Conspirituality Episode 300: "Farming Ballerinas"

Release Date: March 19, 2026
Hosts: Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
Main Theme:
A deep dive into the world of "Ballerina Farm," a viral Mormon influencer family that embodies a dreamy, homespun, back-to-the-land aesthetic—while promoting pseudoscientific health products, old-school gender roles, and problematic wellness conspiracies. The hosts break down the real-life privileges and ideology lurking behind the farm’s gorgeous social media presence, including issues of wealth, class, power imbalances, parenthood, and the mystification of domestic labor.

Episode Overview

The hosts dissect the phenomenon of Ballerina Farm—the ultra-popular Utah-based wellness+homestead influencer brand run by Hannah and Daniel Neeleman. Ostensibly a wholesome, family-run farming business showcasing raw milk, bone broth, ballet, and big Utah stone kitchens, Ballerina Farm exemplifies the new "tradwife" trend merged with wellness pseudoscience and hints of conspirituality.
Purpose: The episode critically examines how privilege, class, and religious ideology are glossed over or misrepresented in Ballerina Farm’s online persona, challenging what millions of followers see versus what is left unsaid.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Are Hannah and Daniel Neeleman? The Ballerina Farm Origin Story

• Background: Hannah Neeleman grew up Mormon in Springville, Utah, one of nine children, daughter of a flower shop owner, Juilliard-trained ballerina, and beauty pageant winner.
  • Notable quote: “She seems to have really taken the craft seriously, unlike Timothée Chalamet, who can fuck all the way off with his recent degrading comments about ballet and opera.” (Derek, 04:17)
• Daniel Neeleman: Son of JetBlue founder David Neeleman, also raised Mormon; background in tech & airlines, brings significant inherited wealth.
• Farm Founding: After living in Brazil (where they vacationed on "farm hotels"), they bought land in Utah. Their farming venture was enabled by millions from family wealth, not scrappy bootstrap effort.
• Timeline:
  • 2017: Began raising pigs in Utah
  • 2018: Fire destroyed first farm; bought new 328-acre property for $2.75M
  • 2019: Launched Ballerina Farm's social media and direct-to-consumer meat business
  • 2023: Massive online growth, presence expands to retail and dairy (including an attempted raw milk venture)

Timestamp Highlights:

• [02:02] — Introduction of Ballerina Farm & the "raw milk" controversy
• [03:38] — Hannah’s ballet + pageant credentials
• [08:11] — Revealing the JetBlue heritage and questions about funding

2. Aesthetic & Brand: Tradwife or Aspirational Influencer?

• Not quite “tradwife”: Though often grouped with the tradwife movement, Ballerina Farm skews more aspirational and cosmopolitan than overtly traditional.
  • Matthew: “There’s a sophistication that is sort of like threaded throughout all of this...it’s not completely down home.” (07:01)
• Euro-elite ballet/courtly hobbies: Ballet, expensive stoves, global travel create an elite vibe.
• Brand Contradictions: Use of high-end props (e.g., $20K–$35K stove), stylized wardrobe, and slick videography undercut the homestead authenticity.
• Hidden Labor: The feeds rarely show the 60+ staff or acknowledge the true scale of their operation.
  • Julian: “They are much more in the aspirational influencer realm than the straight tradwife realm.” (06:38)
• Mormon background: Understated online, but integral in shaping their family structure and reproductive ethics.

Timestamp Highlights:

• [04:41–06:38] — Discussion on the tradwife aesthetic vs. elite aspirations
• [15:53–18:09] — The problem of privilege and omitting key facts about wealth

