The “hate-clicks” making Paltrow rich
For years, people have debated whether Gwyneth Paltrow actually believes the bullshit (or Goopshit) she peddles on her aspirational lifestyle website Goop, said Julia Belluz on Vox. Can the actressturned-wellness guru really have faith in the power of $66 jade eggs to “clear” the vagina and “cultivate sexual energy”, or in the detoxing potential of a coffee enema? But it turns out that what Paltrow believes is beside the point, because she doesn’t think the objective “truth” of her site’s “statements” really matters. In a “masterful profile” in The New York Times, she explained why her magazine collaboration with Condé Nast had ended after two issues: she hadn’t liked the way the publisher insisted the magazine be fact-checked. It was, she said, “very old school”.
She had a point, said Jenny Mccartney in The Times. Condé Nast wanted to “bog Goop down in a whole lot of prissy facts”, but Goop is not about facts. It’s about hopes and dreams and sprays to protect you from emotional harm. Unfurling in that “space where anxiety meets wishful thinking”, it cleverly combines free advice on how to be as healthy and happy as Gwynnie (much of it “gobbledygook”) with commercial promotions. Thus, a recent feature on “earthing therapy” explained that walking barefoot, or “grounding”, can help with arthritis and depression owing to the transfer of electrons into the body – and invited readers who want to “ground” while asleep to spend $199 on an “earthing” bedsheet. It’s quackery, yet this stuff flies off the website: Goop’s value is estimated at $250m.
Paltrow is no fool, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. She knows she infuriates people – but she’s learned to take that rage and turn it into cold hard cash. Every time one of her critics denounces her for promoting “vaginal steaming”, or for flogging $1,220 toxin-free casserole dish, it just sends more traffic to her website. “I can monetise those eyeballs”, she told students at Harvard Business School. She’s like the Donald Trump of wellness: truth doesn’t matter, and anger gets you noticed. It’s a “fake news strategy for face creams”. Plenty of celebrities make money from being popular; Paltrow is getting rich from being loathed.