Originally published at: The Cabinet in My Apartment That Explains How Journalism Broke During COVID - TPM – Talking Points Memo
There’s a cabinet in my apartment that tells the story of how journalism broke during the pandemic. Vitamins, supplements, mushroom coffee from the Midwest, superfood powders from the Amazon, prebiotic syrup from Japan, bone marrow protein from England, liver detox from a lab — each bottle represents a different “expert” I encountered online, a fragment…
1 Like
The Jude Law character in “Contagion” was a great commentary on many of the issues you raise. Considering Soderbergh made it in 2011, that film had some incredibly prescient details.
2 Likes
I guess there has been real value in my ad blocker and a mother who was all for organic foods but also sneered at the vitamin and supplement aisles of health food stores. She got it that that was where they made their money. She was also all in on vaccines: her mother was permanently disabled by diptheria in the days before there was a diptheria vaccine. She was a little nervous, but like all my friends’ families, she signed the paperwork to allow me to be a “Polio Pioneer” and celebrated when polio disappeared. A different time.
4 Likes
Aurin, thanks for this. As a boomer, I could only watch in horror as this psycho-drama of societal breakdown has unfolded over decades. The central assumption that underlies so much of our fascination with supplements and our mad drive for the secret information that will make our lives, finally, worth living, is that as is, we are not enough. I think it’s the apotheosis of the capitalist ideal reaching its limits in an environment of diminishing returns. People have been trained in this culture to think they can buy their way to health and happiness, in tiny increments that are guaranteed to boost your whatever, and central to that appeal is that you, the consumer, are right now at a disadvantage. You are not enough. It’s a climate designed to make you feel insecure, the solution to which is not the actual stuff you buy - they are truly placebos - but the buying itself.
Just look at that list of things you bought, not one of them, not even the vitamins, had a significant impact on your health or well being, and even if they had some effect, it wouldn’t be anywhere near the benefit you’d get from cooking and eating a meal made of simple, proper ingredients (superfood? - gimme a break) after going outside and getting a dose of exercise and fresh air and ogling something beautiful. We’re so focused on getting that last increment of “wellness” that we’ve lost track of what truly makes us well, and it’s not buying stuff. We’re so focused on what’s missing that we’ve lost track of what’s there. What’s there is a body that’s ready to be happy and healthy with a modicum of attention to its needs.
1 Like
It’s good that you came to your senses and stopped believing the nonsense you were reading on social media, but I have to ask why I should take your writing seriously if you were gullible enough to fall down that rabbit hole in the first place? We all lived through that time period and many of us managed to maintain a healthy skepticism throughout that time. I have little sympathy or patience for people who think that their personal failings and internal anxieties make for a useful grand moral lesson rather than just admitting they were scared and stupid and moving on. If anything, the lesson here should be about the danger of internet brain rot turning people’s minds into mush.
1 Like
How foolish you were to believe stuff you heard on social media. Hopefully there are not too many people like you.
1 Like
As others have noted, a healthy skepticism about outlandish claims served my family and me well during COVID, as well as before and since.
It’s sometimes tiring to go through life this way, but we’re nearly always looking at things through the lens of “who wants us to feel that way? Why?” and “what are they trying to sell us?”
I agree that the US was probably a major source of disinformation during Covid, but I’m surprised you didn’t also consider Russia.
2 Likes