3. Wellness, Pseudoscience & Raw Milk Scandal

• Wellness Products: The farm markets protein powders, “calf-first” colostrum, bone broth, and raw milk—all heavily promoted with wellness and beauty claims (e.g., “raw milk = glowy skin”).
  • Hannah in People Magazine: “Since you’ve been drinking raw milk, your skin has gotten a lot better. And I kind of think there’s something to that.” (31:23)
  • Derek, refuting: “Packaging something that has little proven health benefits for humans is worth the stress placed on the cows that’s needed to harvest it.” (32:47)
• The Raw Milk Incident:
  • Ballerina Farm’s raw milk tested positive for dangerous coliform bacteria.
  • The Neelemans’ response was deflective, blaming regulations and insisting no unsafe milk was ever sold.
  • Neeleman quote: “No, absolutely not. And when we saw some of the comments circulating on social media about this, we realized there was a lack of knowledge, a lack of education for Utah. Every batch of raw milk that’s bottled has to be tested...there was no chance that any unsafe milk would ever get to the shelf.” (37:21)

Timestamp Highlights:

• [19:47–32:47] — Detailed breakdown of the raw milk marketing, controversy, and regulatory scuffles
• [37:20–37:50] — Neeleman’s video response to the raw milk scandal

4. Power Dynamics, Gender Roles & Family Presentation

• Uneven Power: The apparent egalitarian family dynamic is belied by public instances of male dominance and traditional Mormon gender roles.
  • Julian quoting NYT scene: “Daniel is back in the room now...Do you plan pregnancies? ‘No,’ Daniel says. When he says no, Neilman responds gently. ‘It’s very much a matter of prayer for me...I’ve never been told no.’” (14:15)
  • Matthew: “I care pretty much if they’re influencing the sexual politics of millions of people...I just don’t get any sense that we’re looking at equal power here.” (13:19)
• Mormon Priesthood Structure: Men ultimately preside over the home and business, with recent rhetorical shifts trying to paint this as “subservient but equal.”
  • Blair Hodges (Mormon expert): “Men hold the power in the home...There’s also been an uptick in trying to claim that women hold the priesthood in a secondary sense...I wish I was making that up, but I’m not.” (23:56)

Timestamp Highlights:

• [13:19–16:41] — Discussion of specific power imbalances and public representations
• [23:56–25:25] — Blair Hodges explains Mormon gender and power dynamics

5. Manufacturing Authenticity: The Constructed Nature of the Feed

• Professional Staging: The “candid” family moments are highly choreographed, using multiple videographers, careful editing, and visual cues that signal authenticity while hiding scale and labor.
  • Julian: “It’s like you’re getting this window into a very domestic, humble, living off the land moment between mother and child and…cow and camera person and editing screen.” (26:30)
• Contrast Between Feed and Reality: Small-scale, manual-family-farming is an illusion. The real business is an industrial-scale, direct-to-consumer operation supported by staff, tech, and market capital.

Timestamp Highlights:

• [26:30–29:19] — Deconstruction of viral “authenticity” in Ballerina Farm videos
• [32:47] — “They also sell bone broth, cocoa, electrolyte powder, flour jerky, and multiple other food and accessory products like tote bags, aprons, even burger and breakfast food boxes. So all of this implies an extensive manufacturing and shipping operation behind the scenes.”

6. Contradictions of Motherhood, Care, and Class

• Elite Reproductive Performance: Hannah’s rapid successive pregnancies and pristine appearance are held up as an ideal that’s mostly unattainable and risky.

  • Matthew: “No one has that many babies and turns out like this…Women with off the charts genetic privilege are representing extreme visions of women’s reproductive work to other women who…would not be doing regular fashion shoots, postpartum workout reels, or making it seem like nothing had changed their ballerina physiques.” (38:19)

• Unwaged Labor Romanticized: Influencers profit by glamourizing unpaid care work, fostering the “mystification” of domestic labor as love and ignoring its economic value.

• Parenting at Scale: The show notes (with input from ex-evangelical Tia Levins) that in huge religious families, “parenting” often becomes regimented child management (blanket training, parentification, corporal punishment), not the attentive engagement presented online.

