Brief: Black Friday’s Wellness Extravaganza

Summary

---

Conspirituality Podcast – Brief: Black Friday’s Wellness Extravaganza

Date: November 29, 2025
Hosts: Julian Walker & Derek Barris

---

Episode Overview

In this Conspirituality Brief, Julian Walker and Derek Barris explore the explosion of wellness marketing timed for Black Friday. They dive into how influencers and companies in the alternative health, wellness, and conspirituality spheres exploit sale culture—especially around Black Friday/Cyber Monday—to push overpriced, often unproven products ranging from detox protocols and coffee enemas to “liquid gold” colostrum. The episode blends biting humor and critical analysis to spotlight how consumer psychology, pseudo-science, and cultic marketing intertwine during the holiday sales frenzy.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Black Friday’s Transformation & Online Wellness Boom

[03:32–04:08]

• Julian and Derek outline the history of Black Friday and the transition from chaotic brick-and-mortar sales events to aggressive, sometimes month-long digital marketing campaigns.
• Julian: “Yesterday was Black Friday...the busiest shopping day in the US and the official start of Christmas marketing.... But both the Internet and then Covid have led to behavioral changes that have moved a lot of Black Friday shopping online.”

The Wellness Sales Frenzy

[04:08–11:09]

• The hosts map out the wellness industry’s Black Friday tactics: influencers flooding feeds with discount codes for everything from supplements to high-ticket biohacking services.
• Julian meticulously tracks Instagram trends—searching terms like “detox,” “enemas,” and “Black Friday wellness”—noting a “deluge of promoted posts” for everything from coffee enemas to mushroom protocols.
• Julian: “It quickly became apparent that I was going to have to pick and choose...because there was so much there.”

Marketing Tactics: FOMO, Scarcity, and Identity

[06:28–08:23]

• Discussion of how cultish wellness brands (JP Sears, Mickey Willis, Rebel Line Threads) invoke urgency, identity, and belonging to hawk “truthwear” apparel, even while winding down brands that failed to sell.
• Notable Quote:
  • Nadia Willis (ad excerpt):
    “These aren’t just clothes. They’re bold reminders that you weren’t crazy. You were just early.” [06:28]
• Derek mocks the marketing hyperbole:
  “It’s like, fuck off. It’s a T shirt, and it’s a douchebag T shirt when you’re telling people not to take vaccines. So just, I just wish people would be more honest about what it is.” [07:23]

Debunking “Detox” and Coffee Enema Culture

[08:23–11:09]

• Spotlight on Happy Bum Company, selling “butt coffee” enemas at up to $549 for a starter kit.
• Julian emphasizes: no credible science behind coffee enemas—risks include infection and even death.
• Derek jokes about cross-promotion, “I see a Happy Bumko and Danger Coffee collab happening in the future here for sure.” [11:09]

Bioscam: From Colostrum to Human Milk Lactoferrin

[13:47–18:23]

• Wellness brands battle over “bioavailability” and product purity—peddling colostrum powders and pivoting to lab-made “human milk lactoferrin.”
• Sample pitches:
  • “Spending hundreds of dollars on white colostrum—you might as well just be lighting your money on fire.... Liquid gold or bust.” [15:33]
  • “If you’re taking bovine lactoferrin, you need to switch it to human milk lactoferrin... which is 15 times more potent...” [16:08]
• The absurdity of wellness fads: Derek riffs on bodybuilders buying breast milk, “these dudes are just guzzling breast milk and smoothies and this is the same crowd that won’t get vaccinated.” [17:06]

Grift at the Edge: The Free Birth Scandal

[18:23–22:51]

• Derek and Julian revisit the scandal of “free birth” influencer Yolan Norris Clark, subject of an explosive Guardian investigation. Her dangerous anti-medical teachings have been linked to child deaths, yet she pivots straight into a Black Friday sales pitch for her parenting courses.
• Yolan Norris Clark:
  “I’ve also been receiving tons of messages from women who have taken advantage of my Black Friday sale.... My toddler bundle...is a huge discount.” [20:05]
• Derek reacts, horrified:
  “A years long investigative journalism article about how her courses, which she made millions of dollars on, resulted in the death and disfigurements... And then she’s saying...if you want to take my course, I have a sale right now.” [20:54]
• Julian sums up:
  “This is the farthest extent of how bad this kind of stuff gets. It’s so appalling, it's so tragic and it's so nakedly opportunistic.” [21:23]

Mushrooms for the “Silly Season” & Rampant Claims

[22:51–26:25]

