‘Conspirituality’ and climate: How wellness and new age influencers are serving anti-climate narratives to their audiences. Many posts connect climate change to broad-tent conspiracy theories surrounding the World Economic Forum (WEF), billionaire philanthropists and ‘Satanic elites
by Wagamaga
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At the height of COVID-19, Wellness and New Age influencers were prominent in sharing anti-vaccine content, with many straying explicitly into conspiracies such as QAnon and becoming key conduits for “conspirituality” – defined by academics Charlotte Ward and David Voas as a “broad politico-spiritual philosophy based on two core convictions […] 1) a secret group covertly controls, or is trying to control, the political and social order, and 2) humanity is undergoing a ‘paradigm shift’ in consciousness.” As wellness influencers embraced anti-vaccine and QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories, researcher Marc-André Argentino coined the term “Pastel QAnon” to describe the Instagram-friendly aesthetic used by wellness influencers across social media to share and spread conspiratorial narratives.
With the pandemic subsiding, conspirituality has not waned and Wellness and New Age influencers are increasingly turning to divisive issues, including gender and climate, to promote their brand of conspiratorial content. In this Digital Dispatch, ISD investigates how Wellness and New Age influencers on Instagram are talking about climate to shine a light on how related issues are shaped by distinct online communities where influencers can command trust and shape their audiences’ beliefs.
Love how”billionaire philanthropists” is somehow itself a conspiracy.
I remember when New Age used to lean more toward Buddhist or Hindu beliefs. Now they believe in satan like
christians, and believe that leaders who secretly worship satan are ruling the world? It’s strange.