Not For Sale

I‘ve been a devotee of Anne Helen Petersen since grad school, circa 2009. That is to say I’m an OG holdover from her PhD blogging days. Ten years later I still stop what I’m doing to read her Substack every Sunday.

This was tucked in today's bullet points:

Convinced Meg Conley to do another Q&A with me on Ballerina Farm, if you want to start following now

I click and am redirected to an Instagram account of a beautiful Julliard-trained ballerina, who happens to be pregnant with her seventh child while competing for Miss America.

We are about to discuss why I don’t spend much time on IG. I only see the amazing things Nikkia sends me and the posts y’all tag me in!

Once upon a time, I was a SAHM mom (for the uninitiated that's Stay At Home Mom, a label that tells you nothing about me or our household yet is impossible to shake). I struggled with the label and all its (VERY real) implications. I stopped following other accounts and other people and started (over)sharing on my personal Facebook page. I shared bad moments I could laugh at, and the good moments I never wanted to forget. I wrote long comments and tried to preserve myself and my mindset in case my kids needed it later, if I'm not around to guide them through this season of life. My entire feed is a love letter to my kids.

This is not how most people use social media.

Social media facilitated a second career for me, so I'm not one to hate on it. I am prolific with the mute and block buttons so my feeds are safe places to be. I do remember the days when I was a new mom with 2 kids only 13.5 months apart, and feeling like I was behind or left out in some way. It felt like no one I knew was on the same path I was. It took a lot of effort to remind myself that social media is either PR for a business or a highlight reel for a person, and interacting with an account isn't specifically the same as connecting with a person. This is really hard to do when you are on social media because you are lonely (like I was).

This is why I'm bringing up Ballerina Farm. Not to hate on it, because I don't, but to call it what it is. It is neither reality nor escapism. It isn't oversharing on a personal account. It is a professionally curated lifestyle account to sell you a business. Ballerina Farm sells the image of a family farm in order to to sell you subscription boxes. There is nothing wrong with this.

2021 MK flicks through the account, recognizes a $40,000 oven, double checks and YES it's the same one Martha Stewart featured in her Dinner Party reality show with Snoop. Wondering how a 30yo with 6 kids and a farm with no farmhands in sight can afford an item that sells at Bergdorf Goodman, a quick Google search reminds me this is no ordinary couple. Her father in law can totally afford this stove! And that's okay, too.

A sad, stressed, HUGELY pregnant MK in 2015 may not have realized this though. She would have seen a slender 4-month pregnant woman pirouetting with 5 of her 6 kids in front a a $40,000 oven and cried. She wouldn't have realized all of the indoor photos are from the same 3 rooms with zero personal affects, which means these 3 rooms are staging areas for photo and video content. Any doubts or insecurities she had about her own life would be amplified in the face of this beautiful, graceful, slim and wealthy woman whose body and life were what she wished she had.

“In the U.K., owning an AGA suggests wealthy country living, homeliness and a sense of tradition,”

So why am I bringing this up here, on a running company's blog?

Great question. I'm honestly not sure.

Things are hard right now. Really hard. I am not about to guess what will happen next month, let alone this fall. There are times 2021 MK will find herself thinking a whole lot like 2015 MK, and when I'm stuck in the house yet again and turn to social media for a sense of connection it can take a lot of effort to remind myself that social media is either PR for a business or a highlight reel for a person, and interacting with an account isn't specifically the same as connecting with a person.

In a time when many of us are longing for 'normal', it seems like a good idea to remind you that most IG accounts are anything but.

Coach Nikkia is the badass who runs our IG, because I honestly can't do it at the moment. I cannot engage with other running accounts, with perfect bodies doing perfect workouts alongside perfect runfies and selfies (I SUCK AT BOTH!!!!) while my body struggles to adapt to Type 2 Diabetes and Cushing's. I see those accounts and desperately want to buy what they are selling, though what I want cannot be bought. I can be zen about Ballerina Farm because I'm not selling cured meats and don't want to. This is a healthy boundary for me, not interacting with professional runners or professional running accounts. It may be bad for business but it's awesome for my mental health.

My point: In these difficult times, examine your feelings, check yourself, and if something makes you feel bad- please don't do it. We hope everything you do here at FPP makes you feel GOOD, or at the very least, doesn't make you feel bad. (If it does, TELL ME PLEASE!)

PS. I'd much rather listen to AC Shilton discuss Ballerina Farm. This is worth a read, and her IG worth a follow. Her writing is great, too. Her descriptions of farm life are a lot less glamorous and much more real, probably because she isn't trying to sell you anything.

PPS. I love Meg Conley!!! No offense to her at all here. I love her writing too and haven't looked at my kitchen table the same way since I read her first piece. I just think AC's perspective is super valuable for REASONS and really hope AHP includes her in upcoming work.

Coach MK Fleming is the founder of Fitness Protection, LLC where she coaches all kinds of runners for $29 per month and gives marathon plans away for free. Click here to download her most popular training plan, Tenacious AF!