  • Tia Levins Quote: “How do they get that many kids under control?... Blanket training. Severe corporal punishment. Intentional neglect. Parentification and practices that force children to suppress their development and needs are common in these extremely large families.” (44:37)

  • Matthew, on resource dilution in families: “...The finding is that this range of deficits in attention and care...accrue as the number of siblings rise.” (47:22)

  • Julian, on nostalgia for “latchkey” neglect: “We were latchkey kids and we were fine.” (50:46)

Timestamp Highlights:

• [38:19–44:10] — Deep dive into the physical toll and rarity of high-parity motherhood
• [44:37–51:00] — Parenting strategies in mega-families, resource dilution, and child autonomy

7. Capitalism, Gender, and the Mystification of Housework

• Silvia Federici’s perspective: The show closes with a Marxist-feminist analysis, positioning Ballerina Farm as a colossal “performance of mystification”—romanticizing domestic labor as natural, unaccounted-for love essential for capitalism.
  • Matthew, paraphrasing Federici: “...What appears in the culture as love or feminine nature is in fact labor that we’re not calling labor. And it’s unwaged so that capital can appropriate it invisibly.” (52:58)
  • Federici Quote (via Matthew):
    “Housework had to be transformed into a natural attribute rather than be recognized as a social contract, because from the beginning of capital's scheme for women, this work was destined to be unwaged. Capital had to convince us that it is a natural, unavoidable, and easy, even fulfilling activity to make us accept our unwaged work.” (52:58)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|-----------|--------| | 04:17 | Derek | “She seems to have really taken the craft seriously, unlike Timothée Chalamet, who can fuck all the way off with his recent degrading comments about ballet and opera.” | | 13:19 | Matthew | “I care pretty much if they're influencing the sexual politics of millions of people...I just don't get any sense that we're looking at equal power here.” | | 23:56 | Blair Hodges | “Men hold the power in the home...There’s also been an uptick in trying to claim that women hold the priesthood in a secondary sense in that the men will delegate to them certain responsibilities… Now, they’re not ordained to it and they can’t do anything with it. But that's the rhetorical shift the church has been trying to take. I wish I was making that up, but I'm not.” | | 26:30 | Julian | “It's like you're getting this window into a very domestic, humble, living off the land moment between mother and child and cow and camera person and editing screen.” | | 31:23 | Hannah (quoted from People) | “Since you’ve been drinking raw milk, your skin has gotten a lot better. And I kind of think there’s something to that.” | | 37:21 | Daniel/Hannah | “No, absolutely not [unsafe milk was never sold]...there was no chance that any unsafe milk would ever get to the shelf.” | | 44:37 | Tia Levins (quoted) | “How do they get that many kids under control?... Blanket training. Severe corporal punishment. Intentional neglect. Parentification...” | | 52:58 | Matthew (via Federici) | “Housework had to be transformed into a natural attribute rather than be recognized as a social contract, because from the beginning of capital's scheme for women, this work was destined to be unwaged.” |

Segment Timestamps

• 01:18 — Podcast proper begins
• 02:02 — Introduce Ballerina Farm / the raw milk episode premise
• 03:38–09:11 — Background: Hannah, Daniel, family, origin story
• 11:39–15:53 — Controversies: religion, medical advice, power dynamic
• 19:47–38:19 — Raw milk, marketing, feed analysis
• 38:19–44:10 — Grand multiparity, health tensions, influencer contradictions
• 44:10–51:00 — Parenting at scale, resource dilution, discipline
• 52:58 — Marxist-feminist critique and concluding thoughts

Tone & Language

True to Conspirituality’s signature style:

• Analytical, irreverent, incisive.
• Frequent references to theory, lived experience, and pop culture.
• Language is accessible but rigorous, with biting humor and compassion.

Summary Takeaway

This episode reveals how viral influencers like Ballerina Farm manufacture a fantasy of accessible, authentic rural living—subtly propping up patriarchal, capitalist, and religious ideals, and smuggling health pseudoscience into the wellness mainstream. The hosts interrogate not only the ethics and contradictions of Ballerina Farm’s content, but also the broader forces that allow such phenomena to flourish in contemporary conspirituality culture.

Recommended for: Media watchdogs, parents, wellness skeptics, cult-spotters, and anyone tracking the overlap between “trad” content and digital-age wellness grift.