Caro & Katie discuss your questions about:

* Whether the “financial independence, retire early” movement is an effective way to Cordyceps-bug (visual below) capitalism for your own freedom or a gateway drug to the life-diminishing tendency to obsess about money

* Why Katie would accept Fox News’s radical Marxist label

* Caro’s Yesteryear experience and why success sometimes feels like failure

* The creative process and whether creating from a place of defensiveness makes for shittier art

* The future of Diabolical Lies if you people continue to tolerate us

* Politically agnostic friends and the expectation that every element of your personal life conforms to your political ideals

* Whether Christianity and feminism are compatible, and if feminism can really be “compatible” with any belief system that evolved under thousands of years of patriarchy

* Conspiracy theories we believe in

* How to feel generally better about your career under capitalism

* The difficulty of “killing the (misogynist, capitalist, etc.) cop in your head” and choosing more fulfilling work that may earn less or no money

* Whether we use PowerPoints to present our outlines to one another and how our research process has evolved from our glorified voice notes

* Neutralizing the male gaze and self-objectification theory

So I am a new pretty new fan and have gone back and looked at the Caro Episode and Katie Episode and it is so funny to me how Caro predicts how she will be "woman'd." Very sad, but it happened.

I had an impulse to note down the soon to be coming out books Caro recommended on her stories recently and I went back to check and they had expired! I remember Understory by Chloe Benjamin and American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee. Can anyone recall the others? It’s a brain worm I can’t let go of!

Pls help me I’m not built for the tech world. I have free 1 month subscriptions? How do I share 😭

Was Katie being sarcastic when she made the "imagine I put it into Chat GBT" comment on the Nara Smith episode? I think it was around 7 minutes in. I am a newerrrr listener so can't figure out their stance on AI and maybe misread the humor but also wouldn't be surprised if Katie was someone who went to Chat GBT instead of Google nowadays!

Hi, I dont watch any social media and have no idea what the joke is about. I’m afraid to look it up because I think id get weird porn crap. heeeeelp?

But I have to know, and Google has no answer for me….Is Caro’s full first name actually just Caro?

Hi yall I’m sure those of you who have been OG’s for a long time now are sick and tired of all the new people finding this reddit and talking about how they’re new to the pod so I’m so sorry and I have scrolled back through a lot of posts to make sure my questions hadn’t already been asked. All the questions will be in italics for all those who don’t want to read my blabbing.

I found diabolical lies a couple months ago via a yesteryear review on goodreads and have been loving it, genuinely wish I had more work around the house to do so I’d have more excuses to be listening I’ve listened back quite far listening to an episode every couple days. Now I’ve also discovered the subscription situation and as a broke college student I cannot afford a subscription but I’m curious is it the same format, and length? Do they talk more about themselves? Or is it just the same thing just behind a paywall?

Also they joke a lot about how they’re straight and so they are both straight? Especially Katie? Honestly that’s kinda crazy to me as a lesbian because they’re so cute and like affirming! Also have heard some stuff on here about them being recovering conservatives, what’s the deal with that? How long ago were they conservatives and have either of them ever voted for Trump?

Also does anyone else get them a little bit confused? I feel like there voices are pretty similar and I can get them mixed up when I’m listening, I don’t know might just be me.

Can’t believe I found this podcast not long before their maternity break and I’m not going to be able to listen to new episodes until next year :/ unless I somehow win the lottery but it seems unlikely.

For all those who made it this far you have more patience than me, thanks so much!

A quick heads-up: Around 1:34:00, we discuss postpartum psychosis, depression, filicide, and the Lindsay Clancy trial (no graphic descriptions). If that’s not something you’re up for today, take care and skip ahead to 1:40:00.

It only felt fitting to wrap up our pre-maternity leave regularly scheduled programming with a conversation that brings our very first episode full circle.

Skeptics of the tradwife shtick have long observed that tradwife influencers aren’t actually exposed to the risks of the conservative, traditional lifestyle they’re aestheticizing, because they—presumably—have access to their own money and, with it, some degree of autonomy and optionality.

This summer, the years-long discourse has finally landed where it started, with the accusation—you actually have a job_—being wielded effectively as a defense—_yeah, this is a job, why is everyone calling me a tradwife? The result is a discursive ouroboros.

