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Infowars and Goop sell the same exact pseudoscientific "wellness" products
- amadeuspagel 3y agoWhat does it tell us about the web that two websites that appear so different converge on the same business model? I guess it's hard to make money on the web.
- Andrex 3y agoSome kind of capitalistic horseshoe theory maybe? "Seeking max profits always leads to the same point, regardless of where you start."
- mrguyorama 3y agoMore like "grifters and their marks have no diversity" in that, neither Alex Jones nor Goop are selling unregulated products for political reasons. They have cultivated an extremely motivated, more money than sense, gullible audience willing to eat up ANY nonsense you spout, no matter how self contradictory or evidently wrong to even the minimum of critical thinking, and are simply mining that self organizing gullible audience for profit. Goop and Infowars are the same product, just in a different box.
- gscott 3y agoI was surprised to see how much money Infowars was making shown in the court documents. "Let us make our prime target market idiots" seems to be a profitable path.
- labster 3y ago“A fool and his money are soon parted” is a cliché because it’s true. And can be monetized.
- stcredzero 3y agoI'm sure many pitch decks are composed with this in mind.
- ThisIsMyAltAcct 3y agoGood as a political strategy too
- hackneyedruse 3y agoIt’s like laundering gullibility and turning it into political influence which they then wield as a weapon against society’s best interests.
- ninth_ant 3y agoAt the extreme side of this, the grifters who target people who already fell for time-share scams prove this.
- Workaccount2 3y agoThis is why scam e-mails and calls are often so transparently stupid and obvious. They are filtering for idiots from the get-go.
- etchalon 3y agoEveryone loves a good grift.
- gannonburgett 3y agoMeta: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39014737 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39014737
- throwup238 3y agoI swear to god this whole simulation is starting to come apart at the seams. Goop? Someone named a "modern lifestyle brand" company Goop? And people are actually buying their shit? I think whoever is running the show should just hand the reigns to the Dwarf Fortress guys. At least their bugs are believable.
- pityJuke 3y ago> Goop? Someone named a "modern lifestyle brand" company Goop? And people are actually buying their shit? An actress, in particular, Gwyneth Paltrow. It also had a Netflix show in 2020.
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- pelagicAustral 3y agoI swear... the jokes are writing themselves these days.
- Cheer2171 3y agoSimilar to Chesterton's fence, if you don't understand why the Goop brand has become incredibly popular for a particular demographic, maybe you aren't qualified to critique it. In short: It is supposed to sound exactly as ridiculous as you think it sounds. The Goop line most famously includes a candle that is marketed as smelling like the creator's vagina. It is supposed to generate outrage among people of your demographic. Like the Kardashians, Gwyneth Paltrow knows exactly what she's doing, which is making money.
- throwup238 3y agoWhat is my "demographic", exactly? I'm not outraged, I'm amused... in a "bless your heart" kind of way.
- kingkawn 3y agoThe demographic who likes an opportunity to flag wave their superiority
- tomcar288 3y agoi'm not saying anything about the content of infowars but I can't believe how much money people will spend on "supplements", and pills and artificial products. and yet, somehow don't have any money for fruits, vegetables and beans. i can only imagine, there's something broken in how people are being raised.
- striking 3y agoYou're underestimating how many people live in food deserts and basically don't have access to fresh food. That might seem like a nitpick against a larger argument, but I think it serves as a good example for why you need to take a close look at the environment that these people exist in as a whole, and that it likely goes beyond their innate habits or those of just their immediate family in childhood.
- bombcar 3y agoI wonder about that, even in the worst ghettos I've ever been in (I'm talking worse than bars on the door, but you have to ask the shopkeeper for what you want through a small hole and drawer) they've had some fruits and other forms of fresh-adjacent food. I don't know how many people buy them, but a banana seems an easy snack.
- anigbrowl 3y agoThe food desert concept is way overblown. They exist to some degree, but a lot of people choose to buy shit food when it would be equally convenient and affordable to buy something good. People walking around with 32oz (~1 liter) soda cups are not unable to find anything else to drink, they're sugar addicts.
- glohbalrob 3y agoMushrooms and various roots are all great for us.
- pphysch 3y agoTrue, but that doesn't mean we should spend 100x on a highly processed freeze-dried version that had been sitting on a warehouse shelf for 3 years.
- seattle_spring 3y agoThat's like saying "Tylenol cures some headaches, therefore pills are all great for us."
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoThese are all popular dietary supplements sold by numerous retailers. Many are the same products with different branding because they're made by the same white label manufacturers. Not newsworthy or even interesting.