• Julian samples a manic Super Feast sales pitch (offering 40% off medicinal mushrooms), lampooning the over-the-top, pseudoscientific health guarantees (“change someone’s life...by gifting them these mushrooms”).
• Derek sighs, “Take a fucking breath, man. Jesus.” [24:33]
• Julian snarks on their testimonials: “The very first video features a young couple talking about being so horny from their adaptogenic mushroom blend that they had sex for 30 days in a row.” [25:08]

Conspirituality Sales “Logic” Exposed

[26:25–31:11]

• Derek critiques Carly Shankman (Carly Loves Kale), who “healed” her cancer with mainstream medicine but credits and sells “holistic” methods (gut coffee, juicers, trampolines etc.) as Black Friday essentials.
• Julian notes the “concierge” longevity testing space (Peter Attia’s company, Function Health) using paywalled annual/quarterly “health tracking” services, bundled with supplement subscriptions and predatory “quiz funnel” tactics.
• “Would you like to be doing even better because we’ve got something for you.” [31:50]

The Ultimate: Black Friday’s $5,000 Supplement Pile

[32:04–33:12]

• Julian reviews “Do Not Age”—the supplement bundle king, offering $8k+ of pills discounted to $5k for Black Friday (with branded water bottle and pill carrier, of course).
• Derek quips, “When I first read the script...I thought that said donut age. And I think for this weekend, that is going to be my supplement of choice.” [33:12]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“These aren’t just clothes. They’re bold reminders that you weren’t crazy. You were just early.”
—Nadia Willis, Rebel Line Threads [06:28]

“It’s a T shirt and it’s a douchebag T shirt when you’re telling people not to take vaccines. So just, I just wish people would be more honest about what it is.”
—Derek Barris [07:23]

“Their marketing photos feature...the ladies are slim and toned...they’re each holding various types of enema apparati or bags of butt coffee aloft like they’ve hit the Glow Up Wellness jackpot.”
—Julian Walker [09:30]

“Spending hundreds of dollars on white colostrum—you might as well just be lighting your money on fire.”
—Wonder Cow rep (via Julian) [15:33]

“If you’re taking bovine lactoferrin, you need to switch it to human milk lactoferrin...Now for the first time in history, we’re able to make human milk equivalent lactoferrin...”
—Capos rep [16:08]

“A years long investigative journalism article...resulted in the death and disfigurements... And then she’s saying...if you want to take my course, I have a sale right now.”
—Derek Barris [20:54]

“The very first video features a young couple talking about being so horny from their adaptogenic mushroom blend that they had sex for 30 days in a row.”
—Julian Walker [25:08]

“I answered in each different bucket...and why don't you guess—every one resulted in me needing some sort of supplement.”
—Derek Barris [31:11]

“Do Not Age...an ultimate bundle of 30 bottles of around 15 different anti aging supplements...marked down for Black Friday from $8,168 to $4,901...and blue light blocking glasses. I’m sold.”
—Julian Walker [32:04]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:30–04:08: Introduction to Black Friday’s transition and online shopping’s effect on wellness marketing
• 06:28–08:23: The end of “truthwear” brands and how scarcity is weaponized in sales pitches
• 09:30–11:09: Coffee enemas as a case study in unscientific but heavily marketed “wellness”
• 13:47–18:23: The “magic milk” competition: colostrum, lactoferrin, and escalating bioscams
• 18:23–22:51: Yolan Norris Clark and the free birth exposé; marketing amid tragedy
• 24:33–26:25: The Super Feast mushroom pitch and the exaggeration of health claims
• 26:25–31:11: Supplement quizzes and “concierge longevity” as sales funnels
• 32:04–33:12: $5,000 anti-aging supplement bundles

---

Tone and Takeaways

The hosts balance irreverent satire (“butt coffee,” “silly season mushrooms”) with serious warnings about the real-world consequences of wellness grifting—from the inane to the deadly. They highlight the predatory nature of these Black Friday sales, the psychological and cultic tactics at work, and the hollow logic of a wellness industry more invested in sales than actual science or health.

---

For listeners and newcomers alike, this episode is a sharp, often hilarious educational tour through the heart of wellness disinformation and the sales machinations that drive conspirituality online—especially when coupled with America’s biggest shopping day.

Transcript

[Julian Walker]

Going online without ExpressVPN is like forgetting to mute yourself on a zoom meeting. Do you really want your co workers to hear you trash talking them or yelling at the dog to be quiet while they're in the middle of a presentation? The key thing to realize is that all of your traffic flows through your Internet service providers servers and so they can see every single website you visit. And in the US they're legally allowed to sell that information to advertisers. But ExpressVPN reroutes 100% of your traffic through secure encrypted servers so that your ISP cannot see your browsing history. And the reasons that ExpressVPN is the best at this is that it hides your IP address, making it extremely difficult for anyone to track your online activity. It's also easy to use. You just fire up the app and click one button to get protected. It'll work on all your devices, on your phones, laptops, tablets, and more, so you can stay private on the go. Having been a victim of identity theft in the past, ExpressVPN is invaluable protection for me. Secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com conspirituality that's E X P R E S S V expressvpn.com consprituality to find out how you can get up to four extra months. Expressvpn.com conspiritualIuality all right, remember, the machine knows if you're lying. First statement. Carvana will give you a real offer on your car. All online.

