Rewatch My So Called Life With Me

Rewatch My So Called Life With Me

Author: Jo Piazza November 11, 2025 Duration: 55:08
It’s been thirty years since My So-Called Life premiered—thirty years since Angela Chase fell for Jordan Catalano and quietly redefined what teenage angst looked like. This week, Under the Influence rewinds to 1994 for a nostalgic deep dive into the one-season show that changed how we saw adolescence, parents, and ourselves. Emily Crandall, a political theorist with a PhD from CUNY who moonlights as an underemployed adjunct and podcast maker (“Yay, capitalism”), and Esme Shaller, a clinical psychologist and professor at UCSF whose middle school daughters are currently reading The Babysitters Club, join the conversation. Together, they explore how My So-Called Life captured the confusion and loneliness of being fifteen, why its portrayal of parents feels so different through adult eyes, and how it laid the groundwork for every coming-of-age show that followed. It’s a love letter to the nineties—a time before phones, when friendship was analog, music was everything, and watching a boy lean against a locker could still break your heart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In Under the Influence with Jo Piazza, journalist and mother Jo Piazza pulls back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar world of social media influence. This isn't just another show about viral trends; it's a critical exploration of the aspirational marketing that haunts our feeds, where perfectly posed lives in spotless homes mask a complex economy. Jo examines how this ecosystem fundamentally reshapes our culture, our families, and our personal sense of self, especially for parents and kids navigating this curated reality. Each episode of this podcast digs into the forces that brought us here, asking what it means to live, parent, and consume under this constant, monetized influence. You'll hear specific stories and analysis that connect the dots between the content we scroll past and the larger societal machinery at work. The conversation naturally extends beyond the screen to question the real-world impact on our journals, our relationships, and our understanding of value. Under the Influence with Jo Piazza provides the context often missing from the comments section, offering a necessary perspective for anyone who has ever scrolled and wondered about the true cost of that airbrushed perfection.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Under the Influence with Jo Piazza
Podcast Episodes
Sunday Nice Things: Dissecting Tradwives and Feminism [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:16
Today I'm dropping an interview that I did with the Love-ly⁠ podcast into our feed. This week on Love-ly, Mehak sits down with bestselling author, journalist, and podcaster Jo Piazza, widely considered one of America’s s…
We've Reached Peak Tradwife [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:19
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Holiday Rage, Hormones, and the Power of No [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:18
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Sunday Nice Things: Inside the World of a Teenage Tik-Tok Star [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:08
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Australia Just Banned Social Media for Teens. What Happens Next [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:16
Australia just became the first country in the world to ban social media for anyone under sixteen. It’s a sweeping, messy and imperfect law. But it's also one of the first real attempts to hold tech companies accountable…
The Books by Women History Tried to Forget [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:21
Quite Literally Books is doing something rare in publishing. They are bringing back books by American women who were once widely read, widely praised, and then quietly erased from the literary conversation. These writers…
Sunday Nice Things: The Nanny Wars [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:18
This week we’re bringing back one of my favorite episodes because it has only become more relevant. On the surface, it is a story about “bad nanny” posts in mom groups. Underneath, it is a story about money, power, and t…
The Author Who Took On AI and Won [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:39
What happens when a thriller writer discovers her novels have been quietly fed into AI without her consent and decides to fight back. In this episode, Jo digs in with Andrea Bartz, author of The Last Ferry Out and Reese…
You're Not Broken, Our Idea of Motherhood Is [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:27
W're told that motherhood is supposed to feel natural, fulfilling and instinctive. If it does not, our culture tells you the problem is you. Jo and licensed psychotherapist Vanessa Bennett, author of The Motherhood Myth,…
All the London Recommendations with Three Feral Kids [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:19
This episode dives into the joy of planning a trip, because there really should be a German word for the absolute delight that the anticipation of travel brings you. Perhaps also one for the thrill of getting great recom…