Anna Connelly Tells It Like It Is

Anna Connelly appeared in my Instagram feed seemingly out of nowhere a few months ago. The Minneapolis-based mom of an almost 4-year-old daughter is not shy about being political, and her videos immediately caught my eye: She states irrefutable facts in funny ways that help, she says, put everything going on into context but also to help us all take the edge off.

So how does someone who calls out MAGA and Donald Trump on a daily basis decompress? “Not to blow up what I’m doing, but I really feel like I’m doing this great resistance and giving people this joy to do the same,” she told Scary Mommy recently. Our conversation was nothing short of lovely; you can tell immediately that Connelly is smart, thoughtful, and really believes in what she’s doing. Bonus: She doesn’t seem to care if you like it or not. We spoke via Zoom and talked about her beginnings and where she sees it all going.

Scary Mommy: How did you get started doing this? What’s the whole backstory?

Anna Connelly: Where do I even start? There’s so many different pieces of it. I am 34. I’ve always been good with social media. All of my friends for — I’m not joking — over a decade, have been like, “You have to do this. You’re so funny on it. You just get it.” I was diagnosed with ADHD just last year, which is very common for women my age.

So, anytime in the past decade I was like, “OK, I’m going to start social media,” I had no consistency. I was also at the same time diagnosed with PMDD. So I had just the horrible inconsistency of ADHD and then just the roller coaster of my cycle. I was always like, “OK, I’m going to start it.” And then a week later I’m like, “OK, I hate this. I hate it so much and I hate everything in my life.” Finally I got the diagnoses and suddenly my life is like, “Oh, OK, I can manage this.”

Obviously, for so many of us, it was just this thrashing frustration and anger after November where I was like, I am sick of seeing hopelessness. I’m sick of just opening my feed and constantly being fed angry, sad. I went on a girl’s trip in January, and she was like, “Anna, I’m serious. You have to do it. You just have to start it.” And so I got home and I started it.

But before that, I was always in sales and marketing. [After a series of different jobs] I got laid off in December 2023. And from there I was just like, OK, I don’t know what to do next. I got decent severance, and the longer I was away from corporate, I [realized] I can’t go back to it. So as soon as this started taking off, we just had that conversation. I had been lightly interviewing for stuff, but he was like, “What if you just did this? Like, just went ham on this and see what you can do.” You don’t have to ask me twice; let’s do it.

SM: Do you find yourself seeing a lot of trolls?

AC: I’m totally being fed to the right people. I get not nearly as much trolling and hatred as I thought I would, or maybe I’m just much more stable now mentally where I can deal with it. That was always my fear. I’m like, No, it’s going to be awful, and I’m just going to be so sad.

SM: Well, the way you approach it is very matter-of-fact, and you know from the jump where your allegiance lies. So it’s not as though you’re trying to trick anybody.

AC: Exactly. I think when I speak so matter-of-factly, I try my hardest to use sources where possible and just be like, “Nope, this is the truth.”

SM: So the politics thing is because you were very invested and you felt very like –

AC: Yes, totally. I’ve always been super, super into politics, especially again with the ADHD diagnosis. I’m like, oh, that’s my hyper fixation. Got it. So yeah, I’ve always been like that. Also my girlfriends are so sick of hearing me on my soapbox, so why don’t I just put it on everybody else?

SM: How did you come up with the characters? How did you come up with how you were going to do it?

AC: I mean, it was honestly just like things pop into my head. I’m a very creative person, and I am also not afraid to try things. So you’ll see if you scroll through, there are things where it flopped and I’m just like, whatever. I thought it was funny. As long as I think it’s funny, I’m going to post it. And if one person’s laughing, then that’s great. But yeah, so a lot of it was truly just random thoughts that popped into my head.

SM: Don’t you ever just get really depressed?

AC: No. I get that question all the time. I am such a firm believer that comedy, satire, is the ultimate form of resistance. So I truly, not to blow up what I’m doing, but I really feel like I’m doing this great resistance and giving people this joy to do the same. I think for so long we’ve always been like, we immediately resort to anger, and it’s like, no, I have to tell you why you’re wrong. And it’s like, they’re idiots. Can we just start treating them like idiots? I’m going to make fun of you to your face, and I’m going to roast you on my Stories.