[Derek Barris]

False. True.

[Julian Walker]

Actually, you can sell your car in minutes.

[Yolan Norris Clark]

False.

[Nadia Willis]

That's gotta be true again.

[Julian Walker]

Carvana will pick up your car from your door, or you can drop it off at one of their car vending machines.

[Nadia Willis]

Sounds too good to be true. So true.

[Julian Walker]

Finally caught on. Nice job. Honesty. Isn't it just their policy? It's their entire model. Sell your car today too, Carvana. Pickup fees may apply here in the United States. It is Thanksgiving weekend. We hope you had a nice holiday on Thursday. If you celebrate as an immigrant with a wife from Louisiana, it is a holiday I've come to really enjoy. It's an opportunity to get together with what we jokingly call other orphans who are either immigrants or estranged from family or out of state transplants. Just not up for making a long trek home for a turkey dinner. Yesterday was Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day in the US and the official start of Christmas marketing. The idea of Black Friday has been around since the 50s with the name apparently being coined in Philadelphia to describe the mayhem of shoppers flooding the city. But intensified marketing from the 1980s onward and then peaking in the 2010s, poured gasoline on the fire of Black Friday. And people remember some of the television footage of this as an American spectacle, with throngs of crowds swarming into stores to take advantage of heavily discounted prices, people often knocking one another over, elbowing each other, getting into fights, and in addition, there were brawls and shoppers and retail staff being stabbed and shot, hospitalized with facial lacerations, and in one tragic case, trampled to death, all in the quest of a good deal. But both the Internet and then Covid have led to behavioral changes that have moved a lot of Black Friday shop shopping online, with Amazon especially soaking up a lot of that digital business all the way through what is now called Cyber Monday. What about online wellness? You're listening to a Conspirituality Brief, Black Friday's Wellness Extravaganza. I'm Julian Walker.

[Derek Barris]

And I'm Derek Barris. You can find us as a podcast on Instagram and threads at Conspirituality Pod. We are all also individually over on Blue sky and as always, you can access all of our episodes ad free, plus our Monday bonus episodes on [e-mail] conspirituality. You can also listen to our Monday bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support and we have a Black Friday deal for you to no, I'm kidding. We don't actually.

[Julian Walker]

So on this podcast, we're quick to point out how so many wellness influencers, pseudoscience and alternatives, medicine proponents and optimized biohackers drive their social media followers towards sales funnels for slickly marketed, overpriced and poorly evidenced products and services. That's their business model. And surely no sales opportunity this culturally significant could be squandered. So we thought we'd sit back with some non GMO popcorn slathered in warm beef tallow and sprinkled with pink Himalayan sea salt to track the Black Friday online wellness marketing frenzy in the week leading up to Thanksgiving.

[Derek Barris]

Well, that's, that's actually an important point to get back to your intro there about peaking in the 2010s. I really think it did, because at some point in the last decade, Black Friday became November 1st. Like people started offering Black Friday deals weeks ago now, which kind of in one sense it's like, fuck it, like the idea you would actually go outside on that Friday to shop is insane to me in the first place, you know? And of course we have Cyber Monday. This is a Saturday, so what is it? Sunless Saturday? A Fishbone song we could do. And then what do we do after Sunday? Easy like Sunday morning. Yeah, so we have Black Friday. Sunless Saturday. Easy like Sunday, Sunday Morning, Manic Monday, or Cyber Monday. So before we begin into the Black Friday deals that started weeks ago, we should pour one out, though. Well, maybe let's pour two out. Because two clothing lines went out of business recently. I'm really sad about jp. Sears is shutting down his line of T shirts and hats with a final Black Friday sale where you can score such gems as Got God and But God, and of course, the we the People shirt he rocks over his steroid adult chest and biceps. Meanwhile, JP's buddy Mickey Willis is also shutting down his truthwear line, Rebel Line Threads. I'm guessing that's because he can now focus on his Rebel Lion. And if you're wondering where that name comes from, it's Rebellion in two Words, his supplement line, which he's been pushing hard recently. Let's listen to his wife, Nadia, pitching the final sale.

