00:05:55.560And I think what you just said is so interesting of you can like essential oils.
00:05:59.940Just don't just don't think that they're going to cure cancer and then don't make money telling people that they maybe can.
00:06:06.580Totally. And I always like to make very clear, too, like I am someone in a fairly privileged position in a lot of ways.
00:06:13.480One of being that I have never experienced or had to navigate a diagnosis or a chronic illness.
00:06:20.000And I don't know how like that path may have changed, you know, where I find myself right now.
00:06:25.560I do see in my own work, like a lot of the folks who are really keen to take advice and buy products from these wellness influencers are in a space like that. And so I do think that, you know, there is a space where I think we're all like a little bit as susceptible to something like that if we're like in a vulnerable enough or like desperate enough place.
00:06:46.120But yeah, my approach to wellness right now is very skeptical, incredibly skeptical.
00:06:50.620And it makes me a bit sad seeing all this like anti even anti wellness stuff, because
00:07:03.500And, you know, I'm on the same Instagram.
00:07:06.340I'm sure that your Instagram algorithm might look like mine.
00:07:08.840So often, I think that the people, oftentimes women who are representing wellness, it's a particular kind of woman, right? Conventionally attractive, very fit, thin.
00:07:21.760I do. Is there something where what they're actually selling is not just the idea of being healthy and well, it's an entire lifestyle and identity that comes along with it, that if you just buy this supplement or just do this thing that they're doing, your life can look like my life, which is which comes off as very idealized.
00:07:39.760idealized? Yeah, I think the lifestyle marketing aspect is beyond wellness influencers. I know
00:07:46.900it's fairly popular in multi-level marketing advertising as well from influencers about
00:07:51.760look at this lavish lifestyle that I have. And then the reality is that they're kind of
00:07:55.500unfortunately living paycheck to paycheck in that business model. I also really love the motto or
00:08:00.640the phrase of your body is not your business card. And so this idea of not using your body
00:08:07.640to market particular supplements or like anything really, because there's a huge component of like
00:08:13.860genetics and you don't actually know what someone's lifestyle is like. They could be actually very
00:08:18.940sick and you don't know that. And so I think it goes back to that whole piece of like social
00:08:23.920media being a highlight reel. And unfortunately, a lot of social media right now is just direct
00:08:28.100advertising and anything that might impact someone's bottom line, they're probably not
00:08:32.980going to share that. Why should you care what wellness influencers are hawking on social media?
00:08:39.460This vast network of health and wellness personalities is increasingly stewing people
00:08:43.840toward extremist ways of thinking. And they're making a fortune doing it, all while putting
00:08:48.560people's real health at risk. Why do you think what's happening in this sort of wellness,
00:08:55.240content creator, influencer space, why is it important to be paying attention to?
00:08:59.420Yeah, the I would say like we are carrying around these influencers in our pocket all day. And there there's so much. Can I swear on this podcast? Can I say there's so much shit online?
00:09:12.340Absolutely. Okay, there's so much, you can keep that in. There's so much shit online these days that I think this is so important to pay attention to from just like a media literacy perspective of, you know, gone, I think are the days of when I first downloaded Instagram in 2013, where we were sharing square photos with really terrible filters, just like about our life.1.00
00:09:35.540I think a lot of these social platforms are propped up by like a financial funnel now.0.98
00:09:41.520And so just knowing that you're carrying that around in your hand and in your pocket or in your purse all day.
00:09:48.400And I also think it's important to pay attention to, like I mentioned before, I think anyone is susceptible to these things.
00:09:54.420And I think with specifically with wellness influencers, quite different than someone who is, for example, I don't know, like an interior designer influencer.
00:10:02.320you're influenced to buy a particular I don't know like blanket or couch or like
00:10:07.600wall art or something like that does doesn't really impact you beyond like a financial aspect
00:10:11.940really but when it comes to wellness influencers there's the financial component of course but
00:10:16.700there's also like they are playing with your health and your body and your perception of
00:10:21.800your health and I think that makes the wellness space the crossover with wellness and influencer
00:10:27.720culture, like quite remarkably different. Oh my gosh. I'm glad that you said this because I do
00:10:32.800think there's this attitude that none of this stuff really matters, that these health decisions
00:10:38.320and health choices that folks are making, that they're being kind of prompted to make through
00:10:42.560these influencers they don't even know, that it's the same kind of decision as buy this couch or
00:10:46.580don't buy this couch. These decisions can be life or death. Just look at Ananda Lewis.
