Vacuous influencers weigh in on the vaccine
Prepare for the influx of wellness influencers telling us the COVID-19 vaccine is VERY BAD
Hi,
Last month, I encountered an Australian wellness influencer on Instagram.
It all looked fairly normal — some inspirational quotes, some smiling photos and some recipes. But in amongst the quotes and smiles and recipes were a bunch of posts saying that vaccines could be dangerous. That there is “medical tyranny” afoot.
Especially the COVID-19 vaccine. They were just asking questions, of course. The discussion continued with other wellness types and mommy bloggers in the comments section.
From what I could tell, a great deal of her 39 thousand followers were swallowing it hook, line and sinker. This bugged me, because vaccines are important — as Arnold Schwarzenegger told us this week. The COVID-19 vaccine is going to save a shitload of lives.
In a previous Webworm, I interviewed a nurse in LA who’d just had the Pfizer/BioNTech jab (she lived!) and spoke to a doctor about why it’s so important we get vaccinated:
“Even if you think you’ll only have a mild case of an infectious disease, so there’s no point being vaccinated, you could spread it to someone who will have a much more serious infection. And if they are someone who isn’t able to be vaccinated, then you risk doing them serious harm.
It’s all well and good saying you’ll stay away from “vulnerable” people if you are sick. But you may not know who they are. Besides, people with COVID-19 are infectious before they know they have the virus. So, get vaccinated. It’ll help build that protective community immunity bubble that will stop COVID-19 being spread to people who can’t be vaccinated.”
And so it’s a little annoying to see the wellness and nutritionist influencers beginning to come out of the cracks, spreading fear about vaccines all over again. So I posted on my Instagram story calling Steph Lowe out, and her followers did not like it.
This was “Koeda Vidson”, a “vitalistic Health & Wellness advocate.” A bit of googling and he appears to be a well known anti-vaxxer chiropractor (what a combo). Anyway, I replied with this…
… by which time Steph Lowe had blocked me.
But Steph’s posts (vehement anti-vaxxer rhetoric hidden amongst recipes) are very much a sign of things to come over the next year, as the Pfizer/BioNTech and other vaccines are rolled out. We are gonna hear from a lot of wellness types telling us they’re dangerous, and to “just ask questions.” They are cookie cutters of Pete Evans, the celebrity chef I’ve written about in the past.
Last year, I got my friend Dan Vernon to do a comic commemorating Pete’s foray into conspiracy theories. I find reading Dan’s comics is a bit like getting an exorcism from the bullshit. They are cutting and funny and smart. And so I thought I’d get Dan’s take on these wellness influencers, too. Because we’re going to be hearing a lot from them.
Why listen to me over a wellness influencer? Well, don’t listen to me. Listen to the doctors and nurses of this world. Medical professionals. That’s why I talked directly to them. Anyway, enjoy Dan’s comic. Free free to share this newsletter (www.webworm.co/p/vacuousinfluencers), and you can find more of his work here.
Please have a safe and happy weekend. The year is well and truly humming.
David.
I know reporting it to Instagram seems like a small thing, but Instagram and the other social media giants are actually being pretty good with misinformation lately. A few accounts I’ve reported have gone down. It’s a small thing, but I really do think it’s worth hitting “report”.
The world isn’t going to get rid of dangerous misinformation anytime soon, but we’ve gotta do our best to push back. Will it fully go away? Never. I mean, even the QAnon crowd is still struggling to come to terms with the fact Biden is president. I opened up Telegram yesterday….
… and it’s a hot mess. So hang in there. Have a great weekend.
David.
PS - Who the fuck is Angela Hitler?!
You’d think someone who preaches via “just my opinion” type posts wouldn’t feel the need to use “v@ccine” and “v1rus” to hide their posts from content moderators... It’s almost as if she knows she’s doing something wrong... 🤔
Idiot. There is a reason she is writing "v1rus." I actually loathe anti vaccers. They are the most selfish people. They bang on about their choice but its other people who they get sick. They should be made to watch videos of babies with whooping cough.
I went in to anaphylactic shock four years ago after getting a flu jab so they haven't let me get it since. I count on others to get it on my behalf. I have no idea if they'll let me get COVID vaccine or not, hopefully it's completely different. Ours is being rolled out on a phased basis and likely to get to my demographic during the summer.