[Nadia Willis]

If there was ever a time to wear your truth out in the open, now is the time. So we're clearing out the vault with our plandemic and Rebel Ion blowout sale. And once this gear is gone, it's gone for good. No restocks, no reprints. This is the final run of our most iconic pieces. Every shirt, hoodie, and sweatshirt was created to support the movement and spark conversation. Something that is needed now more than ever. Because let's be honest, these aren't just clothes. They're bold reminders that you weren't crazy. You were just early.

[Julian Walker]

I love this. It's so good because you set it up so perfectly. And I'm really glad I didn't listen to the clip ahead of time because the energy is just like. So it's like you're never going to be able to access these ever again because we're not going to make them anymore because they sell so badly. But now is the time, and you have to do this because you're such an amazing, fearless warrior. Who was early? It's.

[Derek Barris]

And the music, the stock music, man, that I. I've never heard that song in 10,000 other TikToks and other things when people don't want to pay for music. I also want to say this whole idea. I mean, look, we exist, we sell things. We sell subscriptions to this podcast. It is how we make A living. You know, I, I am not against marketing. I've worked in a lot of marketing companies, but this perpetual idea, it's not just cl, it's an identity. It's like, fuck off. It's a T shirt and it's a douchebag T shirt when you're telling people not to take vaccines. So just, I just wish people would be more honest about what it is. It's like, hey, if you like our shirt, buy it. Cool. But the level they have to try to bring it up, especially because I have to say they're selling some of these shirts for like 299. Yeah. And apparently it says it's everything's made, or at least printed in the usa. I don't know about made in the usa, but printed in the usa, which is not cheap, by the way. So they are taking a loss on these. So they are just trying to push stock. So just be straight up about it.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. And anyone who buys any of this, spoiler alert, they weren't early. They're getting them right at the very last minute when they're marked down probably like 80% from what they were originally selling for. Wow. It's amazing too, how Nadia's increasingly become part of the of the face of the business. So I focused for this episode on Instagram and I found that as of the Friday before Thanksgiving, most of the influencers I checked out had not yet posted their Black Friday deals. Not only Derek did that all change come Saturday morning, but just doing a few searches using words like detox and cleansing and enemas and supplements and Black Friday wellness the day before meant that my personal Instagram feed transformed overnight from being dominated by videos of citizens resisting ice raids and scientists talking about Bobby Kennedy's medical apocalypse, to now hosting a deluge of promoted posts with Black Friday deals on everything from coffee for your butt to life changing supplement protocols to medicinal mushrooms and concierge blood testing service subscriptions, it quickly became apparent that I was going to have to pick and choose over what to cover because there was so much there. I decided for the sake of humor, to start with Happy Bum Company, because how could I not? They're running a 25% off Black Friday sale that invites their 116,000 Instagram followers to happybumco.com, which was started by a colon hydrotherapist with her own history of childhood constipation. Their tagline is that quote, healing can happen only when we believe it is possible. And their marketing photos feature young and fit smiling models the guys are ripped and for some reason shirtless. The ladies probably because they're ripped. The ladies are slim and toned and they all have recently highlighted hair and they're wearing yoga outfits. They're each holding various types of enema apparati or bags of butt coffee aloft like they've hit the Glow Up Wellness jackpot. Everything on the site is up to 25% off and customers are going to spend between $154 and $549 for starter bundles, depending on the quality of the coffee, whether you select glass or silicon for the enema kit, and whether you're emphasizing in your purchase liver detox, probiotic infusion, or both. Now, I looked it up and there's no science to support coffee enemas having any health benefits, and medical professionals instead warn that risks include infection, colitis, seizures, heart and lung problems, and in some rare cases, death.

[Derek Barris]

That's all minor. I see a happy Bumko and Danger Coffee collab happening in the future here for sure. So on this past Thursday's episode, I recapped my time at eudaimonia Summit and a title sponsor was Mark Hyman's Function Health, unlike you grabbing a photo with Dell Bigtree at a film festival, Julian a while back, I walked by Mark numerous times, but I couldn't bring myself to it because I might have just yelled at him instead. I do have a level of temperament, as we talked about when it comes to being on stage, but you know, I just don't know if I could have pulled it off. And one of the reasons is because Function Health, which offers a $499 annual membership to get over 160 probably mostly meaningless lab tests that inevitably becomes a supplements downline when they indicate that some of your levels are off. Just rubs me the wrong way. But great news, Black Friday shoppers. You can get a year for only $365. I think that's a sacred yoga number. And they need all the help they can get because they've raised $350 million in VC money now. And investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Matt Damon, Kevin Hart, and sadly, Pedro Pascal is an investor. They all want a return on investment. Now I want to be fair. Celebrities often have people handling their portfolios. I don't know how invested he is, but when I saw him pop up, I was kind of bummed. But strangely, it's listed as a Black Friday deal. Their Instagram page, which I looked over in the comments section, says that's now the new annual price. So I, I don't really know if it's a deal. And I'll just add that just yesterday, Hyman sent out an email for his own 10 day detox, Black Friday deal. And he, he does this thing. I'm sure you've seen it in yoga spaces. I've seen it forever. It's just like, you're gonna eat like, so then take this to detox from when you eat like shit. And that's what his marketing pitch is. And I can't believe people still buy into that.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, it sounds very much like New Orleans around Mardi Gras. Right, right. You're going to indulge very intensely and then you're going to go through a period of pious kind of repenting and cleansing.

