What’s the Snark on Jay Shetty?

**Sophie** (0:00)
Hello, and welcome to the Michael Scott Podcast Company, a show for fans of The Office by fans of The Office.

**Christy** (0:05)
Fans of The Office, but mainly super fans of The Office. It's much more than a rewatch podcast.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:10)
So if you are a super fan of The Office like we are, listen to the Michael Scott Podcast Company on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, Apple Pods, wherever you get your podcasts.

**Christy** (0:20)
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Snark Bait. I'm Christy.

**Sophie** (0:24)
I'm Sophie.

**Christy** (0:25)
How are you doing, Soph?

**Sophie** (0:26)
I am good. It is beautiful today. We're recording on Thursday, July 23rd. It's gonna be beautiful this weekend. So I'm going to the Jersey Shore, which I'm very excited about. How are you?

**Christy** (0:38)
Ooh, a fun beach weekend.
I'm feeling fine. Like same old kind of stuff. I'm very excited to record today's episode because this specific person, as you guys know through the title, we're talking about Jay Shetty. We've been wanting to do an episode on Jay Shetty for a while now. And I'm gonna be honest, I don't know too much about this man. I just know I hate him. Do you know what I mean?

**Sophie** (1:01)
Yeah, I'm crying at the photo, the first photo on our document. He is so frightening. There's something about him that is so bone chilling.

**Christy** (1:13)
Agreed. I don't know what it is, but like something about him is so nefarious. And obviously we're going to get into all of his controversies and why he was canceled two years ago in 2014 by this Guardian article. But it really feels like he's been able to kind of bounce back from that cancellation. And God knows why, you know? I don't know who listens to him. And it's kind of almost similar to Call Her Daddy, where it's the biggest female podcast in the world, or it's the biggest self-help podcast in the world, when in fact no one in my life actually listens.

**Sophie** (1:45)
Right. It's like I don't doubt it, but it's like who, but I'm just curious who is the audience, you know?

**Christy** (1:52)
No, I completely agree.
I do feel a certain way about self-help and just the wellness space in general and how I feel exploitative it can be. Not always. I don't want to make sweeping generalizations, but I do feel as if sometimes the self-help world can be exploiting people that are at their lowest and are at their weakest and are actually accessing the tools that they necessarily should be. And I don't know, something about wellness and specifically about Jay Shetty and honestly, many other health and wellness influencers that have no accreditation to actually speak on what they want to speak on. It just feels very troubling to me for people that should seek actual medical treatment. Yeah.

**Sophie** (2:32)
No, no, no. I totally agree that there is something very predatory about the self-help industry that we have, the cottage industry, because more often than not, the people that are doling out self-help guides or coaching sessions, life coach sessions, have absolutely zero qualifications. And you are taking advantage of, like you said, people who are at their lowest and stealing their money, when you don't have the fucking accreditation to be doling out this kind of advice.

**Christy** (3:05)
Exactly.

**Sophie** (3:06)
It reminds me of Lames.

**Christy** (3:07)
Oh my God. And don't get me started on Lames' brother, okay? Lames' brother, this is a whole other thing, but he has this coaching business, online coaching business, that's for professional self-help. And again, he just posts weird memes and creepy videos on the internet, purporting to be someone who's basically licensed. I don't think he pretends to be licensed, but he seems to have the accreditation that many licensed professionals would have, even though he doesn't, and people pay a bunch of money to have FaceTime with him, even though it's just seek out a licensed marriage family therapist or a psychiatrist or a doctor.
But something I was thinking about that I think was actually a good point is that the health and wellness industry and self-help industry is a billion dollar business. And there are so many other people like Jay Shetty that are also exploiting Eastern practices, Eastern religions for their own gain. And I think that back in the early 2010s, that was the boom of the Western yoga trend, at least for me. I remember being very into like core power yoga and attending all these like, you know, these vinyasa flows and feeling very connected to like, I don't know, what should be kind of like Hindu practices. But it's really been Westernized to be more palpable to like the white person or to people that just don't practice that specific religion. And I think there's something to be said and to kind of play devil's advocate when it comes to Jay Shetty.