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Why is The Goop Lab so addictive?

  • "Maybe one day I’ll understand how I can actually love Gwyneth Paltrow, and yet find that, when I open my mouth, only snark comes out," says Monica Hesse of Paltrow's Netflix docuseries. "Is it that I find her earnestness both poignant and poisonous? Do I fear my own inner truth? I’d wager that anyone making time for The Goop Lab is coming to it from a similar place: A love-hate desire to know what she’s actually like when she doles out the advice that usually appears, disembodied, on her website. And the answer is: Thoughtful. Open. Searching. Curiosity is hard to fake, and Gwyneth has it, whether she’s asking a doctor to explain his psychedelic research or querying one of her assistants/guinea pigs about the effects of an experiment. The show is spiritual cousins with Joe Rogan’s podcast, or Russell Brand’s — celebrity seekers, all. The concept, at least, is similar: Here is a famous person with natural intelligence but zero subject-matter expertise, having a series of conversations. Some of the guests are mainstream (Neil deGrasse Tyson for Rogan, sex-ed guru Betty Dodson for Gwyneth) and some of them are not (Alex Jones for Rogan, a psychic medium for Gwyneth)...All of the guests, mainstream and not, are given the same block of time. Which is an example both of the open-mindedness that celebrity seekers pride themselves in having, and of how open-mindedness can cause your brain to fall out."

    TOPICS: The Goop Lab with Gwyneth Paltrow, Gwyneth Paltrow, Documentaries, Goop