On social media, it’s relatively easy to find breadwinners cosplaying as homemakers.

Call it the rise of the “tradwife” on social media, where women have, in recent years, grown huge followings posting content showing themselves participating in “traditional” gender roles, like making food from scratch or raising a gaggle of kids.

Where there are viral accounts, there are often brands galore. Model and mother Nara Smith, whose from-scratch cooking videos have repeatedly gone viral, has posted paid ads for brands including Marc Jacobs, Prada, and Ruggable to her 15+ million followers, and has modeled for brands like Aritzia and Hunter Boots.

Meanwhile, Hannah Neeleman, who posts about her Utah farm and her family of 10 to her more than 20 million followers under the handle @BallerinaFarm, has promoted brands like Ogee skin care, as well as her own brand, Farmer Protein Powder, and her family’s Ballerina Farm Store, which sells everything from aprons to ground-beef subscription boxes. Smith and Neeleman’s content often evokes nostalgia for the (largely fictionalized) 1950s nuclear family, but the reality is that brand partnerships, monetized views, and their own brands represent big business for those creators.

“They are entrepreneurs, so it’s kind of a big contradiction …We need to be traditional housewives at home being kept,’ but realistically, you are co-opting that lifestyle,” Krysten Stein, assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College, told Marketing Brew.

As creators like Smith and Neeleman become celebrities in their own right, the brands that partner with them are wading into controversial waters, participating in performances of domestic life that stand to have real-world consequences in a post-Dobbs world.

“I think that a lot of people understand that Nara Smith doesn’t really make pancakes in an evening gown,” Molly Barth, brand strategy manager at Gale, told us. “But some people might not really get that. They might see that as her real life, and that’s where it gets dangerous: where people start believing that that’s a realistic depiction of what being a trad wife or a stay-at-home wife is.”

Continue reading here.—KH

Creators and users anticipating an end to TikTok last week flocked to RedNote—and it looks like the company wanted to keep the momentum going.

On Friday, the Chinese social media app also known as Xiaohongshu, which topped Apple’s App Store charts last week, was running advertisements within both Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store. The platform was also advertising within Apple’s App Store when users searched for both TikTok and Lemon8, a different ByteDance-owned photo and video-sharing app.

The apparent advertising push came as the curtain seemed poised to (maybe, potentially) close on TikTok’s time in the US. According to the Pew Research Center, the platform is used by one-third of US adults. On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld a law banning the app in the US if ByteDance does not divest from its US operations, briefly taking the app offline over the weekend. On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order giving TikTok more time to find a deal, and the app is online for the time being—but it’s unclear what exactly a potential deal might look like.

Red notice: While many marketers have predicted a move to Meta platforms like Instagram and Facebook in the event of a TikTok ban, many TikTok creators and some users have resisted, instead turning to RedNote and engaging in an extremely online and meta cultural exchange. Since last week, RedNote downloads in the US were up more than 30x year over year, according to data from the market intelligence company SensorTower.

Read more here.—RB

Last April, when Taylor Swift was spotted wearing activewear brand Popflex’s Pirouette Skort, the product experienced record sales—and 19,000 preorders—sending founder and CEO Cassey Ho scrambling to meet demand. Secretly, behind the scenes, she was stretching herself thin designing her debut line for Target, which hit stores nationwide last month.

Ho, who rose to fame as founder of Pilates platform Blogilates, previously launched workout equipment with Target under the name in 2020. When Target contacted Ho in December 2023 about an apparel line, she set out to design more affordable versions of Popflex products, which range from $60 leggings to more than $100 for outerwear.

“We started off the deck with comments from people being like, ‘Why can’t I get this at Target?’ ‘When’s it going to be at Target?’ ‘I can’t afford Popflex,’” Ho told Retail Brew. “The whole point was to make this more accessible for more people.”

The 108-page deck she presented to Target ultimately became an activewear line priced starting at $15, available at the retailer for six weeks.

• The line has already gone viral, garnering TikToks of product try-ons, reviews, and comparisons to Popflex.

Creating the line while balancing the sudden popularity and stamping down skort dupes that popped up made 2024 a “difficult” year with constant problem-solving, Ho said. Adapting the line to be not only cheaper, but sold in stores for the first time, wasn’t easy, and Ho shared how a team of seven made it happen and the risk it took to, well, dupe itself.

Read more on Retail Brew.—EC

What are the secrets behind Elmo’s viral success on social media? From nostalgic moments to spontaneous interactions, learn how Sesame Workshop crafts feel-good content that resonates with millions. Plus, dive into the strategies driving Elmo’s popularity and how they bring joy and education to today’s digital world.