Selling “Health”, Selling Immortality: Constructing Illness & Wellness Narratives Within Online Biohacking Communities

Abstract

The wellness industry tells us as consumers that it is our moral imperative to strive for “health”, and simultaneously aims to sell us products to try to achieve this reality that is always out of reach. Biohacking presents us with the question of, if we could take control of our bodyminds to reach these goals, would we? Biohacking is generally defined as the science, and sometimes art, of optimizing our bodies and minds through the use of technology. These technological interventions range from diet and lifestyle changes, to supplements, wearable self-tracking devices, sauna bathing and cryotherapy, to more “extreme” examples of injecting microchips, gene editing, or the use of blood transfusions in the aims of decreasing one’s biological age. These technologies utilized by biohackers require critical engagement, and discernment around the future of “health” they are creating Within my dissertation, Selling “Health”, Selling Immortality, I center my analysis on online biohacking communities to identify how illness and wellness narratives are constructed, and then utilized to market biohacking products. I have selected four high-profile biohackers located within the United States: Dave Asprey, David Sinclair, Ellen Jorgensen, and Josie Zayner, along with their companies from 2012-2024 as the scope of my project. Analysis of media and research articles published about these selected biohackers was performed; and then compared to a branding analysis of their social media accounts, websites, podcasts, and documentaries. Throughout the dissertation, I return to the question of how “health,” illness, and disability are discussed and represented within online biohacking communities; and what role ableism, healthism, fatphobia, class, white supremacy, and hyper-masculinity play in the branding of mainstream biohackers in the United States. From my data analysis of these four biohackers, I engaged with biohacking experiments on my own bodymind for a year, and documented this process utilizing storytelling, short term lab experiments, and bioart mediums. My research is grounded in feminist studies, critical disability studies, feminist science studies, and science and technology studies; utilizing methodologies of storytelling, auto-theory, and self-experimentation. Throughout my dissertation I trace emerging themes relating to the illness and wellness narratives constructed by biohackers, and analyze how these narratives are utilized in the marketing of biohacking products for consumers. In turn, I rewrite my own illness and wellness narratives, beyond those written about me as a chronically ill, disabled and trans person. This process argues for the importance of storytelling in cultivating community and reimagining futures beyond “cure,” beyond colonial and violent technologies.