00:10:54.740Ananda Luvis on MTV was one of my idols growing up.
00:11:00.860She got to talk to young people about news and real issues on MTV,
00:12:35.160I decided to keep my tumor and try to work it out of my body a different way.
00:12:39.120Looking back on that, I go, you know what? Maybe I should have.
00:12:43.260i don't know if you're familiar with the um mtvvj ananda lewis who passed away recently of breast
00:12:51.580cancer i was very moved by her story and one of the things that she said was that she regretted
00:12:57.900not listening to medical science and and following the guidance of the actual trained health
00:13:02.940professionals instead she really thought oh i can cure things on my own through diet through
00:13:08.720homeopathic remedies. And I think that there's this attitude that I'm just this is just a
00:13:17.280personality branding thing. I do my own thing. And part of that is not listening to doctors
00:13:22.920when in reality it is life or death because she passed away from cancer, which would have been
00:13:28.660treatable had she listened to her doctor. And she really was open about regretting that fact,
00:13:33.360regretting the fact that she listened to people who maybe didn't actually have her real life and
00:13:39.640her real health at the forefront of their minds. Absolutely. And I often get asked, like, so what?
00:13:45.900Like, so what? Somebody wants to buy supplements. Like, why do you care so much? And my response is
00:13:50.640usually I think that the best case scenario is that someone just wastes their money.
00:13:56.120The worst case scenario is that something actually impacts their health in a really negative way or
00:14:02.360they're influenced by following particular people online to forego evidence-based treatment when
00:14:08.480it's really needed. And unfortunately, like you just mentioned, this one particular story,
00:14:13.420there are more and more stories like this coming out now and making it to the headlines. And it's
00:14:20.120so unfortunate. And I don't want to see any more of these stories, but I think we will. And all we
00:14:25.080can do is just amplify them and show them that this is actually the real harm of what's happening
00:14:30.980here. How did we get to a place where folks are more comfortable taking medical advice from some
00:14:35.880influencer on Instagram rather than an actual medical professional? I think there's probably
00:14:40.800a few different things from my own observations and like my own brain here. But I think first
00:14:46.300and foremost, there is like a fairly, I think, warranted distrust or like a complicated relationship
00:14:52.080with conventional medicine or like Western medical doctors. In a lot of the work that I do in
00:14:59.100observing the wellness space, there are predominantly women sharing stories about
00:15:04.620how they were dismissed by their doctors. Their symptoms were not taken seriously. And it was that
00:15:10.820that prompted them to seek out alternatives. And so I do think there are gaps in medicine,
00:15:16.580for sure. I don't think anyone who is critical of the wellness space would deny that. I just
00:15:21.720think that these wellness influencers, they will tell you that they're filling those gaps,
00:15:25.820but my view is that they're actually exploiting them. And so I think that's one piece of it.
00:15:32.040And I think another piece of it is if you are navigating something and you go to your doctor
00:15:38.480and they're talking to you based on evidence and statistics and probability, and there's no
00:15:45.260one cure or like one piece that will fix everything, that makes you feel a particular
00:15:51.760way. But then you go online and there's an influencer that is speaking in absolutes where
00:15:56.880like medical profession, very regulated, can't speak like that. Wellness-based, unregulated,
00:16:03.480can speak like that. And so if an influencer is telling you that they like for suresees,
00:16:08.040you know, have this cure that will help you, you're probably more inclined to go with them.
