Ceci Kane Can’t Believe How Wild The Mom Groups Get, Either

The first time a video by Ceci Kane came across my Instagram feed, she was recreating a typical scene from one of the Internet’s richest sources of drama: Facebook mom groups. What millennial mom hasn’t stumbled across a wild Facebook argument about breastfeeding, or a raucous Reddit dogpile about baby-led weaning, or even a particularly spicy TikTok comment section about something you’d never even imagined could be controversial? It’s simply part of the landscape of being a mom in the era of the social media. You’ve gotta laugh about it… or else you’ll be absorbed into the drama. And Kane excels at recreating that drama.

Kane has parlayed her eye for the ridiculous into a thriving platform, @kanececi, and branched out into all areas of mom humor. I recently got a chance to catch up and learn more about her life; we chatted about the chaotic glories of Buy Nothing groups, the topics that are sure to send any Facebook comments section into a frenzy, and her favorite Friends bits.

Scary Mommy: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Ceci Kane: I’m in Michigan and I have two kids and my husband here, and we have a dog. I’m a full-time working mom; I work full time as an interior designer.

SM: What stage of parenting are you in?

CK: My kids, one of them is almost 7 and then my youngest is 3 and a half. So we’re slowly starting to exit the toddler phase, but it’s still crazy. Instead of the wildness of toddlerhood, now it’s just these insane busy schedules with sports and extracurriculars. It’s just a whole different ball game. It’s been a bit of an adjustment trying to get used to that. I expected things to slow down, which they have, but they also are picking up in a different way, so it’s been an interesting change.

SM: Yeah, I feel like I spend a lot less time wiping butts and a lot more time frantically trying to get from place to place.

CK: Yeah, totally. It’s been really interesting adjusting to that, because toddlerhood is crazy, but it’s slow in its own way, because you’re just kind of floating around. You’re not worried about getting to dance and getting to school and doing all these things. It’s just like, “Let’s go to the park. Let’s get you to daycare.” It’s very slow in that regard. But I’m excited, because my daughter went through a really heavy tantrum stage, which I never experienced with my son. My son is very chill, he’s always been very chill, very easygoing and flexible. Then when we had our daughter, it was like we were parenting for the first time again.

We got a little cocky and thought we knew what we were doing because we’re second-time parents, but it didn’t matter. They were just total polar opposites. When the tantrum stage hit with our daughter, I just didn’t even know what to do. So it’s been really nice that we’re starting to transition out of that. She still has her moments, but it’s nice that it’s not just constant tantrums.

SM: How did you get started with the social media stuff?

CK: I had started a new job working remotely, so I was at home all the time. I had downloaded TikTok and I thought it was really fun to scroll. I was kind of a lurker for a year or two. In 2022, I just started kind of goofing around. If I had a little break, it was a nice creative release, which is interesting because I have a job where I get to be creative, but it’s a different kind of creative.

It was just for me, just for fun. I didn’t really care. It felt really cringey at the time. And then I randomly had a video go viral, because I didn’t actually start in the parenting space. I had a really niche corner of the internet talking about… Do you know what Buy Nothing groups are on Facebook?

SM: Oh man, I could walk you around this house and show you all the great stuff I’ve gotten off of Buy Nothing.

CK: It was eight o’clock at night and I just saw a random bowl sitting on my table, and so I made a little bit about Buy Nothing groups and how weird they are with the comments. That one went semi-viral. Then I started to make other videos just about Buy Nothing groups in the comment sections, and that was really taking off.

And then I decided, “If I want to keep doing this, I don’t know if I want to be the Buy Nothing lady.” I wanted to explore other things that I could be creative with, like other cores of the internet. That’s when I did a spinoff basically into Facebook mom groups. And that’s when my accounts went crazy. That’s when I started to really gain a following.

It was essentially the same thing, the same format of a video talking about Facebook mom groups and how crazy they are and the comments and all of that. My accounts took off from there, and that’s when I really started to spiral, more into the parenting space. I branched out a little bit more and did other skits and other videos. That’s how it all came together. It felt like it really just fell into my lap, but I also ran with it a little bit too.

SM: I’m in a group chat with two other friends, and so much of that group chat is like, “Did you see somebody try to give this thing away on Buy Nothing?” And it’s something like old food.

CK: Yeah. I had a lot of fun doing those. Every once in a blue moon, I might do another one, but I don’t do them very much anymore. It was a nice, fun time for me, at least in my phase of content creation. It was so early, so I wasn’t worried about the lighting and I wasn’t worried about the pressure. It was super uncurated and random and off the cuff.

It’s a little bit harder now. I feel like for me, I don’t know about others, but I used to be able to do just random stuff. Everything I did, I pretty much ad-libbed it, and now I have to think about it a little bit more. But I’m trying to get back to that kind of random, more off the cuff and not putting so much pressure on myself to create content.

SM: What does your process look like these days? Do you have a little studio corner in your house?