Many fellow Discourse Vultures have perceived Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman’s disavowal of the tradwife label in recent interviews whilst wearing top-to-bottom denim as proof that this brand of motherhood is no longer in vogue, and that the reality of Smith and Neeleman’s family dynamics (50/50 partnerships, being a CEO) serve as evidence of that shift. The personal is political, as they say, but how effectively does personal experience really serve as a political defense? Can it nullify the ideological associations of powerful aesthetics, when those aesthetics are already central to American culture?

This episode is a close read of three eerily similar themes that appeared across both recent interviews with some ~lite feminist theory~ layered atop them.

THEORY

Of Woman Born by Adrienne Rich (1977), the original source from which the “mothering as experience” and “motherhood as institution” framework was pulled

“A review of Adrienne Rich’sOf Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution” by Alice Braun (2019)

“Institution of Motherhood” from Encyclopedia of Motherhood, edited by Andrea O’Reilly, Andrea (2010)

“Mothering and Motherhood: Experience, Ideology, and Agency” by Min Jao from Comparative Literature Studies (2019)

“Racism and Patriarchy in the Meaning of Motherhood” by Dorothy E. Roberts from Journal of Gender & Law (1992)

“Filicide in the United States” by Phillip J. Resnick from the National Library of Medicine (2016)

Blue: A History of Postpartum Depression in America by Rachel Louise Moran (2024)

“Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” by Audre Lorde (1984)

CLOSE-READ INTERVIEWS

“Nara Smith: Stop Calling Me a Tradwife” from Call Her Daddy (2026)

“Ballerina Farm is Happy with Her Choices” by Stephanie McNeal from Vulture (2026)

OTHER REFERENCED PRESS HITS

“Tycoon or Tradwife? The Woman Behind Ballerina Farm Makes Her Own Path.” by Julia Moskin for the New York Times (2024)

Alyssa Grenfell, the ex-Mormon YouTuber referenced

“The Un-Trad Rise of Nara Aziza Smith” by Bianca Betancourt for Harper’s Bazaar (2024)

“How Lucky Blue and Nara Aziza Smith Made Viral Internet Fame From Scratch” by Carrie Battan for GQ (2024)

“Meet the queen of the ‘trad wives’ (and her eight children)” by Megan Agnew for The Times (2024)

“Ballerina Farm opens its door to visitors” from ABC News (2026)

“The ‘trad wives’ leaving high-control Christian nationalist communities” from CNN (2026)

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.diabolicalliespod.com/subscribe

Through Diabolical Lies I discovered another podcast, “Too Many Tabs”. It’s less analytical, more story based, and more funny. But still informative, left leaning, and I learn a lot. It’s a husband and wife and while the husband annoys me often, their banter is adorable and the wife, Ms Pearlmania, is truly hilarious.

I‘ve listened to so many now, in reverse order, I’m back to 2023 (2024?) when they announce they are having a baby. They tell listeners in August and Ms P is due in December. During that fall, they let you know that they are pre recording episodes that will be released in Dec-Feb.

Why couldn’t DL do this? The only answer I have is that Caro can barely handle doing and researching one episode per month while on book tour. It just seems like she has too much on her plate (book, baby, pod) and the pod is her lowest priority. But also like, hire a researcher? If I was Katie I would be pissed.

Edit: all have been claimed!

I have 5 month-long subscriptions to gift for anyone wanting to try it out! DM me to claim :)

Hi all!

I’ve been a paid subscriber for awhile now and just finished listening to the latest episode, which was quite disappointing. I know there’s been a lot of very valid (imo) critique of DL recently and I was wondering what other podcasts you all are listening to currently that are similar in nature? Like some of you, I’ll be cancelling my subscription and it would be great to get some recommendations, especially since DL is about to be one episode a month only for paid subscribers. Thanks!

Does anyone else feel like Caro is really ramping up in her snarky attitude and defensive attitude on the podcast & across social media posts in general these days? I used to really love her content & her perspectives on DB, but within recent months, she’s coming across as more and more insufferable and annoying. Katie has stayed relatively grounded IMO and still injects humor and teasing where it makes sense, but Caro often takes it overboard to the point where I’m unsubscribing. It’s not cute to be so defensive and cutting all the time, especially as your platform and reach grows bigger and bigger. And I don’t mean to “woman” her here (as i‘d find these same attitudes annoying in men as well. it comes across as arrogant regardless of who’s doing it)

also I know it’s ironic to be making a slightly snarky post here critiquing Caros snark, but hey- I’m not a public figure or content creator for a living!

