I Hate Andrew Huberman
Find Out Why
It’s not a surprise that I HATE neuroscientist Andrew Huberman.
I bitch about him on Instagram and I bitch about him on threads… so do other people.
Recently I read an article on how Huberman just basically bullshitted his entire cold/flu podcast episode. It’s a good read and I think you should check it out.
But before you read this, I am sure plenty of you are asking the fundamental question…
Who the fuck is Andrew Huberman?
It’s so easy for many of us (myself included) to be caught up in our own online spaces and communities acting like everyone automatically knows wtf we are talking about online. So, I will do the formal kindness of linking to Huberman’s Wikipedia article which details most major parts of his current internet persona and subsequent criticism.
Long story short, Huberman is a highly credentialed neuroscientist associated with Stanford University and currently runs one of the most popular podcasts in America.
His podcast is considered a deep dive into scientific topics about health and wellness. However, the main criticism against him in many areas is best summed up in this one sentence.
“He extrapolates [animal research] to things that we can do as humans, but those things aren’t really strongly supported for humans,” says Joseph Zundell, a cancer biologist who runs a science-education account on Instagram.
Source: Time
Why does Huberman discuss areas outside his expertise and make grand claims with limited data? In a short word, money.
Huberman has sold weighted blankets, blue light shades, and now supplements. The financial incentivization of his platform is as clear as day.
But shouldn’t scientists and science communicators make money online if they’re doing a lot of work to disseminate science? The problem isn’t the money-making and sponsorships in my view.
The problem is the way individuals like Huberman make their money online. They’re purposefully or unintentionally selling people on products and services using the perceived authority of science.
This relates to the concepts of bullshit and post-truth, where the truth is only as useful as what it gets you. There is no epistemological usage for the concept of truth outside of how it’s instrumental, it’s useful for whatever purposes the individual holds.
However, I see Huberman and the likes of him as a symptom of an even greater problem… the problem of the spectacle.
The Society of the Spectacle
The way social media is performative and really about the appearance of looking a particular way reminded me of this older Marxist-inspired book The Society of The Skeptical by Guy Debord.
The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than “that which appears is good, that which is good appears. The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance which in fact it already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance.
Debord is mainly speaking about post-World War 2 capitalism and its reliance on appearance to push consumer goods. It is no longer about what you need but what appears to be what you need.
Think of advertisers portraying the new iPhone as something you “need” when in actuality it isn’t much different from previous editions.
Better yet, think of celebrity endorsements… When celebrities appear in advertisements it is to associate the celebrity, their appearance and reputation, with the services and products the company paying for the advert provides.
My usage of the spectacle is a bit different as it takes into account the performance of creators, businesses, and brands on social media. While social media is connected to consumerism by its very basic premise of making money from advertisement, the lie social media sells to us as a collective audience is celebrity, status, and financial freedom.
The Spectacle of Social Media
Where the real world changes into simple images, the simple images become real beings and effective motivations of hypnotic behavior.
To say that social media has changed the nature of advertisements is an understatement. While singular images were advertisements in Debord’s time, advertisements now are more dynamic.
Advertisers are now keen on the arenas of storytelling, brand association, and even world-building. The book StoryBranding by Jim Signorelli illustrates this change perfectly…
Brands can clothe truths as much as stories do. Perferring a particular brand over an alternative is a favorable vote for some truth that the selected brand represents for us.
StoryBranding
Signorelli states what Debord alluded to, truth has been tied with image and appearances. This truth is ultimately sold to us by the capitalist system if truth is related to commerce and consumption then whatever we buy becomes our truth.
On social media, we typically do not “buy” things with money but with our attention, this is why social media spaces have curated what’s called an “attention economy”.
Attention is the new commodity as we are sold particular appearances that attempt to capitalize and leverage this attention for economic purposes (making money). The hypnotic behavior often associated with social media is a means to that end.
