Lifestyle Gurus. Chris Rojek

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СКАЧАТЬ rather than formal, certified training, which has given rise to an industry of lifestyle gurus increasingly placed in the same discursive category as trained doctors, psychologists and dieticians (Lewis 2008).

Although lifestyle gurus have emerged cross culturally, the examples in this book focus on the rise of lifestyle gurus in the modern Western world. There are several reasons for this. First, lifestyle gurus are ubiquitous in contemporary Western societies. This study is an attempt to examine the reasons for this, to demonstrate how the problems addressed in self-improvement literature (e.g. that on health, wealth, relationships and well-being) are enabled by living in certain economic and social conditions. Second, we contend that the rise of lifestyle gurus in the West is indebted to a specific understanding of the individual made possible by modernity, the Enlightenment and our Judeo-Christian heritage. While there are signs that the globalising effects of technology are bridging these differences, frameworks for understanding the self in the West are often a poor conceptual fit for developing and non-Western countries. Micki McGee (2012) cites an example from the feminist self-help classic, Our Bodies, Ourselves to demonstrate the point. Latin American editors of the volume critiqued the North American ‘Anglo’ notion of self-help for its emphasis on the individual, pointing out that this conceptual framework ignored the role of family, friends, and other community members in a woman’s life. As a result, the editors replaced the term auto ayuda (self-help) with the term ayuda mutal, meaning mutual aid (Davis 2007: 180–1). Given that this book examines the rise of lifestyle gurus in modern Western societies, we build upon a body of literature concerned with the development of the self in the West. For this reason, there is specific emphasis on Anglo-American popular media and those social media sites most popular in English-speaking countries, such as North America, the United Kingdom and Australia (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat). With Instagram currently lifestyle gurus’ preferred medium of choice, this book pays specific attention to the platform by noting how it affords specific forms of communication in comparison to other social media sites.

      Blogs and social media have confounded issues around trust and credibility through altering how we seek advice and how we decide who we believe. The internet has not created lifestyle gurus, but it affords them a public platform on which to give advice and share their views. Most have a blog, an Instagram account and a YouTube channel on which to document their lives and lifestyles. People have shared lifestyle advice for centuries with their immediate families and friends. Claims about how to heal illness through diet and alternative therapies are far from novel. The established history of self-help literature points to the general need for obtaining comfort and wisdom from strangers with whom we associate a degree of success and achievement (McGee 2005). What is new is that these technologies enable lifestyle advice to be disseminated at an unprecedented speed and scale. These affordances make lifestyle blogging fundamentally different from previous forms of mediated exchange. Snake-oil merchants and charlatans have existed for centuries, taking advantage of the vulnerable. However, prior to the internet they had neither a global audience, nor the potential to go viral. Social media sites are infused with commercial interests, making it possible to profit from sharing advice. Affiliate marketing programmes have enabled bloggers to monetise their posts through advertising, with many turning blogging into a career.

While some lifestyle gurus claim to be personal trainers, yoga teachers or nutritionists, few have the certified credentials required to give health advice. Instead, they rely on narratives of self-transformation, providing anecdotal evidence, folklore and testimonies about how they have healed themselves and others during difficult times. These stories are supported by highly curated social media profiles featuring inspirational quotes, food imagery and before and after shots documenting their transformation into attractive, ostensibly happier and healthier subjects. The lifestyles presented online are designed to be inspiring, but they also serve as evidence of the possibilities of self-transformation – who you too could be – if you were to adhere to their lifestyle advice, purchase their books, products or services. Lifestyle gurus place the ultimate responsibility of problem solving upon the shoulders of the individual. Their advice is intended to be facilitative.

      Personal solutions, however, are understood to be a matter of resetting your life by taking the guided, decisive act to change negative, sub-optimal behaviour, and renewing your new direction by online, top-up consultation. Social media has altered how we are influenced. Social media sites offer clear rewards for behaving in a certain way. Engineered around the quest for metric-driven status, influence is measured on social media by the number of followers one has, media recognition and the amount of comments, shares and ‘likes’ a post receives. An expert may have credentials and years of experience, but they are unlikely to be as compelling as a lifestyle guru who is ‘Instafamous’, with an attractive body and glowing skin to verify their lifestyle advice, together with a highly curated Instagram feed that conveys how widely admired and deeply approved of they are. The issue here is not merely about misinformation, but the methods we use to know what information to trust and who to believe.

In this book we aim to explore the phenomenon of lifestyle gurus in the twenty-first century. We move beyond examining the pseudoscientific claims of lifestyle gurus, to focus on the conditions that enable their emergence and the techniques they use to achieve authority and influence online. In Chapter 1 we outline the concept of a lifestyle guru. We provide a brief history of lifestyle gurus and discuss the cultural, economic and technological conditions that have enabled them to flourish. In Chapter 2 we examine the rise of lifestyle gurus in the digital age and how emergent technologies afford new forms of intimate online exchange. Chapter 3 focuses on the specific self-presentation techniques lifestyle gurus employ to achieve influence online. We examine how trust is fostered among different populations and how credibility is formed. We also reveal the emotional costs associated with lifestyle blogging. Chapter 4 explores the economic and technological conditions that have transformed lifestyle blogging into a commercial industry. We discuss the rise of influencers as global brands, how the self is commodified in the process of self-branding and how the path to purchase has changed in the digital age with specific emphasis on the creation of the wellness industry. Chapter 5 examines the rise of lifestyle gurus as unregulated advisers online. We focus specifically on the burgeoning public interest in diet and nutrition, contextualising our discussion in the current political climate of distrust towards governments and corporations. Chapter 6 introduces two cults of lifestyle perfectionism: ‘assured perfectionism’ and ‘affirmative perfectionism’. The former is an historically significant iteration of lifestyle advice that was ascendant between the 1850s and 1970s. It often relied upon the authority of the Bible to offer followers ‘the true way’ in leading fulfilling, healthy, productive and rewarding lives. These historical precedents of lifestyle management and planning persist. But the internet has ushered in the age of ‘affirmative perfectionism’. Under it, allure, acceptance, approval and success are not dependent upon following the Bible or some other, secular, doctrine for the good life. Rather, speaking precisely, they spring from the construction of a self that possesses the social capital of being instantly admired, automatically approved. The final chapter concludes by situating the rise of lifestyle gurus in low-trust societies. Rather than reducing the contemporary fascination with lifestyle gurus to secularism or a culture of narcissism (Lasch 1979), we argue that the turn to lifestyle gurus for advice is symptomatic of new conceptions of selfhood and the growing distrust of experts and elites. Having dedicated most of the book to exploring the conditions that have enabled lifestyle gurus to flourish and the methods lifestyle gurus use to achieve authority and influence online, we conclude by reflecting on the implications of living in a ‘low-trust society’.

While we approach the phenomenon of lifestyle gurus from a critical standpoint, this book is not a rejection of the internet. Like all new technologies, there are many cultural anxieties around the internet, especially regarding its use and СКАЧАТЬ