00:16:14.200I also think too, and I hear this a lot from, you know, again, predominantly women, they're like,1.00
00:16:20.180well, you only get 15 minutes with your doctor, which I don't know about you, but that's true for1.00
00:16:23.500me. Like I only get 15 minutes with my doctor. But they frame this as a negative. That's also0.87
00:16:28.460if you have access to a doctor in the first place. But these, you know, alternative practitioners or
00:16:34.180influencers will give you much more time and they will claim it's because they care about you more
00:16:39.480and they will, you know, help you. They will offer to you what will help you like for sure.
00:16:45.760And I think that goes back to what you were talking about earlier of if especially if you're vulnerable or you're going through something or you're navigating a health challenge or trying to navigate a health challenge on behalf of a loved one, you are in such a susceptible position.
00:17:00.720I very recently was caring for my dad before his death, and it was this issue where he had several chronic health issues, and he was long-term hospitalized for many months.
00:17:12.020And the doctor, twice a day, the doctors would do their rounds and come into the ICU room and, like, talk to me about what was going on.
00:17:19.480And they, what I, first of all, what I wanted, if those doctors had spent two hours with me, that would not have been enough time.
00:17:28.400What I wanted was doctors to come in, hold my hand and say, we have figured it out.
00:17:33.080It turns out it was this one easy thing and he's 100 percent going to be OK.
00:17:38.800What I got was 15 minutes of very good, you know, no shade to the doctors.
00:17:43.540They were great. But 15 minutes of being like, oh, well, you know, we asked this problem and that problem and this problem and jargon and words and me having to be like, stop, back up.
00:17:53.940What does this mean? And it was an incredibly frustrating experience.
00:17:56.720And in that moment of vulnerability, had an influencer online said, I hear you, I see you, the answer is this miracle cure and your dad is going to be fine.
00:18:08.340I would have absolutely been susceptible to that.
00:18:10.720That experience has really showed me how these influencers are so good at targeting the very real vulnerabilities that really do exist in us.
00:18:21.200Vulnerabilities and also specifically like right now with Tylenol being in the news, but I also had a project earlier this year in January with the fires in L.A.
00:18:32.000Wellness influencers are incredibly skilled at leveraging tragedy or crises, whether that's like a personal tragedy.
00:18:39.620So like you just said, when you're personally like very vulnerable, you or a loved one are navigating something or perhaps a community tragedy.
00:18:47.260So the city that you live in is on fire.
00:18:49.800And in that experience, like that, at that time, I was watching, observing wellness influencers, just ready to pitch you their supplements and detoxes for like, if you live in LA, and you are, you know, breathing in this air, you need to detox and here's a discount code for 25% off.
00:19:09.100And so I think they are very good at leveraging those feelings around things.
00:19:16.620And I also think for listeners, and maybe you have seen the show as well, The Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix, it came out this winter.
00:19:23.880I think that experience that you just described of, you know, this hypothetical alternative practitioner or influencer coming in versus an experience with a doctor.
00:19:33.400I think that show did an incredible job depicting those differences.
00:19:38.200For anyone who's familiar with the show, it's based on the true story of Belle Gibson.
00:19:41.920But I think they did a really good job.
00:19:43.160Even like, you know, the scenes with the doctor, there is like this blue kind of like filter over top of it.
00:24:03.740Let's talk about what RFK Jr. called his big autism announcement last week,
00:24:08.800when the Trump administration announced that taking Tylenol during pregnancy causes autism.
00:24:13.560As soon as the administration went public with this claim, wellness grifters were already on it, hawking supposed Tylenol alternatives and supplements online.
00:24:23.320So you mentioned Tylenol and the Trump administration, as we know, is saying, oh, we've unveiled the cause of autism and it's Tylenol, taking Tylenol while pregnant.
00:24:35.020Something that you really were on is how these grifters were so on it.0.83
00:24:41.980People already had their supplement.0.99
00:24:44.360It's like, oh, here's if you're not taking Tylol anymore because you're not you don't want your kid to be autistic.0.97
00:24:49.260Good on you, mama bear. Take my supplement.0.99
00:25:08.980Like within a day, I saw influencers selling various supplements, some that are involved in multilevel marketing companies, whether that's like alternatives to Tylenol that they just so happen to have a discount code for, which makes me believe.
00:27:55.340And about that Harvard study, I wanted to bring in our producer, Mike, because Mike is a scientist.
