that kids included on the you know cousin gift swap,
(09:54):
or mom is the only one whose email address is
getting the you a class list from the school about
you know, what we're supposed to do for teacher gifts,
or they're the ones being reached out to by after
care about X y Z. You know, it's just it
doesn't matter if you put both parents names on it.
More often than not, Mom is the only one who
(10:16):
gets emailed or who is the one who gets called,
And so it's sort of defaults to that position of
putting mom in the driver's seat around a lot of
child rearing decision making and that invisible mental load um
around your kids. And that's even more true, I think
around the holidays. There is a fascinating article that breaks
all of this down called the Gendering of Holiday Labor. Basically,
(10:38):
they found that in heterosexual relationships, women still do the
bulk of the domestic labor, and that labor multiplies during
the holidays, and that even if tasks and labor are
split between parents, women still take on the role of
the warrior or the person who really feels the emotional
burden and weight of whether or not tasks are getting
done around the house. When it comes to what's known
(10:58):
as kin keeping, or the social role that women usually
take on of promoting and protecting relationships between family members,
women are basically doing it all. In a twenties seventeen
study on kinkeepers, Dr don oh Braith, wife who studies
personal and family relationships at the University of Nebraska Lincoln,
of self identified family kinkeepers are women. Dr braith wife
(11:23):
writes quote, for women who are already stretched thin during
the holidays, as so many of these activities converge at once,
kinkeepers would likely to be stretched even more. And think
about it, like, moms have already had a pretty tough
go of it. A lot of the consequences that we're
still dealing with from the pandemic were just meant to
be absorbed by moms picking up the slack with very
(11:44):
little institutional help or support. And when you layer on
the pressures of social media, the work of kinkeepers can
become even more fraud Let's take a quick break at
(12:09):
our back. We feel extra pressure to share our families
and homes during the holiday season, which can just kind
of be a bummer if you're already feeling burdened by
I don't know everything else happening around us. Michelle Janning,
a sociologist and professor at Women College, studies how contemporary
families define themselves through domestic objects, and she said that
(12:30):
this stress can add to women feeling even more burnt out,
burden and stressed emotionally. Quote if you add that the
holidays are a difficult time emotionally, for many people. It
makes a lot of sense for me to believe that
the difficulty of this season emotionally is heightened, and if
you have groups with different stress levels, it's heightened for women.
The pieces fascinating will link to it in the show notes,
(12:50):
but it goes on to say that even if you
enjoy holiday merrymaking like decorating and buying gifts and cooking,
the enjoyment or gratification that you get for it can
end up being combined with stress. But that because we
really might genuinely enjoy doing this work for our families,
because it can give us a sense of accomplishment or
be an act of service or care, a way to
(13:11):
show our family that we love them, but that can
get all mixed up with the social and societal obligations,
which again are often gendered. Stephanie Coont's director of research
and public education for the nonprofit group counts along contemporary
families as quote, it is real emotional work and the
pleasure is accompanied by much more stress than men feel.
There's a pressure, she explains, that comes with the tremendous
(13:33):
weight of a hundred and fifty years of being told
that this is our special skill. As women our special
contribution to family life and community life, which can be
very gratifying, and it's also why women hold onto it
very often. So I want to be clear. I don't
want to suggest that no mom out there is doing
holiday domestic labor purely because she genuinely loves and enjoys it.
(13:55):
But the added pressure of societal or social obligation, which
I think social media amplify eyes can really take the
fun out of a task that would otherwise be enjoyable.
And people just want to provide fulfilling, happy holidays for
their families. Here's how another mom explained it to me.
My name's Michelle. I'm married with two young kids, a
(14:16):
six year old boy and a two and a half
year old girl. We celebrate Christmas. The holiday season and
the preparation entails seems to change every year with young children,
because you pass through various phases of them having no
idea what's going on, and then they start to get
really into it and start asking questions about Santa and
(14:38):
all that's involved in that, and you're trying to do
it right and not be flat outlining to your kids
but also still allowing it to be exciting. I don't
think that social media has too much of an effect
on the expectations that I'm setting for myself around the holidays.
