Talking to Strangers - ELLE (Copy)

SINCE THE EARLY 1900S, AN AGONY AUNT HAS BEEN A WILLING EAR. BUT AT A TIME OF DMS AND ASK- ME-ANYTHINGS, SEEKING ADVICE FROM SOMEONE YOU DON’T KNOW HAS BECOME RISKY BUSINESS

In 1929, it was reported that the American advice columnist Elizabeth Gilmer was earning more than the President of the United States. Gilmer – or Dorothy Dix as she was known to her legion of disciples – had not only managed to convince people to let her air their dirty laundry in print, but also managed to spin their secrets into gold throughout the worst years of the Great Depression.

Nearly 100 years later, not only has the idea of sourcing advice from a stranger not gone away, but the agony aunt has grown and morphed into a strange beast that has torn herself from the pages of teenage-girl magazines and found strength online. It’s so deliciously voyeuristic to read about the spectrum of human problems that online publications, forums, podcasts, videos and Instagram feeds have become treasure troves of people seeking out and dishing out advice for the most insane, outrageous, sad or relatable problems you’ve ever heard.

But the thing is, finding the right person to ask has become a problem in itself. When we wrote into a magazine’s advice column, we knew that person had put themselves in a position where they wanted to be asked, and we understood whether or not they were qualified to answer certain types of questions. Sliding into an influencer’s DMs to ask for their help is risky business. Not only are qualifications fuzzy (there’s a difference between a nutritionist and a dietitian, or a coach and a therapist), but why are we so sure they want to be bombarded with our problems in the first place?

Most women who grew up in Australia in the ’90s will remember Dolly Doctor. So many post-school afternoons were spent with girlfriends huddled around a crumpled copy of the magazine, laughing at the ridiculousness of some of the questions, but secretly feeling relief that someone else had asked what you had been thinking. For 23 years, Melissa Kang was the woman behind Dolly Doctor, answering questions from tweens and teens about puberty. “It wasn’t just about the physical changes, it was also the emotional side of things and the anxiety about what was happening to their bodies and their relationships – a lot of questions about friendship and crushes and dating, and the associated distress,” Kang recalls. “They were often about pubic hair and boobs, but in the context of anxiety.”

In the UK, teens had Shout magazine, where Laura Brown and her team answered similar questions. “Teenage girls wrote in about relationships, friendships, body worries and the age-old problems of periods, dating, parents and bullying,” she says. “Every reader who included a stamped addressed envelope was guaranteed a personal reply.”

Pre-internet, these advice columns were the safe and logical place to look for help and reassurance that you weren’t alone. That columns like these were so popular in our teenage years might go some way to explain the prevalence of online advice columns that deal with our adult problems.

The agony aunt is no longer a prim white woman dishing out advice about laundry. The new breed openly share their own problems and ask questions themselves, as Cheryl Strayed did as The Rumpus’ Dear Sugar between 2010 and 2012, and now continues to do in podcast form. The Cut’s Ask Polly, written by Helen Havrilesky, is solid ground in a sea of ennui. Her readers pose existential problems that range from the relatable to the absurd, such as “I’m defective as a human being”, “My fear of climate change is eroding my sanity” and “My in-laws are careless about my deadly food allergy”. This is where you go when you’re feeling untethered and need someone to tell you you’re doing okay. These advice-givers are an antidote to polished social media profiles: they are honest about their flaws, giving us a peek behind the curtain at their faults.

There is also a more diverse mix of writers who can offer broader perspectives. Slate has four advice columns, its most popular being Dear Prudence, written by Danny M Lavery who, since coming out as trans in 2018, has helped others navigate gender and how to support friends and family going through the same experience. The New York Times has an agony uncle, the British-Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Asking for advice may be easier than ever, but the democratisation of knowledge, as Kang calls it, has flourished on platforms that are not ready to hold the weight of responsibility it brings. While Kang is a real doctor, and Brown and her team were approved by a regulatory body to give information to teenagers, Instagram has become the place to go for advice on tap, where it is the follower count that determines authority.