[Derek Barris]

One of my good friends goes to Jazz Fest every year and he, he takes photos of what they're eating and sends it to me. And I'm like, that, that, that's not food. I don't know what that is, but I'm sure it's delicious. But my God, you're putting right now.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. Whether it's turducken or Shrimp Po Boys, it gets pretty wild.

[Derek Barris]

Fried Snickers.

[Julian Walker]

All right, I've gotten the butt coffee out of the way, but for some reason I keep referring back to it because I think it's funny. I want to home in now on an interesting phenomenon. So, like any marketplace, as wellness has become more lucrative, people selling very similar things start to get competitive with one another around how they persuade marks. Oh, I'm sorry, mean customers, that their product is the best. So take something like Colostrum. It's the special kind of milk secreted by the mammary glands of mammals right after they've given birth. And colostrum contains antibodies and growth factors and other bioactives that help newborns to develop their immune system to digest the milk that they will soon be surviving on from their mothers and to begin to produce fecal matter. Even though there's currently no medically accepted use of cow colostrum to treat any human health conditions, it sure does sound like it might be beneficial. Right. And so there is a thriving market for this magic milk. Usually it's in powdered form and it sounds kind of harmless. There's one catch, though. About 15% of bovine colostrum contains salmonella. And pasteurizing. It destroys the very substances that are being promoted as beneficial, which is why you would buy it in the first place.

[Derek Barris]

Oh, pasteurizing. You mean like injecting vaccines into it? Isn't that what pasteurization is.

[Julian Walker]

Absolutely, yes, it's completely unnatural. So so as with raw milk, buyer beware because there actually have been documented cases of powdered milk products still creating salmonella outbreaks. Anyway, here's a reel from Wonder Cow, which is a company promoting a 30% off Black Friday deal to their 26,000 Instagram followers.

[Derek Barris]

Spending hundreds of dollars on white colostrum. You might as well just be lighting your money on fire. If your favorite immunity supplement, collagen and prebiotic had a baby, it would be close to what colostrum is. Wonder Cow Colostrum is gold because it has zero fillers, zero additives, it's not yellow, it's not worth your time. Liquid gold or bust.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, so there you go. Don't get that other colostrum. That white stuff is so super basic. Wonder Cow has the gold colostrum. Don't light your money on fire for the white shit. Well, what if we go even one step better than this in the competitive.

[Capos Representative]

Marketing, if you're taking bovine lactoferrin, you need to switch it with human milk lactoferrin. Now for the first time in history, we're able to make human milk equivalent lactoferrin, which is 15 times more potent per dose than cow based lactoferrin which is found in colostrum. It's 22 times better at surviving gastric digestion and it's also twice as anti inflammatory in a simulated gut model, which is really, really amazing. But this is all while the body also recognizes human milk lactofact as self.

[Derek Barris]

Yes.

[Capos Representative]

So every time you take cow based lactoferrin, you're actually triggering a 201 increase in adverse antibodies. When you take human milk lactoferrin, there's a 0% increase in adverse antibodies. What this means is like basically the cow lactoferrin is being rejected by your immune system every time you take it, even if it's just a small rejection. Why? Well, because we're not cows, right? We're humans. So we should be taking human milk lactoferrin. So that's one of the incredible things about it.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, this reminds me of there's been documentaries done on this, on bodybuilders who buy breast milk and women who are pumping breast milk and then selling it, making a ton of money. So good on the women for finding an industry that. But although it takes a toll on their body, but like, like the. These dudes are just guzzling breast milk and smoothies and this is the same crowd that won't get vaccinated. It's, it's mindboggling. And with Colostrum specifically, again, very small effect size if any, like for most people on what they're going for. And so it's just the marketing around. But I love that woman. Know you. Yep, yep, yep, yep. I love when they use podcasts as ads.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, totally, totally. So that, in case you're wondering, is a company called Capos and they've got the real Colostrum. Man. There's actually a little graphic on the screen during that clip that we played that compares consuming bovine colostrum, which of course is the bad stuff to pouring diesel into a petrol car. So this is a new company though they only have 3,000 followers on Instagram, so I feel a little bad punching down on them. And their first post was less than six months ago. Let's see what happens with them. They do sell a 30 day supply of colostrum human powder for $76.