This is why emotional content has a greater reach than unemotional content, this is why social media apps are created with retention in mind, and this is why social media companies capitalize off of political division. All of these negative aspects of social media serve to create money for the parent company.
The spectacle in terms is the gap between actions and appearances in online spaces versus what we could dub “the real world”.
The spectacle is feeding into political polarization with nasty tweets while agreeing on many key issues with those whom you perceive as the opposition.
The spectacle is posting a black square on Instagram during the George Floyd protest instead of working with grassroots organizations to deal with racial inequality.
The spectacle calls for us to be entertained, feel valued, feel heard, and think we are more knowledgeable than we are. The spectacle makes us ignore the exploitation of our time and resources through mediums we barely understand nor can control.
The spectacle makes us see truth as a YouTube video that feeds into our preconceived notions rather than having difficult conversations with people we might not always see eye to eye with in person.
In Huberman’s case, the spectacle is being a Stanford neuroscientist who studies vision in real life while being a podcaster who uses the language of science with none of its substance to sell supplements.
Surviving the Spectacle
I remember watching this amazing video by creator CJ the X on social media, capitalism, and transhumanism. Please watch the video in its entirety to understand my reflections and thoughts.
CJ argues that we live, think, and love through the internet. In this case, we and technology are one, this is especially true for younger generations. From the standpoint of a place that is “real,” the internet can be described as a real place depending on our definition of real.
When I talk about a “real” place or reality I am mainly discussing human interactions outside of the medium of the internet as we know it. When we have a discussion with a friend or loved one in the absence of a phone or computer we are communicating in a place outside of the spectacle, we are in “real” life by that definition.
Could the internet be real like CJ argues? Possibly, but I think there is a disconnect between technology and the human experience. This disconnect can be used to explain many phenomena, but in this case, I want that debate to be outside the scope of this essay.
The spectacle is this disconnect between how we behave and act in one space from another space, but these behaviors and actions can also combine and entangle, making it more difficult to differentiate online spaces from reality.
CJ uses an example of a baby using an iPad and trying to grab within the screen to manipulate a task. My example is the consistent reference of memes with the children I work with, it is almost like these children cannot differentiate situations in the real world without referring to the online world.
For example, the children were watching a video of a Charlie Brown special in which a boy had a crush on a girl. When the boy went to talk to the girl almost 10 kids said simultaneously, “Let him cook”. This remark was about a meme with the implicit element of a guy flirting with a girl to receive sexual intercourse. Why were eight-year-olds so in tune with the implicit action of hooking up with a girl sexually?
This is possibly due to the fact they combined their understanding of both the internet with real-life scenarios.
How do we avoid the spectacle? How do we avoid the combination of real life and the internet world?
Some folks suggest just getting off the internet, but this doesn’t challenge or seek to change the system by which these mediums operate.
Some folks suggest regulation of big tech… that might be more plausible, but the United States tends to be governed by those less technologically inclined, and the political division social media has encouraged works in big tech’s favor.
However, without changing the structure and process of these internet mediums… we will be constantly sold, commodified, and digitized as consumers.
Perhaps, the problem is capitalism as Debord deduced from his work on the spectacle. A system that seeks to maximize profit and commodify even our attention should be critically analyzed as probably the source of the issue when it comes to Huberman and the like.
Huberman is just playing along with what people like and want to hear to make money. His financial incentives are clear and they’re probably driving his other decisions as well, but here is the hard question.
Do you blame him?
In a society that values appearance more than substance and quick takes more than nuance, playing towards a particular appearance for financial benefit is a smart money move, yet many of us call for something deeper.
Many of us call for the integrity of our respected public figures and institutions, but is integrity possible in the area of the spectacle?
This tweet seems relevant:
Danielle Belardo, MD @DBelardoMD
I just saw someone refer to Andrew Huberman as Joe Neurorogan and now I can’t unsee it 😂 too accurate
H/T to @derekberes for this find