What to Read: Kathryn Jezer-Morton is researching the mamasphere
This week, we interviewed Kathryn Jezer-Morton, who writes Mothers Under the Influence, a publication that examines the phenomenon of social media momfluencers.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What’s your Substack about in one sentence?
I write about “momfluencers,” and changing norms and trends in the “mamasphere”—the internet of moms.
You’re currently studying momfluencers as a Ph.D. candidate. Why did you start a Substack, and how does it complement your academic research?
I started the newsletter as a treat to keep myself engaged while writing my dissertation. Diss-writing can be really lonely, and I’m used to writing for an audience—I’ve been writing freelance for over a decade. For the first year of the pandemic, the vagaries of my life put my dissertation on full hiatus. When I decided to get back to work on it, I found that it was hard to build up momentum and I needed an audience’s accountability to help get me excited about the topic again.
A newsletter was a way to invite readers into my thought processes, and to sharpen some of my ideas against the pressure of having to explain them to non-academics. Also, I know a lot of people have thoughts on this topic, and I wanted to open up the conversation so it wasn’t just happening in the echo chamber of my head.
How do you define a momfluencer? What’s the momfluencer origin story?
A momfluencer is anyone who makes brand-partnership money from her social media presence. (I would apply she/her pronouns because at this point it’s a very cisgendered space.) It’s a huge population—there are millions of women all over the world trying to do this.
Momfluencers emerged right alongside Instagram in the early 2010s. Basically, “mommy bloggers” started using Instagram and found that brands wanted to partner with them in creating sponsored content. Now they’re on TikTok increasingly, but I study Instagram, because if I tried to do both, my brain would melt. Once I finish my dissertation I can start paying attention to TikTok.
You’re driven to understand the mamasphere rather than skewer it, and you’ve said that you love speaking to momfluencers about their work. What have you discovered from talking directly to these women that surprised you?
Academic research affords you so much more time than journalism, and the more time I spend talking to someone, the easier it is to understand their perspective. It’s easy to think of momfluencers as different from everyday, not-online moms, but I no longer see it that way at all. Momfluencing isn’t someone’s personality—it’s their job.
My research has clarified how much of a profession momfluencing is, and influencing in general is. They’re not necessarily obfuscating or being dishonest, but what they’re doing is business. They are going to create content that makes sense from a business perspective as well as telling a compelling story about their lives. Some people have always been critical of momfluencers for being “inauthentic,” and I just think that’s kind of a misunderstanding of the format. I’m interested in why people are compelled to demand this total homey authenticity from the moms, though—that’s a whole topic in itself.
“Momfluencing isn’t someone’s personality—it’s their job.”
You’ve written about the once-ubiquitous letterboard phenomenon, the aesthetics of “cozy season,” and charcuterie boards as fantasies of abundance. Looking into the future, what trends do you foresee among momfluencers?
Well, I’m interested in how momfluencing is going to change as younger people—Gen Z people—start families. Today’s big popular momfluencers will age out of the space in the next decade, and we will probably start seeing some “older mom” content but also a whole new representation of what it means to be a mom, being constructed by these younger people with maybe slightly different values. I’m beginning to see moms abandon the tried-and-true visual style of the 2010s momfluencers that’s been reliant on very flattering, posed full-body photos (you know, the bent knee, the pointed toe, the knee-high boot, all that stuff) and do more informal selfie-based content. You’re also seeing less of the kids, because people are getting sensitive about online privacy in a way they haven’t previously been.
Who’s another Substack writer you’d recommend?
Edith Zimmerman has been such a singular voice for me ever since she founded The Hairpin back in the early aughts. I would follow her writing/drawing to the ends of the internet, and luckily I don’t have to because she publishes Drawing Links.
She had a baby recently, and her posts about being a new mom are so moving. I’ve read soooo much mom content over the years, and my kids are getting older—I sometimes feel like I’ve read it all and there’s a callus over my heart at this point, but her drawings about new mom life have brought me to tears.
Subscribe to Kathryn’s publication, Mothers Under the Influence, and find her on Twitter.
It's utterly fascinating to me that someone is studying momfluencing -- thanks for highlighting Kathryn's Substack. (I second her comments about Edith Zimmerman's newsletter -- I too am a few years out from those hazy newborn days, and wow, does she bring me right back, somehow, with renewed tenderness and compassion for my past mama self that was doing her best.)