- nimbius 3y agoI once read an inspiring post from a european user who explained why these companies generally succeed. Namely, that formal treatment and healthcare for the underlying condition targeted by the "wellness" product is prohibitively expensive for American customers, and so snakeoil thrives in the absence of legitimate medical science. you could literally bankrupt these companies in less than a fortnight with single payer healthcare.
- bequanna 3y ago> that formal treatment and healthcare for the underlying condition targeted by the "wellness" product is prohibitively expensive for American customers This just isn't true. The vast majority of Americans are either covered by pretty decent employer-subsidized healthcare plans OR are poor enough to receive all of their medical care for free. These companies thrive because many people have a (reasonable) distrust of big pharma. I agree that single payer healthcare would pry be more efficient, but other than allowing pharma companies to advertise, our system really isn't that bad. We lead in almost every area of medical research, the standard of care is quite high, wait times are low and we have some of the best outcomes in the world.
- vdaea 3y agoThat's the kind of thing that sounds very good and logical and is also completely wrong.
- ThinkingGuy 3y agoA large part of the problem is that dietary supplements in the US are basically exempt from truth-in-advertising laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Supplement_Health_and_Education_Act_of_1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Supplement_Health_and_...
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- freedomben 3y agoI'm not sure I agree. For pretty much any supplement you want, you can find a good vendor that declares exactly what it is and provides third-party testing to confirm. If we get specific to the sort of combos like what are sold on Infowars, then yes that's a problem, especially that they can hide behind "proprietary formula" without having to disclose exactly what it is. But the supplement market is way bigger than just that
- legitster 3y agoKind of a weird hit-piece - I'm not understanding why I should be shocked. When I visit the Zoo gift shop, I am not under the impression the zoo manufactures the stuffed animals. Still, I guess, there's something fun about feeding conspiracy theorists a conspiracy.
- seattle_spring 3y agoWhat is the conspiracy theory here? The claim is that 2 crackpots from opposite extremes of the political spectrum know their fans are easily duped, so they sell similar fake products to enrich themselves. It's not a conspiracy, it's just a correct observation.
- legitster 3y agoThere is none. That's my point. Both storefronts get many of their same ingredients from the same suppliers. But for Alex Jones' audience that would be exactly the kind of mild, uninteresting connection they would run wild with.
- hrdwdmrbl 3y agoThis is the horseshoe theory of... radical extremes?
- stcredzero 3y agoAs far as I can tell, horseshoe theory is generally true. This is why many people toward the extremes try so hard to deny it.
- robocat 3y agoI've not heard of horseshoe theory: https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/horseshoe-theory-political-left-and-right https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/horseshoe-theory-political... The quick skim I looked at seemed to discuss the word fascism a lot. Perhaps the horseshoe theory is better represented by adding an authoritarian/libertarian axis to the left/right axis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Political_Compass https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Political_Compass
- kossTKR 3y agoHuberman is almost as bad which is funny to me because he's regarded as an authority. Worst is the completely useless powder called Athletic Greens that he pushes left and right. There must _really_ be big bucks in supplements and lifestyle products like this, as it's coming just as much from very learned Harvard PhD's as Alex Jones. Currently it's bro science connected to life extension, cold baths, red and blue light gadgets etc. and before that Paleo after an endless chain of products going back to the end of the 19'th century where the bourgeoisie were electrocuting themselves, poisoning themselves or lying in various useless massage machinery.
- ugjka 3y agoHis podcast episodes on dopamine and addiction helped me quit cigs and alcohol because i got a clear understanding of how it works. But some of his other stuff is questionable and subjective
- mobilejdral 3y agoIt took me way to long to find the ingredient list for the Athletic Greens starting from the main page. Even on the actual page itself you have to click a button to see it. https://drinkag1.com/about-ag1/ingredients/ctr https://drinkag1.com/about-ag1/ingredients/ctr It appeared that it was hidden on purpose and I was expecting the worst, but after seeing it I would have to disagree with your comment about it being useless. From the list I would compare it to many daily vitamins. Many are deficient in these basic vitamins (why is a separate discussion). It isn't useless, but maybe it is simply overpriced for what it is? Most notably seems to be missing vitamin D. In the near future you could take your dna file and upload it to a website and it would tell you what supplement is best for you, but for now as in the past there will be generic multi-vitamins that try to fit everyone. And like in the past some will lean heavily on the marketing side.
