Before we get into the episode, we want to issue a trigger warning as the episode does touch on themes relating to eating disorders. Episode one, The Rise of Sarah's Day. Sarah Stevenson is one of Australia's biggest influences. Her YouTube channel, Sarah's Day has over one point five million subscribers, while her Instagram account boasts one point two million followers.
Good morning guys, an official walk back to my channel.
The self proclaimed holistic health princess cultivated a devoted following for her raw approach and passion for health and fitness, but in twenty seventeen, the tide began to turn when Sarah claimed she had healed her cervical displacire through healthy eating.
The rest of this video is just telling you all of the healthy ways that I cured my cervix and how I am now free, pretty much free from cervical displacure.
She was slammed by the press was spreading medical misinformation, and followers began to turn some.
Of the messages I'm getting you guys like full on like hate, death threats.
Controversy has followed the thirty year old ever since, with explosive reactions online to her every.
Move, one dollar will go towards Saint Vincent's bushfire appeal. I just got so much hate on that post.
She's been accused of cultural appropriation, targeting people with eating disorders and taking down small businesses. We are journalist Amy Kay and Sophie Torber and we're fascinated by the world of influencers and the psychology of cancel culture. In this series, we will delve into Sarah's Day's biggest scandals, her fall from grace, cancel culture, and the dangers of influence.
This is outspoken plus.
When you say the name Sarah's Day, it attracts one of two reactions. People either love her or hate her. When Sarah first started out on Instagram in twenty thirteen, she was this very relatable twenty year old girl who came from a middle class family in Cranulla and originally her channel was all about documenting her day, hence the name Sarah's Day. Her channel name has led to so much confusion because people think that Day is her last name, when it is in fact Stevenson. I must have meant
I was one of those people to begin with. It is really confusing and I feel like It's almost worked in her favor since all these controversies have happened, because people are calling her not by.
Her actual name.
Now. When Sarah first broke into the social media scene, it was just her side hustle. She was starting to become a teacher and also working in retail, so I don't think that she ever envisioned that this was going to be a huge business for her. Well, at the time, there weren't really influencers like there are now. Well, I don't think the word influencer was even around. It was so weird watching her first video on YouTube from twenty thirteen and hearing her describe her channel.
Let's throw to what she said.
Everything, you know, I really believe in the power of Fritz vegetables and the Earth's you know, natural ingredients.
So that's pretty much what my Instagram's about. Second YouTube video, Sarah shared a recipe for a ducee that she claimed would make you look good in a body con dress but also turn your pooh red. This just says what sort of time it was, though, the fact that it was a body chondress those were very popular in twenty thirteen. I do love the disclaimer though, because how many people would have actually drunk it and gone oh shit. Well,
it sounds like Sarah did the exactly same. I think we need to wind the clock back ten years ago and take a look at what was happening in the health and fitness space in Australia when Sarah emerged on the scene. So the year was twenty thirteen, Instagram was entering its prime and a new era of beauty standards were quickly being established online and the word fitzbo was dominating our social media feeds. The term is short for fitzpiration and it began trending as a response to the
concerning thinsbow trend that dominated the early naughties. So harmful mottos and posts were being shared across blog sites and social media channels, motivating dramatic weight loss. And with this in hindsight, it's interesting to look back now and see that fitspo was actually created to counteract thinspo by shifting the focus to achieving fitness instead of thinness. So whilst it was first intended to promote health.
Audiences were bombarded.
