Why are Bethenny Frankel’s #SuperModelSnacks so interesting?

How Facebook running group propaganda ruined my workouts

My boobs are in the way.

I hate that when I gain weight, the two body parts I most need to be the fuck out of my way are the ones that gain weight first: my boobs and my ass, in no particular order, and it’s always a surprise which is first. I’m sure there’s some scientific explanation for why this happens, and I’m also sure that I should consider myself blessed. Frankly, I feel like a top-heavy Weeble Wobble and I don’t like it.

Because I’ve had to spend more time on Facebook than I prefer (that amount of time is zero, and I’m clocking a couple of hours a week now), I think the algorithm has noticed that I’m uncomfortable in my human form. I’m not sure how Meta could know this other than my phone “overhearing” me complaining to bae that I’ve gotten pudgy and then spilling all my secrets to the Meta overlords. This means I see a lot of Bethenny Frankel in my feed these days, interspersed between all the fun activities that lead directly to weight gain: pop-up concerts with local breweries and food trucks; wine and barbeque festivals; hot dog carts.

Recently, there was a dustup around Bethenny’s participation in the SI Swimsuit Runway Show during which she had the audacity to strut down the runway wearing bikinis that showed her boobs and buttocks. AT HER AGE OMG CAN YOU BELIEVE IT HAS SHE NO SHAME.

People love to pick on Bethenny Frankel. She’s always been too much of something or another. Too skinny. Too loud. Too opportunistic. Too much plastic surgery. Too flashy. Too brash. Too too much, no matter what she does. I don’t have much of an opinion about her one way or the other beyond admiring her hustle, but I know who she is and what she’s about. That, friendos, is her superpower. Even when the thing she’s doing now has little to do with her previous iteration, you can trust that she is going to be direct, snarky, fun, and laser-focused on her current project to the exclusion of all other things.

And so, when a hyper-opinionated washed-up comedian shared her thoughts on Bethenny’s too fake boobs, Bethenny was like not today Satan I’m in my supermodel era. She started talking about #SuperModelSnacks and showing us all the delicious food she eats to stay in shape.

I’m obsessed.

Usually when I see social media posts of people tapping their food with their pointed talons, shoving food into their gaping maw, having a foodgasm, and talking through the foodgasm in an attempt to influence me to go buy that food, I’m squicked out and swipe past it as quickly as possible. I do not want to see people cramming food into their face and then talking to me about it while scooping escaping food bits into their mouth. This kind of content de-influences me. But when Bethenny does it?

It's interesting.

It’s interesting because she got a lot of shit for showing up in all of her hotness, walking the catwalk in a bikini with confidence, knowing people were going to tear her apart, and doing it anyway. And when the criticism arrived, she engaged, dusted off, and dug into showing the world how she pulled it off. Bethenny is the queen of turning nasty comments into business opportunities.

I’d never heard of a Supermodel Snack before Bethenny started talking about them every five seconds, but now I find myself thinking about how I can turn my food into Super Model Snacks because a) that sounds way more fun than actual meals; b) I want to get back to a place where I feel comfortable in my skin; and c) Bethenny clearly knows wtf she’s talking about because she did the damn thing already. Bethenny: I’ll take your entire stock.

Post-gym Supermodel Snacks on my favorite plate which is probably full of asbestos which in a weird turn of events is suddenly healthy again???? YUMMO

I consider myself an independent thinker, as someone who has the mental capacity to ignore marketing messages and run in the opposite direction of the herd. I have a lot of evidence to support that belief. So why am I suddenly thinking about food in terms of Supermodel Snacks and considering plunking down $2,430 on all of the things Bethenny used to get ready to walk the runway? How did I get so influenced?

I discovered the answer while running on the treadmill.

During the pandemic, after living on wine and hummus for a year and outgrowing every stitch of clothing that wasn’t stretchy, an afternoon of cleaning up my kid’s toys left me exhausted and sore. When I decided to do something about being so out of shape, I taught myself how to run on the treadmill. I’d never been a runner and thought I hated running, but I had to do something. Running a 5k race as a goal was a solid, easily measurable target. It was hard. I did it! After the first few races in shitty shoes killed my toesies, I decided I was enough of a runner to invest in some proper running shoes. The shop offered me a discount if I joined their Facebook group, and running shoes are hella expensive, so I sprinted into the group.

Suddenly, I wasn’t just a jogger, an exerciser, someone who wanted to get into shape again. I was an athlete. I had the shoes. I racked up miles. And now…I’d found my people. As I was learning how to run better, without ever questioning why I wanted to run better, I dug into all the advice the members in the group offered. It was enormously helpful -- when you’re a runner you want to be good at it, right?

In running group groupthink, food is fuel. Beverages are hydration. Exercise is training. Days you don’t run are rest days. Anything other than running is cross-training. Clothing is gear. The treadmill I learned how to run on is the dreadmill. Everything else you do in life needs to be optimized for running performance, which must be tracked, measured, and analyzed. Discomfort in adverse weather conditions means you’re weak and not a real runner.

The entire context of how I’d been living my life before I joined that group changed so I could get a discount on sneakers. It didn’t take long because the messaging was pervasive, and I didn’t notice it happening because I was part of the group. I’d adopted its norms so I could fit in, even though I understood that I was being steeped in marketing messages coming from both the organizer of the group (a running store) and from the members who were behaving as influencers.