00:28:01.860Yeah, you know, I'm not a medical doctor, but as a scientist,
00:28:05.260I did want to weigh in about the quality of that piece of alleged evidence from Harvard that the administration and Maha people keep pointing to to support these dubious claims about Tylenol and autism.
00:28:17.720For one thing, it was not a new study out of Harvard.
00:28:20.980It was a review paper, which would be fine.
00:28:23.160There's nothing wrong with review papers, except this one has been criticized for leaving out important studies.
00:28:29.560The senior author, Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, who is dean of faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has previously been paid to testify in support of an association of Tylenol with autism.
00:28:44.040And so the review has been criticized both for its methodology and for having that conflict of interest.
00:28:49.900But even if we set those concerns aside, the paper itself does not claim that Tylenol causes autism.
00:28:57.800I think this is an important point for this piece of evidence that is supposed to be supporting that because it doesn't say that. It goes out of its way to not say that. It reports finding an association, which is very different from a causal connections.
00:29:12.280You know, our listeners are pretty savvy folk. And so I'm guessing they've heard the phrase correlation doesn't equal causation. And I think that caution very much applies here. There are many, many reasons that an association might exist if it does, other than a causal connection.
00:29:30.280connection. And this isn't just my opinion. I've seen a lot of takes over the past week from
00:29:35.300important, respected public health officials saying similar things. Tom Frieden, the former
00:29:40.800director of the CDC, published a long post on LinkedIn reiterating that Tylenol is safe. The
00:29:46.740balance of evidence suggests pretty clearly that it is. Dr. Zayan Liu, professor at the Yale School
00:29:52.860of Public Health, gave an interview in which he reiterated that there is no proven causal
00:29:56.960relationship between Tylenol and autism. And so the balance of evidence is pretty clear here,
00:30:03.640and it's really unfortunate that because the author of that one review paper is from Harvard,
00:30:10.800it's giving the Maha crowd license to run with the Harvard name and make their unsupported claims
00:30:17.060seem weightier than they are, even though they're claiming things that the study itself does not say.
00:30:22.040And it's also unfortunate that that same researcher has taken payment for his testimony, because that raises questions, I think, about the independence of the research and potential conflict of interest.
00:30:35.520Did he really need the money that badly? You know, I don't know.
00:30:39.780But the whole thing fits awfully neatly into this same pseudoscience grifter model that we've been talking about.
00:30:47.320Sometimes it feels like the grift goes all the way up.
00:30:50.860And again, I'm not a medical doctor and this isn't my area of expertise, but as a researcher
00:30:55.660and a consumer of science, I wanted to offer that perspective and just make sure that all
00:31:02.280of our listeners know that the vast majority of people who are medical doctors and who
00:31:08.000do specialize in this topic agree that Tylenol is safe.
00:31:13.300And it goes back to what Mallory was just saying about how association with an institution
00:31:18.040like Harvard or a study or something like that, it's good when it benefits me. But other times,
00:31:23.740oh, you can't trust those institutions. They don't know what they're talking about. You're
00:31:26.340going to trust the government. Totally. And I also think, too, like a part of this now
00:31:30.180playing into like the social media and the technology part, like we're living in an age
00:31:34.680where your belief systems are broadcast online for everyone to see. And oftentimes these
00:31:40.920influencers have thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands, up to a million followers.
00:31:47.240And I just, all I think about sometimes is like, how hard would it be for you to admit that you were wrong or that you changed your mind when you have all of these folks following you and paying you in a lot of ways, probably.
00:32:02.000And it reminds me of something that I read in a book called How to Talk to a Science Denier by Lee McIntyre, which I recommend.
00:32:10.480But he talks about this idea of asking someone about any particular belief that they have, what information would make you change your mind? Because if the answer is nothing, first of all, you're about to have a very unproductive conversation.
