Pursuing “Wellness”: Considerations for Media Studies

Abstract

In this short piece, I discuss the necessity of employing more-than-textual methods to understand more-than-textual phenomena. My case study is the feminized world of wellness, where stylish young entrepreneurs sell strategies of health-enhancement. While existing commentary typically frames wellness as the exclusive and somewhat risible preserve of wealthy white women—a framing enabled by the prominence of figures such as Gwyneth Paltrow—this narrative risks obscuring a more complicated story about the desire for health and well-being in an era of heightened precarity. Against this backdrop, I argue that the rise of wellness as a novel cultural formation and new commercial development must be situated within the broader social, economic, and political terrain of contemporary Britain. Methodologically, this means grappling with the glamorous trappings of wellness media and excavating the psychic investments and embodied experiences that animate this movement-market.

From dealing to influencing: Online marketing of cannabis on Instagram

“…The influencers do seem to present themselves and their own lives, but their role also is scripted on market terms focused on getting followers and making profit. The industry has a lot of power in for example forming their products to better fit certain types of femininity, such as in the wellness industry (O’Neill, 2020), where the choice of influencers is based on who fits the general characteristics wanted by the capitalist marked. The newly legalized cannabis industry has a massive profit potential in reaching out to a user group that has a minimal role in the illegal cannabis industry.…”

“…The way entrepreneurs self-brand to stand out in an online culture is increasingly defined by a commercial logic (Hearn, 2010; Marwick, 2013). This logic idealizes a certain femininity, such as the wellness industry and its focus on white, rich, and thin women (O’Neill, 2020). These contradicting interests of authenticity and business-targeted self-presentation need to be handled and well balanced by the women who take on the role of influencers (Liu and Suh, 2017; van Driel and Dumitrica, 2021).…”

Black Squares for Black Lives? Performative Allyship as Credibility Maintenance for Social Media Influencers on Instagram

“…The influencers were contacted via the public email address listed on their Instagram account soliciting their participation. The participant pool is over-representative as compared to the creator industry itself, which is overwhelmingly filled with white women, especially within the wellness niche (O'Neill, 2020). Of the 20 participants, eight were Black, seven were white, four were Asian, and one was of mixed race and ethnicity, Black and Thai.…”

Fulfilling the self through food in wellness blogs: Governing the healthy subject

“…Despite the prevalence of wellness blogging in particular and wellness culture or wellness industry in general in the 21st century, there exists yet little research pertaining to this field of culture and media. Wellness, from a cultural studies point of view, has been the focus of analysis in a handful of articles over the years (Braun and Carruthers, 2020;Islam, 2014;Kent, 2020;Little, 2012;O'Neill, 2020). Food blogs identified as 'wellness blogs' (compared with lifestyle blogs or fitness blogs, for example), however, do not seem to have been the focus of scholarly investigations.…”