I love doomscrolling on TikTok. What better way to avoid that 15-page research paper than to watch short-form content specifically targeted to you for hours at a time?
In early 2024, my For You page decided it was time for me to be introduced to TradTok, a growing community of “traditional” families who aspire to live in the olden days.
Many TradTok stars are women who give the term an iconic brand image. Normally adorned in modest dresses and surrounded by children are women who prefer to call themselves traditional wives, or trad wives.
These wives have a pristine presence on social media. With beautiful homes in the countryside, well-behaved kids and attentive husbands, what’s not to like?
But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Beyond the thin veil of home-cooked meals and idyllic farm lives, trad wives sell a manufactured and unattainable dream for the majority of American women that contributes to the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Social media serves as a means of business for many people. Having a carefully-curated image of yourself online for millions of followers can bring in a substantial amount of money and is a dream job for many.
To be a trad wife, you need to have a substantial amount of money and societal privilege to even begin the process. Most trad wives have no other job and solely rely on their husband’s income to support their lifestyle.
Only the most successful trad wives are able to make money from their social media accounts, but most hide this fact. These wives do have jobs but would rather keep up traditional appearances and market themselves as being completely dependent on the work of their husband.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people turned to online platforms to document their unique lives to show the world a different side of life.
This is when many women — mostly from wealthy backgrounds — chose to market a clean, pristine brand of life, where you marry the man of your dreams and drink raw milk with farm-fresh, organic produce and goods.
I must admit, their lifestyle doesn’t sound too bad compared to the rat race of normal life. However, cutting yourself off from the rest of the world is no way to live. Ignorance isn’t always bliss, and trad wives are proof of this.
Some of TradTok’s most famous and influential creators present their ideas to their screen-addicted audiences. While not all trad wives fall into this category, a growing number of people in this movement are proponents of ideals like Christian Nationalism.
Christian Nationalism is a uniquely American ideology that combines evangelical Christian values with conservative politics. It’s a wildly popular movement that has paved the way for current trends in the political sphere, including the reelection of President Donald Trump.
Across the country, we have seen a shift in Americans’ thought processes that closely align with what trad wives post and promote on their social media platforms. It’s no wonder this movement is more popular than ever.
One of the most frequent ideas that many trad wives peddle is vaccine skepticism. Vaccines work, but women in this space say the vaccination of children can cause autism, a range of other illnesses and developmental disorders. Vaccine skepticism is on the rise, and in our state, a preventable disease like measles has now infected over 500 Texans.
Trad wives market lies. It isn’t just what they say or how they treat other people, but how they live their lives. There’s nothing more untraditional than filming TikTok videos about a way of life that’s no longer possible.
We are no longer living in the 19th century. We shouldn’t have to worry about unpasteurized milk or children dying of measles. Yet, we’re moving in a direction where this just might be the case.
Many of the trad wives we see on our screens are smart, funny and entertaining women who use their platform to enable some of the biggest lies in our world. As consumers of social media, we have the choice to like, follow and support those who fit into our worldviews. Trad wives embody an outdated ideal that no longer works in our country.
We can choose who speaks for us. I’m choosing to no longer doomscroll and instead have active participation in whose brand I consume. Will you do the same?
Wyatt Pickering is a business honors and finance sophomore and opinion writer for The Battalion.
