As a web-savvy digital native livin’ your life through your screen something something emoji something information superhighway modem noise, you’re presumably aware that you’re being marketed at every second you’re alive.
After all, Instagram is now less a social media platform than a stealth marketing tool. And this is news up there with “BREAKING: ocean remains damp”, but what you might not be aware of is that now marketeers are not just trying to push shoes and doomed music festivals, but also medication.
And that’s a potential problem since as far as sources of top quality medical advice go, Instagram influencers are up there with horoscopes and penguins.
CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR IF PAIN PERSISTS
So if your favourite influencer suddenly veers into pushing a psoriasis treatment or a device to combat sleep apnia, you might think “aw, what candid and relatable content!” before thinking “hey, wife of an actor I liked in the nineties, why would I look to you for disease management advice?”
Naturally, it’s started in the US where laws about advertising drugs is far more cavalier than it is in Australia. Vox has a frankly chilling tale of the rise of the sponcon medicine show and how much of a legal and ethical grey area it is, but the TL;DR version is that this is a thing and a surprisingly big one.
Pharmfluencing doesn’t appear to spread to local celebs as yet, possibly because the Australian market’s too small (and, thanks to Medicare and the PBS, skewed very much to advice from actual doctors) and possibly because in Australia there are all sorts of rules around how one can advertise medical products to the public, which basically amounts to “y’can’t”.
And one imagines that the government would take a very dim view of this, since no-one’s going to accidentally keel over from an adverse reaction to a handbag. Unlike, say, aspirin.
But it’s just another thing which you should be aware of when you’re a-scrolling, because Instagram is a tissue of fiendish lies.
On an unrelated topic, you should absolutely follow GOAT on Instagram because we genuinely love and understand you. FACT.