[Derek Barris]

I don't feel bad because they're going to hire Gary Brucka to do some ads and then they'll have tens of thousands of followers. It's, it's inevitable. And they'll be on Rogan. So the most disorienting message that I've heard during this preparation for this episode is from our old pal Yolan Norris Clark. Old school conspirituality Listeners will remember when we covered her free birth soc extensively back in 2020, she gave us many great episodes. She used to call us the conspirituality bros on her Facebook reels as some sort of slur. Well, the Guardian came out last week with bombshell reporting by Cyrn Kell. She's excellent. I've been interviewed by her for other pieces. She's a great writer. And Lucy Osborne was the other reporter in this. They spent years interviewing 18 women in their families who were harmed by Clark and her business partner Emily Saldea. I'll include a link to article in the show notes. You should really read it. A number of women lost their babies or had them harm for life because they followed the free birth principles of if you're ever seeing a doctor for your birth, you're doing it wrong. Now, I know some people have successful free births. This is not a, you know, I, it's up, I'm not a parent. I don't get into that stuff. But Clark and Saldea were specifically keeping women away from anything to do with the medical establishment. That's a problem. Meanwhile, the women made millions of dollars selling courses Books and workshops. Mallory DeMille sent me one of Clark's recent stories where she starts talking about blowback from the Guardian reporting and then let me know if you hear the pivot.

[Yolan Norris Clark]

It's been a very strange time that's been sort of interspersed with death threats and threats to my children, but those have been surprisingly minimal. And overwhelmingly the messages that I've been receiving have been so incredibly positive and I appreciate it all so much. I really, I really do. Thank you. Thank you so much. I've also been receiving tons of messages from women who have taken advantage of my Black Friday sale. The sale is on for the next week and almost all of my, my workshops and programs and courses, my toddler bundle on toileting your toddler easefully and relating to your toddler with joy and ease is a huge discount. That's a super popular one. I've received so much positive feedback about that.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, let me reiterate, this is a years long investigative journalism article about how her courses, which she made millions of dollars on, resulted in the death and disfigurements and, or disfigurement of babies around the world. And then she's saying, I've mostly received positive messages and if you want to take my course, I have a sale right now.

[Julian Walker]

Incredible way to turn a lot of negative attention and publicity into a sales opportunity. I'm mean, this is the farthest extent of how bad this kind of stuff gets. Right? Because it's, it's just, yes, it's so appalling, it's so tragic and it's so sort of nakedly opportunistic and, and, and like narcissistically oblivious to like, hold on a second. Like you, you just. The criticisms that are being leveled at you are incredibly, incredibly serious.

[Derek Barris]

Well, we, we covered this briefly, I think in a twic a few months ago because Emily had a stillbirth when she was preparing for the new season of her podcast with Clark. And even though her free birth resulted because she wouldn't go to the doctor, resulted in the death of her baby, she was like, well, there's so much good information in this podcast, I'm not going to stop it. So just kept releasing it like, talk again. I don't even know if narcissism is the right word, just obliviousness or the harm that you're doing. And when you're so invested in making millions of dollars, I mean, Sir Cyrin and Lucy talk about this, how she overextended herself and bought like this mansion because she was making so Much money. And then. And then that becomes your identity and you have to keep selling even after your own principles result in the death of your own baby. That is fucking twisted.

[Julian Walker]

Well, let's have a palate cleanser here. I'm going to go back to my analysis about a more benign form of competitive sales pitching. So I have one more clip from a reel here that I just have to share.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, I'm sorry, Julian. You pitched me doing this as a fun, light episode and. And then I found the Clark because. Blame Mallory. We just blame Mallory for that one.

[Julian Walker]

This is where this stuff goes, though.

[Derek Barris]

It is.

[Super Feast Representative]

So this is probably something like the 12th time we've done this sale. We were doing it before Black Friday was even a thing. And I did this sale at this time every single year. The biggest sale that we ever have is because going into this silly season, I want your organs and your nervous system and your immune system and the entirety of your system absolutely protected and ramped and energized to just sail gracefully through the silly season. But as well, it started off as a Christmas sale, so you can stock up and get all of your friends and family mushrooms and tonic herbs. Now, you know this, but they don't know that. These are some of the most transformational medicinal mushrooms and adaptogenic tonic herbs in existence. And we extract them in a really potent way, meaning they're transformational. They're the best ever. You have no idea how you can get change someone's life by gifting them, you know, because you're going to be dosing up on these mushrooms. But that fork in the road, you're going to gift them these mushrooms. Maybe they're going down. Disengagement and lack of capacity within their organs in order to have the best future ever and best health ever. And they've gone down that route because you've gifted it to them and you've got beautiful handbooks that we send out and guides for them to be taking it. All of a sudden they're deep on this transformational journey. And that all comes because you stocked your cart right now and you gifted it to everybody this Christmas. Don't miss out.

