Self-Help: What Went Wrong? 

Think you can do better than putting tape on your dog's paws? What's your favorite life hack?

Alternate title: *"How we went from collaborative aid, to bootstrap conservatism, to multiple cults of personality: a story in three acts."*

How to get rich: sell a bunch of books and seminars telling people they aren't rich because they don't try hard enough

Thank you for this. As a person who was balls deep in the self help world for years and then got out feeling like I got out of a cult, I really appreciate this. It gives me more perspective.

My biggest self help was too stop listening to celebrities.

I would definitely want to read How to Lose Friends and Influence Nobody by Michael Burns

Despite the somewhat cynical name, How To Win Friends and Influence People is actually a pretty wholesome book whose advice mostly boils down to "pay attention and give a shit about others", and hopefully benefit from reciprocity.

Significant problem with these gurus' advice: too much focus on 'self' and not on 'help'

"If you are looking for Slef-Help, why would you read a book written by somebody else? That's not Self-Help, that's help! There is no such thing as Self-Help. If you did it yourself, you didn't need help. You did it yourself! Try to pay attention to the language we all agreed on." - George Carlin

“I could point you in the direction of the ‘self help’ books but that would defeat the purpose” Librarian

Adam Curtis has said that one of the problems with the way we see ourselves is that we basically see ourselves as machines. Any other feeling than happiness is seen as a malfunction that must be done away with immediately. We are trying to force ourselves to feel okay with systems that exploit and harm us instead of changing those systems

After reading a few self-help books, you realize that they are all mostly the same

Toxic Positivity. THAT is what happened!

Teaching people that negative circumstances in life are a reflection of failure and completely avoidable, and that they could have a perfect life was the problem. Negative things WILL happen to everyone. They are NOT always avoidable. They are NOT always the person's fault. Perfection is an illusion. Everyone can't live like kings and queens. Such thinking is toxic.

Sad how everything that started about empowering the working class turns into another hyper capitalist monster.

I would love to see a digest of you people about these "productitvity", "hustle porn", "work hard play hard" movements. They hit a very similar tone.

I think self-help books are fulfilling roles that parents / people / communities fulfilled in the past. We live in a rather “individualized,” and narcissistic society these days, where we are told that society has provided us with all the tools we need to survive, and we have to flaunt things we own to show our worth (as pointed out in your video). There is a lack of community and belongingness nowadays. In the past you’d have your parents, or people in you community to look up, and give you advice. Nowadays everyone is struggling with the same thing you are, so you have to turn to self-help books and videos to fix your life. In summary, the self-help phenomena is fulfilling a niche that was fulfilled in the past by community.

An ad about a miracle product to regrow my hair before the video about how self help is snake oil.

Working in a bookstore for years Ive seen the kind of addiction to self-improvement books the industry fosters. Individuals will drop hundreds a year literally looking like and hoping the next book will change their lives. I have no clue if it work for any of the habitual customers but considering they never stopped buying more s-h books, not likely. Its crazy the amount of writers with no backgrounds in psychology just hit it big with a catchy phrase.

Combination of things, but mostly it feels like societal gaslighting. There are so many problems that are imposed on us that are FAR outside of our control. Self help is unbalanced. Looking at ourselves without relation to other people or the things around us, we ultimately lose self or become trapped in ego. We keep trying to change ourselves instead of changing the world around us. Granted, there needs to be a healthy balance of both, but we bend the knee to what our system needs and we are all the more miserable for it. As a whole, Self Help culture is just calming the cattle before the slaughter as opposed to empowering people to make the world a better place.

😎 "If you didn't succeed, you didn't try hard enough!" = "If you weren't healed, your faith wasn't strong enough!" 😏😉

I used to think self help was perfect and that everything I was struggling with was all entirely my fault. And to a some degree I think i was right. I have been working to improve myself over the last few years and I feel better for it in at least some small ways. However it is unhealthy to shift the blame for these things entirely on yourself as I have learned recently. Improving yourself is an admirable and very worthwhile goal that everyone should pursue but there are serious problems with institutions these days and I'd even argue serious problems with the way capitalism functions making it harder than it needs to be for people to get ahead. If you are struggling you can and should work on self improvement, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't also criticize and fight against oppressive systems that make things harder than they should be.

I’ll tell you what went wrong: delusions of grandeur plus survivorship bias

I asked the lady at the book store where I could find the Self Help section. She refused to show me, citing that doing so would go against the whole point. The self help industry is full of grifters and bullshit artists.

Wisecrack going increasingly from "Look at this funny connection to philosophy in media" to "Eat the rich, for the world is on fire and they are fat for the harvest." Has been a beacon in these dark times. Thank you.

