Ballerina Farm Reacts To Being The Inspiration For Viral Novel ‘Yesteryear’

Influencer Hannah Neeleman, better known by the handle Ballerina Farm, has responded to the idea that she was the inspiration behind the hit novel “Yesteryear.” 

The 35-year-old mom of nine shared her thoughts on the topic during a recently published interview with Vulture. “I know what’s going on,” Neeleman told the outlet. “I’ve had an online presence for enough time to know that people like to be entertained. I’ve been the butt of jokes and Reels that I’ve seen. It didn’t really surprise me.”

She went on, “I think it just comes with the eyes. There’s so much discourse, like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s such a big family, and there’s no way she can be doing this.’ So it was like all these ideas are bubbling up into this fictional, entertaining book about tradwives. I’m surprised it didn’t come sooner, honestly.”

“Yesteryear” by Caro Claire Burke is pitched as being about, “A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1805 — where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.”

It was an instant hit and has already been picked up to be developed into a movie with Academy Award-winning actress Anne Hathaway attached to it. The book’s unhinged protagonist was understood to be a thinly veiled parody of Neeleman and the thousands of copycats she’s inspired.

“Before tradwives, it was the mommy-blogger phase, right?” she told Vulture. “People have always been fascinated with mothers making money being at home with their children. With online discourse, women feed off that negative energy sometimes and that’s why things blow up. I honestly stay away from it as much as I can. So when the term tradwife comes up, or I’m seeing things about ‘Yesteryear,’ I don’t lean into them.”

The influencer went on, “I don’t think women who want to work are winning. I don’t think mothers are winning. In fact, I think it’s a step backward. If someone wants to be a mother, great. If someone wants to be a mother and sell sourdough-bread kits, great. We have to support and cheer each other on even if it doesn’t look like what our home life looks like.”

Neeleman added that “it wasn’t that long ago that women’s only role was the home.” 

“That was their extent. So for women who want to be more, seeing other women glamorize that aspect of womanhood is hard,” she said, insisting that “women love to compare.” 

“I think it is something about women, like, thinking that if we tear them down, we’ll feel better about ourselves. I think it is something that women do that’s kind of their nature, unfortunately,” she added.

“There’s no one saying that a man can’t do laundry and cook and have an amazing job on Wall Street and be a father. Why can’t women do that as well?” Neeleman said. “I understand where the debate is coming from, but I think women have the capability to lean into whatever talents or interests they have. Women are talented in the kitchen, they are talented mothers and nurturers, so they can lean into that, because they have the opportunity to do other things as well.”

“Yesteryear” is pitched as satire, but it’s also received criticism for portraying conservative women as performative liars. One Goodreads reviewer called it “a mean-spirited revenge fantasy against a strawman the author made up.”

“In my experience, satire is supposed to say something, not just be an overt open mocking. I understand why this book will be popular, especially considering modern trends in literature, but all the positive reviews make me feel like someone’s trying to prank me a little bit,” the reviewer wrote.

Even mainstream media outlets admitted “Yesteryear” wasn’t that great. Harper’s Bazaar called it a “vaguely feminist fairy tale” that only works “when you don’t think too much about it.” Vox said it “offers a sadistic influencer comeuppance fantasy.”