A mommy mrowka in Poland that I know used this to her advantage. She bought a rather expensive custom-ordered imported baby stroller, but there was something wrong with the stroller and the store refused to accept a return. (Customer service has come a long ways in Poland, but it is still nothing like the level that Americans are used to.)
The mrowka told the store owner that she had a rather influential mommy blog and was sure to inform all the other mommies that read this blog about this store and its terrible returns policy. Total BS, BTW.
The store owner was very quick to make an exception to the returns policy.
Normally I am so preoccupied with my own writing, that I forget to read, and learn in order to better inform that writing. This article has helped me to do that and I thank you. No moms, no future.
That’s such an interesting subject to examine as a research pursuit. There’s such an ebb and flow work trends, subject matter, level of transparency… I’d be interested to hear her dissertation. There are so many avenues to explore.
I think the title of this blog should be tweaked. At first, I thought it would provide insight to the problem of mothers who suffer from substance abuse. Which is much needed.
I just joined substack yesterday and yours was first email that came in!
I was looking for the right word to describe myself in my profile .. "divine mom"..."mom mentor"..."Soul Mama"..nothing felt right to describe what I've done differently over the last 21 years raising 3 thriving, happy, hardworking souls who have found their passions, living their calling and are super supportive siblings to each other (son 21, twin girls 20)...MOMFLUENCER!!!
THANK YOU! I love that you are studying how moms impact with our writing and sharing - so much wisdom here.
I broke alot of the "parenting rules" and followed my inner spirit.
I left my corp exec role to be a full time mom and found a new more flexible and fulfilling career as a spiritual life coach leaving accounting (what never resonated) behind. Initially as a new mom I was SO busy DOING the mom role, I didn't realize BE-ING is a verb like RUNNING : ) Being present is a continue practice with them even today!
Through their years growing up, I believed in the light of their soul, could see the beauty of their Spirit, and when they can finally see it in themselves - this alignment creates harmony at home, which leads to using the "Golden Rule" for order in the nation, and one day - I hope there will be peace in the world.
As a parent, the use of power and control is where everything goes right or wrong.
Children depend on their parents to awaken and use their "position of power" with spiritual integrity not abuse. It's a stewardship role we've been given for a child's soul development that carries on beyond this world.
Our real responsibility is to create a healthy safe space for our children's creative spirit to thrive. It's why I believe parenting and "knowing thyself" are the 2 most important "jobs" in the world.
Momfluencer...thank you!
I have a visceral distaste for both the name and concept of "influencer." To my ear, the term comprises an amalgam of arrogance, opportunism, and gaslighting.
The Mamasphere should enjoy this:
"California should abolish parenthood, in the name of equity
Joe Mathews Zócalo
Public Square
If California is ever going to achieve true equity, the state must require parents to give away their children.
Today’s Californians often hold up equity — the goal of a just society completely free from bias — as our greatest value. Gov. Gavin Newsom makes decisions through “an equity lens.” Institutions from dance ensembles to tech companies have publicly pledged themselves to equity.
But their promises are no match for the power of parents.
Fathers and mothers with greater wealth and education are more likely to transfer these advantages to their children, compounding privilege over generations. As a result, children of less advantaged parents face an uphill struggle, social mobility has stalled, and democracy has been corrupted. More Californians are abandoning the dream; a recent Public Policy Institute of California poll found declining belief in the notion that you can get ahead through hard work.
My solution — making raising your own children illegal — is simple, and while we wait for the legislation to pass, we can act now: the rich and poor should trade kids, and homeowners might swap children with their homeless neighbors.
Now, I recognize that some naysayers will dismiss such a policy as ghastly, even totalitarian. But my proposal is quite modest, a fusion of traditional philosophy and today’s most common political obsessions."
https://www.vcstar.com/story/opinion/columnists/2022/01/13/column-california-should-abolish-parenthood-name-equity/6513756001/
Whoa. Yuri just took this mommy apart, piece by piece. Pray for her sons. Then “blame Canada”. LOL!
This was a great article! Please check out my blog! :)
I think the title of this blog should be tweaked.