As James Corden suggested, “Pretending to be down to earth has been Gwyneth Paltrow’s best performance yet”.

Although it was said in jest during a skit on his show – here – there’s definitely some truth to it.

You see, back in 2008, Paltrow launched Goop (styled goop), a lifestyle brand that started as a weekly mailer. It came with New Age advice like “police your thoughts” and “eliminate white foods”, and the slogan “Nourish the Inner Aspect”.

Soon it evolved into an online advice / e-commerce site, and last week the brand’s first magazine edition was published by Condé Nast:

Yup, that’s Gwyneth covered in mud.

While products sold on the site include jade eggs for vaginas, $30 (R400) jars of brain “dust,” and body stickers that “promote healing”, the drivel has encouraged a small army of journalists, doctors, researchers, and bloggers to work towards taking down Gwyneth and her New Age suggestions, explains Vox.

In the best cases, we use Goop’s bunk to teach people about how actual science works. It’s practically a parasitic relationship.

The first time I wrote about Paltrow’s health bullshit, and her “cleanse specialist” Alejandro Junger, was four years ago, in 2013. Two years later, the Alberta professor Tim Caulfield published his book Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?, about the dangerous influence celebrities have on our decision-making. CNN, the Guardian, and Stephen Colbert have all weighed in. Over the years, OB-GYN and blogger Jen Gunter has spilled so much digital ink on Paltrow’s health shenanigans that she got Goop to issue its first-ever direct response to critics on July 13.

However, despite all of the attacks, it appears Goop’s empire has expanded.

Although the company isn’t listed publicly, so we can’t be sure of its annual revenue, we do know that last year Goop raised “$15 million to $20 million in venture capital,” reports The Atlantic:

Its June “In Goop Health” summit, crammed with crystals and aura photographers, sold out of its $1,500 tickets, and there are two more like it scheduled.

Each month the site is read by 1.8 million people—people who have the very advertiser-pleasing characteristics of an average age of 34 and a household income in the six figures, according to Adweek.

But why? How can it be so popular?

The Atlantic’s Olga Khazan puts it down to several trends seen in the media, namely the lack of fact-checking and the desire to be healthy:

Fact-checking often doesn’t fit into increasingly tight media budgets, or isn’t much of a priority, so dubious health claims about prolonged fasting or avoiding gluten ricochet around the internet.

The rich are already more likely than the poor to be healthy, so they shell out for alternative treatments and supplements in hopes of achieving even greater vitality.

The site may be benefiting from a growing interest, at least among wealthy Americans, in all things healthy-ish. Organic food sales have grown, well, healthily over the past decade; even Gatorade now comes in an organic variety. Nearly 10 percent of Americans do yoga, and 8 percent meditate. People are skipping soda for “mindful” beverages like coconut water. Americans now spend about a third as much out-of-pocket on “complementary” practitioners as they do on regular doctors.

Are Millennials once again to blame? Probably.

They are the ones who are more concious of living a ‘healthy lifestyle’, and Goop is the only source they need. It focuses on alternative means of living that are suggested by other high-end lifestyle magazines, so it’s little wonder those who are more inclined to mediate with crystals to bring forth the right energy – all while being zen – are buying, literally and figuratively, into Paltrow’s down-to-earth lifestyle.

After all, walking barefoot on the earth is where we can neutralise our energy, isn’t it? Damn Millennials.

[source:vox&huffpostsa&theatlantic]