After watching the Almost 30 podcast hosts bond over Zach Bush’s Jesus-like qualities, Matthew explores the barren friendship landscape of wellness gigworkers.From the transcript:
We engage with friendship pornography by consuming attractive images and vicarious sensations of friendship for the sake of pleasure, without having to engage with the complexity of social conditions, class differences, boredom, sickness, or death, and without having to be responsible for the other in any sustainable way.Why is this relevant to conspirituality? Because at every turn on this podcast, we are talking about economies built within demographics sewn together by consumerism. It’s a world in which charisma is the currency and emotions are the commodities. When the influencer sells you on their subscription “community”, they are offering a toxic mimic of friendship — that’s clear… Think of how MLMs co-opt the lingo of “community”, “tribe”, etc, when what they’re really doing is turning every single social interaction within a given demographic into a sales pitch.Show NotesAbout Lindsey & Krista: Almost 30SoulCycle changed fitness. Its culture and toxic work environment made growth impossible.The Wellness Pornographers. Gamifying intimacy, abusing public… | by Matthew Remski | Aug, 2021 | MediumAnti-Vax Doctor Manifests as Jesus. Wellness Ladies Weep with Joy. — Matthew Remski
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I don't know who my friends are.
So if you caught this past week's episode, you'll know that I wrote an article about Krista Williams and Lindsay Simsek of the Almost 30 podcast because they did a fawning interview with Zach Bush.
And I mentioned that this necessitated that I look at their website and their materials a little bit.
And in the ticker I said, I hated everything about this site.
I said that it was slick, presumptuous, that it was empty and grandiose, that it hit all of those notes at once.
I talked about how it was difficult to feel like I was supposed to admire the pictures of them laughing on the beach, but I just had this sense of unearned privilege and tyrannical happiness.
I called it New Age Stepford stuff.
I made a joke that looking at it was like getting punched in the face by Gwyneth Paltrow wearing a boxing glove full of potpourri.
And I stand by all of that, but this episode is about something less sensational that struck me about this episode, the site, and everything around it.
Something less funny, but also more disquieting to me.
So in addition to the standard wellness pornography tropes that are obvious on the first glance at the Almost 30 brand, the thing that stood out to me most was that it was based upon the monetization of their friendship.
On their site, they describe themselves as two girls in L.A.
who were, quote, just going through it.
They talked about meeting at a SoulCycle audition where Lindsay was already an instructor and Krista was auditioning.
And there's a lighthearted, ironic pop culture feel to that origin story, and they even use the phrase, in true L.A.
fashion.
And then the pages are just filled with the product of multiple high-end photo shoots in which, as I said, they're laughing on the beach or lounging on a fabulous couch, which might be a king-sized bed.
They're wearing matching outfits.
They're talking about their outfits.
And at the heart of this brand is the intimacy or the appearance of intimacy.
It's as if the products are a delivery device for the appearance of intimacy between two women sharing oat milk lattes and having deep discussions about the world.
And for all I know, for all anyone knows, they might have a really earnest and nurturing bond with each other.
I mentioned in the ticker as well that this territory necessitates me looking at what kind of misogyny might be going on within me as I look over this stuff.
I don't think it's a motivator because, as I'll point out, I get the itches around the monetization of performances of male friendship as well.
But I'll add here that it's possible that part of what I see is coming through a kind of male jealousy.
Through the part of me that wishes I could have a laughy and loving friendship.
So I can hold a window open for that.
And I don't want to imply that somehow they're faking it.
But regardless of what actually exists between them, they are presenting a kind of friendship porn, a la wellness porn.
In the sense that on first glance, you don't see any discussion of real issues like family or interpersonal friction.
You don't see how they might be distinguished by class, family history, hometown background, religion.
Maybe that material all comes up during their mini podcast episodes, I'm sure it does, but what they present to the world through this primary gateway of their website is a highly idealized vision of friendship.
And it's a vision of friendship that in the wellness and yoga worlds, I've just become very suspicious of.
The most simple way of approaching this suspicion is through the observation that it seems that a friendship like this doesn't really come from anywhere or share anything beyond affect.
And in an American context, this is true in the sense that this is a country of immigrants made homeless by constant consumerism.
And in the sense that LA in particular is a mecca for the performance orientated, it's doubly true.
And more specifically, I'm suspicious of this friendship, or friendships like these, as they are presented to us as media commodities, because of where they begin and what they seem to leave behind.
First off, to admit that you met while trying to be instructors at SoulCycle together is pretty much to admit that you met while trying to join or ascend the ranks of a predatory cult.
So, you didn't meet at work, you didn't meet at a union meeting, a church social, or a political protest, or even a concert.
The next place to go is the observation that here's a friendship that presents a spectacle to feed the machine of wellness pornography.
Almost 30 does not present a friendship based on material connections and concerns, like are you getting fair wages, who is governing you, and where do you go to church?
And can you afford your rent?
It's not based on class struggle, working with each other in a union, organizing politically, or figuring out how to provide better care for people experiencing homelessness.
What we're presented with is friendship that is based upon aspirations and self-improvement.
If it expresses solidarity as a value, it is through standing shoulder to shoulder on highly individualistic journeys.
Parallel tracks undertaken through activities that in another culture would be hobbies but in this culture have been monetized.
So I'll back up a little bit here and explain a few things about where I am coming from because it sounds like I'm just running down this friendship randomly or a type of friendship in a very cynical way.
But I need to clarify that my point is not to make a psychological critique of wellness cultural relationships.
I'm not saying that the almost 30 presenters have character flaws or are morally or psychologically deficient or anything like that.
I believe their discourse is the product of a very specific economy.
And I believe that gig work has now forced two and perhaps three generations into relational modes that are opportunistic, superficial, and ultimately fragile.
It's not anyone's fault.
People really do want to be besties through thick and thin.
