Ana Miranda

ENGL 21002

Prof. Anna Steegmann

November 17, 2019

 

Field Notes/ Observation of the Snake Diet

 

Internet Research/ Background Research

 

• Creator Cole Robinson is a former personal trainer.
• YouTube channel founded in 2016.
• Motivation group on Facebook founded in 2017.
• Creator Cole Robinson started fasting as an experiment with one of his personal training clients.
• Altogether his social media adds up to over 400 thousand subscribers.
• Several health platforms have articles on their websites that challenge the Snake Diet as unsafe.
• The Snake Juice, a type of electrolyte water you drink while fasting is for sale on Amazon but there is also a homemade version on the Snake Diet website.
• The Snake Diet takes a different approach to diet since it imposes not eating for days at a time until weight or health goal is achieved.
• Cole Robinson does not charge for his coaching.
• The Snake Diet has reached people all over the world who share their experiences all over social media.
• There is a lack of information around the post-Snake Diet effects.
• People who were successful with the diet, are now Snake Diet coaches themselves.
• Cole Robinson’s goal is to push people to leave excuses behind and through tough coaching, being them back to health.

 

Initial Description

 

• The website has tabs for different needs such as “Education”, “Motivation”, “Merchandise”, “Snake Juice Recipe” and “Contact us”.
• YouTube live streaming is enabled for donations if participants wish to do so.
• All social media handles are located on the bottom of the page
• The Facebook motivation page has a list of set rules participants have to abide by in order to stay in the group.
• The YouTube videos are very informative but there is TONS of cursing.
• The creator is based in Canada but coaches for free all over the world.
• All the social media handles except for YouTube, have before and after pictures of participants with a short description of why they decided to try the Snake Diet.
• In order to be coached, participants must send Cole Robinson photos from different angles in a bathing suit or underwear.
• The language used in all social media platforms is abrasive, straight to the point and full of curse words.
• The word “fatty” seems to be part of the culture in a strange way. And participants seem to not get upset or triggered by it.
• There is a diversity in the types of people that compose the before and afters. Military veterans, bodybuilders, stay-at-home-moms, young professionals, single, married.
• The age of participants vary as well. I notice mostly from 20’s to mid-60’s.
• The YouTube videos are informative and there are over 400 videos and over 16 million views.
• For those who prefer to read, the website has a rich and helpful information under the tab “Education”.
• The participants’ testimonials are very motivational.
• There are five extra moderators besides Cole Robinson that manage the motivational Facebook page.
• The majority of the success stories are around weight loss, but the few health-focused posts are impressive. One of the said the Snake Diet cured their appendicitis.

 

 

I started my online research on the Snake Diet and aside from the website, I also found it in all main social media platforms that included: Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Although the website was informative, the other platforms exposed different facets of how the diet works and how people respond to Cole Robinson (Snake Diet creator), and I noticed that the most engagement Robinson gets is on the YouTube live sessions that are done once a week. On the other hand, the Facebook group and Instagram were the most motivational. The participants’ before and after photos did an incredible job at catching my attention, as well as the health recovery stories.

Personally, I went through a body transformation when I became a bodybuilding competitor, so I was drawn to the stories right away. But I must admit that this approach shocked me a bit, not because of the idea of fasting for a minimum of two days, but the way participants talk to each other and themselves. There is an entry post from a participant named Rob Etter where he says, “I’m Rob and I’m a fat guy. 62 and had enough”. The fact that he willingly introduced himself as a fat guy surprised me.  A lot of emotions and stories go around fat loss journeys, and I have been one of them, but in the community I was part of there was no such a thing as putting each other down, especially putting ourselves down by calling ourselves fat. No way! But the level of honesty with oneself at the Snake Diet community seemed to be one of the key element in how the method works.

The tough love kind of support is all over the progress photos, especially on women’s photos. I am guessing the most participants are women. The community was active and the likes were going up for the progress photos, as well as the motivation comments like: “Hang in there!” or “Keep it up!” but also relatable personal struggles that the person who posted is going through. Which in my opinion is such a powerful way to strengthen the community.

The participants’ radical honesty I found in the Facebook group became refreshing in a way. A guy as young as 18 years old openly disclosed his addiction to food, another man posted his intention of beating brain cancer with the Snake Diet and several people over 250 pounds who had to possibly get through resisting baring their clothes off on social media in order to be coached for free.

Although the Facebook group is a good source of connection and motivation for the community, Cole Robinson’s YouTube channel is where all questions about the Snake Diet are answered. Robinson gives a heads up about the live on Instagram stories and on the Facebook group page for his live Q&A’s Sunday sessions. The banner says: “Hey Fatty!” followed by all the information about the live. I noticed the next live was going to be in one hour so I decided to watch it. This live was about questions on weight rebounding. A lot of the participants were gaining weight back after the fast and Robinson was giving people a hard time about it, he mentioned not fasting for more than 7 days and that this was not a fasting contest, that people had to learn their limits. Every couple of minutes, people donated money in order to have their questions answered and the amounts varied from $1 to $400 in the 50 minutes Robinson was live. It seemed that these lives are very profitable!

My background in nutrition was very helpful while I was watching the live. Robinson is very knowledgeable in nutrition and physical training. The majority of his advice seemed to align with the information I have learned in the past 6 years. The only hard time I had was listing to Robinson scream through the entire live. He seemed very passionate about the subject which made him raise his voice as in if he was trying to discipline an unruly 7-year-old.

Fasting protocols have been and are still used by some doctors, but there is definitely no one with Robinson’s personality and the way he carries the coaching. I started to think that the main piece to the success of the Snake Diet may be Cole Robinson. The cursing, the radical honesty, and willingness to help people for free which is rare in a social media world are the factors that differentiate the Snake Diet community from the main stream dieting communities.