“ Type in “keto” or “carnivore diet” in Google or Instagram or YouTube and what you’ll get is a flood of @carnivore_karen’s virtue signalling.”
I re-stumbled upon a concept apt for the increasing world of self-proclaimed Instagram shaman's and guru's: Spiritual Materialism.
The idea behind Spiritual Materialism is that self-transcendence through spiritual practices (like meditation) and substances ( like plant-medicine) often turns into an egotist pursuit to fulfil a desire to be significant. The 'guru' or shaman who was once a seeker and healer in their own sense, are now seeking to be significant through their self-proclaimed enlightenment or knowledge or power.
No doubt, there are people out there who exert, in my opinion, the highest form of mentorship in a spiritual sense. People who have skin in the game and who speak from a place of presence and truth. Dr. Gabor Mate and Tony Robbins to name a few.
The Carnivore Diet Bull-Run
But I can't help but draw a similar line between spiritual materialism and the current carnivore diet bull-run the world of social media is experiencing. Type in "keto" or "carnivore diet" in Google or Instagram or YouTube and what you'll get is a flood of @carnivore_karen's virtue signalling.
What I see is thousands of people who have reclaimed their health and are rapidly changing their biology in the best way possible. But, at the expense of what? The price you pay for jumping on the 'look at my meat' bandwagon is you're now creating an identity for yourself.
Don't get me wrong, I’m the first to see the benefit in people self-actualising and becoming healthy and happy through a meat-based diet: but I can't help but notice — through my own past ignorance and immaturity — how people are paradoxically becoming no better than the people they are "fighting."
Who are they "fighting?" Well, in most cases, it's vegans.
My Meat-Eating Arrogance
Before carnivore blew up, after listening to Shawn Baker on Joe Rogan make a compelling case as to why we should all eat meat and cut the veg, in 2018 I had started experimenting with carnivore. I came from a low-carb banting diet (which helped me lose over 30kgs) prior to going meat-based
It worked wonders for me; I felt the best I had ever felt mentally and physically. So I did as one does when they feel great -- I started promoting it on Instagram. I became an @carnivore_karen. I became a Meat-Eating Materialist that virtue signalled.
Eventually, I got questioned by fellow school friends about the efficacy of my diet. So when these school friends commented on one of my Instagram posts, saying I was going to get people killed, the identity I created on Instagram — the guy who eats meat, can party, can live happily off his mothers' money in Cape Town — got thrashed.
I responded in the most arrogant way by taking time out of my day to write up an entire 21 step response to why I thought we should be eating meat instead of vegetables. Looking back, I cringe at my response. But I'm also grateful: I have grown to understand that where I was at that time, I was just seeking to be significant on a platform that made it so easy to seem so.
I was alone and lost in a city that sucked me in like a vacuum. Instagram was my gateway to instant gratification and love (something I believe many people in the carnivore/self-improvement space didn't get and are now seeking that lost love on social media).
The thought had always tickled my brain: were there people doing carnivore without social media?
Charlene Anderson: The Carnivore Woman Without Instagram
There is a carnivore that has been doing this for 22 years and she doesn't have Instagram. I'm fascinated by her. Charlene looks like a model in some photos — you would never expect to find out she has been on a meat-based diet for over 20 years.
I'm sure there are more Charlene's in this world, but it begs the question: what if we resolved to just be who we were without having to justify to the world we matter through social media?
Richard Feynman asserted that we must not fool ourselves and we are the easiest to fool. Are we not fooling ourselves in thinking we are doing good by ravishingly posting photos of every meal and getting high off the response instead of just being totally comfortable and eating the way we do without making a statement out of it?
Is it possible to enjoy a steak without showing the world? One of the ways I fooled myself was thinking that drinking all weekend was ok because I could fast and eat meat and make up for it in the week.
When The Body Says No
I was soon slapped with the big wrathy dick of reality when I fell ill and got a cyst the size of a tennis ball on my face in 2019.
My body literally said No More (read Dr Gabor Mate's book When The Body Says No). That cyst changed my life and I've been on the mend since then through the gut-healing effects of a meat-based diet.
Since falling ill, and reading Dr Gabor Mate's work, I've been fascinated by how trauma creates dis-ease. I now firmly believe that most biohackers and carnivores and vegans and people with eating disorders need to resolve their hidden traumas — the traumas that led them to over or under eating in the first place — instead of using dieting and Instagram as a bandaid.
What we need is self-love: to gently dust the mind and reveal all the hidden truths.
Self-compassion is the precursor for a lovely life.
Again, I must restate: if you've healed through a carnivore diet (or any diet for that matter), I'm beyond happy for you. And to be part of a community of carnivores makes me feel so good and not alone and part of something bigger.
I just think in the grand scheme of things, life is more important — this moment with your kids, reading a book, going for a run, looking your partner in the eyes and experiencing joy — than the superficial, never-ending game of Instagram and social media.
Writing this blog post got me thinking…
My Social Media Sabbatical 2021
Last year during the infant stages of lockdown in South Africa, I went cold turkey off social media. Suffice to say: it was enlightening. The extra 3-4 hours that I would have spent mindlessly devouring shitty memes on Instagram was transferred to becoming a more rounded creative.
In the spur of the moment, a lightning bolt hit this tip of my penis (a Stepbrothers quote for those wondering) prior to publishing this: I reminisced how good I felt being away from it all.
I felt free. Taking a break from social media is the modern equivalent of an artist going into the woods to connect with herself. It’s a reformation of the once bonded connection with a higher self that slipped through the cracks of doggy filters and mindless polls asking which pizza would win in a fight.
Feel free to join me on this sabbatical. I explain more on my YouTube channel which you should subscribe too.