Lifestyle Gurus. Chris Rojek

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      In 2015, Gibson was exposed as a fraud. It was revealed that she never had cancer and failed to donate the $300,000.00AUD in proceeds from her book and app, The Whole Pantry, to charity, as promised. The scandal caused public outrage and prompted a series of questions: How was Gibson able to pull the wool over the eyes of so many people, including her followers and many branches of popular media? Why did the companies who promoted her products fail to verify whether she had cancer by fact-checking her claims? Why were people so willing to believe the advice of someone they followed online over established medical expertise? Our interest in exploring these questions was the impetus for writing this book. The more we considered this topic, the more we realised that the scandal spoke to a larger cultural phenomenon at play: the rise of lifestyle gurus in the digital age and, by extension, the crisis of confidence in the interventions of experts and professionals.

People go online to make sense of the world around them. Most of us use Google on a daily basis to search for mundane information: directions, transport times and weather updates. We also routinely use social media to connect with friends and social networks online. However, more than ever before, the internet is where we turn when we are lonely, concerned or afraid. Protected with the anonymity afforded by most forms of digital communication, the internet provides us with the capacity to explore many of life’s most pressing questions in secret with those whom we perceive to be just like ourselves. Without doubt, this shared experience can be extremely rewarding, providing rich emotional connections in the form of online chat rooms, support groups and forums. The interactions enabled by these technologies can also foster meaning, identity and a sense of belonging. This is especially the case when individuals feel excluded and misunderstood by their immediate community, family and friends. Whereas in former times, one might have turned to a novel or film in times of need, the internet now provides a plethora of advice and solutions to life’s eternal problems. What these media share in common is their capacity to facilitate a sense of ‘mimetic vertigo’, the recognition that the object represented also represents you (Taussig 1992). Their significance lies in the fact that they speak to the subject directly, while enabling them to reflect on their concerns at a safe aesthetic distance; achieving emotional pertinence through fusing the subject and object into a common narrative (Baker 2014). One of the key differences between novels, films and the stories documented online, is that the protagonist we read about online can speak back. The direct forms of communication afforded by social media enable users to engage in dialogic exchange with the protagonists they read about online. They can also communicate in visual form via images and videos, enhancing the feeling of proximity and intimate exchange.

      Digital communication has changed the way in which people seek advice. In the twenty-first century, we are subject to more information than ever before as a result of the internet: 24-hour news channels, blogs, vlogs, forums, social network sites and a series of other online sources. One of the problems that users encounter when searching online is how to sift through the plethora of information. Much of the advice found online is conflicting and scientifically inaccurate, particularly in relation to health and well-being. Take coffee, for example. A quick Google search ‘does coffee cause …’ provides the following results: cancer, bloating, constipation, acne and anxiety. Conversely, the search ‘does coffee cure’ provides the results: headaches, hangover, constipation, cancer and cold. The same is true of chocolate and wine, which are said to be both the cause and remedy for various ailments. With such contradictory advice found online, it is no surprise that people are confused about what health advice to follow. The average person is not an expert on these topics. Most of us have neither the time nor skills to explore these claims in detail. Moreover, much of the health and wellness marketing behind this content is deliberately designed to mislead and beguile. In light of these issues, the lifestyle dilemma becomes – who to believe?

In the saturated health and wellness market, celebrity advice reigns supreme. Celebrities exercise significant influence over our lives, how we view ourselves and who we aspire to be. This is particularly the case in relation to our ideas about our health and well-being due to their associations with beauty, dieting and fitness. The detox and cleanse market, for example, has been driven by celebrity endorsements. The same holds with respect to the lucrative wellness and beauty industries. Celebrities shape the concerns of consumers and feed on their insecurities by endorsing the products and services of weight-loss and anti-ageing industries. They promote products that are not only expensive but, in some cases, useless and harmful. Much has been written on this topic about celebrity culture as a source of pseudoscience and misinformation (Goldacre 2009; Caulfield 2015; Nichols 2017; Warner 2017). Books of this kind examine and debunk the claims and promises made by celebrities and pseudoscientists in relation to health, nutrition and beauty. In the book, Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything? (2015), Timothy Caulfield suggests that celebrity culture is ‘one of our society’s most pernicious forces’, contributing to poor health decisions, wasted investments in useless products and services, a decreased understanding of how science works and dissatisfaction with our own lives and appearance (Caulfield 2015: xii). Tom Nichols (2017: 190) echoes this sentiment, highlighting the capacity for celebrity advocates of the anti-vaccine movement, such as the actress, Jenny McCarthy, a self-professed graduate of the ‘University of Google’, to influence people to avoid vaccinating their children, exposing them and others to serious illnesses and disease. Less has been written about health literacy and social media, specifically in relation to the dissemination of lifestyle advice by ordinary users who achieve influence online. Our study is a contribution to this topic. We explore the rise of lifestyle gurus in the digital age, examining the conditions that enable them to flourish and the methods they use to appear trustworthy, authentic and credible.

      We situate our study in an historical framework. We make no claim to present a systematic historical perspective. Our discussion of nineteenth and twentieth-century contributions to lifestyle advice is intended as a corrective to the tacit assumption in much current writing that lifestyle gurus are a product of the digital age. The historical material also reveals that lifestyle advice today is generally shorn of the heavy emphasis upon Christianity that is redolent in nineteenth-century works. Our account of contemporary lifestyle gurus maintains that they offer consumers a version of ‘salvation’, but one that is mostly secularised and folk-based. More generally, our approach adopts an historical-comparative methodology. That is, we proceed on the basis that an historical understanding of context and social change is a prerequisite for understanding lifestyle gurus today, and we seek to cultivate an appreciation that the form and content of the advice that they impart is conditioned by national and cultural specificities.

A brief note on terminology. The term ‘guru’ traditionally referred to a spiritual master. This adjective is used more liberally now to refer to those with native experience, knowledge and skills associated with the domestic sphere and everyday life. The teacher–student relationship persists, but lifestyle gurus are presented as more accessible, collegial and less obviously religious, than in the past. The old distinction of hierarchy between the master and the follower, which was reproduced in most guru relationships, has been replaced by a more approachable and sustainable alternative. Despite the obvious fame and glamour enjoyed by successful lifestyle gurus, it is as if their lives are lived in co-partnership with their followers. Today’s lifestyle gurus are mostly lifestyle bloggers, who share content on blogs and social media. In this book, we use the term ‘lifestyle guru’ to describe those lifestyle bloggers who have achieved authority and influence in the public domain. While much research has examined the role of the mass media (e.g. print, radio, television) on society and culture, today’s lifestyle gurus mostly communicate using social media. As such, we often speak of social media (including blogs) in contrast to ‘the media’ (also referred to as traditional, conventional and the mass media) to signify the new forms of interactive media accessible to ordinary members of the public. We use the term ‘native’ to describe those lifestyle gurus who possess limited, or no certified qualifications, and hence, have no professional standing for claiming expertise in health and emotional management. Their skills and knowledge are those associated with ordinary people and everyday life; their perceived ordinariness itself part of their popular appeal. This description is not intended to be pejorative. Instead, it is used to highlight the forms of authority and influence СКАЧАТЬ