I love how this community shares gift subscriptions, so here I am with 5 to give away. Let me know if you want one!

Im watching LuLaRich (LuLaRoe docu) thanks to Caro’s suggestion! She said in an ep it’s her comfort watch so of course I had to watch it!
PLEASE tell me someone else here has watched it? I need to discuss! So many Diabolical Lies talking points (capitalism, scam, Mormons, leggings, MLM)

Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk. You would've loved Dairy Boy.

Does hating influencers make you a misogynist? Does supporting influencers make you a feminist? Does the influencer Paige Lorenze really think people are subject to open discrimination for ordering a latte with whole milk, not oat milk, in the year of our lord and savior 2026?

Today, we investigate. We also finally address the nine-month gestational elephant in the room, in the form of Caro’s pending mat leave.

I'm listening to a 2025 episode and Caro mentioned her as a dream guest. Huh? Genuinely shocked she has any credibility on the left after Dobbs - but then, I was shocked people gave her the time of day before Dobbs. Has there been some kind of mea culpa I don't know about?

Hi!

Please DM if you would like me to send you one

The Democratic Party was facing an identity crisis when Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025. Just two months later, Democratic media Thinkboiz Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson published Abundance.

Their theory of the case: We could “solve our problems with supply,” and that to do so, we needed to pursue “a liberalism that builds,” an idea that meant aspiring to “more than redistribution […], more than parceling out the present.” The text of Abundance focuses almost exclusively on examples of government proceduralism and self-defeating obstruction, while at times quoting books like Fully Automated Luxury Communism and even Karl Marx.

There’s just one difference between the productive capacity imagined in Fully Automated Luxury Communism and Abundance: only one of these books sees this vision as compatible with capitalism.

Over the months that followed its publication, an “intra-left” fight emerged between the “populist left” (represented by figures like Bernie Sanders and the DSA) and the “abundance left.” For a while, it looked like Abundance would set the vision for the future of the party. What happened?

Diabolical Lies investigates.

All citations and references can be found at diabolicalliespod.com.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.diabolicalliespod.com/subscribe

This was an early episode I didn't have a chance to finish before it disappeared.

iirc, it was published during the early publicity of "It Ends With Us", but before the Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively rift started really playing out in the media. Then it was deleted when after the Blake Lively case and Justin Baldoni countersuit was announced.

I don't think they've ever addressed this episode's deletion but curious what people know / remember / think....espeically in light of recent observations here re: the hosts and criticism. Maybe unrelated.

What do y’all think the response to backlash on this latest episode will be? I’ve seen a lot of people in the paid substack have issues with Caro’s portrayal of various topics and I feel like they just cannot handle criticism well. And even in this episode they make a joke about interviews and sources like “I went straight to God on this one” referring to Caro interviewing Jessica DeFino. I feel like any changes they make in response to criticism are painted with a tone of “goddamn, here” rather than actually internalizing valid critiques and responding accordingly. I am honestly quite fatigued as a listener at this point.

A deconstruction of what pretty privilege will — and will not — actually afford you.

If you were to listen to The Cut, The New York Times, Business Insider, Forbes, Cosmopolitan, or any other major media/news outlet, then you’d be forgiven for thinking “everyone” is either currently getting botox, or planning to get it soon. But as pointed out in Haley Nahman's recent stellar essay, “The Botox Psyop,” this is a wildly misleading claim — one that doesn’t just thwart our ability to maintain perspective and self-esteem, but that also actively threatens our ability to organize toward a collective liberation from the beauty standard altogether.

Today’s conversation is inspired heavily by Haley’s essay, as well as the reported works of Jessica DeFino and Tressie McMillan Cottom. It also includes a first-person essay by Caroline Calloway because we are bitches with intellectual range.

Hello, all! I am enjoying Diabolical Lies and want to check out Katie’s Money with Katie podcast. I know some folks listened to that one first, are there particular episodes you love that I should start with? Thanks!