SM: Do you have any favorite new followers you’ve gotten?

AC: Yes. Rosie O’Donnell did not follow, but she commented recently — and I died — on the Epstein files breakdown, which was even funnier because she was in the middle of this feud and she did 16 point-your-fingers-up to my video, and I was like, that’s amazing. Nikki Glaser followed the other day and I died. Miss Rachel? Yeah, the Miss Rachel. I saw that one morning, and I was like, no, this is a spam account. I looked and I was like, are you kidding me? I sent her a message … “I’m obsessed with you. Oh my gosh, my daughter’s in speech therapy, and you’ve been so wonderful, blah, blah, blah, blah.” She sent me, like, a million emojis back, so we’re best friends now.

SM: What’s your filming process like? Is it spontaneous or pre-written?

AC: It’s a little bit of both. Any of the sketches I write out. I’m to the point where I have to batch those, otherwise they just take so freaking long if you do them one at a time. Typically I’ll do maybe three different videos of that and then edit them throughout the week.

The conversations especially, those have been probably my most popular because people are so like, “Oh my gosh, this sounds like me and my mom.” And I’m like, no, I know. My immediate family is very, very liberal. My in-laws are very, very MAGA, and that’s the inspiration. And so a lot of that is people are like, “How do you nail this so much?” I’m like, I have these conversations for real. So I try to make them more scripted just so that people are like, oh, OK, I can say this when I hear this. I want it to be more informational, educational, and give them actual things.

SM: So you actually use it in your own life because you’re dealing with it.

AC: Totally. We’ve never talked to them about my social media. I assume that they know, but we haven’t even mentioned it. And my husband is very left. I always say that I’m the Yoko Ono of the family because they think… He and I have been together for a decade now. They think like, “Oh, you took my beautiful Republican boy.” I’m like, do you think that I would’ve started dating him?

SM: So… do you unwind? How do you shut it off?

AC: I’m such a believer in the cliche of you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you help others. These people are just angry all the time posting and I get it, but you’re also like, you’re not helping anyone.

From the get-go, I knew that I’m still going to be in a bubble. I know that I’m still going to have my echo chamber, but I’m going to try to get out of it a little bit, and the people in my echo chamber are going to be able to take it outside of theirs. I have Opal, it’s this phenomenal blocker app. And so I just have it lock up Instagram starting at 8:30 every night. Instagram, TikTok, everything.

SM: What do you do when you’re doing that?

AC: I watch a lot of TV. Love Island, obviously. My husband and I have a lot of shows we watch. I do a lot of cross-stitching. But my daughter is my little best friend, so we also just hang out a ton and go to the parks, and I just try to get out of my phone because I can always feel the anxiety rising. I leave my phone a lot. It drives my husband nuts. He’s like, “I can’t get ahold of you.” I’m like, well, I left it.

SM: So what’s the goal for the page then? And are things starting to happen?

AC: Things are definitely starting to happen. I’ve had a couple brands reach out. I am a very, I never know how to word this, because I don’t want to come out as “I’m so privileged” or whatever. My husband has a good job, so I’m just like, let’s see where this goes. I don’t have the pressure of being like, I have to make this much this month, which is incredible to be in that position because I’ve been able to look at opportunities and be like, eh, that doesn’t fit, or I don’t like that. Just this morning I had the team behind a representative in Minnesota reach out to me and say, “Can we collaborate?”

SM: It’s interesting because I feel like brands might be by nature skittish, but I guess some are not.

AC: Totally. The brands that I’ve gotten, and I’ve gotten a couple of interesting ones, like Drumbeat, a nonprofit organization, so they actually give me assignments. They had reached out and said, “Hey, would you be interested in this? We just want to combat the MAGA misinformation machine.” They give you guidelines like you can’t endorse anything, and you can’t make it inflammatory — you can’t hypothesize; it’s just facts. So that’s been interesting to get those, and then they pay for views up to a certain amount, which is cool.

I think some brands, it swung one way so far where they’re just so afraid to work with anybody that I think it’ll start coming back now. So we’ll see. It’s a really weird year. I totally get so many of these corporations are trying to figure out what’s going to happen and get it. It’s crazy.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.