CK: Well, because I work from home, I can use my whole house as my studio. So my tripods and my lights and everything, everything’s all over the house all the time. I try to keep it somewhat contained, but I’m really bad at that. And I have a Notes app of ideas that’s miles long. And I haven’t executed so many of them because a lot of them require a little bit more of a production or whatever. But it’s funny to look back and, “Oh yeah, I forgot I was going to make a Reel about that. I should do that.” So it’s like if I’m ever in a creative funk and I feel like I want to post something, but I don’t know what, if I’m not really feeling it, I’ll go to that Notes app for inspiration.

SM: What does your family make of the whole thing?

CK: They’ve been really supportive since the beginning. And now my son, he’ll be like, “Mom, are you making a video?” He’s much more aware now than he was two years ago. He asks me all the time, “Can I be in one?” I don’t show my kids on my content. Very, very rarely I’ll show them with their faces blurred or their backs to include them, because they do want to be included, but I’m trying to also protect their privacy. But they’ve always been really supportive.

I didn’t tell my dad I was doing this. My mom was always supportive from the beginning, but I never told my dad about it, until a year later when I started having articles coming out on The Today Show and that kind of stuff. That’s when my dad was like, “Why didn’t you tell me you were doing this?” And I was like, “I thought you would think it was stupid. I don’t know.” He’s a highly creative and musical person too, but we can have a lot of different views on stuff. But now he tells everybody. When people ask, “Oh, what does your daughter do?” He tells them I’m a content creator. He doesn’t even mention my full-time job. He’s been wildly supportive.

SM: That’s funny. What are the spiciest Facebook mom group topics, in your experience? What really sends a comment section into chaos?

CK: Circumcision, pacifiers, breastfeeding versus bottle feeding — those are probably the top three. Others would be Tylenol or medications or vaccinations. And then baby-led weaning or feeding. Those are probably the top ones where people will just go insane. In a lot of the groups that I used to be in, some of those topics were banned because people just go for each other’s throats in there. It’s like watching a dumpster fire sometimes.

And you feed into it and it becomes this weird culty behavior — especially when you’re a new mom and you’re freshly postpartum and you’re getting all of this advice from all of these different people with all of these different opinions. Like I was on a breastfeeding page and looking back, I was like, “Man, was I one of those people?” I was trying to be helpful, but now I feel like maybe it was perceived in a way that I didn’t intend, but it’s definitely how I felt when people responded to me. It’s like you could get caught up in the madness.

You can be helpful and have good advice or helpful advice or just words of solidarity, but I feel like you also have to be careful not to dogpile, because the dogpiling is what gets people.

Oh, the other one is car seats. That’s my first one that went nuts. You could be talking about something totally irrelevant to the car seat, but there’s a picture of your kid in the car seat and people just hone in on the car seat and people can just have these really snarky responses and words of advice. And while it’s wonderful because we want babies to be safe, some people’s delivery can be crazy. And if 200 people have already said, “Here’s what you’re doing wrong,” you saying, “Here’s what you’re doing wrong” — you’re adding nothing to the conversation.

SM: So what do you do to unwind? Are you a binge TV watcher?

CK: I am a binge TV watcher. My current show, well, I did watch A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, which was really good. But right now I’ve been doing a lot of comfort shows. My two go-tos are Schitt’s Creek and Friends. So I just kind of listen to those on repeat until I find a series or something that I’m looking forward to watching, and then I’ll binge that and then I’ll go back to my comfort shows until something else comes out that interests me.

SM: What’s your favorite Friends episode?

CK: Oh my gosh. There’s so many. Wow. It’s almost like just my favorite bits, more than whole episodes. There’s the self-defense episode when Phoebe and Rachel pop out from behind the curtains to scare Ross because he’s trying to tell them that they know nothing about self-defense. I love that one. My husband’s chiming in the one where Joey doesn’t share food because his date keeps eating the food off of his plate. I don’t share food either.

SM: A real parenting challenge, being able to eat your own damn food.

CK: I hate sharing my food with my kids, because they only ever want mine. I always have to hide in a corner or something. I have this spot in my kitchen where if I squat down, they can’t see me. So I’ll sit against the corner there and I’ll eat a snack.

SM: What’s your Instagram look like? Who do you follow? Who do you recommend?

CK: I have so many. I really like Sean Szeps. Anna Lee, love her. I really like Janelle, @MillennialMatLeave. She does parenting stuff and also a lot of her stuff has to do with mother-in-law relationships. And it’s just really refreshing. I actually have a great relationship with my mother-in-law, but I love her account because a lot of the tools that she uses and the conversations that she has, I feel like those can be had with anybody who’s problematic in your life. Janelle’s content is really helpful in just dealing with any toxic person. So I really love to follow her for, I don’t know, just solidarity even. Gwenna Laithland — @MommaCusses.

I just like people who can just keep it real, who are chill and it doesn’t feel like they’re just trying to make content. It just feels like they’re being themselves. I just really like people who are just unapologetically themselves.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

This article was originally published on scarymommy.com.