With these perfect bodies and clean eating on social media sites, so the trend triggered obsessive behaviors, and it also created impossible beauty standards to live up to. It even sparked a new form of eating disorder known as orthorexia, which is a condition that includes symptoms of obsessive behavior in pursuit of a perceived healthy diet. So this ideal body had changed amongst society. The new era of beauty was epitomized by six pack abs, a peachy bum, and a
ripped body. I'm not sure if it's much of an upgrade there from finspo. It's just another form of body that's really hard to achieve now. Fitness influences were of course at the heart of the fitspo movement, offering food and fitness advice and often selling ebooks filled with eating plans to encourage the strict avoidance of food like meat, sugar, dairy, and wheat, and despite having no formal training, influencers advice
was being sought after more than medical professionals. The two biggest names in the fitness space at the time were ash Binds and Kayla at Cenus. Now, Ashy's online Bikini Body Challenge launched in twenty eleven, while Kayla at Senus launched her Bikini Bodyguide. In twenty fourteen, the pair became instant millionaires. Both fitness plans included the word bikini and it was all about flogging yourself in the gym to be hashtag bikini ready. This was, of course, well before
the body positivity movement. Who now promote the fact that you just need a bikini to be bikini ready? Now? I want people to be honest. Who had which guide?
I had the Kayler at Cenis Guide and I.
Didn't purchase it. It was a copy that seemed to be passed on to a lot of people in our friendship group. I had a few tatty pieces of paper. Yeah, that was the risk at the time, wasn't it. That they're selling pdf so basically anyone could just send them around. Yeah, I had the said copy, but I actually got mine bind so I have it still to this day. I actually paid for mine. I'm guessing that's where we got
our copies from. Well. In twenty twenty one, Kayla announced that she would be renaming her Bikini Bodyguide workouts to High Intensity, as she felt the name represented an outdated view of health and fitness, and this was after the birth of her daughter Anna. She said that she felt it was time to evolve and use language that feels more positive for women today. So you can just see how far we have come. And when you compare somebody like Sarah to Kayla, I think one initially attracted people
to Sarah was that she was an oversharer. Yeah, because all we really saw from Kayla were her incredible apps, and at the time Instagram was really just a photo app. We didn't see much video. So the fact that Sarah was able to use YouTube to her advantage that early on, and she has so much about her life is the reason I think she is still very popular today exactly. And so many people were drawn to her YouTube channels because she spoke a lot about her struggles with hormonal acne.
But it was her breakup in June twenty sixteen with her long term boyfriend Match that started gaining her a lot of traction.
Half day done at the snow, I have had a bit of a hiccup. The reason I'm here by myself is to, I guess, do some soul searching and find who I am again by myself being single. When I was running down one of the mountains, I rode past my ex boyfriend, so that didn't give me the best vibes. Ever, I can't really get the fact that he's here out of my head.
This clip went viral, and this is how so many of her diehard supporters originally came across her content. In a recent interview with influencer Grace Beverly, Sarah said that this video pushed her channel onto YouTube's recommended page and it actually led to her gaining over forty thousand new followers. I always wondered what video it was that went viral for her, because when you go back and look at some of the old videos about her hormono acne, it's not really interesting.
Yeah, but she went there with her content.
I remember seeing stuff talking about like her periods, about her discharge, like nothing is off limit when it comes to Sarah. I do find it also interesting that Sarah very much in that interview with Grace Beverley, was saying that you had to have abs and look a certain way on YouTube and Instagram. But it's ironic that it was actually her revealing all these details about her personal life is actually.
What got her notice.
And I feel like she is still to this day trying to rebel against that we saw her earlier in the year not wanting to do vlogs anymore, but she quickly always goes back to that medium because she knows that's what people want to watch. And she really had this ability to make followers feel like they were genuinely her friends. And she does this by using specific language on her channel, so she references her audience as being
her sissies. And she's also constantly using her own nickname Okay, I just.
Want to bring it back to her original deasy.
It sort of becomes endearing because you feel like, oh, that's Sezi, that's my friend. Yes, ironic that she's the one pushing that name to you.
Well.
A big turning point in Sarah's life and her YouTube career came in November twenty sixteen, and this is when she met her now husband.
Kurt tills So.
Just five months from her breakup with Mitch. She met Kurt So. He was a carpenter by day and a budding photographer on the weekends, and the pair had a whirlwind romance. They became official after just a few weeks of dating.
I normally want Baker eggs and he wants save because he's a girl.