- kossTKR 3y agoSelling a multivitamin you could buy for a few dollars in a big cloud of smoke and mirrors is a scam in my opinion. Just say you sell vitamin d. Not some ultra esoteric branded product with extreme markups and hints at something it definitely isn't - namely anything to do with "Greens. And doing this as a "certified science man" is even more ridiculous.
- stcredzero 3y agoA data point for the orthogonality of politics and intelligence. If one is holding to the belief that a certain political stance means people are somehow deficient, it just shows that one is vulnerable to propaganda which dehumanizes and blames a group. Don't hate the person. Call out the stupid. Actually, don't hate. It makes you stupid. (Again, this is orthogonal to politics!)
- noizejoy 3y agoIt’s incredibly difficult to call out and correct negative beliefs and behaviours while maintaining a fully positive human relationship. — It just doesn’t seem to scale well.
- stcredzero 3y agoSo you're saying: Not being positive == hate? Thanks for sharing! How about not being 100% positive, while also not dehumanizing, devaluing, and hating? Is it too much to ask to just accept everyone as fully human and not something disgusting, even those we happen to disagree with? It just doesn’t seem to scale well. Please give us a historical example where "letting your hate flow" led to scalable mass changing people -- That didn't also involve mass death and violence?
- noizejoy 3y ago> So you're saying: Not being positive == hate? I didn’t say that, nor mean it. And just wow - never in my most pessimistic estimation did I imagine that my post would be interpreted as defending “dehumanizing, devaluing and hate”. Having lived in different cultures, I have experienced that perfectly acceptable wording of criticism of an idea in one culture was interpreted as a personal attack in another culture. So the same wording of a critique didn’t “scale” across those cultures. In a smaller scale setting, there’s a much better chance to hit the right tone for the smaller audience, so the criticism doesn’t come across as hurtful. > Please give us a historical example where "letting your hate flow" led to scalable mass changing people I have to admit, I have absolutely no idea how you got from my comment to that sentence?
- pengaru 3y agoGo watch early footage of that infowars nutball when he was an opening act for stand-up comics like Doug Stanhope[0] for the lols. It's unbelievable that droves of people are actually embracing what he spouts/peddles. Idiocracy[1], we are living it. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTHHBxCqnOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTHHBxCqnOA [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lai9QhBibk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lai9QhBibk
- unsigner 3y agoThe brand should be called Horseshoe Cosmetics
- JohnMakin 3y agoit is not so surprising that people eagerly turn to pseudo-scientific health remedies when the actual healthcare system has so completely failed them.
- CyberDildonics 3y agoHacker News readers would never buy nonsense due to trendy niche marketing. Unrelated did anyone see the latest teenage engineering gear at CES?
- stcredzero 3y agoAnd certainly, this wouldn't also extend to software tools, methodology, programming paradigms...
- lotsofpulp 3y agoDo you have any examples? And this is not trendy niche marketing, these are things that are inconsistent with basic models of biology/chemistry/physics/statistics.
- seattle_spring 3y agoSadly I see comments on HN almost daily that are sharing major Infowars / Zero Hedge talking points.
- declan_roberts 3y agoIt seems everybody is getting into this game. I believe people when they say this stuff helps them, but there’s many reasons it can be helping. I just have an aversion to highly refined and industrial stuff. Prefer to stick with meat from animals I’ve seen and plants grown by people I trust.
- gumby 3y agoWorth reading just to learn of the existence of "activated cashews" Our enzyme-rich, activated, and dehydrated cashews are a mineral-dense protein. Pure, alkaline water awakens the nuts' dormant properties, increasing digestibility and micronutrient, vitamin, and enzyme count. These raw, activated, bio-available nuts are a low-glycemic source of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. As well as a product for sale at infowars that makes fun of Alex Jones "making us fat, sick, and stupid" (an Animal House gloss).
- bombcar 3y agoThis really activates my almonds.
- colechristensen 3y agoProcessing corn with alkali actually does improve its nutrition, maybe there’s something real going on here too? I wouldn’t automatically discount it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization
- nkozyra 3y ago> I wouldn’t automatically discount it Of course, but that's sort of the crux of the supplement business - take any substance that has any study that shows potential benefit, pump it up as the secret magic substance and peddle it with no real oversight.
- digging 3y agoIt isn't that a liar can't say something true, it's just that you know they are willing to say something untrue to manipulate you. So the correct response is to automatically discount what they say until it's verified.