[Derek Barris]

Take a fucking breath, man. Jesus.

[Julian Walker]

I'm wondering how many times he did that and how much he had to psych himself up or if that just. If that's just his personality and he naturally can, can do that kind of pitching. It's. It's pretty amazing.

[Derek Barris]

He probably did it right after a coffee enema.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, it's, it's. It's very. I Want to test your music knowledge? Derek, could you make out what Missy Elliott track was playing in the background?

[Derek Barris]

It sounds like a premiere production, just with the beat, but no, I don't know. I don't know her catalog very well. Okay.

[Julian Walker]

It's called Bomb Intro Past the Duchy. It's one of my favorite tracks of hers. And I'm like, could you not have maybe just taken the vocals off that track if you were going to speak like that over the top of it? Because it's really jarring. It's really. The whole thing is just chaotic and weird. This guy's from a company called Super Feast and he claimed. I don't know if you caught this in the beginning, it's hard to hold on to everything he said. But at the beginning, he claimed that their company was doing Black Friday sales before it was even a thing, which is very interesting. They have the best medicinal mushrooms because of how they're extracted, and they're going to save your friends and family's lives. Did you catch that towards the end there? Super Feast has 90, 96, 000 Instagram followers, and their Black Friday special was 40 off. Their website claims that their powders, potions and capsules are basically good for absolutely everything. And they have a wall of anecdotal video testimonials in lieu of any actual signs backing up their health claims. The very first video features a young couple talking about being so horny from their adaptogenic mushroom blend that they had sex for 30 days in a row. So the average product looks to run about $60 for. For, you know, a jar full of whatever these medicinal mushrooms are.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah. Again, this. This whole. This is the real deal. This is the best one ever. Like, this is all the marketers have to do in order to try to stand out. And I just wonder who falls for that at this point. Like, I. You just have to have a tune out button when people make these claims at this point because it's so over the top. And also real time. Fact check. I am extremely sorry. It was produced by Timbaland, who is Missy's producer, who I usually think of. I don't know why I said Premiere. I think it's because Premiere is a new album coming out with Nas in a couple weeks. So I'm very excited about that. But Timberland produced that track with me, which makes sense.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And that pitch too, you can tell that they. They did put a little bit of thought into it in terms of like, okay, who is this pitch for? This pitch is for the people who are looking for, for a gift idea for friends and family who might be going through a lot of stress and we're going to pitch them on the idea that you could change their life by taking them down a fork in the road away from, you know, complete collapse and disaster and towards just flourishing and thriving because of our amazing product. It's pretty, it's pretty interesting strategy.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah. It's how you pull people into your cult. So last one for me. I will also again shout out Mallory because this is from the focus of our recent cancer episode with her. Carly Shankman, AKA Carly Loves Kale, healed her cancer with oncology, to be clear, but later pivoted and credited the real success of her healing journey to all the holistic practices she did after surgery and chemotherapy. And then she started selling those products. She writes about her non toxic swaps before she offers discount codes for Black Friday too. Oh, look at that. Happy bum coffee. Animus is on there.

[Julian Walker]

Can't get away from it.

[Derek Barris]

No. We also have red light saunas and face masks, trampolines, AKA rebounders which have suddenly have magical healing powers. Oh yeah, juicers and raw juices, nail polish, laundry detergent, creatine gummies, cannabis gummies, electrolytes and indoor air purifiers. This is all in one post. This list of holistic tchotchkes is all somehow related to our cancer diagnosis because. Because sure, why not? I mean, when I went through cancer, trampoline certainly helped me.

