Nara Smith: Fashion Icon Chef or Outdated, Untrustworthy Housewife?

Nara Smith is a passionate cook who makes popular dishes from scratch, but sometimes with her own twist on them, like her viral midnight marshmallow popcorn snack or her cinnamon roll ice cream. In addition to the various dishes she cooks from scratch, Smith’s appeal also comes from the soft and calming tone of her voice and her feminine, elegant, old-fashioned, motherly outfits. However, Smith has often been blamed for perpetuating obsolete traditions that romanticize the domesticity of women and unequal gender roles, and there has recently been some speculation as to whether she is actually the creator of the recipes she puts in her videos or she is stealing another influencer’s work.

In order to truly understand Smith, it is important to examine why her content is compelling enough for her to have four million followers. Smith has a clear non-monetary motivation for being an influencer, and no, it’s not just that she enjoys making all of her food from scratch. Smith struggles with lupus, an autoimmune disease, which has led her to avoid processed food because it causes inflammation. Thus, she learned how to cook all of her favorite foods from scratch and became very passionate about it. Although she doesn’t talk about her autoimmune disease very frequently in her videos, she shows her love for her work through her creativity in building a comforting, compelling online persona centered around being a wife and a mother for all of her videos.

To many, the persona Smith has created for herself seems to reflect outdated gender roles, as she brands herself as a housewife who likes to cook all of her food from scratch for her children and, especially her husband. Smith appears to embody the role of a 1950s homemaker who takes care of the kids and her husband. For example, Smith tastefully dresses herself in feminine silhouettes with polka dots and lace details, while adhering to the latest fashion trends. She is often clad in designer clothing, as she collaborates with brands like Chanel. Smith’s smooth, soft, meditative voice, in addition to the minimalist design of her kitchen and her vintage-looking serving dishes add to her aesthetic appeal, which attracts many of her female followers. On the other hand, for many of her male followers and viewers, Smith’s allure comes from the femininity of her persona. Furthermore, Smith has cleverly crafted her persona to appease a wide-ranging audience from conservative family-oriented individuals to progressive people who believe in the health benefits of cooking food from scratch. However, the hyper-femininity of Smith’s persona has caused controversy among many of her female viewers, as she often talks about cooking for her husband while he is away at work in her voiceovers. To further inflame the controversy surround Smith, many influencers have created videos mocking her. For example, some creators have come up with imitation Instagram Reels and TikToks about making Ozempic from scratch to criticize Smith for setting unrealistic beauty standards for men to impose on women.

Moreover, Smith has been accused of stealing some of the recipes in her videos from South African influencer Onezwa Mbola. According to Mbola, Smith has been copying her recipes for months. In fact, Mbola claims Smith copied one of her recipes two days after she released it on social media. Mbola and Smith have had several overlapping recipes, including ones on boba tea, rice noodles, and mozzarella. Although it is unclear whether or not Smith actually stole those recipes, some of their overlapping recipes were trending at the time they were created. Thus, both of the creators could have been incentivized to create similar recipes due to the prospect of views on social media. 

Has Smith stolen other people’s work? That’s uncertain. Is Nara Smith a fashionable housewife or a figurehead for the promotion of obsolete gender roles? That’s up for interpretation. However, Nara Smith is most definitely worthy of praise for the persona she has created for herself and the passion behind her social media content.