Meredith Masony Gets It, Because She’s Been There Too

There’s a good chance you recognize comedian and content creator Meredith Masony from a very familiar activity: folding laundry. While most of us are slogging it out at home, maybe while binging Selling Sunset, she’s known for taking a different approach and livestreaming the process to her followers, chatting with her community while she works her way through baskets and baskets of the stuff.

It started on Facebook, around the time the site introduced livestreaming, and she’s kept it up for years, building big followings on new social media platforms as they’ve sprung up and adding live comedy tours and podcasting to her repertoire. She’s also recently launched a new project: The Laundry Lady, a line of plant-based biodegradable laundry sheets sold in 100% recyclable packaging.

When I first spoke to Masonry, she’d just dropped her firstborn off at college. (She’s got two more — at 15 year old and a 14 year old — at home.) We chatted about her latest venture, the ways that social media has changed over the years, and sending your kids off to college. Plus she helped reframe the way I think about one of parenting’s greatest slogs: folding clothes.

Scary Mommy: Tell me a little bit about what stage of parenting you're in.

Meredith Masony: It's been four weeks since I dropped my firstborn off at college. So, I have an 18-year-old who is living his best life down in Miami. He's a little tired though, because classes seem to be getting in the way of his fun. Prayers and good vibes are being sent his way during his time of need. And then I have a 15-year-old daughter who's in 10th grade, and a 14-year-old son who's in eighth grade.

SM: What's the funniest, most surprising thing about teenagers?

MM: I really tried to live by the rule of not falling into the trap of, “my kid would never.” Because your kid will, they did. You might not know about it, but somebody knows about it, and eventually you're going to find out about it. We got home from dropping off my oldest at college and my youngest son decided that night he was moving into his room. I was like, "Whatever, you want to move into his room, it's fine." There's still a room for when he comes home.

We go in there the next day to get something from my 14-year-old, probably loads of dishes that never come out of the room. And the window is open and he says, "Quick, shut the window. The cat's going to get out." And my husband turns and he looks at the window and he goes, "Where is the screen for your window?" He goes, "Oh, well this is Matthias' room. There's no screen on the window." And I went, "Why could there not be a screen on the window? That's so weird." And he's like, "Well, Matthias took it out." And I was like, "What?" And then he got real quiet and I was like, "You just threw your brother right on under the bus."

SM: What's that transition like sending them off to school?

MM: That you're not prepared for. It really does feel like part of your heart walking outside your body. Here's the best part though — they are. They might not seem like it. There are moments where they're going to freak out. But they figure it out. If you've done your job and you've prepared them, they will figure it out. It does not make it easier for you. But what I realized on our trip when we were dropping him off is, this is not about me, this is about him. This is about his next step on his adventure.

SM: What's your number one piece of advice for people who are sending kids off to college?

MM: This is not about you. These are your feelings. You're the mom, you're going to feel all these feelings, but when you go to drop them off — this is their first experience of being literally put out into the world. So, I did everything that I could possibly do to make sure he knew that this was about him and we were there for support.

My husband and I were planning on spending two nights there, and he looked at us after we dropped everything off in his dorm and he's like, "You don't have to stay tomorrow night. I'm good." And I wanted to be like, "We can stay!" And instead I was like, "Oh, okay. No problem. We'll cancel tonight at the hotel."

And my husband looked at me, I think shocked at my response, because all of me wanted to be like, "No, we can stay here and just hug." But that's not what he needed. Yes, there were some tears on the car ride home. But if your kid is telling you they're ready, trust that they're ready.

SM: Shifting gears a little bit, a lot of content creators I talk to, their story is something like, "Well, I was stuck at home in 2020." You've been at this for longer than that. How’d you get into it, and how has it changed?

MM: This is my 10th year. Social media has evolved and grown in many different ways over the past decade. I was looking for an outlet when my kids were very little, just trying to find the non-perfect people on the internet, because everything was so curated. Back in 2014 you did not post a picture without a filter or the matching denim-jeans-and-white-shirt family photo that everybody had. I was just looking for other people that were like me.

But actually, the whole reason that I started doing this is because I did think I was going to die — not metaphorically, but physically. I became ill in 2014 and I found out that I had an esophageal tumor, and that tumor thankfully was not cancerous, but it was this wake-up call that life is short and I wasn't going to spend time hiding or pretending to be somebody that I wasn't.

My kids have grown up on the internet now. I have people who have reached out to me and they were literally asking me for my son's Venmo, because they wanted to send him a graduation gift. And it was the sweetest thing ever. Over the years we've done community cruises together. I've been on tour and met my people, my supporters, at comedy shows, at different events.

It has changed. We went from creating these very scripted, sketched three-minute videos, which is the only thing Facebook would show, to now it's just going live every day and folding my laundry on the internet and chatting with people and checking in to see how they're doing and sharing our journeys. A lot of moms were dropping their kids off at school the same as I was. I'm sharing these stories and they're sending back replies like, "I just left University of Florida. I just left Ohio State. I just left Michigan." And we're all crying together. And our kids, we all kind of grew up together, even though we're thousands of miles away, we all were raising these kids together.

