Ballerina Farm Fans Bite Back

And they be bitchy. PLUS ALL MY THOUGHTS on the latest profile of Ballerina Farm

I keep telling myself to just stop writing about Ballerina Farm (the multimillion dollar brand that features Hannah Neeleman and her family). I mainly want to do this for my own mental health. See, every time I write about Ballerina Farm, the brand that wants to sell you meat and sour dough starters and is DEFINITELY hoping to be the next Magnolia, I get mercilessly attacked online.

Some of these attacks come from Ballerina Farm stans, the fans who believe the brand can do no wrong. And some definitely come from fake accounts that are bots trying to gin up more interest in accounts like Ballerina Farm that perpetuate a model of conservative values.

It doesn’t matter where the hate is coming from or the fact that I know it is bullshit. It always stings. It sucks and I hate it and as a person who is trying to have less anxiety leading up to the most important book launch of their life (pre-order early The Sicilian Inheritance early and often friends) I tell myself that I should just not write about Ballerina Farm and spare myself the shit-talking from random people so I can sleep better.

Here are a couple of the latest comments:

What bothers me the most about these kinds of comments (and there are some that are way worse that tell me to burn in hell and that my babies should be taken away from me because I am a sinful bitch), is that the commenters immediately assume that any kind of cultural and media critique of this brand stems from jealousy because OF COURSE all women are jealous of other women. Fuck that.

Then there is this weird comment about Texas. Definitely from some bot farm in a basement in Eastern Europe trying to get a certain person re-elected.

That one was confusing. So the Times just covered Ballerina Farm in a profile that a hundred of you sent to me.

My goal in all my commentary is to separate Hannah, the mom and woman and wife from the BRAND Ballerina Farm. Bullying a woman and mother is something I will not do. Criticizing a HUGE brand for being tone deaf is something that must be done.

I have a lot of thoughts on this Times profile. A LOT. I am putting them behind the paywall because of the kinds of threats I get every time I talk about this. I actually can’t even believe I am typing that. It is absurd to me that it has become so hard to have measured intelligent conversations, but that is the world we live in right now.

I also wanted to share another post you sent me on the family’s homeschooling.

OK now onto my thoughts on the NYT article.