A Brief Look into Advice Columns

Looking into the less discussed corners of the genre and how it works

In the genre of journalism, or perhaps the less prestigious genre of the opinion piece, nothing interests me more than the advice column. The ubiquity of the genre is a fascination to me. What credentials does one require to become an agony aunt, or uncle, or other relative of unspecified gender? What kind of mental toll does doling out advice to someone in dire straits take? Why do people feel the need to broadcast their problems, at times with mind-boggling lack of self awareness, to some stranger and an audience of unknowable readers? And why do we read these problems, the mundane, the strange and the uncomfortably familiar? The advice columnist has been around for over one-hundred years, and it doesn’t seem to be going away. In fact, it seems to be adapting to our present social media laden reality; one of the most well known subreddits is r/AmITheAsshole, essentially a skew on the form of an advice column in which an anonymous writer tells of their predicament and looks for reassurance that they are, in fact, in the right - not from a singular columnist, but to the content’s own audience, letting upvotes dictate what is the most pertinent advice. Now, while one might think that Reddit is a far cry from the advice column, there is a common thread among the advice seekers for that same validation from the columnist. That isn’t to say that the original format of the advice column is dead, rather, that the format has been disseminated to become even more accessible. After all, not everyone’s letter can be answered and published in a newspaper. The Rumpus might be best known for Cheryl Strayed’s Dear Sugar column, and even now papers as large as the Times and as small as the local print run advice columns. 

Write ups on the history and legacy of advice columns tend to bias, as most things do, toward western (specifically American) examples with a traditionalist bent. While it’s true that the earliest examples of advice columns are western (historians tend to agree that the British publication Athenian Mercury’s Athenian Oracle is the earliest example of what we would consider an advice column) it’s important to look at international and multicultural examples. I was first introduced to the wide world of advice columns while researching the obscure and highly specific advice column Chiwit Sao Chao Gay (The Sad Life of Gays) for a college essay. Published by Plaek (which literally translates to “Strange”) a sensationalist magazine whose advice column writer, Uncle Go Pak-nam (pen name), was more interested in making a spectacle of the trials and tribulations of “gays, lesbians and kathoeys”, the magazine both obviously exploited and disrespected it’s demographic, yet could show them in a sympathetic light and gave LGBT+ Thais a platform and a way to form community. Uncle Go’s strange blend of liberal and conservative ideas on queerness is fascinating to read and has an interesting impact on the column. In one article, Uncle Go may brush off a young lesbian as simply going through a phase of attraction to women, both deriding her yet also explaining to her parents that since it’s merely a temporary fancy they shouldn’t punish her for it. In another, Uncle Go could sympathize with the loneliness of a traditionally masculine gay man. Indeed, Peter A. Jackson’s translations and analysis on the subject are how I learned all of this, and absolutely worth reading for more insight into Thai LGBT culture at the time, and how it was viewed and responded to by the mainstream. 

A more modern queer advice column that you may have heard of is John Paul Brahmmer’s ¡Hola Papi!, an advice column originally written for Grindr’s publication “Into” as something of a joke for Brahmmer (who thought it ridiculous that anyone would seek advice from a gay latino with anxiety), only to evolve into an ongoing heartfelt column he has continued on his Substack. Brahmmer is one of many modern advice columnists who illustrate a shift in the kinds of columnists we look to for advice and the advice being given. In the 20th century, advice columns were dominated by figures like Anne Landers and Dear Abby; traditional, white socialites giving no nonsense and direct advice, perhaps with a bit of wit thrown in now and then. Now, we see writers like Cheryl Strayed and Heather Havrilesky embracing swears, their words wrapped in wit and personal anecdotes, their morals not rooted in conservatism, but empathy. What is best for you? What is best for the people around you? Find the way forward between the two. 

Dr. Mahinder Watsa may very well have done the most amount of tangible good in the world out of any advice columnist, however you would measure that. Dr. Watsa was one of the few advice columnists to have credentials to point to when questioned on his authority. A practicing gynecologist and obstetrician, Dr. Watsa recognized the lack of sex education in India and spent much of his professional life disseminating articles on sexual health, mainly in women’s magazines. Despite the cries for censorship such writing brings, Dr. Watsa persisted and at the age of 80 began writing Ask the Sexpert for the Mumbai Mirror. Dr. Watsa’s style of column is very different from most other advice columnists. He delivers information as to the point as possible, most of his answers only being 2 or three sentences long, with specific recommendations of what kind of contraceptives to look into, how to communicate with a partner about sex and so on. The brevity of these answers does not mean they are lacking in wit, however, gently chiding the asker without condescension, in response to questions a less empathetic writer might find obvious. Fretting over how large a certain body part is supposed to be is replied to with acknowledgement that the concern is one many people may have, but one that is ridiculous to rack oneself over. 

There are two main questions writers on the subject of advice columns tend to try to answer. What qualifies someone to write an advice column, and why do people send in their queries to a total stranger to be scrutinized by an innumerable anonymous public? Most literature on the subject tends to point to one quality paramount to all others; empathy. Empathy is a very vague quality to measure, however, being more of a vibe people get from a writer than anything else. More tangible things like degrees and age can certainly lend to credibility; most people would rather go to a 40 year old with a stable career and a background in social work for advice on their failing relationship than a 23 year old college graduate, but age and wisdom don’t translate to being able to understand an issue or dole out advice in an actionable way. Writing an advice column is a careful balancing act between coming off as a strict, holier-than-thou moral authority and an overly placating friend. Certainly the Dear Abby’s and Anne Landers’ of the past could wield the power of a moral authority and have it land well with their audience, indeed, it was expected. In today’s advice column landscape, that kind of writing comes off as out of touch and preachy. We see empathy being proven through the writer’s own vulnerability. Sharing personal anecdotes, some of which may be extremely intimate and even harrowing (I have a friend who had to stop reading Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things because the personal anecdotes got too intense for her) but establish both experience on the subject they are talking about and the authors stake in the issue at hand. They are willing to expose a part of themselves for the sake of relating to the asker and providing more salient advice. Vulnerability is also important on the part of the asker. Writing into an advice column is both an act of exposure and remaining private. Obviously, anonymity is always given to the inquirer, the fear of being perceived as weak or stupid is lessened, much more than if one was to ask a close friend or family member for advice. The trade off is possibly having thousands of people judging and conversing about your most intimate problems, or worse, someone involved in the query finding the column and figuring out that you sent it in (this only happens in rare circumstances, thankfully). It seems that the trade off is worth it for enough people that advice columns continue to thrive. 

Of course, it is impossible to ignore the role voyeurism plays when it comes to the popularity of the advice column. We may be able to glean insights from the inquiries and answers given, maybe even more so than your normal self-help literature, able to empathize and relate ourselves to the situations, the asker and the answerer. What would you do? How would you advise someone going through this? We can have these feelings and also enjoy peeking into some strangers' lives, comforting ourselves on how horrible their love life or job is going, secure in our own ability to figure our situations out without having to ask some stranger whose only qualification as a advice giver is a pseudonym and an open email inbox for advice, all while exposing tender and private details to the reading world. Both our need to improve ourselves and the need to be entertained is why we keep coming back to the genre.