Back pain has become rife in lockdown. But that’s not the only reason chiropractors are being hailed as YouTube influencers – there’s a horror movie thrill, too
The man in a waistcoat and jeans stands over a woman who lies face-down on a vinyl bed. He is all hairy arms, and she a mop of dip-dyed hair. He presses one palm on her back; with the other he cups the side of her head and sharply thrusts. Click, crack: her neck twists in a way that necks don’t usually like to be twisted. The woman curses in apparent relief; the man laughs. He is Joseph Cipriano, a chiropractor who is also known as Dr Joe Back Crack or the Y Strap Doc (after his trademark treatment tool) and this video of him adjusting a client with “*EXTREMELY LOUD* chiropractic cracking” has been viewed 19m times.
Cipriano, who has 1.6 million subscribers on YouTube and his own range of “Team Y Strap” and “Make Your Spine Great Again” sweatshirts, is one of what his fellow chiropractors, Doc Manasseh, calls “a new wave of chiropractors globally to have gone viral”. In an age of back pain, chiropractors are the new social media influencers. But why do so many people want to watch them? And is the rise about more than a interest in good spine health?
