Today we look at the meteoric rise of "friend coaches", or, ironically, effectively, paid friends (like all too many therapists) who teach their customers to make and break up with "real" (i.e. unpaid) human friends.
They remind me of the Japanese post-covid mask era "smile coaches" who taught their clients how to move their faces in ways humans like - and they remind me of the macro trend towards the commoditisation of the care commons - how everything from dates to mothering is being priced and traded in the money market, rather than exchanged for mutual joy.
I don't know - is this necessary, given the increase in RAGE and loneliness post pandemic?
Or is the commoditisation of the care commons kind of sad?
Or both?
Have you ever used a friend coach?
Would you be prepared to pay someone to pretend to care about you by the hour?
Let me know - and let me know where else you have spotted entrepreneurs stepping in to sell solutions to loneliness in a world full of lonely people...
Want to talk about this and its implications for your future? I’m listening and I like coffee and conversation (free and friendly and paid and professional - whatever you need).
Read more:
Friend coaching as a career : https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2023-09-06/what-is-a-friendship-coach
Smile! Pay me.
How to smile
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Watch now (2 mins) | Looking for a job? How about becoming a smile coach? Today's signal looks at the rise of the smile coach, teaching people to position their faces in ways that are not distressing to fellow people after 3+ years of masking. This made me think of the "air rage" that was all the rage last year after long haul airlines reopened - and passengers who had been …
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