ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the curatorial imperative in the field of life coaching by analyzing material from podcasts, coaching school websites, and the two coaching courses I studied. I analyze both the self-curation strategies from the side of coaches as well as the self-curating strategies which the coaches preach in their platform-based interactions. In this regard, I look at how platformized life coaches are on the one hand curating themselves as micro-celebrities by making a claim to spiritual charisma and monetizing their services on this basis. I also look at the narratives that coaches advocate to followers, students, and general audiences, which emphasize self-curation as a quest toward personal vision and which should encompass qualities of self-discipline, confidence, and resilience. In the last section, I focus on the coaching address that aims to curate men in the intimacy and dating scene inscribing traditional gender roles in light of newly updated optimized and streamlined masculinities. I argue that the coach is an exemplary figure of the curatorial imperative as the cultures of inspiration, rationality, and self-focus they disseminate endorse adjacent curated lifestyles while helping them to curate their own professional credentials as spiritual guides in contemporary platformscapes.
