During the Silicon Beach boom in 2012, Downward Doug and Parry, his business partner, opened an oceanfront yoga studio in a beach house in Venice Beach. They were forced to rent out the second floor of the studio due to a competitive meditation app called IMSO ZEN. Doug was obsessed with using social media to boost the appeal of his yoga brand, and the sex appeal of his yoga “Steachers”. After one of Doug’s yoga videos goes accidentally viral, his social media status is cemented. In the video, Doug is performing a routine handstand drill, but there is a homeless man in the background masturbating to the movements in Doug’s asana. Parry was adamantly opposed to using any form of digital integration in his yoga practice. When Doug was accused of sexual harassment by one of his students, Parry fled the country and returned to his beloved ashram in India to escape the negative environment that was clouding up his chakra flow .
Doug stayed in the country, paid off his accuser, and saw a massive spike in his social media numbers as a result of a backlash against the “woke yoga movement”, people believed that has gone too far. He sold the beach house, and started to market “Downward Doug” as a brand. He hired a marketing expert behind the scenes, and began selling yoga products best suited for social media promotion; the products had no real function in actual yoga practice, but struck a nerve with fans and sold millions.
The Downward Doug brand is now a global yoga brand that offers mediocre yoga-adjacent products to a huge audience. Parry has been teaching yoga under the radar in a nomadic studio model. He had no social media, no email list, and he relied on a core group of supporters who could find his yoga class and hear in person where the next one would be.
Parry hits rock bottom when COVID forces the studio to close,, and he realizes bankruptcy is the only way out of this mess. His objection toward tainting yoga with social media was one of his core beliefs, but with no other options he reluctantly teams up with Doug, who offers to leverage the massive Downward Doug social media audience to help Parry get back on his feet.
All set during Quarantine, Doug and Parry navigate this brave new world of online yoga. While Kelsea, a social media influencer who is documenting social media influencers continues to document the often strange dynamics of social media yoga influencers.