Look so great.
Hashtag comp golf.
There has been a lot of speculation online about how Kurt and Sarah actually met, and the official line has always been that they met organically, but word on the street is that it was a Tinder meeting. I definitely think that's correct because in her pregnancy announcement with her first son, Fox, she said that her and Kurt met up at ten o'clock for a coffee at a random coffee shop in the city. That to me is the epitome of a Tinder date. Nochee, because I feel like,
at this time and now everyone meets online. I think it's funny that they're trying to hide it. And I remember in lots of log Sarah was saying that she used to go walk down at the esplanade at Cernulla to try and meet her husband. I think Tinder seems like a much better spot other than just like smiling,
it passes by well. While their early relationship did look magical online, Sarah recently revealed during an interview that she was initially suss about Kurt's intentions, so on their second date, Kurt basically love bombed her, and this led Sarah to question his intention I actually.
Can't believe he said I love you on the second day.
Well, it makes it pretty interesting because in this pregnancy announcement, Sarah was saying that she thought she'd been friend zoned and Kurt said it was love at first sight. And I always thought that it was Sarah pushing the relationship more than Kurt.
So this added a really interesting element.
Well, I think Sarah really was in the driver's seat and calling a lot of shots in this relationship, because she recently said on the Grace Beverly podcast that she tried to break things off with Kurt only four months in, which makes this timeline really interesting because they moved in together after four months, so he must have either been Okay, we're going to try and make this work or we're going to end things. And at the time they were
complete couple goals. I remember watching their YouTube and being single and being jealous of this beautiful relationship we were seeing unfold. Well, you can see why Sarah was questioning his intentions because at the time Kurt was living such a different life to Sarah. He was a party boy who had recently come out of a bad breakup, and he found himself in debt and revealed on his podcast The Health Coat that there were some weeks he couldn't afford it tuna or rise.
And that's his staple, isn't it? For the six pack?
Really was that while he was hanging out with Sarah, she had an abundance of.
General ross Well.
Kurt made the shock admission in twenty twenty two that he was so poor at the time he looked into drug dealing before meeting Sarah, and he also revealed he was offered a job as a male stripper but couldn't go through with it because he didn't have the confidence to do it.
Or the rhythm. It seems like I think that was a big factor.
Too, and this is perhaps why Sarah asked Kurt to sign a contract on their second date. So after Kurt professed his love to her, he also offered to help her shoot the content for her very first e book, and Sarah responded by getting him to sign a contract, saying he wouldn't get a cut in it.
I was so suss of him.
I was so suss because he was a photographer and I remember telling him I had this idea that I wanted to make this fitness ebook right, and he was a PT. He was a photographer. He was like, I believe in you. I believe in your brand. Let me sign off. Because I'm not a PT. You have to have a PET sign off. He's like, let me look at all your workouts. I'll sign it off and I'll take all the photos. And I was like, what do you want from me?
Yeah?
Like this was like a week. Literally.
I was like, you're not getting a cut of anything. I mean, So I made him sign a contract. This was like our second date and I was living in my parents' house. I had no money, I had nothing, and he was like, who do you think you are? Like I was, and I was like, I'm gonna be massive, Okay, So I made him sign this contract, which still we talk about it and I'm like, you still get no cut of it.
But when I heard that, it surprised me. But then when I reflect on Sarah's behavior around money, it always really has been her money and Kurtz money. It's always this.
Is my house and this is my offers.
But do you blame her? Like this is this second date she's on with this guy. I just told her he loves her. When he's meant to be this bad boy like she's obviously thinking, what the hell's going on? Well, I think even if you're not a bad boy, not too many normal people drop I love you a second date. I think it's pretty ballsy of her to rock up and be like, sign this before we go any further, particularly because she said she was just living at home
at the time, she had one hundred thousand subscribers. She wasn't really a big deal like she is now. Makes me think do they have a prenup? Probably? Well. After making things YouTube official in late twenty sixteen, Kurt was a constant feature on Sarah's channel, and Sarah and Kurt became hashtag couple goals. So now she had the hot boyfriend, a new beachside apartment, and she was living this very esthetic couple goal Instagram life. I really enjoyed this time during her content.