- genter 3y agoNot sure what your point is. It's well established that soaking nuts and seeds so they begin to sprout is healthier. I realize that it's written with a marketing slant, but it's not wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprouting#Nutrition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprouting#Nutrition
- quercusa 3y agoVery much not interested in hearing about the Alex Jones candle options.
- tnbp 3y agoI'm a bit confused why the author is unfazed by "eleuthero root" and "cordyceps mushrooms", but puts "nascent iodine" in scare quotes. Is it not nascent iodine? If no, then what is it? Oh no, it's nail clippings, isn't it. Gwyneth has tricked me yet again! Edit: Thanks to everyone who replied--I learned something!
- jfengel 3y agoI assume it's because eleuthero root and cordyceps mushrooms are real things, while "nascent iodine" is made up. It is a marketing term for woo-woo supplements, not a technical term.
- jknoepfler 3y agoOne imagines it's the term "nascent" which is an obsolete/anachronistic descriptor for a chemical substance. It would be a little bit like using "caloric" (a substance once postulated in order to explain heat) or "luminous ether" (a medium once postulated to explain propagation of light) in an ad pitch. Not to give anyone any ideas.... (To be maximally clear/fair, all three of these concepts were part of healthy scientific discourse at one period of time, but have since faded into obscurity. That said I don't know that "nascent" anything was ever demonstrated to have health benefits, at least in virtue of its purported nascence).
- varenc 3y agoThis is explained further down in the article. Nascent iodine is in quotes because it doesn’t even seem like real quantifiable product. The other supplements are real things with at least some semblance of scientific inquiry, but to quote the article: > We couldn’t find any reliable scientific information on “nascent iodine.” ... The “nascent” stuff is supposed to have an “electromagnetic charge” that makes it easier to digest. ... iodine in this “charged” form cannot even exist in liquid form, which is how Alex Jones and company distribute it.
- anonymouswacker 3y agoClickbait. I have taken a lot of these in the past, and the label "pseudoscientific" is unwarranted. The "writer" cherrypicks and generalizes data to discount it, but if you want to understand the mechanism of, say, Ashwagandha, you probably should spend a few hours reading research and meta-analyses and not spending 10 minutes on Google to decide if it's "good" or "pseudoscience". Should these companies not be allowed to advertise and distribute products that might help some and might hurt others? Should tech writers write health articles when they don't know what they're talking about?
- raincole 3y agoPeople just want to feel good about themselves, and mocking infowars (etc.) is a easy way to assert their superiority.
- kstrauser 3y ago> Should these companies not be allowed to advertise and distribute products that might help some and might hurt others? That is correct, yes. Pharmacologically active ingredients are medicine. Encouraging someone to take mental health meds without supervision, especially when made who-knows-where with who-knows-what quality control, because they're unregulated, is incredibly irresponsible. There's a reason you can't buy Zoloft over the counter. Anything else in that space is either: 1. A placebo, in which case, no, companies should not be advertising it and thus keeping people from seeking qualified help, or 2. The real deal, in which case, no, companies should not be advertising it and selling it for unmonitored home use by people with zero education in the field.
- insickness 3y agoThere are a multitude of supplements with clinical evidence to support their efficacy that are neither #1 nor #2. These include caffeine, ginseng, various vitamins, etc. If you go to examine.com, they analyze the strength of the studies and the effect size. Most won't have the effect size of prescription drugs but some are absolutely worth taking, particularly fish oil and vitamins like B and D.
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- weare138 3y agoSomething the article seems to overlook is why these seemingly antithetical companies are selling similar products. These are all 'white-label' products with high profit margins. Go to sites like Alibaba and you'll find countless manufacturers and distributors offering the same white-label health products you see on sites like Goop and Infowars.
- roughly 3y agoThe anti-authority/anti-expert theme in American politics isn't a left or right phenomenon. There's a fundamental breakdown in institutional trust within American society which is present on both sides, and the similar approaches to wellness are a vivid expression of this.
- pico303 3y agoI feel like this is an understandable trend. With inflation and job markets and various conflicts around the world, combined with the near constant flood of near-realtime data online, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. This “anti-expert,” Qanon, flat-earth conspiracy trend fundamentally is a way for folks who feel like life is out of their control to get some of that control back by believing they have some piece of knowledge or information that gives them a “one up” on the “establishment.” I know something that you don’t, and that gives me power…when I don’t really have any.
