Essay #7: Pop Culture, Pedagogy, and the Domestic: an Intro to Nara Smith

 

Pop Culture, Pedagogy, and the Domestic:

An Intro to Nara Smith

    

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In these screenshots taken from a Nara Smith compilation video posted to YouTube on March 11th, 2024 by channel TIKTOK DAILY, Nara Smith makes homemade ice cream, lasagna, and food for her husband, Lucky Blue, on Superbowl Sunday (respectively).

Trademark to Nara Smith's "brand", Smith prepares meals entirely by-hand in a very movie-set-like kitchen. The background is void of personality - it reeks of upper-class minimalism. Her voice is calm and stays at a borderline whisper-level. 

Photo credits to Nara Smith.

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Nara Smith is one of the most controversial TikTok/Instagram influencers. 

Her content is domestic/fashion-related: in her videos, she cooks meals for her family in a minimalist kitchen, clad in designer clothes. Her recipes are all-natural. Smith has eczema and Lupus (see below) and tries to avoid inflammatory ingredients in her cooking. On rare occasions, she features her husband, Lucky Blue, or her children (Whimsy Louu, Slim Easy, and Rumble Honey).

Smith herself is a model who has recently worked with/for brands like Fendi and Calvin Klein. Although Instagram account gives nepo-baby vibes (deals with brands like Wildflower Cases, Erewhon; spa treatments; Louboutin shoes; highly staged, glossy, “perfect” photographs), it could be argued that her content is relatively harmless. What’s the problem with prioritizing your family? She’s not saying anything political. Her videos are “satisfying”, “calming”, “fun” to watch.

 

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Lucky Blue, a fellow model and Nara Smith's husband, occasionally appears on Nara's profile. Here, Blue and Smith prepare a Valentine's dinner: steak and chimichurri. 

Photo credits to Nara Smith.

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Ultimately, Nara Smith is part of our digital landscape. She creates and contributes to popular culture, making artifacts that we consume, “things” that influence us. And as bell hooks says in an interview in cultural criticism and transformation, “Whether we’re talking about race or gender or class, popular culture is where the pedagogy is.” 

It’s our obligation as critical thinkers and active, engaged citizens of a democracy to interrogate our media, even (and especially if) it seems tame.

Soft-spoken audio. Extravagant clothing. Neutral, minimalist kitchen. What do these deliberate media choices say about Smith? What message is being sent about cooking, women, families, and the domestic space? How does Smith both parallel and differ from “tradwife” culture? Is Smith a billboard, like the ASMRtists, or is she something else entirely?

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As you'll read in the following mini-essays, American advertising culture targeted upper/middle-class white suburban mothers, correlating good consumerism with good motherhood/citizenship.

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In the next mini-essay, I will be interrogating Nara Smith’s Instagram, using the materials of her feed to explore advertising culture and its relationship to women and feminism.

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For Claire: Word count is 300.

Citations and Scholarly Stuff:

Transcript of "BELL HOOKS - CULTURAL CRITICISM AND TRANSFORMATION." Produced & Directed by Sut Jhally for the Media Education Foundation, 1997. bell hooks: Cultural Criticism and Transformation [Transcript]

How Much Does Nourishment Weigh? clippings (information artifacts); magazines (periodicals), 1956. JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.28822162. Accessed 2 May 2025.