Self-care is a great trend to preserve mental and physical health. Unfortunately, like every trend, it’s become commodified and been turned into a capitalistic practice. Instead of focusing on wellness, it’s now become about the best products you can purchase periodically. In addition, other people have capitalised on this and become fake life coaches out to line their products.
Those who promote self-care for a career start by giving friendly advice on social media about how you can do specific things. It can be as simple as how to have a more fulfilling skincare routine and the specific products you should use. The product photos are carefully shot and the benefits are carefully listed but the post ends up just shy of an ad. Once people capitalise on a trend, it soon becomes easier to scam others.
What makes self-care scams more sinister is that most people in need of it are vulnerable. More people than ever are experiencing burnout and depression symptoms. Self-care is one of the few ways that is accessible to everybody to manage depression. Scammers can easily prey on people in need of more serious interventions.
Common self-care scams
Self-care has morphed from caring for yourself to help your mental and physical health to performative self-coddling. The internet is now rewarding people for overspending on products and turning promoting self-care into a full-time job.
On Instagram, the self-care hashtag has 73 million posts. On TikTok, the hashtag has more than 30 billion views. It has turned from a private practice where people can find a way to feel better and into showing off. It’s become an outward-facing trend where users can either convince themselves to fall into toxic habits or gain excuses to become selfish.
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1. Selfishness
The most common way to identify a self-care scam is if it advocates for selfishness. Often you will find real self-care posts recommending that you find time to disconnect from life or the internet. YouTube is full of vlogs where young students and workers share a prerecorded day where they explore a city, get a massage, go for a walk, or do yoga. These give others ideas on what to do to improve their mental health if they don’t have access to more expensive solutions. However, other users can recommend absconding for work with a convenient discount code for travelling.
2. Paid for training
Another common self-care scam is a life coach who creates a video that sounds inspiring. They promote certain practices but fail to give full details about what to do. After that, they offer a paid subscription or a paid course to learn how to be better at self-care. They also offer a discount code for the first few members who sign up. Together with other users, they create ads showing the benefits of enrolling in the program and try to influence others to join. They curate their posts to appear on the feeds of people who struggle with mental health problems, relationship problems, or toxic workplaces.
3. Wellness profiteering
Some cons turn self-care into a wellness market. It encourages people to pursue self-care without any care for others. This includes buying mass-produced items that can harm the environment or are made in unethical ways. Those who promote this lifestyle encourage users to buy everything they need to “feel better”. They start bandying around terms like “emotional support”. Encouraging overconsumption to deal with mental health doesn’t help anyone. Retail therapy isn’t real mental health treatment.
4. False life coaches
There are plenty of motivational speakers who give actionable advice. Some help individuals with specific problems and overcome personal hurdles with some of their habits. However, false life coaches sell a lifestyle that isn’t sustainable and doesn’t take into account the reality of what people are facing. They talk about how you deserve a great job and sell the lifestyle that comes with a fulfilling career with a great work-life balance. After which, they sell an opportunity for recruitment into selling wellness products that resemble multilevel marketing schemes.
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With one-size-fits-all platitudes, they offer a way to redesign your life making it seem like a radical form of self-care. However, they only want to make products out of desperate people to safeguard their mental health.
How to avoid self-care scams
When looking for a self-care routine, look at the accounts that speak to you. If the account is constantly hawking products, avoid them. They make self-care competitive and are out to get you to buy as many products as possible from their affiliate links.
If they’re selling classes or training sessions on how to better take care of yourself, you’re better off using that money to seek professional mental healthcare. Avoid falling for such scams by completely ignoring anything that requires you to pay.
When selecting someone’s advice to follow when it comes to taking care of yourself, see if they’re someone qualified to talk about mental health. Before buying their books, and accompanying branded merchandise, see whether what they’re saying is generic or actionable advice from existing testimonials.
Check out:
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Self Care: 5 Lessons On Self Love We Should Learn And Implement
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