- roughly 3y agoYeah, I think a big part of the trendiness of these groups on both sides comes down to a sense of powerlessness in the world. The "secret knowledge" allure is certainly part of it, and I think for both the Goop-left and Infowars-right there's a strong sense of "manifest your destiny", either by being a gun toting self-sufficient alpha male or by harmonizing your vibes with the cosmic mind to manifest positivity in your life. We've focused on the individual so much in American society that people have a real hard time viewing their individual situations as anything other than a personal failure and something they alone must correct, so we wind up with this kind of wacky bullshit instead of, like, labor laws and healthcare.
- scottyah 3y agoWe have labor laws and healthcare, they're just not enough and intrapreneurship probably isn't enough to fix them systemically. I see this as healthy growth, the people who don't get healed from what modern medicine currently covers are desperate enough to try these outlandish remedy attempts. If a lot of people have the same problems and figure out a cure, it will get incorporated into whatever they teach the MDs. People ARE individuals, on a physical level too. Modern medicine is notoriously bad at addressing this, and until the technology catches up the only alternative to people trying things on their own is state-mandated trials on vulnerable groups.
- 0xbadcafebee 3y agoThis is the content I come to Hacker News for. Intellectually stimulating news about Infowars and Goop merchandise.
- slibhb 3y agoAnd you can buy homeopathic remedies at CVS. At best this is a kind of placebo. At worst it's people being dumb, which is not illegal. Move on!
- RandallBrown 3y agoAt worst it's harming people with something poisonous or toxic.
- slibhb 3y agoSelling poison is illegal.
- sitzkrieg 3y agoethanol is poisonous and legal otc
- slibhb 3y agoIf you sell ethanol as a cough medicine, you are breaking the law!
- mrguyorama 3y agoThe FDA has found (after it was reported) homeopathic teething baby medicine where belladonna (nightshade) was claimed to be the homeopathic source but instead of being diluted to nonexistence like normal homeopathy there were dangerous levels of belladonna in the tablets. Unregulated supplements do not need to contain what they say on the bottle, and they can also contain things the bottle does not say they contain. That is legal.
- klodolph 3y agoHomeopathic medicines are generally non-toxic because they only contain fillers / non-active ingredients. You may be thinking of herbal remedies.
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- canadiantim 3y agoGenerally the people who deride others for pseudoscience are most often the real pseudoscientists. Almost always. Take this article, for example, claiming that selenium, reishi, cordyceps, colloidal silver, chaga, ashwagandha are all "pseudoscientific wellness products" suggests to me the author is ignorant and hasn't actually reviewed the scientific literature on these products. Clearly has an axe to grind.
- paxys 3y ago- I don't trust big pharma, and prefer alternative medicine. - I will never let my child get vaccinated. - I don't trust the education system, and homeschool my kids. - I feel economically insecure and feel like the establishment has left me behind. - I think the government is lying to us and the Jews are secretly running the world. - I don't think we should be fighting wars all over the world. Tell me, do my political views lean far right or far left?
- slater 3y agoBy US standards, right-wing. By international standards, far right-wing.
- AlbertCory 3y agoSince I just watched Idiocracy last week at a friend's recommendation: The hero encounters vast numbers of people who robotically say about a Gatorade-like product: "It's got electrolytes!" He asks them, "Do you even know what electrolytes are?"
- dmvdoug 3y agoThat’s a great documentary.
- sillywalk 3y ago> "Do you even know what electrolytes are?" They're what plants crave.
- reportgunner 3y agoBrawndo's got electrolytes!
- Telemakhos 3y agoShould this article have a year in parentheses after the title? It's from six years ago (June 2017).
- riwsky 3y agoCan’t help but be reminded of the excellent observation: > This always struck me as funny about the wellness world: how some people would brag about their mainstream credentials (“Trust me,” they’d say, with a straightening of their tie. “I’m a doctor”), while others felt that their legitimacy lay in the fact that they had no credentials. (“Trust me,” they’d say, jamming their thumbs mockingly toward the doctors. “I’m not a doctor.”) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/magazine/big-business-gwyneth-paltrow-wellness.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/magazine/big-business-gwy...
- scrps 3y agoPeople have been believing in woo-woo for time immemorial, the new magic is just scale thanks to modern comm channels. SSDM. Same shit, different medium.
- kornhole 3y agoPeople would buy overpriced sugar pills from Infowars because that is how the whole operation is funded. Many of the supplements are good and sold elsewhere for a lower price, but again people want to support the independent media they produce.
- rglover 3y agoJust reminded me to re-up my Super Male Vitality supply. I just hope I have enough patriot points...
- KingGeedorah 3y agoI thought Americans being sold on Indian spiritualism was a 90s thing.