Anonymous wrote:That’s funny cause it’s true. The buy in of Jen’s besties is complete. I admire Jen’s ability to build relationships with other women. Say what you want but she has some kind unparalleled gift to make people want to be identified with her. Look at Glennon, Brene’, Rae Drummond….the list goes on and on plus the 580,000 followers who gush over her posts. It’s freakin’ impressive her ability to round up ladies who adore her.

Impressive or other narcists feeding their ego's, that is the question

Jen is trying real hard to not disclose she’s making well over a million dollars a year. so she has to pretend a month in high season in two highly coveted locations is covered by using her points. Definitely more to the story. In the old days when she acted like she was one of us there was a sense it might be true, not anymore. Not by a long shot. She’s completely out of touch with the average woman. But it doesn’t matter cause she’s won over her crowd and they are funding her lifestyle. She’s a master capitalist. Is that still ok in her woke world?

Anonymous wrote:Let’s talk about ME camp.
First, do we think her assistant did all the research and coordinating of locations and places to stay?
Next, how many women lamented that they cannot take off a week much less a MONTH!
And last, she claimed she financed it through points?!

She looked like she was working hard the whole time with promos and shilling and sponsored days and posts. Not relatable for most women, much less single moms of five kids.

I am a member of the million-point club with American Express and my husband is just under with Chase. The conventional wisdom is that 1 million points is around $10,000. I don't believe she is spending upwards of 1-1.5 million points on domestic hotels...and anyone who plays the points game knows that hotels are one of the stupidest things to waste your points on.

Let’s talk about ME camp.
First, do we think her assistant did all the research and coordinating of locations and places to stay?
Next, how many women lamented that they cannot take off a week much less a MONTH!
And last, she claimed she financed it through points?!

She looked like she was working hard the whole time with promos and shilling and sponsored days and posts. Not relatable for most women, much less single moms of five kids.

It so sad that Jen’s “girl tribe” posts are full of comments from real women lamenting the fact that they don’t have friendships like this. But, honestly, who does?! These other women are married, right? They have jobs? At least one of them has young children. I don’t know HOW they do multiple vacations without their families, and all of the nights out drinking on their golf carts and scooters.

Personally, my husband is my best friend and I wouldn’t change that for anything. I want to vacation with him. I want to tell him about my day. I want to cry to him when I’m upset. My friends are there for fun get togethers, of course. But they certainly aren’t my LIFE. That seems, I don’t know… unhealthy to me?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the giving, do you think it's possible that she DOES do things for others but just doesn't post about it because it would seem like she was helping just for social clout? (okay, that doesn't seem totally in character with the way she posts everything else, but at one time I could have seen that as a possibility.) Just like she wasn't the one who posted about going to Jamie's side and cooking and helping the group as they grieved.

(But signing up for a meal train and then just not showing up...that's not cool.)

I would buy that if there were any evidence of it, ever. But this has been on my radar for a while, because I have found adult friendships to be very complicated. She did an entire series on friendship on her podcast without ever discussing a single time she showed up for anyone else. And her repeated mantra is "just show up! Build a picnic table in your yard/pizza oven in your backyard/supper club in your community and one day you, too, will be surrounded by amazing people who build you porch beds!"

She reminds me a little of Kelle Hampton with her obsession of trying to show people she is surrounded by friends who adore her. Kelle seems to have lost her girl gang and I think it was all for show for her book. I do wonder if Jen didn't have a successful internet following would all these ladies do much for her. They get to look good in the internet by appearing as loyal, selfless friends. They give her supply, and they get supply too by being featured. Just because some were there before internet fame when she was presumably more humble doesn't mean they would be there if she lost her fame or had a scandal of her own causing.

I do think these women do a disservice to middle age women looking for friendship. Most working women do not have time to do what these ladies do and friendships eb and flow based on life stressors. Plus, it tends to be the more immature and BS ones who need to take a lot of OMG Friends! photos for the internet. Back in my mommy and me days with babies I recall there was always some queen B arranging "mom's night out" and she had to take a million photos and post the ones (where she looked fabulous) on the net. Behind her back the other ladies seem to both fear her and hate her. I drifted from all that pretty quickly-not my scene. I like real people and I don'[t put on a show for social media.

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the giving, do you think it's possible that she DOES do things for others but just doesn't post about it because it would seem like she was helping just for social clout? (okay, that doesn't seem totally in character with the way she posts everything else, but at one time I could have seen that as a possibility.) Just like she wasn't the one who posted about going to Jamie's side and cooking and helping the group as they grieved.

