Given that she is a model, a multi-millionaire, the ex-wife of Orlando Bloom and starts her day at 5am with sun salutations, dry brushing and celery juice, I have not spent much of my life comparing myself with Miranda Kerr.
Now 43 and a skincare mogul, Kerr has been at the vanguard of the toxic wellness culture of the last decade, famous for her absurd morning routines and “360-degree holistic” approach to health, which is laughably unrealistic and whose benefits are spurious. So I am perplexed to have found myself for the past two hours reading about “oxalates” – a term I had never heard until this week – and spinach and kale, leaves I hitherto believed healthy and I now understand are to be avoided if I want to commit to the glowing, parasite-free purity of Kerr.
This week, Kerr (13.8m Instagram followers) appeared on the podcast of former reality star Kristin Cavallari (4.9m Instagram followers) to promote her brand, Kora Organics. Chief among the mind-numbing conversation topics was her diet: she doesn’t eat eggs: “I do protein… bison, venison, lamb…” No sushi, because of “parasites”, no wheat, no dairy. But caviar is fine, and when asked if she eats carbs, the reply was: “I really eat a lot of squash, carrots, parsnips”, but “I don’t eat kale”. Or spinach. My patience and IQ atrophied just watching it.
The world – or at least millennial women like me who like to believe ourselves capable of at least some critical thinking – is used to Kerr’s pseudo-scientific bullshit by now, so her diet, which sounds alarmingly restrictive, is of little surprise. The really outrageous part is the response of the host. Marvelling at Kerr, and I suppose her venerable commitment to all this, Cavallari said: “So you really are, like, super healthy”, as Kerr, with her doe eyes, smooth forehead and self-seriousness, nodded magnanimously. The acceptance, endorsement and promotion of harmful claims made on Cavallari’s show are everything that’s wrong with podcasting.
Podcasting, unlike more traditional forms of media, is unregulated. Aside from adhering to the defamation, hate speech or copyright laws of the country in which it is made, and the guidelines on the platform (Apple, Spotify, Audible) that hosts it, a podcaster bears no responsibility for what they say or broadcast and will suffer no consequences if what they say or broadcast is untrue or reckless.
Indeed, broadcasting that which is untrue and reckless can be to a podcaster’s benefit: maximising reach, drawing in listeners, developing communities and tribes – it is exactly how podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience have helped to spread so much misinformation and allowed conspiracy theories to proliferate.
Ridiculous claims like Kerr’s, and those made recently by Steven Bartlett on his Diary of a CEO – about how drinking wine ruined his life for a few days – are extreme, mockable, and usually go viral, but that doesn’t cauterise the risk that some people will absorb them as truth.
The dangers of podcasting aren’t all about what is loudly promoted, but what is quietly accepted. Unlike, say, a reputable journalist, Cavallari has no duty to fact-check or question what someone says on her programme. She may not have the knowledge to. She, and other podcast presenters like her whose shows are an extension of a multi-hyphenate career from a media personality, have platforms as big as some traditional broadcasters, but do not have the same accountability for what they put out.
Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO benefits from the attention of extreme, viral claims (Photo: Sam Barnes/Getty)Podcasting has become an industry that is fuelled by big personalities going unquestioned. For every well-researched news show committed to honesty and reasonable inquiry, there are about 300 more hosted by clueless celebrities without the expertise nor the courage to do anything but pacify their guests and nod along.
Much of the time, it benefits them to. Interview shows, especially, are only sustained by the willingness of guests to appear, which they will be reluctant to do if they expect the conversation to be difficult, inquisitive or in any way obstructive to their own self-promotion. A little inconvenience like “the truth” can get in the way of that.
Some programmes, from Alexandra Cooper’s Call Her Daddy, which featured Kamala Harris in the run up to the 2024 US general election, to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, which this week featured an interview with Andy Burnham, do recognise their influence and take it seriously.
However, a far greater number serve as an extension of a personal brand for celebrities who themselves may stand to gain from their guests in future. They want to be liked, to appear on their guest’s own podcast one day, to profit from cross-promotion. It’s a PR exercise that goes round and round – at best sycophantic and at worst dangerous.
Now that podcasting has undergone a video revolution, it’s getting worse. Every show is filmed to allow conversations to be clipped into digestible, context-free, short-form video content, to be distributed on social media and algorithmically parachuted into the feeds of people outside of its active audience – like me, who had never before listened to Cavallari’s show, which ironically enough is titled Let’s Be Honest. Podcasts – and the content and claims within – are now designed to seep into our passive consciousness, where they are normalised without us even realising. That is far more insidious than traditional media. Especially since so many podcasts are hosted by influencers – people whose very job title denotes the impact they have on others.
A BBC newsreader would be held to account for revelling in the return of smoking (as I heard recently on the American podcast It’s Me Tinx), or for promoting spurious health claims like Kerr’s – but their career doesn’t rely on a legion of impressionable people emulating their lifestyle. Anyone, no matter their qualifications, can start a podcast and disseminate whatever ideas they want to on multiple mediums and devices. Surely they require regulation more than anyone, and yet there is no Ofcom to complain to when things are wrong, irresponsible, in poor taste, or dangerous. It is a Wild West.
Podcasting gave everyone a voice. It democratised broadcasting. It changed the meaning of free speech. They are intimate, freeform, unfiltered – it’s what makes them so easy to listen to and what distinguishes them from other media. But as Kerr’s fear of kale and spinach threatens to brainwash me, I’m starting to wonder if a filter is overdue.
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