Saying buzzwords that make you feel good. That’s all it is. Like horoscopes

As a Millenial who lives in a 1 bedroom condo, I felt so called out

"How can we milk the shit out of this?" That's the secret slogan of GOOP

I gave it a lot of thought, and I'm just really amazed at how many people are tricked when they hear exceptionally skilled people say "anything is possible if you work hard enough". That doesn't mean don't try, it just means manage your expectations

"lets turn your humanity into a hu-brand-ity" - Hugh Brandity

The Philosophy of stoicism has been the best form of self help I have come across.

if you folks aren't aware of the book "Happiness (Trademarked)" it's a great read. it's about a self help book that works, and society grinds to a halt...

Self-help is more a symptom than a cure. We grow up in a world in which we're constantly bombarded with images of how our lives should be. Movies, commercials, songs, books, family, friends, the workplace... This results in us chasing these images in order to achieve fulfillment, but they aren't real. And instead of truly helping us by realizing that we're chasing ghosts, self-help tells us how to build our own proton pack.

"Listen to the pains you feel- they are messengers" -Rumi

In general, my approach to self-help books is like watching (modern day) History Channel: You may actually learn a thing or two, but it's most useful as mere entertainment. (Although, I guess reading self-help books also have the bonus of keying you in to how a *bunch* of people are also approaching life due to their ubiquity.)

Excellent look into the history, and how the variety of advice reflects the culture of different eras. Super well done!

Me: Why does it seem like Michael always does the Keeps ads? Michael: I guide others to a treasure I cannot possess...

The most powerful drug ever created is the placebo.

"It's not your fault" A book on practical self-help with an emphasis on its communal anarchist roots. That would be something actually useful.

hearing this man say he also fears the impending doom every night actually was more self help than any book I've ever read

My biggest issue with self-help always was with the idea that there's a specific way for everyone to be or act and how individualism often meant everyone doing the same things.

Coming from the world of MLMs marketing and sales. Yeah I can see where this is all coming from

"Start a religion... Then perform a miracle and let the cash roll in!" Hey - worked for Jim Jones!

Hustle culture is terrible because just like during the great depression, it steers the focus away from the rootcause of collective and systemic misery. There is nothing wrong with self-help in and of itself though, just hustle culture is bad. Because we need to collectivise to come to systemic solutions to systemic problems, instead of turning inward.

I wonder if self help has a secondary purpose of comforting the already "successful" ie wealthy. They might feel guilty or uneasy about the immense suffering in the world. Self help tells them, well those people could be better if they want, all there suffering is really their own fault.

Love you guys, (a lot) but a video about self improvement and adding a publicity about a product about how you can grow back you hair does not go perfectly together 😂😂

*So* good to see this being called out. I was in an art club where if I criticized the popular kid's guru he's turn everyone against me. And if everyone he turned on grumbled about it on discord he persuaded a mod to threaten police action on me.

I've been waiting for this ONE

Maybe, just maybe the overall economy and system we all work in demands so much effort for minimal return that it seems easier to fix or improve yourself than trying to address something more structural and existential. It's easier to literally sell books, pills, and ad revenue than policy and ideas that need to actually be invested in to work.

No one loves you unconditionally except your mother. Love yourself unconditionally too. Because everyone else does it under conditions.

Motivational Speaker, Life Coach, Influencer, The guy who conducts seminars on how to make money on forex and bitcoin etc ...all these people are the new snake oil salesmen

I have been in the self help community and it’s been...chafing for a while. Thank you for mapping this. Helpful.

I think the best books that "help", deep dive on a specific topic or problem and then bring a scientifically substantiated process framework for you to apply. You get nothing from generalization.

Dave Ramsey is the real deal. He actually helps people get out of debt, gives them useful advice.

My dad has been repeatedly telling me to read How to Win Friends and Influence People for years. After seeing this video, I feel like I should try getting to know about this man's message. I will edit after I have finished.

I appreciate this channel so much.

Thank You 💟. I am going to start a ALL help training course of making it in this society when it is NOT YOUR FAULT!!!

Omg the China in a one bedroom apartment hit me hard

My dad got me Carnegie's book to try to fix my shyness. :P If only we'd considered actual therapy earlier.

Thank you for covering this topic so well

Excellent presentation!

I don't need someone to tell me if microdosing is okay, I need someone to tell me where to get the doses

The most important self-help book you will ever read is; Your own Diary, or Your own Journal. That’s where you will learn, and grow the most. No one can tell you who you are, or who you’re supposed to be! Start writing, you’ll be amazed at how well you’ll get to know Yourself! ❤️😄

Great video! Made me think.