It also makes you feel way less alone when people reach out and they're like, "I'm dealing with this too." And you do feel that friendship, even though I've never met these people.

SM: Did you make a conscious decision like, "I'm going to be really open with people”? Or is it just something that happened organically?

MM: I've met a lot of people as a result of doing what I do. And one thing that I found is, it is very jarring to meet somebody in real life who is absolutely nothing like they are on the internet. And I really hope that every person who's ever met me was like, "Oh yeah, that's the same bitch. Same person."

This is what I bring to the table. The conversation we have while holding laundry is going to be the conversation we have probably when we're at the club and I'm cracking jokes.

SM: What is it about laundry? There is something so chat-friendly about it.

MM: Think about it. I used to be so overwhelmed by laundry. And then I think this had to do with getting sick back in 2014, I used to look at that laundry basket and think, "How am I ever going to get through this?" And when I literally thought that I was going to kick the bucket, I looked at the basket and thought, "If the basket were empty, I'd be dead." Or a nudist, I guess, and nobody wants that either.

So, I started to reframe it. I would take the laundry and I would set it on the couch and I'd fold it on a Facebook live. And it was very therapeutic to have that routine of, I'm folding my laundry, we're chatting, I'm having a cup of coffee.

It became sort of a love language for me. And so yes, I do everybody's laundry in the house. I wash it, I fold it, I deliver it to your room. It never gets put away, let's be honest. It's never going into a drawer. But it became a way of saying to my kids, "I love you. Here's clean underwear."

And I think everybody knows that it became my thing, because I remember I was going on tour a couple of years ago and the news anchor forgot my name, live on air. And she introduced me as the Laundry Lady. And I smiled and giggled, and after the segment she said, "I am so sorry that I forgot your name." And I said, "It doesn't matter. Nobody knows me by my name, but they will know that lady who folds her laundry on the internet.”

SM: So give me the story of your new laundry venture.

MM: A couple of years ago, I had one of those big massive plastic jugs of blue goo sitting on top of the shelf, and the button got stuck and it spilled all over the floor. I was trying to shut it, and it's above my head, and it's dripping, and in runs the dog, and she starts licking it up. And I have a massive panic attack, because now I'm thinking about calling poison control and the vet, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, my dog is going to die." And I’m sitting there thinking, "What is in this? I'm putting this into my washing machine. I'm washing my clothes with it, my children's clothes with it. I'm wearing it, I'm putting it into the planet, it's going into the water."

And so I started Googling and I started researching all about what's in these detergents as well as these plastic bottles... And so I started looking and I was like, "I'm going to find a better way to do this." We found a factory in Sweden that we were able to work with, and we now have the Laundry Lady detergent sheets. They are non-toxic, zero waste, completely plant-based, no microplastics. All the packaging is recyclable.

When I unveiled this, I really had no idea what was going to happen, because yes, people know that I love laundry, but I really didn't know what to expect. So, we launched in April, and in 36 hours we were sold out of the Nordic Breeze, and people were going crazy.

I was blown away. Not only did people go out on a limb and try this just because they're like, "We like this lady, and she might know a thing or two about laundry." I love when I get an email and they're like, "I have no idea who you are. My friend gave this to me at a barbecue to try, and I just want you to know that I had been using a laundry detergent sheet for two years. Yours is better."

So it is something that I'm very, very proud of, because yes, I'm a comic, I'm a podcaster. I do all of these other things, but the Laundry Lady really has a special place in my heart.

SM: To switch gears a little, I want to hear a little bit about touring as a comedian. What's it like balancing that and coming back home? Tell me a little bit about the touring life.

MM: I am getting ready to be back on the road in October with my best friend, Tiffany Jenkins from Juggling the Jenkins. We are doing a tour taking our podcast called, Take It or Leave It: An advice-ish podcast for parents, in front of live audiences. We have toured previously together and solo.

But it is a lot of fun. And of course, it’s hard, because when you have kids and you go on the road you will miss things, which is why on my last tour I cut it short, because it was my son's senior year and I was missing everything. I decided that I was going to cancel the remaining leg of that tour and I was going to be the mom of the senior. And I have now made it a rule that anytime one of my kids is a senior in high school, I do not tour that year. And I learned that lesson the hard way, because I thought I could do it all.

SM: Are you watching anything fun on TV? Do you have any recommendations for Scary Mommy readers?

MM: Right now I am in the middle of MasterChef, because the new season just dropped. I'm a huge Gordon Ramsay fan. I watch all of his stuff. I swear I get on kicks of shows that people have already been watching and I'm way behind, but Mare of Kingstown. You got to be ready to buckle in and be like, "This is heavy." But very good. I'm also a huge Love Is Blind, Married at First Sight, Below Deck fan. Give me some reality — "reality” — TV, and I will watch the hell out of that.

This interview has been edited for clarity and condensed.