Jerriette DuBay opens with an apology. It’s the first media interview she’s ever done, and she wanted to get it right: she set up a ring light on her kitchen table, had everything prepared. Then the schools in her small town of Deckerville, Michigan called a snow day, and she ended up with six kids running around her house. The energy is even higher than usual because it’s her second-oldest son’s eleventh birthday. She called in Grandma for emergency childcare and went out to do our interview from her car.
DuBay — better known as “Mama Jerriette” to her fans — is an unexpected celebrity. Just a year or two ago, the conventional understanding of a TikTok account with 1.3 million followers was something highly polished, painstakingly curated and centered around an individual with an aspirational lifestyle. Even as Kardashian-style maximalism gave way to the “clean girl aesthetic”, accounts preaching authenticity still recommended a five-step lip routine and making your kids crayons from scratch.
