In Oprah we trust

This weekend's New York Times ran an article about a blogger who is eight months into an experiment of living her life according to the decrees of the Oprah Winfrey show. When Oprah tells the nation to buy certain clothes to look their best, she goes shopping. When Oprah tells her audience to create "vision boards" to help define and articulate their goals in life, out come the scissors for a kindergarten project.

I don't think this blogger is nuts. She admits that she's pitching a book deal; I kind of wish I'd thought of it first.

I haven't seen much of the Oprah Winfrey show myself because I don't have television. I've caught a handful of episodes over her long career, so if you ask me just what Oprah has going for her other than a little je ne sais quoi, I can't tell you. I do know, however, that she's a heck of a businesswoman and for that I admire her. It's also what makes this blogger's quest a little bit disturbing: Oprah's vast ability to influence the marketplace with her recommendations suggests that more people than probably care to admit are following her dictates more or less blindly as a matter of course.

I don't know about you, but that kind of freaks me out. You see, Oprah's not doing any of this altruistically. She makes a crapload of money on her show, and that crapload of money comes from sponsors. That fact alone significantly reduces her credibility as a tastemaker: when Mr. Coffee is paying for the ads, the host isn't going to proclaim her preference for Black and Decker. In addition, the New York Times article noted that for all Oprah's declarations of the importance of empowerment and self-esteem, the subtle message given by makeovers and emergency style interventions is that viewers are not good enough the way they are. The article also stated that if the new latest style or workout or whatever isn't working for her audience, Oprah also breezily declares that it's their fault, not hers.

Talk about adding insult to injury. If I got treated that way by a friend or trusted advisor, I'd be devastated.

Now, the Oprah Winfrey show is supposed to be entertainiment; thus, people aren't really supposed to take her seriously. Well, guess what? Many of them DO. Her influence on the marketplace is a great indicator of that. Most people probably aren't taking the Oprah devotion to the extreme that the blogger profiled in the New York Times is, but I think it's likely that a great many people are turning off their critical thinking skills when Oprah's on, passively sitting back to let her hector us on what we should do and watch and like and believe.

Personally, I think we'd all be better off turning off the TV and figuring it out for ourselves.