She’s a millionaire, one of TikTok’s most influential women, a fashion model and a mother to three, yet she’s only 22. Who is this woman and how is it even possible to be her? Someone tell her that she needs to make a tutorial, from scratch.
Nara Smith has been one of TikTok’s most viral content creators known for her creative cooking and DIY projects, all made from scratch. Many of her followers find her content entertaining due to the comforting nature of her videos and attempt to mimic her use of all organic, naturally sourced, expensive ingredients. But with fame comes a few haters, criticizing her for exaggerating the content of her life and lifestyle for views.
“[Nara Smith] went viral for being a stay-at-home wife who goes over the top and cooks homemade meals, homemade Cheez-Its even and homemade snacks,” Annie Chen (9) said. “And a lot of people find this controversial because a lot of people think she shouldn’t be doing all this and she’s doing too much.”
Nara is usually carefree about what her critics have to say about her. She continues to wear her thousand-dollar dresses while making garlic focaccia bread, casually telling her haters to mind their own business.
“I think it’s fun [to watch Nara Smith’s content],” Chen said “She has a calming voice and it doesn’t seem fake or anything, it seems genuine.A favorite part [of Nara’s content] … I think she saw all the hate comments and she made videos doing like sarcastic things about it, so I thought that was pretty funny.”
Many people can agree that Nara Smith owns the phrase “from scratch.” Her style of cooking has influenced many people to cook with all naturally sourced ingredients. However, many people, including board-certified dermatologists have criticized Nara for making skincare products with active ingredients that could potentially damage her skin barrier.
“I think it is [okay for Nara to be making skincare products] cause she’s not mass producing them, so I think it’s fine because well if people aren’t using them, no one’s going to really complain about them,” Chen said. “It’s like her own products.”
Since Nara’s content is mostly filmed in the kitchen, many people also wonder if her husband is forcing her to cook and stay at home with her children, not being able to pursue a career. Many people online are associating her content with the recent traditional wife (trad-wife) “trend” that has risen on social media.
“I know people put her as [a trad wife] but [she is] probably not,” Aylla Wexler (11) said. “She does show us little vlogs of her modeling.”
The trad wife “trend” promotes conservative and more traditional roles women played in the 17th – 20th centuries. It has brought more people to speak up about what proper gender roles are in today’s society. Through the use of TikTok and other influential social media platforms, this controversial “trend” has brought the rise of new influencers, who chose to take care of their family and household solely.
“I know half of it is sarcasm because people are just like, ‘I always bow down to my husband … I’m the woman, I need to do this, this and this,’… you know like old times … but I don’t see a lot of legitimate ones,” Wexler said. “I feel sad. I feel like the trad wife trend shouldn’t really be a trend because I feel like women need their independence.”
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Historically, women have struggled to get the opportunity to choose for themselves. Throughout centuries, women have fought for equality, so that they could spend less time in the kitchen and more in a library. However, the main idea that came from the trad wives controversy movement was the freedom of choice. As the world has become more liberalized, the idea of women having the choice to do what they want to do is normalized. With these kinds of morals, shouldn’t the choice of becoming a trad-wife also be normalized?
“If they want to [become a trad wife], that’s their choice,” Wexler said “Like if they’re fine with it, if that’s what they want to do, that’s totally fine. Only if it’s like they don’t want to, it’s kind of a problem.”
This new TikTok trend has sparked debates about earlier times when women wanted a bigger role in society, but couldn’t have them. This has led to some people questioning why some women would want to go back to that point in time.
“Some people think that people who want to be trad wives are just lazy, don’t want to work, just stay at home and do nothing,” Ashley Alvarado (10) said. “Sometimes they said that the man does all the work and women don’t do anything.But trad wives take care of the kids and the home … and it is hard.”
Even though TikTok’s version of being a trad wife influencer means wearing fancy kitchen aprons and cooking food from scratch, it has made sure to emphasize the fact that these influencers had a choice. However, this trad wife trend is not a trend for every woman across the globe. The reality of society today is that the freedom of choice is not universal. Many women are denied the chance to pursue a career outside of their homes. Even beyond the topic of a career, some women are denied the right to an opinion on topics such as marriage, having kids and more.
“Arranged marriage stuff, I feel like that’s where trad wives came from, because like when you got an arranged marriage, you are expected to be a woman,” Alvarado said. “They say that women only take care of kids, do chores and house cleaning…when it became more modernized, women could now get jobs … [and] become more independent. And then when trad wives became a thing now in the modern century, it became more of a trend and people wanted to become trad wives and [experience the lifestyle].”
As this trad wife trend is becoming increasingly popular, many people describe trad wife content creators as romanticizing their role and doing it for “the aesthetic.” They are put in situations where they are forced to take care of the kids, clean their house and act “how a traditional woman should.” Many people could argue the media is meant to spread awareness about everyone’s lifestyles and situations. This has led to the question of whether the representation of TikTok trad wives is even realistic to the trad wives in other places whose futures were predestined.
“Media is really mixing what being an actual trad wife is because I guess media is making it look more cleansed, and [instead,] makes it look more fake,” Alvarado said “The media always does that. [Media] makes it look like it’s this perfect, happy life when sometimes being a trad wife can be hard and stressful.”