[Julian Walker]

I'm going to close with two quick observations and examples here. And Derek, you referenced our episode from a few days ago that covered your visit to the Eudaimonia health conference as well as Peter Attia's longevity science sales pitch. And he's becoming a big dog in the market sector that you referenced already with some of those celebrity investors years. It's the selling of pricey concierge medical testing and biomarker tracking. And I have to say, whether it was my search history around his companies or the Black Friday pediatric companies, or the Black Friday wellness stuff, I was looking up on Instagram alongside AG1 and Mudwater and yes, Happy Bumco, introductory deals for bespoke medical testing services suddenly took up a real really strong chunk of my algorithm over the last few days. So these services, as I looked them up, I followed up and looked at the different websites. They range from about $400 a year for the basic service to quadruple that. So about sixteen hundred dollars a year annually to then get a ton of recommendations from a dedicated longevity practitioner. Plus discounts on the supplements they are inevitably going to recommend. Like that's right there in the list of benefits. If you sign up at the highest level, you'll get discounts on the supplements. We're going you at the high end. So 1600. That's still almost five times lower than the entry level of what Peter Attia's company offers. But I guess that's the celebrity doctor add on fee. Speaking of supplements though, while their evidence is thin, some companies have the business model down to an actual science. These are the ones who like veracity. We'll have you do a health quiz right on the sales page that then directs you toward their multiple supplement protocols that are billed as being for weight loss or stress, perimenopause or burnout. And those protocols are going to run you anywhere from $108 to $214 for a monthly supply if you get auto delivery every month. Which is what they're really trying to get you to sign up for because the prices go up by about 20% on any of those products if it's just a one time purchase purchase. But hey, at least with Black Friday you're getting almost 65% off of your first subscription.

[Derek Barris]

You know, I did one of those online tests for function health, or it might have been Mark Hyman, actually it might have been his own brand. And I answered differently a few different times. And it was like 45 questions, you know, and measuring your stress levels. And I saw his grading curve was like 10 or under means you're not very stressed, you know, and from on from there and I answered in each different bucket and why don't you guess every one resulted in me needing some sort of supplement. Even when I got 45 out of 45, meaning I wasn't stressed at all, there was still something to sell me at the end. It's, it's incredible.

[Julian Walker]

Congratulations, you're doing really well. Would you be like to, would you like to be doing even better because we've got something for you.

[Derek Barris]

Well, exactly, that's how it was phrased. It was sort of like, wow, you don't have a lot of stress, but you could still be helped by this. That's, that's exactly how it was framed.

[Julian Walker]

Incredible. So what I found was that the 900 pound gorilla, at least in terms of comparatively everything else I saw in this particular space, the supplement space turned out to be a company called Do Not Age. And this smelled to me decidedly like they're super overstocked. I'm getting shades of like Nadia trying to sell all of those t shirts for $2.99 each. Their black Friday deals include an ultimate bundle of 30 bottles of around 15 different anti aging supplements. So in some cases it was two bottles of each marked down for Black Friday from $8,168 to $4,901.

[Derek Barris]

This was like the sacred numbers.

[Julian Walker]

Yes, exactly. It didn't sound like a super great deal to me, Derek, to go to their website and give them almost five grand. But then I realized they threw in a free branded pill carrier for all of those supplements and a water bottle because you're going to need to wash them down with something. And blue light blocking glasses. I'm sold.

[Derek Barris]

You know, when I first read the script and going through it, I read quickly and I thought that said donut age. And I think for this weekend, that is going to be my supplement of choice. Yes.

[Julian Walker]

Let's do it. Let's do it. What, what's your favorite kind of donut?

[Derek Barris]

You know, Callan just went to a local donut place here in Portland called Sesame, which is an old school one which we never went into. And they are actually rated some of the best donuts. They are fantastic. And I love a good plain cake donut because there's an art to doing a cake donut right. And that is one of the best cake donuts I've ever had. And I also think, though just growing, growing up near an apple orchard, apple cider donuts are just crack to me. And they did a pretty good apple cider donut. I've had better, but that was good. How about you?

[Julian Walker]

I'm glad I asked. I'm not really much of a donut guy. I tend to like eclairs. If I'm ever gonna have something in that family, eclairs are great.

[Derek Barris]

They gotta get the, they gotta get the chocolate right. Some, usually they lean too much on the filling and I find that, that it just gets really messy. So you, you gotta be careful with an eclair though.

[Nadia Willis]

Experience the sequel everyone's been waiting for with Sideline 2 intercepted. Join Drayton and Dallas as they navigate the challenges of college life while trying to stay true to the themselves and each other. Catch all the drama and watch Sideline 2 Intercepted starring Noah Beck and Sienna Agodong for free on tubi this Thanksgiving.

[Derek Barris]

Monster Energy.

[Julian Walker]

Everybody knows White Monster Zero Ultra.

[Derek Barris]

That's the OG it kicked off this whole zero sugar energy drink thing, but.

[Julian Walker]

Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian Sunrise.

[Derek Barris]

And Vice, Guava and they all bring.

[Julian Walker]

The monster energy punch. So if you've been living in the white can branch out.

[Derek Barris]

Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe.

[Julian Walker]

And every single one is zero sugar.

[Derek Barris]

Tap the banner to learn more.