TikTok Star Nara Aziza Smith and her model husband, Lucky Blue Smith, reflect on their family's rapid rise on social media with 'GQ.'
Nara Aziza Smith has a few misconceptions about her life that she'd like to clear up. In a lengthy profile for GQ's September issue, the 22-year-old viral TikTok sensation and her 26-year-old model husband, Lucky Blue Smith, reflect on their family's rapid rise on social media thanks to Nara's pristine TikTok videos.
"What people think online is that we have housekeepers and cleaners and nannies and all of these things, when in reality it's just me and Lucky wanting a family and sharing our lives online," Nara says of her and Lucky's three children: Rumble Honey, Slim Easy and Whimsy Lou.
The model found her niche on the ever-growing landscape of social media with videos that range from showing her cooking meals for her family -- from scratch -- to casual vlogs of her traveling overseas for work while toting her newborn daughter. The seemingly aspirational domesticity of her videos has racked up 9 million TikTok followers and possibly as many critics.
Among the many opinions that the internet has formed about Nara and Lucky's "perfect" life, the idea that she is a toxic "tradwife" pushing the gender roles of the 1950s and the Mormon lifestyle is the most prevalent. The German-born model has even been likened to Hannah Neeleman, the Juilliard-trained ballerina turned mother of eight and mommy blogger. Neeleman has 9 million followers on Instagram under the name Ballerina Farm and has been dubbed "Queen of the Tradwives."
For those who aren't as knowledgeable on the subculture, tradwives are "traditional" women who forgo having jobs in order to be stay-at-home moms. The online version of the subculture focuses on content creators who do chores and cook food in videos, ostensibly for the benefit of their husbands and children.
"In no way am I saying this is normal or this is something people have to do in order to be a certain way," Nara tells the outlet. "Whether it's a meal idea, or a home-cooked meal I've made my toddler, or my soothing voice, or whatever it is, I just put content out there to inspire people. Everyone can take whatever they want to from my content."
And when it comes to the idea of pushing Mormonism onto her followers, Nara firmly objects to the notion that she is any kind of Mormon propagandist. "I'm definitely not doing that. Everyone's religion and faith is something so deeply personal to them, that I would never want to put something out there for people to follow. I never have, and I never will. That is crazy to me that people think that."
While Nara admits that she sometimes checks out the videos remixing her content and sharing opinions on what viewers believe she's saying with her TikTok persona, she maintains that her videos are made because it's fun for her.
"I have fun doing these videos, doing these things and experimenting. Making something from scratch, and knowing what's in my food," she tells GQ, which Lucky says is a European sensibility. "I love dressing up. I love doing my makeup and looking put together, and I love cooking in cool outfits. That just became a part of my content that people liked seeing."
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