00:32:23.900but like second of all what what does that say to you about your belief system that if
00:32:30.200nothing could change your mind that sounds pretty closed-minded and just not I mean like I see
00:32:38.800things through like evidence and science and really support that and other people don't and I
00:32:42.860I understand that but I just think in terms of like having a conversation with someone especially
00:32:48.260me and my comment section like just getting a gauge for like good faith conversations I always
00:32:53.540like to start with something like that because if the answer is nothing, then I don't really know
00:32:57.160what we're doing here. When you post your content on social media about the wellness space,
00:33:03.320what kind of comments are you getting? You know, it's funny. I've been creating content for a few
00:33:09.280years now and my following has grown. I actually got a lot more pushback and hate when I had an
00:33:14.320incredibly small following, like less than 5,000 followers than I do now. Sometimes I'll have
00:33:21.440videos end up on the wrong side of the algorithm. And that will elicit what I think are a lot of
00:33:28.400like bot comments because they're all the same. They hate my bangs. They hate my nose ring. I
00:33:34.700have tattoos. I have pronouns. I look vaccinated. It's predictable. It's all the same stuff. And
00:33:40.020it's nothing that I don't already know about myself. I know I have bangs. Yeah, I got them
00:33:45.160trimmed. I know that. I know I have my nose ring. I paid for that. And so it is one of those things
00:33:51.940where I think the algorithm is driving a lot of it now. I also know because I have my followers
00:33:58.080send me videos that I cannot see, that I have been preemptively blocked by a lot of influencers who
00:34:04.140I've never heard of before. And so I think there was probably some sort of Mallory memo that went
00:34:07.820around, continues to go around at some point. Yeah. How does that make you feel? Pretty like,
00:34:13.580not not terrible to be honest I was gonna say you're like the like Omar from the wire but for
00:34:20.020the wellness space of like watch out for Mallory if she gets you she's gonna blow your content up
00:34:25.460and point out all the ways that it's a grift I also like have rarely had folks who I have included in
00:34:32.640my videos have a what I would describe as a productive conversation like I'm not gonna make
00:34:38.280a video unless it's like pretty, I feel pretty good about it. And there's not a lot of wiggle
00:34:43.860room for, you know, them to be like, actually, like I will collect content and feel really good
00:34:50.040about something before I publish it to the internet. And so oftentimes, if those folks
00:34:55.060come across my content, I think they just block me. I don't think that they engage in conversation
00:34:59.560or try to very often. I have gotten a lot of, you know, very empty legal threats,
00:39:55.720Yeah, I can sort of understand why, oh, my poop looks like that because I have undigested food matter in it, maybe.
00:40:02.220And not because I'm actually full of secret worms the government is lying to me about.
00:40:06.880I can understand why a certain kind of person is always going to go with the more compelling story.
00:40:11.940Yeah, especially when they have something to sell. And they're like, I had no idea I had this many worms in me. And like, you probably do too. And here's my discount code. Like there was one woman who was, I think, financially tied to a particular product that on its own website does not describe itself as a parasite cleanse. But on social media, she would describe it that way.
00:40:30.760and she claimed that in I think it was 60 days that she shit out like 800 worms and I'm like0.95
00:40:38.560first of all who is counting second of all how did you count the worms absurd like who is believe0.75
00:40:45.940but people are believing it and so I think there's that like the conspiracy element is compelling
00:40:51.740and the you you don't know this about your body but I'm telling you because I have privileged
00:40:57.840knowledge like that's really compelling too there's also i think a little bit of like the
00:41:01.920truth is in the middle here like oh my god she's saying i have 800 worms that's probably extreme
00:41:07.480but like maybe i have 200 that's still bad totally yeah and like also there's a a weave of truth in
00:41:16.240a lot of these wellness things so like parasites and worms exist for sure um i don't think anyone
00:41:21.420is denying that they don't but it's this idea that everyone has them it doesn't matter where
00:41:27.560you've traveled to and you're being lied to by the medical system but you can trust me
00:41:32.340a random woman on tiktok who has a cleanse to sell you and i do think that part of this is
00:41:38.860i guess a reaction to feeling out of control you know i if i i almost wonder if this is why
00:41:46.360rfk when he first got into office when it his you know his big thing was i'm going to
00:41:50.820eventually i'm going to do a countdown to when i unveil the cause of autism i feel like it's
00:41:56.660exploiting parents who have concerns about their kid, right? And I wonder if those parents feel
00:42:04.780out of control. And so by telling them like, oh, here's the thing, here is the thing that you need
00:42:11.020to avoid that will 100% make it so that you don't have to worry that your kid might have autism,
00:42:15.780people are going to jump on that. I feel like it's oftentimes the causes of health issues are
00:42:21.120systemic or institutional, or we don't know a ton about them, or they have no easy fix,
00:42:24.800and that people can just fill that, fill that space with bunk because of it.