In the process of trying to get back into shape this time around I joined a gym. I’ve accepted that I’m not interested in running alone in the dark, when it’s raining, when it’s humid, or when it’s anything other than sunny, breezy, and 50 degrees. These specific conditions are rare in South Jersey which means this past winter I made it out for five or six runs. Running is over until the fall if I want to do that outside – as I write this it’s 73 degrees and 75 percent humidity at 6:00 a.m.

Because I refuse to run outside unless mother nature is pampering me, I feel like a failed runner and am ashamed to show my face in the running group.

So when I went to the gym the other day, resigned to my subpar workout on the elliptical machine which I absofuckinglutely hate to the very core of my being, I said fuck it: I’m going to reject all the Facebook running group conditioning. I’m going to run on the cursed dreadmill.

This run opened a portal.

While I was running, I recalled how hard it was when I taught myself how to run and remembered what a helpful tool my treadmill was. It helped me pace myself and gradually increase my effort. When I was exhausted I could just be done, so my anxiety around committing to a distance I wasn’t sure I could complete was eliminated. I didn’t have to wait for it to stop raining or cool off outside. I didn’t need to wait for someone to be home to watch my kiddo. I could run while dinner was cooking and still keep an eye on it. All of these things kept me showing up, day after day, week after week.

I thought about why I started running and what my goals were back then: get in shape, feel better in my body, feel better in my head. I realized how amazing it felt to run in a climate-controlled environment with a giant cup of icy water and towel within easy reach. I felt safe to play my music at the volume I prefer because I didn’t have to keep my head on a swivel looking out for someone who wanted to rape or kidnap or kill me. And because I felt safe and comfortable, I was able to relax and focus on my form and pace and breathing.

I remembered that the treadmill is not a dreadmill, and that running is an activity which does not also need to be an identity. So I gave myself a demotion to exerciser and just like that I love running again.

Bethenny Frankel and the Facebook running groups offer the same thing: propaganda.

Propaganda is the more or less systematic effort to manipulate other people’s beliefs, attitudes, or actions by means of symbols (words, gestures, banners, monuments, music, clothing, insignia, hairstyles, designs on coins and postage stamps, and so forth). Deliberateness and a relatively heavy emphasis on manipulation distinguish propaganda from casual conversation or the free and easy exchange of ideas.

Educators try to present various sides of an issue—the grounds for doubting as well as the grounds for believing the statements they make, and the disadvantages as well as the advantages of every conceivable course of action. Education aims to induce reactors to collect and evaluate evidence for themselves and assists them in learning the techniques for doing so. It must be noted, however, that some propagandists may look upon themselves as educators and may believe that they are uttering the purest truth, that they are emphasizing or distorting certain aspects of the truth only to make a valid message more persuasive, or that the courses of action that they recommend are in fact the best actions that the reactor could take. By the same token, the reactor who regards the propagandist’s message as self-evident truth may think of it as educational; this often seems to be the case with “true believers”—dogmatic reactors to dogmatic religious, social, or political propaganda. “Education” for one person may be “propaganda” for another.

Capitalists would like you to believe that advertising is not propaganda because of the negative connotation that word carries. Marketers and advertisers like to make the distinction that advertising is designed to sell you something, but propaganda is designed to influence your opinion. Advertising is a benevolent, harmless sales message. Propaganda, on the other hand, is a manipulation, a distortion of the truth.

I would 100% buy any washing powder trusted by elephants because they roll around in mud and dirt and know better than anyone what soap works best.

To us – The American Consumer (a title I thoroughly reject) – the difference between advertising and propaganda is nonexistent. Each of these forms of messaging seeks to influence our behavior. Our exposure to advertising used to be limited to propaganda coming directly from corporations in print or on television/radio. We could turn it off and walk away. Thanks to the internet, we can no longer turn off advertising – it’s now woven into our DNA. By rewarding us with attention and likes, and later money, corporations trained us to behave as influencers and do their propagandizing for them, regardless of whether we have an official brand partnership.

Any time we recommend a product on the internet, we’re doing unpaid work for a corporation (unless they’re paying us some form of influencer money). See also: when you call yourself a Substacker, not a writer; when you identify as an Etsy seller, not an artist; when God invites you to “join the resistance” by subscribing to their newsletter which offers entertainment, not action; when I write a lengthy article bitching about the price of toothpaste. That’s how well capitalism has trained us.

Right now we’re being sold war-as-a-distraction so we stop talking about the masked, armed kidnappers invading our cities; the heartless, destructive budget legislation winding its way through congress; our president’s deep and growing unpopularity; our civil liberties being systematically stripped away by governments and courts; AI stealing from creatives, destroying knowledge workers’ careers, making everything it touches shittier, destroying the environment and driving our utility bills through the stratosphere (unlike that feckless douchecanoe’s substitute penises); and the millions of people flooding the streets to protest this cascading fuckery.

So when I think about the way seemingly innocuous posts in my Facebook running groups influenced my behavior and ultimately ruined my workouts, and when I arrange a plate of Supermodel Snacks after a trip to the gym, it’s easy to see advertising as propaganda. Those marketing messages sold me some stuff, sure! But the collective, persistent messaging from people-as-influencers also changed my thinking and behavior in ways I didn’t realize were happening until I stepped away from them and provided myself with the space to examine my actions free from propaganda bombardment.

I’m talking about two small, mostly harmless ways I was influenced here but like…slow down and consider who’s selling you what and what’s in it for them. Everyone is always selling something, and that is why you should subscribe to my newsletter (which is a form of propaganda but the benevolent kind).

Thumbnail image: "Rub-No-More" by Double--M is licensed under CC BY 2.0.