The pressure I feel comes, I think, more from trying
to keep up certain family traditions and make it all
(15:00):
as magical and exciting for my kids as my parents
made it for myself and my brother. I do think
that moms really bear the brunt of the holiday work,
and speaking for my own family, both growing up and
the family I have created, mom is definitely the one
doing the vast majority of it, and I can certainly
(15:21):
see how moms could see the things that others are
posting on social media about their holiday celebrations and feel
like they are not doing enough in comparison. According to
the authors of the article the gendering of holiday labor, basically,
even if this labor is sometimes stressful, women can still
feel the need to do it because of this gatekeeper
(15:41):
role that we sometimes adopt. You know, even if the
work is stressful or anxiety inducing, we may still want
to be recognized as the person who is in charge
of giving people a good Christmas, and this tension can
really be heightened around the holidays. What's also kind of
interesting is that the article goes on to say that
things are different when it comes to same sex bowles,
who generally tend to carry out housework and domestic labor.
(16:03):
More evenly, the real unevennus is in heterosexual couples. Stephanie
Coon says, so add in social media pressure to what
is supposed to be a full and holiday season, and
I think it can just kind of end up feeling
like extra work, stress and obligations for moms in particular,
and honestly, it's not just moms. I also think that
social media can create a lot of pressure for people
(16:24):
who are not married and don't have kids, or people
who have non traditional holidays celebrations, or don't celebrate the
holidays at all. More, after a quick break, let's get
(16:48):
right back into it. Social media tricks us into thinking
that there is one right way to do the holiday season,
when in reality, there are so many valid ways to
celebrate or not celebrate. In my own holiday experience, you know,
my family doesn't really celebrate Christmas in a traditional sense.
We used to when I was a kid. We did
the tree in the presence and all of that, but
(17:09):
as we got older, we just kind of stopped my
dad is disabled and my mom dedicates a lot of
her time to his care on top of working, and
it just became too much. And if I'm being honest,
I used to kind of resent it and feel a
little bit left out when I would be scrolling social
media and seeing all my friends with their families in
matching holiday pajamas or with their parents doing special holiday traditions.
(17:32):
But as an adult, I can really understand why taking
on the extra labor of holiday magic making for their
adult children is just no longer on the table for
my parents. Also, like a lot of queer people, I too,
really value my chosen family and friends and people who
are not my actual family but that feel like family,
you know, hold the role of family in my life,
(17:53):
and sometimes scrolling social media during the holidays can make
it feel like that doesn't really count, like the holidays
are some how less special if they're not spent with
actual family. I am not alone in this. Here's Allison,
a queer woman living in Chicago who's in our thirties.
I also see lots of photos on Instagram of people
I used to go out with in matching pajamas with
(18:16):
their new significant other, And when I see this, it's like, Okay,
I get it, You've officially moved on, and the pajamas
are communicating what you want them to. Separately. I love
how people myself included, are celebrating with friends or doing
something more low key on the holidays, and it's interesting
(18:41):
how as that gets normalized now I see advertisements glorifying
the anti traditional celebrations as well. The bottom line is
that everyone deserves to feel good during the holidays, whether
you're a mom, single, in a relationship, whatever, And I
hate that social media platforms are offiting off of us
feeling like crap, comparing our holidays to each other, or
(19:03):
stressing ourselves have to create the most perfect holiday season
even if we don't really have it in us to do.
It just feels like yet another way that our negative
feelings are stoked and then monetized by tech billionaires, many
of whom, let's be real, already belong on Santa's Naughty List.
So what do we do? How do we combat this?
Megan our mom and DC says that she actually curates
(19:26):
her social media feed to reinforce the kind of mom
that she wants to be, and that social media can
actually be a help to her this time of year.