00:42:29.940Totally. Yeah, I think, well, in terms of like the autism announcement, I know. So I'm a
00:42:37.000correspondent for the Conspiraturality podcast. And after the election, the American election,
00:42:41.940because I'm Canadian. And so I see all this like very like just watch observing from the side. But
00:42:47.520after the American election in November, we did an episode called Maha Mamas.
00:42:53.160Yes. And so it was very much so you're right. Like, I think very strategic, like there are these mothers who are concerned. They are, you know, looking to RFK Jr. They like what he stands for. They may have not voted for Trump otherwise. But as soon as they, you know, partnered together or RFK Jr. was endorsed, that pushed these women to, you know, maybe vote in that way.
00:43:18.580And I think it's a lot easier to digest saying I'm voting for making America healthy again than I'm voting for like the convicted felon.
00:43:25.100So I think that that was these like very real, I think, concerns that mothers have and questions and, you know, these things that they feel very deeply and are very valid.
00:43:35.960I think that that was leveraged in a very strategic way.
00:43:40.840And in terms of the out of control feeling, I mean, I only started really observing this space during the pandemic.
00:43:47.400but you know as someone with a fitness background I used to be a fitness instructor
00:43:52.720these things were never talked about in these spaces it was just it was science like fitness
00:43:59.120and health is a science and so that's how we spoke about these things and it wasn't until
00:44:05.440the pandemic where I saw a number of my fitness peers sharing conspiratorial content and I was
00:44:11.620like, what is happening here? And just seeing a lot of folks really fall into conspiratorial
00:44:18.140thinking, I think, as a result of feeling out of control. And it's nice to have or nice to feel
00:44:24.540like you have knowledge and you know what's happening for sure. And you know what is causing
00:44:30.620what, even if that's not substantiated, it makes you feel better and like in more control.
00:44:40.220I mean, do you think it was the feeling of lack of control and fear and not knowing what
00:44:45.660was going on that we all experienced during the pandemic?
00:44:47.980Do you think that was what was driving this change?
00:44:50.460I think a lot of it, like in my own observations, I'm like, they're so, and again, only started
00:44:56.140tracking for my own content during the pandemic.
00:44:59.160And so I can't really compare it to pre-pandemic.
00:45:01.280but like it does seem even just as someone who digests news and is like on the internet every
00:45:07.720day like it does seem so much more amplified than it ever was and I think that there are folks even
00:45:15.140you know that I work with and they're like oh I don't need a parasite cleanse and I'm like
00:45:19.780you're not someone who strikes me as someone who would think that you do and I think that we're
00:45:24.420just in a place now where we don't really know what to believe there's so much online and the
00:45:29.760way that these algorithms get you when so like I also like fitness I enjoy yoga I enjoy weight
00:45:36.400lifting and trying to use the internet to get information about these two what should be like
00:45:41.180fairly commonplace interests it's like the algorithm says oh you're into weight lifting
00:45:45.900huh you're trying to eat more protein huh well certainly seed oil has got to get those out of
00:45:50.080the mix huh right certainly you don't want to be vaccinating your family right the way the way that
00:45:54.940When you just have this one interest that whatever algorithm has decided, oh, well, then you probably feel X about seed oils, X about vaccines, the way it's sort of done as a digital package deal, I think, is really insidious.
00:46:08.620Totally. There's this phrase called crank magnetism. And it's this idea that science deniers or conspiracy theorists often don't believe one wrong thing. They believe many wrong things. And so if you are already in the anti-vaccine camp, you are more likely to believe that sunscreen is actually causing cancer and not the sun.