(But signing up for a meal train and then just not showing up...that's not cool.)

I would buy that if there were any evidence of it, ever. But this has been on my radar for a while, because I have found adult friendships to be very complicated. She did an entire series on friendship on her podcast without ever discussing a single time she showed up for anyone else. And her repeated mantra is "just show up! Build a picnic table in your yard/pizza oven in your backyard/supper club in your community and one day you, too, will be surrounded by amazing people who build you porch beds!"

Regarding the giving, do you think it's possible that she DOES do things for others but just doesn't post about it because it would seem like she was helping just for social clout? (okay, that doesn't seem totally in character with the way she posts everything else, but at one time I could have seen that as a possibility.) Just like she wasn't the one who posted about going to Jamie's side and cooking and helping the group as they grieved.

(But signing up for a meal train and then just not showing up...that's not cool.)

Christian “celebrity” is an almost impossible position to be in.

Being a celebrity and more importantly remaining a celebrity entails actions and behaviors and postures that are completely counter to a humble, servant-oriented, Christ-centered life.

Christ doesn’t want or need us to be famous.

In fact, as the Bible say, we must decrease so that he might increase.

Fame tends to take a blowtorch to faith except for a very very small few.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Jen, though, pretty soon after you got into the ANC orbit was only all about the surface, the social media clicks, not really serving but wanting to appear like a big servant hearted gay online, etc.
We’d make little jokes about her, about how if Jen was on the meal calendar that day you’d better make a plan B for dinner that cause you knew no meal was coming.

I was stood up by JH on a meal train in 2015. I never said anything because who wants to rock the boat. She never called or even acted like she missed anything. Some PP said it above—I don’t think there is one example of Jen going over the top for someone else. Plenty of examples of receiving over the top gestures from others but when has she ever dropped everything to show up for a friend in need? I’ll wait.

I'm so sorry she stood you up. Your story hit on exactly why I've found comfort in Jen's true colors being exposed. I joined my local congregational church a few years ago. At the same time I joined, they brought in a new pastor in his 30's that everybody gushed over. He and his family are low key local celebrities. Every time I tried to interact with their family, it was clear they had no interest in getting to know us. My father was in a terrible accident, and the new pastor never called or reached out to me. A few weeks later my father's name was randomly removed from the prayer list without anyone from the church checking in to see how he was doing (he was still in trauma intensive care at the time).

But the real kickers were when this family completely stood us up in meal rrain-type situations. Situations where they voluntarily signed up for something I organized and then completely blew off the responsibility without ever acknowledging it. And of course, in these situations, I was the only one that knew they blew it off. It felt very much like the emperor's new clothes, where we could see them for shallow frauds but everyone else acted like they were these amazing people.

For a long time, I blamed myself (the pastor and his family would not treat us like this if I weren't so awkward, if I volunteered more for the church, etc).Seeing this public reckoning of the Hatmakers has helped me realize that there is a personality type here that appears kind but is actually very callous, and it has nothing to do with the recipient of the callousness.

Anonymous wrote:Jen dropped everything and went to be her friend Jamie Wright aka “the worst missionary” when her 18 year old son died by suicide. It happened a couple days after the online girl squad had been together down in Texas. Jamie said Jen immediately went to cooking for everyone and found a way to even get them to laugh. (Trauma does weird things) I read this on Jamie’s FB and she said she felt deeply cared for by Jen during that crises. Jen has also given her home and yard to be used for her friend’s kids weddings and baby showers.

That’s all I know of though. It does appear the acts of service mostly flow to her not out to others.

So she did (frankly) the bare minimum of what you would expect of a best friend when their child has just died. And hosted Shonna's son's backyard wedding and baby showers. Real giver.

Tyler posted a birthday message to Jen on Insta. While very sweet and complimentary, it certainly wasn’t romantic. I could have written the same to a best friend, maybe the only exception being the line where he called her my lady.

I went to ANC, and as a PP mentioned, if you weren’t Jenny or Shonna or some “cause” she wanted to exploit, you were basically invisible to them both. They never welcomed me or my family. We had some good times and met some good families there, but we never really felt apart of it. I accept some of the responsibility because I am a skeptic by nature. To me, it was fascinating to see the dynamic unfold.

Resources

Perhaps I spoke out of turn based on a limited background of information. It does seem at best to be more taking than giving and the lack of sensitivity toward women facing hard things with limited recourses and support is cringey!