Wilder is back in the Under the Influence feed. A brand new Little House on the Prairie just landed on Netflix and obviously Glynnis and I had thoughts. I talked to Executive Producer Joy Gorman Wettels, who had her whole team listening to Wilder while they made this show, about how she spent years getting the rights from the Friendly family, why this version centers Laura instead of Pa, how they wove in the Osage story, and why Laura Ingalls Wilder might be one of the few things that can actually get people talking to each other again. Little House on the Prairie is on Netflix July 9th. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why do we all root for art thieves? This week we're joined by Anthony Amore — director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the heist expert behind the heist in The Parisian Heist — to bust every myth Hollywood ever taught us. We get into the real story of the unsolved 1990 Gardner heist (two fake cops, 81 minutes, 13 masterpieces, none recovered), why the empty frames still hang on the walls, the Robin Hood myth of art heisting, the woman who masterminded a Vermeer heist in 1974, the greatest art thief who ever lived, and what the Louvre heist means for museums everywhere. Plus: why most heists are inside jobs, how AI is changing museum security, and why you could not, in fact, pull a heist off. Grab all of Anthony's wonderful books here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We were promised that if we worked hard enough, checked all the right boxes, and built successful careers, we'd eventually arrive at some stable version of adulthood. So why do so many women in midlife feel like we're teetering on the edge of a cliff. This week we're joined by writer and cultural critic Amil Niazi, author of Life After Ambition, for a chat about the modern midlife crisis. Not the cliché dude version with sports cars and dramatic reinventions, but the reckoning happening to so many women who have spent decades chasing success only to discover that the old definitions no longer fit. We chat about aging in industries obsessed with youth, the anxiety of work in an increasingly unstable economy, why ambition may need a complete rebrand, and what happens when we stop measuring success by titles, promotions, and external validation. Most of all, we explore the things that actually sustain us: friendship, community, creativity, family, and the freedom to build an actual life and not just the idea of one. Get Amil's book Life After Ambition here. Read her story about Midlife Crisis-ing in End Times here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summer is supposed to be relaxing, so why does it feel like five summers' worth of stress before July even hits? This week, we're pushing back on the algorithm's demands that we all have a "'90s summer" or a "nonna summer" and making the case for opting out of any kind of perfection or summer archetype entirely. We're joined by creator, blogger, and debut novelist Chassity Evans. We dig into Chassity's wild path to authorship, why she chose self-publishing over the slow grind of querying and traditional publishing, and what it's like to have real-time sales data as an indie author. Plus: our quest to bring badminton back and a tease of a very sexy Sound of Music retelling. Pre-order The Parisian Heist and grab Pink Sand Summer wherever you get your books. Join our newsletter community here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why does Parks and Recreation feel more necessary now than when it first aired? We're chatting with bestselling author and pop culture journalist Jennifer Keishin Armstrong about the enduring appeal of Leslie Knope, Pawnee, and the sitcom that accidentally became a blueprint for rebuilding community. We talk about why audiences have embraced earnestness over cynicism, how Amy Poehler helped create one of television's most iconic feminist characters, and what the show's message about friendship, local government, and collective action can teach us today. This episode is about much more than television. It's about what happens when good people decide to build something together. Get Jennifer's Book Parks and Rec: The Underdog TV Show That Lit'rally Inspired a Vision for a Better America here. Subscribe to Ministry of Pop Culture here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kate Casey, host of Reality Life with Kate Casey returns to the show with recommendations for what to watch right now, from buzzy new documentaries to true crime rabbit holes and reality television that is deliciously bonkers and addictive. We chat aboutThe Crash, Should I Marry a Murderer?, the surprisingly emotional Martin Short documentary, Kate's latest Housewives obsession, the Martha Moxley case, Spencer Pratt's political future (ed note: we recorded this before the primary), and why some stories stay lodged in our collective imagination for decades. Listen to Kate's podcast here. Read Kate's Vanity Fair piece on Martha Moxley here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our friend Stephanie McNeal wrote a truly great piece for Vulture this week called BALLERINA FARM IS HAPPY WITH HER CHOICES. Steph went to the farm and sat down with Hannah inside the homeschooling schoolhouse to talk about everything from being called a tradwife to Yesteryear to who does what in her marriage. It's the best profile of BF and Neeleman we have ever read so we had to get Steph on the show ASAP to chat through it. Read the piece here. Subscribe to Steph's Substack here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bestselling author Jane Green spent decades looking like she had the perfect life: a beautiful house, a successful career, a long marriage, children, stability, all of it. But behind the scenes she was drowning in financial fear, people pleasing, resentment, perimenopause, and the terrifying feeling that she had completely lost herself. Then she walked away. She Rewilded herself. In this deeply honest conversation based on Green's new memoir Rewilding, Jane talks about leaving her marriage, running away to Marrakech, experimenting with mushrooms, tattoos and reinvention in midlife, navigating the hormonal and emotional earthquake of menopause, and learning how to stop caring what everyone else thinks. Thanks to Bellesa for sponsoring the show! EVERYONE who signs up wins a FREE toy or gift card! Just click the link! https://www.bboutique.co/vibe/undertheinfluence-pod Get Jane's book REWILDING here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sad beige motherhood helped inspire this podcast. This week we're diving into the internet aesthetic that convinced an entire generation of mothers that parenting should look like a luxury hotel lobby in Denmark. We talk with Hayley DeRoche, aka The Official Sad Beige and author of Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe, about how influencer culture turned motherhood into a perfectly curated performance built on guilt, consumption, and extremely expensive neutral-toned stacking cups. We get into the rise of sad beige motherhood, stealth wealth aesthetics, why every stroller suddenly costs as much as a used Honda Civic, and how social media sold women the lie that if we just bought the right swaddle, sleep suit, or baby carrier, we could somehow control the total chaos of early parenting. There’s also a lot about community: why modern motherhood feels so isolating, why moms desperately need real-life support systems instead of influencer advice, and why we may all need to start forming feminist mom communes immediately. Follow the Official Sad Beige here. Order Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if the women from Girls Gone Wild finally got the mic? This week we go all the way back to the horrifyingly normalized misogyny of the early 2000s with author and podcaster Courtney Kocak, who spent seven deeply unsettling weeks working on the actual Girls Gone Wild tour bus. Courtney takes us inside the world Joe Francis built: drunk college girls signing contracts they didn’t understand, creepy power dynamics disguised as “fun,” and the moment she realized the entire machine was designed to separate women from their agency while making terrible men rich. We get into feminism’s branding problem, the manosphere, abortion shame, sex positivity after trauma, why women are exhausted from watching men face zero consequences, and whether the left needs to stop eating its own alive every five seconds online. Get Courtney's book Girl Gone Wild here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices