Rocío López Bueno’s “Roro” has been a controversial yet dazzling leap to TikTok stardom. And that’s okay. After all, you can’t explain one without the other. Until recently, “Roro” was a twentysomething who uploaded highly successful videos showing how she worked out and what she ate. But in May, she posted a different 81-second video of herself making pappardelle with orange duck stew for her boyfriend Pablo.

Now this is a Influencer on the rise… and surrounded by controversy.

Do you like cooking? traditional woman? The pappardelle video, which has over 47 million views (and counting), has been followed by many videos where we see “Roro” knitting dresses, binding books, doing her own makeup, and cooking. Especially cooking. She always stops for or with her boyfriend Pablo. Her content, her aesthetic, and her legendary time management skills have brought “Roro” incredible fame, but they have also brought her into the spotlight. Why? Some believe that the clearest example of this is in Spain. traditional wivesA controversial trend that is well known in the United States.

What’s up? traditional wives? Name, total translation (traditional) and spouses (handcuffs) doesn’t leave much to the imagination. A traditional woman She is basically a woman who shares values ​​and gender roles similar to those experienced in the mid-20th century. Tradition. Family. Submission. Elegance. A good, undisguised dash of classism. Take care of your home, your partner, and also your own appearance. No office work, no protests for equality. what traditional wife She shows how to bake banana bread, prepare homemade Benetint, or take care of the kids.

All of these use networks as spokespeople and insist on how wonderful such a lifestyle is. traditional wives There are nuances and there is probably no single agreed-upon way to define them, but Cécile Simmons, a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, recently summed it up quite simply for the Euronews Culture network. traditional wife According to her, it is “an international movement of women who advocate a return to traditional gender norms, obedience to their husbands and domestic duties.”

But… Where do they come from? It is often claimed that her bible is a book written by Helen Berry Andelin in the 1960s called ‘Charming Femininity’, which extols the virtues of “ideal femininity” as the basis for a good marriage.

It may sound far-fetched, but it is a vital philosophy traditional woman It’s living its golden years, thanks in large part to the showcase provided by the networks featuring popular icons like Estee Williams, Nara Aziza, Hannah Neeleman (Ballerina Ranch), and especially Alena K. Pettitt. Influencer Behind Darling Academy is a “home of traditional family values” that “celebrates the role of the homemaker, traditional family dynamics, good housekeeping, and the beauty that makes ‘being at home’ worth the grief.”

From the USA to the world. The phenomenon has gained strength in the United States, has taken root in British society, jumping over the pond thanks to names like Alena Kate Pettitt, and is spreading at a good pace. There, in the UK, columnist Hadley Freeman described: Guardian to traditional woman simple but graphically archetypal: “a woman who does not work to provide for her children, her husband, her home, and then endlessly talks on social networks about how wonderful it all is.”

But the truth is a bit more multifaceted. The phenomenon that resonated on social networks, especially Reddit, about six years ago seemed to grow even more during the pandemic, with the help of media figures like Williams or Aziza. Its rise coincides with the rise of movements supporting gender equality, such as “Me Too” in 2017.

With the help of COVID-19“Searches have skyrocketed during the pandemic,” Simmons told Euro News, explaining that within the movement, “Like other forms of ‘radicalization’, they have thrived on people’s sense of isolation.” traditional woman A more or less clear ideological spectrum can be defined: conservatism and antifeminism, but this label is not immune to controversy. “The movement can serve as a gateway to white nationalist and supremacist ideology,” Simmons adds.

And suddenly… Roro! Against this backdrop, Spain has seen how “Roro” Rocío López Bueno has gained enormous popularity on TikTok with videos in which she shows how she prepares elaborate meals in a pristine kitchen, makes her own dresses or makeup, and how to bind books.

This has given him astonishing popularity, including live shows. busy time But as astonishing as her ability to prepare pappardelle with ragût or hand-stitch her own print is, television is not what she does. Prince By Niccolò Machiavelli. What is remarkable is the context: how he does it, his speech, his staging… and above all, who he does it for.

“My boyfriend Pablo…” If the young woman is making cheesecake, it is to celebrate her boyfriend Pablo’s birthday, if she is making pappardelle with duck stew with oranges, it is because Pablo wants to have pasta for dinner, if she is making chicken shawarma, it is because Pablo has never tried Greek food, if she is making her own dress or make-up, it is because she set out to meet Pablo and prepare a personalized and handmade version of Greek food. Prince Machiavelli wrote it—absolutely!—because Pablo wanted to read it and decided to give him a self-contained version.

This much? No. If there are those who do not spend much time to associate Roro with the background traditional woman This is because of the staging. Unlike her TikTok videos from earlier this year, where she showed herself doing pull-ups, running in the park, lifting weights or showing off what she was eating, Roro has adopted a set of guidelines in her latest pieces: almost all of them are staged in the kitchen or the rest of the house, and she always appears with makeup on, well-dressed, her hair straight and her hair messy. When she does speak, she does so in a sweet, soft, almost childlike tone; some have been spotted winking at her. make baby noises.

The result is content and staging in which it is not unreasonable to find more or less obvious parallels with others, whether intentional or not. influencers your movement traditional wivesLike Estee Williams or Aziza. Aesthetics are not a small issue and they are not free. Aurora Gómez, a psychologist specializing in digital behavior, recalls in Infobae that the choice of format is as important as the content: Aesthetics is “the entry point to action.”

“I’m not there for Pablo”. Roro, 22, who has just finished translating, is no stranger to these comments. He gave an interview in June. HuffPost She shared her motivations beyond her videos. “I’m not there to serve Pablo, obviously. If I’m doing it, it’s because I love to cook and Pablo asks me for things so that he has an excuse to cook and then I joke around so that we both enjoy it,” she commented. “I say ‘Pablo asked for you’ but the truth is I like to give much more than he asks.”

From the gym to the kitchen (and the like)“I find the housewife thing funny because we don’t live together, I don’t have kids, I don’t clean, I don’t clean. Pablo cleans because he’s good at it, and I’m good at cooking,” Roro adds. Regarding the content he shares on TikTok, he admits that until recently he uploaded videos of himself doing pull-ups and weights in the gym.

“I love going there every day and I’ve been asking brands to give me clothes, but it’s not really working. And one day Pablo said to me, ‘Why don’t you upload cooking videos? It’s just like anything you do, it takes a long time. It’s long.'” It worked. Wow, it worked. “And suddenly I wake up the next day and my first video has 35 million views, while my average was 2,000. It’s crazy.”

The big underlying debate. Roro is not the first Influencer Achieving incredible visibility in record time. If your situation is Article 14 or this other one by Elena L. Villalvilla Knowledgeabe This is because it is adjusted more or less deliberately with the movement. traditional wife and the questions he left on the table.

His speech? traditional wife with feminism? Isn’t every woman free to choose how she wants to focus her life and how she wants to share it on networks? Does promoting such content end up promoting reactionary discourse and sexist roles? Are they sweetening influencers Is it the unequal gender roles that are oppressive to women like Estee Williams or Alena Kate Pettitt? How much do they not have the right to make visible their chosen philosophy of life?

“Modern and powerful”Perhaps the paradigmatic example is that of Alena K. Pettitt, who describes in The Darling Academy that she experienced a “crisis of confidence” years ago, which led her to think: “It made me question why the world, despite all its opportunities, had become so untrustworthy. I was so dissatisfied with my existence that my supposedly ‘modern and strong’ decisions had destroyed my self-confidence.”

in his book Ladies Like Us, Pettitt describes how she “learned to love” her “female identity” and praises the values ​​she defends as “traditional living” in her works. That’s not all. traditional wives There are repeated cases of women claiming the “dream” of home and “women’s leisure”.

The big question: Who are they addressing? Monica Hesse also spoke about the substantive debate on this topic. Washington Post or novelist Jessica Grose New York Timesthat it claims to contain at least some of the content on its pages. traditional wife What he seeks is deliberate “provocation,” a “discrepancy” that ultimately translates into influence and money for its creators.

Another big topic Monica Hesse broaches is who posts like Pettitt’s or Aziza’s are directed at: “I often wonder: Who is this content really for? Some of their followers are like-minded women, of course, but a recent Media Topics survey led me to wonder if there is a core audience. traditional woman “They are essentially right-wingers,” he says, adding that the same study showed that after consuming the content: traditional wives TikTok’s algorithm recommends videos related to the far-right.

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