What do professional golfers, radical queer feminists and Instagram lifestyle influences have in common? They are all devotees of “self-care”. While the earlier self-help movement focused on improving yourself, the relatively new self-care movement focuses on preserving yourself. It’s lifestyle advice for an age of diminished expectations, where most people have given up on getting to the top and the best they can hope for is to get through the day.
A whole self-care industry has popped up in recent years peddling products such as temporary tattoos featuring slogans like “I am enough”. The hashtag #selfcare has been used more than 18 million times on Instagram alone. Type it in and thousands of images of glossy-haired women lounging in health spas will pop up. Although it is still largely targeted at women, self-care has starting to appeal to men too.
But the idea of self-care has overflowed the relatively small circles of people who might be familiar with Lorde. The self-care of Instagrammers, professional golfers and overworked executives is probably not intended as “an act of political warfare” as Lorde had hoped. But why, a quarter century after her death, has a radical queer theorist become a go-to lifestyle guru? Maybe others are finally starting to recognise the power of some of Lorde’s ideas.
But while self-care may work for individuals, it doesn’t come without dangers. This once radical idea is being stripped of its politics to make it more palatable to a mass market. As this happens, the central insights associated with self-care may well get lost. This could mean self-care becomes just another brand of self-help. Self-care could also be seen as cheap replacement for social care.