This is one of the best video essays I’ve seen

Normalize microdosing LSD at work lmao

He said "the Bad Place" at 5:24 and RU-vid immediately cut to a commercial for WandaVision o_O

7 Habits of Highly Effective People is much more wholesome to me. It's more about being genuine rather than tricking people into trusting you.

Incredibly insightful take on the current state of misdirected frustration. People are struggling to parse reality itself through the onslaught that is a storm of constant data; it makes sense to turn inward and attempt to solidify control at an intimate level while chaos reigns outside.

10:50 My great-grandfather was heavily influenced by this movement in the UK. His family went from blast furnace workers, to railway clerks to accountants in 3 generations, he was tee-total and insisted on learning 'The Queen's English' and was a local councillor. In addition there are still the remnants of "mechanical institutes" in the UK all over the place offering adult education course, especially before the austerity of the last decade that affected adult education a lot. I remember one in Birmingham when I was at uni - that were founded from this movement. Also the university where I took evening classes for my masters degree, Birkbeck, was founded under the auspicies of George Birkbeck who was from this movement too. Samuel Smiles is now see as a hardened liberal free marketer, but in his time he was just as much as famous for writing about engineers such as Stephenson - who founded the Mechanical Engineers Institute, the fact that to this day 'engineer' is not a universally respected or protected title as it is in most of the world shows you the kind of attitudes he was fighting against in his self-help - and engineering was, and still is, one of the more meritocratic professions out there. I am seeing a sharp hostility to meritocracy rising in the world right now, though I really wonder if people want to end up back in the past where they were not able to progress in life. Saying that there is not real meritocracy now due to a rising class divide isn't really an argument against it. It is also fair to say these people who saw themselves as promotors of social enlightenment would be horrified by what amounts to the modern self-help industry. These are very deep topics that Adam Curtis's films also delve into, the Jane Fonda workout is the featured in one of his films.

It's the continuation of horoscopes. General enough so everyone feels addressed, unspecific enough to be useless. A perfect market for for charlatans who are good at marketing outreach without any actual expertise.

Really sharp video. Made points that are beneficial for everyone to be aware of today. Ty for the vid. 👍👍

Thank you for this. The historical angle is very much appreciated.

Nice history of the philosophical movement of positivity and self help, but I still think that in a life as short as 100 or so years, it pays to be optimistic about things, focus on things you can actually do something about, and forget the rest.

VERY important topic right now. Thanks.

Thanks for making me think.

Always loved the line from School For Scoundrels: You can't help yourself because yourself sucks.

self help is okay. its when truly desperate people throw money at this that grifters show up to take advantage, like with anything

Really interesting context in that video, thanks guys!

I think this is one of your best videos, thanks for the thoughts

I like the dilemma in the topic of this video with the advertisement of saving hair

When money is involved, it becomes much less about the help.

Man, this one was awsome. Thanks a lot!

Very intelligent and interesting. Thanks for informing me!

Spat my coffee out at the "forceful dating app" joke, lmao

All I can think of is, "clean your room, bucko"

Love this channel!

As a trained therapist, this video is so IMPORTANT. Honestly, most people are wounded in ways that are RELATIONAL and to really understand these dynamics in a way that we can then change them requires a RELATIONAL component to the healing (ie. in the presence of another person). The idea that we can all "heal" our relational wounds by sitting by ourselves and paying content creators is just further exemplifying the relational issues that so many of us are becoming more plagued by as technology proliferates.....

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is actually a really good book if we are talking about "self-help"

I wonder how Jared is...

I was waiting for this one

You had me at "the existential dread that hungs over me like a dark cloud"

These self help millionaires want to help you to become as rich as them so that you can be their competition. Because that's how life works.

You can see him barely hold a laugh as he tells you that Keeps will save your hair. xD ( 2:30 )

Fascinating video - so cool to see how the ideas have evolved out of each other as narrative responses to social/financial realities.

LOVING the Derry Girls reference. Great video!

I always felt the self help industry is plagued by charlatans offering generic ineffective quick fixes for hard or sometimes impossible problems. If it was so easy to will oneself into being happier and more productive, people would already figure it by themselves.

Why is the only thing I took from this video an overwhelming urge to put sellotape on my dog's feet?

Great video. I'm glad you didn't call me out all that much :D One should be able to practise some self-help while still seeing how there isn't equality in this world, having compassion for people who sturggle and keep on joining fights for better conditions in our society for all of us. Though you can be perfectly self-centered without self-help, it's just what our style of living breeds, so I don't blame self-help industry for trying to make self-centered life more fullfilling if nothing else.

Would love a part 2, and some informed guesses