“I think influencers for so long have been told that they need to provide value and the easiest way to do that is to say, ‘Ask me anything! Let me help you,’” says Lillian Ahenkan, the DJ, TV host, podcaster and Instagram favourite best known as FlexMami. “That kind of pressure is really damaging because I don’t think many influencers – myself included – have the credentials to be giving out information. A lot of influencers aren’t aware of their duty of care to make sure they’re not sending their followers in the wrong direction.”

Her concerns are legitimate: a study by the University Of Glasgow last year looked into the UK’s leading health influencers and found that only one in nine provided accurate and trustworthy information. The person who passed was a registered nutritionist, while the lowest compliance was from an influencer with no qualifications, who had more than 80,000 followers and verification from two social media accounts.

“The dissemination of information is, on balance, probably an excellent thing,” says Kang. “But there’s the risk of a lot of misinformation. I think some people are very savvy and find their way to the right information, and others know that what they’re getting isn’t quite right, but they’re not sure where else to go.”

“Knowingly touting snake oil or doling out dangerous information is wildly irresponsible,” adds Brown. “Often the people in need of advice are very vulnerable and desperate for some instantaneous help, and they are probably [prone to being] misled, though not always deliberately.”

Then there are the Instagram influencers who have had the role of advice-giver thrust upon them. The inadvertent agony aunts. Ahenkan gets thousands of DMs asking for advice about everything from which pen to use to “I’m a marine biologist and my boss is doing something illegal – what do I do about it?” “I don’t want to be liable for what they end up or don’t end up doing with my advice,” she says. “The stakes are high and I’m aware of the duty of care I have to my audience.”

Koreen, the artist behind the popular Instagram account @WereNotReallyStrangers, has found herself in a similar situation. Her account and associated card game provide thought-provoking questions with an existential bent. The Instagram is full of the kind of relationship advice you want to screenshot in preparation for your next break-up. “People messaging for advice was one of the first things that happened as the page started growing,” she explains. “It was kind of unexpected, but also made sense because I’m putting out these words of wisdom, so it sounds like I have something figured out. The first DMs were like, ‘There’s this boy I really like, should I tell him I love him?’ but then they got much deeper and more serious. It got to a place where I had to go, ‘I’m not a therapist, I’m 25 years old, I’m just figuring it out on my own, too.’”

Lestraundra Alfred, the woman behind the wellness community Balanced Black Girl, likewise did not set out to become an advice-giver, and it’s something she admits she struggles with. “I can get overwhelmed at times,” she says. “I’m comfortable being the person my friends come to for advice because I know them and there’s context around their situation. But on social media, some people may feel like they know me, but I don’t have the benefit of knowing them in return.”

Ahenkan agrees: “I think there’s a level of familiarity that makes it so hard to set boundaries. It’s flattering, and I can see why people think, ‘Oh, I’ll just ask her.’ But even though they may know me, in a sense, I don’t know anything about them.”

There’s also the issue of the lack of trigger warnings for influencers. Although they’ve put themselves into the public eye, the most popular accounts are sent problems that can be heart-wrenching, traumatic or just plain difficult to solve on a daily basis. “It can be harmful to come into someone’s DMs – their digital personal space – and immediately expect advice,” says Alfred. “It’s important to get advice from people who are credible and have given consent that they are willing to provide advice.”

“It’s really difficult to be this beacon of safety for people you don’t know, and the expectation that your door’s always open becomes quite damaging,” adds Ahenkan. “I think the people who are in the position of being asked for information aren’t being valued in the way they should be. People aren’t necessarily respectful of what it takes to give somebody advice with tact and nuance.” Instead of blasting someone’s inbox and demanding advice (unless that inbox belongs to your best friend), think about what you’re expecting from that person and why you need their help, Ahenkan advises. So many of our appeals for help come from a place of needing to be seen, validated and heard by the people who don’t know or love us. “When you’ve known someone for a long time, you start creating a box for yourself – or they create a box for you,” explains Koreen. “But with a stranger, there isn’t that limitation. You can say something crazy that has nothing to do with who you were a minute ago. Sometimes talking to a stranger allows you to be the newest version of yourself.”

If nothing else, it’s nice to know we’re not alone in our problems. In the end, perhaps the biggest question of all is: does anybody really have their shit together? Asking for a friend.

This story originally appeared in the June July 2020 issue of ELLE Magazine. Photography: Getty Images.