Meme Watch - Detox

It seems in the past five years, almost everyone I know has become very interested in fasting, cleansing, and detoxing. Even people who seemingly eat well, live well, and avoid drugs and drinking seem obsessed with this idea of cleaning out their systems. At first, I thought some of this cleansing fad was a guise under which people could fad diet. I think it still is for some, but I recently I've observed a mass proliferation of the detox meme.

The biggest spike in the cultural consciousness of this meme seemed to be when Beyonce did the master cleanse (otherwise known as the lemonade diet). She acted as the tipping point, bringing the cleanse to the mainstream.

After a mildly disturbing jaunt on the master cleanse community board, I began to wonder whether there was a name for some of these men and women who were doing the cleanse for up to 40 days, desperately wondering why they hadn't yet achieved "pink tongue status."

Dr. Steven Bratman of Colorado coined the term Orthoexia nervosa to describe a new type of eating disorder distinguished by a compulsion to eat only foods that are "pure."

He writes:

"The act of eating pure food begins to carry pseudo-spiritual connotations. As Orthorexia progresses, a day filled with sprouts, umeboshi plums and amaranth biscuits comes to feel as holy as one spent serving the poor and homeless. When an orthorexic slips up, (which, depending on the pertinent theory, may involve anything from devouring a single raisin in violation of the law to consuming a gallon of Haagen [Daaz] ice cream and a supreme pizza), he experiences a fall from grace, and must take on numerous acts of penitence. These usually involve ever stricter diets and fasts."

Now I can't vouch for this Steven Brandt character, as I'm not in the psychological community (and he spelled Haagen Dazaz wrong - wtf?), but the idea of Orthoexia has spread across the blogosphere.

I'm not suggesting this meme is sinister - in fact, it could be a great trend in a culture that until recently has valued "convenience" and "value" more than health or wellness; however, it does speak to the meme's prevalence that it is spawning a new eating disorder of it's very own.

Beyond detoxing in the diet, I've seen "detox" become a new marketing buzzword. Bath & Body Works recently started carrying a lotion called Detoxify, a product that promises to "detoxify over night." You can buy detox shampoo, tea, lotion, oil; you can find products that specifically detox different parts of your body: your colon, your lungs, your skin, your hair, your blood. A quick jaunt to GMC is basically waiting to become a detox/cleanse party.

The meme is clear. It says: Your colon is nasty. Your skin is nasty. Your lifestyle is filthy. There's all kinds of "free radicals" and "toxins" and other crud floating around. Whether or not you understand these toxins, you need to understand that you need to "de-" them.

Maybe as a result to growing secularism, people are finding non-religious ways of fasting. Maybe there is some intrinsic need to punish/cleanse ourselves. To start anew.

I know that I live in California, so my perspective might be skewed, but surely this qualifies as a meme. Thoughts?

Am I the only nerd up in here?

Meme Watch number 2:

Postmodernity and Paranoia...

This is more up for discussion than anything else. I've been noticing that one of the most defining current "memes" seems to be the entropic proliferation of cultural paranoia. Postmodernity has fragmented everything from identity to aesthetics to economy. With such fragmentary organization has come the converse and, I would argue adverse, reaction-- that of a paranoia that reorganizes this compartmentalized chaos through the dramatization and glorification of perceived constants, namely those of nationalism and religious fundamentalism. This coping mechanism seems to be at the root of many of our present-day problems that results in a cultural paranoia that breeds hatred toward the "other (whatever lives outside of the perceived constants)."

So... what do you think? Cultural Paranoia, meme or no?

to get the ball rolling...

So let's just start really generally....

Uh-oh! Meme Watch!

-THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
What's UP with that? SO many people here in the US seem to have caught on to the English Language thing.

Any ideas as to how that got transmitted culturally?

Weird.