Hope for Sale: The Social Media Self-Help Circus
I only follow a handful of social media channels—especially those about life and personal growth. Lately, I’ve reached a point where I feel like I’ve consumed every theory, every label, every “truth” about life floating around online. I used to follow dozens of voices in the self-help and healing space, looking for insight, for language that could explain my experience. Now I’m down to just a handful, maybe one or two that I find remotely entertaining. I’m out of gurus. Out of role models. Just trying to find something that feels human and real.
This is the kind of content that dominates much of the social media self-help space: we talk endlessly about abstract ideas: personality types, attachment styles, early trauma and give self-applied tools. But rarely do we talk about the real stuff — the real experiences we live every day. Our feelings, our struggles, our unmet needs, the conflicts we can’t quite solve, our lack of purpose, and the loneliness that sneaks up on us for no apparent reason.
Thanks to social media, we cling to labels, categories, studies, theories, products, routines — anything but feeling our lives. Why?
The Labels Trap
Just today, I saw another reel about INFJs, who are probably the most sensitive of the 16 Personality types. As if that label alone holds the key to who we are, what we feel, or what our lives mean. Why do we cling to these labels like lifebuoys, building entire realities and businesses around them?
I see so many people on social media trying to sell these abstract ideas as “healing.” It seems the only ones who truly benefit are those selling the ideas. This isn’t bitterness about making money online. If anything, it’s frustration over how little real value it takes to earn a living in this space.
But what about those of us actually searching for answers? I don’t think most of these theories bring comfort or healing. Maybe some do. But more often, they feel hollow.
The Hypnotic Confidence
What really strikes me is how many are drawn to voices that speak with a magnetic, almost hypnotic confidence selling these theories.
The energy is something like:
“I have this theory. I will look you straight in the eye and present it so convincingly that you start to feel it too.”
The more confident they seem, the more their words feel true. It even has a name: pontification.
Like a modern-day pope addressing a congregation, they preach their gospel with unwavering certainty — not from a lofty pulpit, but through screens and speakers, flooding our feeds and minds.
I stumble across this especially in circles discussing woundedness. Suddenly, you’re caught up in a web of labels: the empath, the INFJ, the neurodivergent, the people pleaser, introvert. Like joining a club — but one built on categories, not connection. and shared experiences
Sometimes, I want to scream at my screen:
Please unfollow these channels if you want real hope and connection. All you’re getting here is theories and self-celebration.
But I can’t. I don’t have the reach or energy to speak to those on the edge of losing themselves in the noise of social media. Instead, I’m writing this, hoping it might reach someone.
The Missing Compassion
We’re wasting precious time listening to voices that can’t truly help with what we’re going through. That can’t go beyond labels, that cannot connect the dots of how we feel.
Yes, empathy is a word many claim, but it doesn’t exist in the spaces I’ve seen. There’s a difference between:
Empathy — being sensitive to pain, like receptors picking up every signal.
Compassion — saying, “I feel for you, and I want to help.”
Right now, compassion feels rare. Instead, it’s:
“You suffer. I have a theory. I’ll teach you how to embody it.”
Not:
“You suffer. Let me listen—really listen—and then reflect, until you feel ready to find your own way.”
Why This Matters
Helping people isn’t simple. I won’t romanticise listening as a cure-all. We suffer for many reasons: the state of the world, social isolation, conflicts, and a lack of connection to our human heritage. Sometimes it’s ourselves. And, of course, sometimes it’s the traces trauma leaves in our lives.
But even knowing that, I’m left wondering: Why are we so willing to accept this hollow culture of “help”?
Why do we trade one expert for the next, and the next, and then another still. Each one with a new framework, a new label, a new promise?
Maybe it’s because we’re not actually healing—we’re hunting. Hunting for someone who finally gets it. And the more you scroll, the more it all starts to blur together: Confidence mistaken for help. Buzzwords passed off as wisdom.
This is the circus. And hope? It's the ticket they’re selling.
I’ve thought about leaving snarky comments on those channels, telling these channels they’re messing with people’s minds. But it would be like calling a guru a guru—something they’d never admit—and telling their followers they’re being brainwashed.
So instead, I write this, hoping that one day, someone following these voices will wake up from the illusion they’ve been caught in. Just like I once woke up from the illusion I was selling myself.
The Healing Culture To Let Go
So how do you spot it — this hollow help dressed up as healing?
They have the language for your pain. You get pulled in by feeling understood. They have the perfect words, the exact phrases that echo what you’re feeling but might not yet fully grasp.
They share just enough of their own story to make you empathise — a glimpse into their life that feels like a bridge, drawing you closer.
You feel seen, but only just enough to keep you hooked. It’s like breadcrumbs in a toxic relationship, only now it’s a stranger you don’t even know who wants to cash in on you.
They say just enough to make you believe they’ve got something more, something you’ll get… later. Maybe behind a paywall. Maybe after you’ve watched five more videos. Maybe never.
They call it “guidance or truth”. But it’s mirroring. It’s marketing. It’s manipulation by omission. They speak to your wounds, but they don’t sit with them. They can’t explain them. They can’t find compassionate words for them. You can feel it in their comment sections: they literally reply with loud affirmations and applause — thumbs up, hearts, 100%s — but never with words of real understanding.
They use labels to sort your pain into boxes. These words can be helpful, sometimes. But often they’re just the bait, not the bridge. They perform vulnerability, but offer no presence. You’re left holding your pain and their brand.
But real help feels different. It doesn't dazzle. It doesn’t sell theories. It doesn’t start with a label. It starts with you. With your real, complicated and painful experience. You don’t feel rushed. Or converted. Or sold to. You feel held.
People who can really help don’t pretend to have it all figured out. They’re not trying to be the answer. They’re trying to be with you, while you find your way. They don't perform their pain to gain trust. They earn trust by showing up. With gentleness, with presence, with patience.
They make space. They invite questions. They offer language without locking you into it.
They don’t need to be right. They need to be real.
Bid Farewell To Healing With Distance
It’s time to say goodbye to trying to heal the intellectual way. Through content, through catchphrases, through curated truths.
Healing isn’t a system you download. It’s not an identity you buy into. It’s not five steps or three reels away.
Healing is slow. And in my experience, it starts with real connection. Not a comment we leave in the right channel. Not a slogan or affirmation. Not a brand. But actual conversations. With real words. With people who don’t just see your pain, and who can reflect it back to you.
That’s the kind of help I still believe in.
So no, this isn’t yet another guide. It’s not a “how to heal” checklist.
It’s a reminder. That the most powerful kind of help is often quiet, relational, unbranded.
And maybe, above all — it’s permission.
To stop scrolling.
To start feeling.
To seek out what’s real.