So did I.
I think it was the most aspirational part of Sarah's life so far. I think the craziest part of this timeline is just days after moving in together, Sarah launched her first ebook, Sweat.
To Shred It.
And I think it was a little bit premature picking out this sort of modest apartment because she quickly made a lot of money. Yes, sales came in so quickly that her PayPal account got shut down because they deemed it as suspicious activity. And while she didn't confirm how much she made, she said she was able to.
Instantly wipe her UNI debt.
Well. She did say that over one thousand people wrapped up to the ebook release, and this was actually at her gym. She was worried no one would turn up, so it was shocked when so many people arrived. But think about it, sixty nine dollars a pop for Sweated to shred It. That's over sixty nine thousand dollars if each person bought an ebook, and that's just in person
as well. I did love the tidbit that her ex boyfriend Mitch had noticed the crowd forming and did a little well done text to her, Yeah.
He'd be spewing.
Well. With Kurt now by her side, Sarah quickly brought in sponsorship deals with Loving Earth, Trepeka, Lebang, White Fox Boutique, and Mazda. She seemed to be living the dream, but as we know with Instagram, it is a highlight reel and whilst her life appeared perfect, it was far from reality. So What people didn't know at the time was that Sarah was suffering from what she has described as disordered eating.
Here's what she said.
Honestly, I thought, how embarrassing that, like I'm on social media to be this fitness person and like I look like this. I honestly thought I had so much weight to lose and I was so flabby and squishy, and I look back, I'm like I look twelve. I was so I was so lean, and not in a cool way, in like a oh set, like what are you doing. I truly eat for beautiful skin and beautiful hair and a mind that can concentrate, like I eat so much for my mind now.
So, whilst writing her e books, Sarah said she lost her period and admitted in a recent interview that she looked like a ripped twelve year old who was living off a diet of chicken, pumpkin and protein shakes. She even admitted to being shocked this year when an old video of her popped up on YouTube as a recommendation, and in this video, Sarah made toast with protein bread,
which she topped with protein powder. She obviously realized that there was something wrong with the video, but it's not as if she's deleted any of the offending videos, but she's mentioned publicly how they were wrong, or they're clearly making her money still and attracting an audience of people who connect with her. I found it particularly disappointing that she didn't say she regretted making that content, nor has
actually deleted it. They're all still monetized. Yeah. Well, the reality is that so many health and fitness influencers actually suffer from eating disorders, and while their initial intentions to share their lives online may not be negative, they need to understand the power of social media and just how many people they're impacting by sharing their unhealthy habits and lifestyles online.
Yeah, that's the thing.
I feel like Instagram and YouTube was a real breeding ground for people who had eating disorders, and it was almost a way to connect with like minded people, and that's what was so dangerous about it, And now they were looking back at it from ten years ago. I just think it's really confronting that this sort of information is one still allowed online and two not being removed
by the content creators. So another big theme of Sarah's channel in the early days was PCs and period the two piece, and in twenty fourteen, as she was documenting her process of trying to naturally heal her acne, her natural path diagnosed her with PCs via a saliva test. Not sure how accurate that actually is now. Of course, Sarah had a fix for it, which was car cycling, and this was quite a common thing for Sarah to do. She always seemed to have some kind of natural remedy
on hand to fix any illness. Yeah, and then you fast forward two years later and Sarah was back at the doctors because she had missed her period for eight months. Again, this provided content for a YouTube series about how she got her period back naturally. It's pretty wild to watch this YouTube series back because Sarah said in one of the videos that she was sixteen percent body fat and
weighed forty seven kilos when she lost her period. And in the video she showed herself getting an ultrasound and read out her blood test results, which was going into way too much detail. She also filmed herself getting acupuncture, and she later revealed that the doctor said her ovaries indicated that she had PCOS, but the blood results didn't reflect PCOS. So this PCOS diagnosis seems to have been
very sketchy. Well, it's something that people still talk about online now, they still query whether she in fact had it. And whilst I think it is wrong to be going into these details, the truth is that Sarah let people in by oversharing about her life. Who reads their own blood tests out in a YouTube video, which is why you can see why so many people were hooked to it.
