Ballerina Farm Controversy

Overview

Ballerina Farm Controversy refers to a viral debate and online controversy revolving around a prominent figure of TikTok’s Trad Wife trend, Ballerina Farm (whose real name is Hannah Neeleman) after a five-page article about her was released by The Sunday Times in late July 2024. The Times article details Neeleman as a victim of misogynistic circumstances and not as a representative of "trad wives" content creators fans assumed. The article sparked theories and commotion on Twitter / X, Reddit and TikTok, as people shared some of Neeleman's quotes about her aspirations to become a ballerina before moving with her husband Daniel Neeleman to a farm in the Utah mountains where she raises eight children.

Background

On July 21st, 2024, Megan Agnew wrote an article for The Sunday Times^[1] titled "Meet the queen of the ‘trad wives’ (and her eight children)," which delves on life of American influencer @ballerinafarm,^[2] as Agnew tweeted on the same day (seen below) that she "spent the day with 'trad wife' Hannah Neeleman, or Ballerina Farm, to figure out what all the fuss was about." The post received over 5 million views and 6,100 likes in five days.

Developments

Ballerina Farm's interview drew a lot of media attention, as the Glamour website wrote an article on July 26th, 2024, "the fact the interviewer noted that Daniel hardly left Neeleman’s side^[3] despite Neeleman being the subject of the interview," as well as Axios^[4] take on the article, writing the interview showcased "a pattern of sexism in the family, from pressures to marry young to the health effects of parenting eight kids in rural isolation."

Ballerina Farm Response

On August 2nd, 2024, Hannah Neeleman posted a video on TikTok^[10] commenting on The Sunday Times article, saying “We were taken aback when we saw the printed article, which shocked us and shocked the world by being an attack on our family and my marriage -- portraying me as oppressed, with my husband being the culprit.” The video (seen below) amassed more than 3 million plays and 259,000 likes in four days.

Today^[11] wrote on August 2nd, that the "Neelemans are practicing Mormons, and their children are homeschooled using a Mormon-Christian curriculum," which correlated to another famous "trad wife" influencer, Nara Smith

Online Reactions

Hannah Neeleman’s July 2024 interview also sparked a furor online, with fans of the Ballerina Farm account and others weighing a variety of opinions, including that it’s irresponsible to promote the "tradwife" lifestyle. For example, on July 25th, 2024, X^[5] user @becca_mts tweeted (seen below, top) about The Sunday Times article, writing, "feminists were warning about this trad life content & they were called bitter jealous hags," which amassed more than 44,000 likes and 5,600 reposts in a day.

Also that day, X^[6] user @rcx4nne posted a screenshot from a TikTok video about the Ballerina Farm article, writing, "This part of the article hit hard as someone whose dance career was unexpectedly interrupted and paused…ballerina farm’s husband you are not seeing the pearly gates!" The tweet (seen below, bottom) received roughly 580 likes and 50 reposts in a day.

TikTokers also posted videos and their opinions towards Ballerina's interview. For example, on July 25th, 2024, TikTok^[7] user @thecompetentcinefile posted a video of a ballet presentation with the overlay text, "She went to Juliard," and a "female rage" sound over it, which amassed over 7 million plays and 1.5 million likes in a day.

On the same day, TikTok^[8] user @emmy.elefante posted a video with several quotes from Hannah Neeleman's profile article (seen below, right) which received more than 1.4 million plays and 344,000 likes in a day.

The article was also mentioned in a couple of Reddit posts in late July 2024, like Redditor Apprehensive-5379's^[9] post on July 25th, 2024, saying they "genuinely think the reporter went in expecting to report back that Hannah’s (Ballerina Farm’s) situation is not as bad as what it is made to be online. But what she found was actually worse." The post amassed more than 750 upvotes and 130 comments in a day.

Search Interest

External References