I think holidays are a very stressful time for parents
in lots of different ways. Partly because you're trying to
create a sort of magical experience for your kids and
you want them to be having fun and you want
to be having fun as a parent, and also because
(19:49):
there's all these extra stressors like your kids being out
of school for extended stretches of time or off their
normal routine. There's lots of different whoo, you know, not
their normal meal schedule, or there are things that they
normally eat. They're seeing lots of different people that they
don't see us often, and that might, you know, cause
(20:09):
lots of emotions and different feelings for both you and
your kids. And so there's just a lot of stress
coming from lots of different angles. Is a very expensive
time of year. Um, there's lots of activities going on,
so to be honest, UM, I actually find social media
to be a really really valuable resource UH during the
(20:32):
holidays and year round, partly because I follow I choose
to follow a lot of UH social media accounts, particularly
on Instagram, who are I guess parent influencers whose parenting
philosophy aligns with my own and who present UM a
(20:54):
lot of different activities and ideas, tips and scripts and
ways that you can you prep your kids and engage
with your kids and talk to your extended family and
set boundaries with you know, for yourself and for your kids,
and teach them to set boundaries and be grateful and
be gracious and all those things UM like I find
(21:17):
really really valuable. And I choose not to follow people
on social media who don't reinforce the kind of parent
that I want to be or the kind of parenting
that I want to implement UM in my own family.
And whether that's people that I know, friends or family,
or professionals like professional influencers, whoever it is, I choose
(21:38):
to only follow people that support and endorse and reinforce
the kind of parent that I want to be or
that I aspire to be. So I think that social
media for me is really really helpful. It gives me
a lot of great ideas about different things to do
in ways to engage and UM, I'm very grateful for
the parent influencers who make up that sort of community
(22:00):
of people, UH that I find to be role models
and um I'm I think that a lot of other
people who follow them um also feel that way, So
don't let algorithms decide what kind of content you want
to see this time of year. Instead, curate your social
media feed to feel like it reinforces the kind of
(22:20):
parent that you're actually interested in being. I would also
add be gentle with yourself. You know, if you didn't
have it in you to go all out this holiday,
that is a okay. Whether it was too stressful, too expensive,
it's okay to play it a little smaller, even if
platforms are only rewarding and amplifying and showing you the
opulent and the excessive. It doesn't have to be opulent
(22:41):
and excessive to be good or meaningful. I would also
question and resist the need to overconsume, especially given that
we're in this place of economic uncertainty. Having a lower
key Christmas is just fine. Giving heartfelt gifts over buying
the newest flashy item is a okay. Your kids can
still have a meaning Christmas even if the tree is
(23:01):
not overflowing with gifts. And remember, whatever you do this
holiday season is valid. So if you're staying home alone
and watching Lifetime movies with your cats in your apartment,
good for you. If you're going camping with your friends,
good for you. If you're feeling sad or emotional because
you've lost your parents or maybe don't even have a
relationship with your living parents. If you're feeling sad or
(23:24):
emotional or grieving the fact that you've lost your parents,
or maybe that you don't really have a relationship with
your family in the first place, don't make social media
make you feel like your experience. It's only valid if
it looks a certain way. And one last tip, if
you're a parent doing the holidays this season, work toward
a balanced division of labor. According to Daniel L. Carson,
an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Consumer
(23:45):
Studies at the University of Utah, couples are happier when
the perceived breakdown is viewed as more equitable. And another
reason to make sure the division of labor is equitable
in your family is that his research also shows that
couples have more satisfying sex lives when the division of
labor is more equitable. So this might even help you
get your ho ho ho on this holiday season as well. Sorry, y'all,
(24:08):
I had to anyway. I want to hear from you
all Are you a parent who is so stressed out
doing the holidays for your kid this season? Are you
a parent who loves doing the holidays and gets nothing
but fulfillment and joy out of it. Are you someone
who is not really that excited about the holidays? Are
you doing something non traditional? I want to hear about it.
Hit me up at hello at tangodi dot com and
(24:29):
let us know if you're making this holiday season? Maryan Bright,
got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi, You can be just at
hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tangodi dot com. There Are No
(24:51):
Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod.
It's a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative
Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tara Harrison is our
producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer.
I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help
us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app,
(25:11):
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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