And I don't know if you guys remember, but at the time, Sarah blamed the stress of releasing her first e book coupled with training for her ebook, as the reason for losing her period. However, in March this year, Sarah provided an insight into this time of her life on Grace Beverly's podcast.
I lost my peers and I look back and I'm.
Like, CEIs, you weren't eating enough. You weren't eating enough. I was going through a breakup. My job was to work out. I was at the gym for three hours a day, and I only ate protein, bread, protein, powder, fish, pumpkin.
That's it.
That is it. I didn't have my period, but I was so encapsulated in that life and I thought, I genuinely thought I was being so healthy and so hashtag wellness that I was doing these videos saying I've lost my period.
I don't know why I have amn area.
You have amen area because your body's in flight or flight and you're working out for three hours a day. You're not eating enough calories, you're not sleeping enough, you're getting up at five am to train, You're going to bed at two am.
Because you don't have an editor, you're editing your own blogs.
You know.
I look back and I'm like, I just wish I could talk to her and say, go and eat some sourdough. Yeah, go for a walk.
You don't have to do that now.
At this time, although Sarah's following was rapidly growing, she hadn't yet made a name for herself in the mainstream media. Already, her followers were young women who were so invested in her always esthetic and picture perfect life, just.
Like they did with their products.
They bought in big time, and there was a thirst for her to let them in more. And whether she liked to admit it or not, Sarah positioned herself as a health expert and followers came to her for advice. Now, despite her audience being vast, there was little to no discourse in the mainstream media about whether the information she was putting out to her impressionable audience was in fact
harmful and triggering eating disorders. In late twenty seventeen, however, Sarah's name broke through to the mainstream for one of her most memorable and harmful scandals. In late December of that year, Sarah left her audience on a cliffhanger. At the end of hervog, she wrote, I received a call from my doctor. What she told me has shaken my entire life. I needed time to understand and accept the news before opening up. Thank you for caring. I will
share more in my next vlog. She left her audience on edge for a week before releasing a YouTube video entitled Heartbreaking News with a thumbnail of her crying, and In this video, she revealed her perhaps smear had come back with abnormalities and after follow up test, she had been diagnosed with high grade cervical displasia. Now, despite her gynecologist telling her to have the pre cancer of cells surgically removed, she begged him to give her three more
months to see if she could cure it herself. I want to highlight the use of the word cure here because we are using it in quotations, but this is in fact how she phrased.
It to her very impressionable audience.
A couple of months ago, I got my perhaps three results back, So I have SIN three, which is high grade circul displays. Sure went and got a biopsy. Your kopos could be all this stuff, and you wanted to operate, so obviously I wanted to see if my body could heal itself on its own. Because if you have SIN one, if you have the lowest grade of what I have, your body can actually overcome it by itself heal itself.
So I was hoping that maybe if I ate in a way and supplemented in a way that supported healing, that maybe my steps could heal itself. I talked to my gundacologists about it, and he gave me two months to try to heal.
It on my own. And of course, Sarah decided she would share this journey with her audience of over one million people. And it was at this point Sarah's online behavior began attracting mainstream criticism. And that's where we leave today's episode. Next week, we will be diving head first into what happened next as we unpack Sarah's biggest controversies. This podcast was recorded on the traditional land of the Ghana people of the Adelaide Planes.
We pay respects to elders past and present.
Thank you so much for listening to our first episode about Spoken. Plus, we'll be back in your podcast feeds next week with our second installment in our Sarah's Day deep dive series.