00:46:31.600and you are now also more likely to like homeschool your children and you are more likely and like
00:46:37.680just it becomes like you said a package deal where it's like you kind of believe this one thing and
00:46:43.540it's usually not just that one thing and especially when you're following influencers like if you
00:46:48.300follow a particular like homesteading influencer because you have an interest in that you are now
00:46:52.840all of a sudden fed you know anti-vax or you should be using tallow instead of sunscreen stuff
00:55:54.380Yeah, it is one of my favorite podcasts.
00:55:56.200Like everyone should be listening to it.
00:55:57.300And I almost never recommend other podcasts on this show, because if you gave you open
00:56:01.800the door to that, the whole podcast episode would be my racks.
00:56:04.860But if there was one show that I would suggest folks listen to to understand this, it would
00:56:09.340be Conspirituality and the ways that like people who own private testing companies.
00:56:15.440So, you know, so it's not me going to my doctor or going to an actual clinic and getting
00:56:21.020testing done, having that testing being covered by insurance and all of that.
00:56:23.860It's, no, spend $500 out of pocket for this private company that runs tests that will tell you the same thing, wink, wink, it won't, that my buddy owns.
00:56:33.800All of that. I mean, I just never realized how much all of this is just the same old crony politics being repackaged as something that is good for us.
00:56:42.800And I think that speaks to the very real gaps in like the American medical system.
00:56:47.300And oftentimes I think with those companies that you're talking about that can spirituality often talks about is it's not just these tests that you pay out of pocket for.
00:56:55.880It's also the supplements that they recommend after that their own company owns often.
00:57:01.320Yeah. I mean, I guess my my big question of this is we are people who are health conscious.
00:57:08.500We care about our health. We care about fitness and wellness.
00:57:10.900this. I use gua sha, I drink mushroom coffee, all kinds of weird little things that I'm sure
00:57:16.120I'm wasting my money on. I do. And it makes me feel warm fuzzies. And that's that.
00:57:20.500Are there ways to be interested in these things and into these things without it leading into
00:57:26.780a more dangerous, sometimes extremist pipeline? Like, is there a way to be interested in these
00:57:31.760sort of alternative health practices, but be sane and safe about it, especially online?
00:57:37.920Yeah, I mean, I think there's probably a lot of folks out there who have tips on this, but like my own like opinion is just to like constantly be checking in with yourself. There are people online who are acting in various nefarious ways to get you to believe something.
00:57:56.120like I said before, you know, with certain other niches of influencers, they do not need you to
00:58:02.560change your entire belief system in order to influence you to buy something. But the wellness
00:58:07.500space is encroaching more and more on that, where they're not just selling you brands, they're
00:58:13.040selling you belief systems. And so checking in with yourself, I think it's totally okay to
00:58:18.800participate in things that, you know, like the mushroom coffee, not totally my thing. But if
00:58:24.760you like it, then why wouldn't you just do it? That's fine, I think. But where did you hear it?
00:58:30.640Who did you hear it from? What are your motivations around continuing a particular practice?
00:58:37.120Is there a pipeline that exists around this particular practice that could have you going
00:58:41.840further down into something? I know Derek Barris, who is one of the co-hosts of the
00:58:46.420Conspirituality Podcast, he recently worked with the New York Times on a video that talks about a
00:58:51.000funnel that is happening that they've identified where it takes someone from being health conscious
00:58:56.300following these particular influencers all the way down to rejecting medicine and holding this
00:59:02.640conspiracy theory that the health care system is like knowingly harming people to keep them sick
00:59:09.440and make money and I think that this you know video really depicts that well around like you
00:59:16.380can have these like scrunchie I think that's a phrase that's online where it's like kind of
00:59:20.540crunchy. These, you know, lifestyles and these practices and just checking in with yourself
00:59:27.700around like how you might be falling down a particular pipeline or funnel.
00:59:36.580Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at
00:59:40.780hello at tangody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangody.com.
00:59:45.840There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeart
00:59:49.560Radio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our
00:59:54.180producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
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