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old distinction of hierarchy between the master and the follower, which was reproduced in most guru relationships, has been replaced by a more approachable and sustainable alternative.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 based upon experience and folk wisdom 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