There have been few better satirists of the Instagram age than Celeste Barber. In 2015, the Australian actor began recreating posts by the platform’s stars, mimicking the showy-offy poses of Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski et al but replacing their sultry pouts, glossy manes and pert figures with her own unkempt hair and relatably droopy curves. In doing so, Barber skewered this supposedly aspirational imagery: instead of being cool and candid, these pictures were blatantly ridiculous. It was a cathartic act of bubble-bursting that bordered on public service.
The parodies sent Barber into A-list territory herself, at least where social media is concerned: she now has 9.5 million followers on Instagram. All the while, the 40-year-old has been working steadily in Australian TV – including a supporting role in the brilliant motherhood comedy The Letdown. Now, finally, she has a vehicle of her own in Wellmania, a Netflix series that purports to puncture the wellness industry – that slippery modern expectation that women must strive to become weller-than-well via a combination of diet, exercise and other expensive quackery, mainly peddled by photogenic social media stars.
