Investment podcasts have emerged as influential platforms where financial influencers, ‘finfluencers’, shape beliefs and normalize finance as part of everyday life. This study examines three popular Finnish investment podcasts through the lens of ‘magical capitalism’ to analyse how neoliberal ideology is propagated by finfluencers. Finfluencers act as ‘ideological intermediaries’, portraying investing as a route to magical transformation and protection enabled by the power of financial capitalism. Our results show that investment success is depicted as a magical transformation achieved through initiation rites, worshipping gurus and adopting the proper magical beliefs and aims. These podcasts function as mediatized rites, by developing discourses that merge practical investing guidance with compelling storytelling to frame financial capitalism as both accessible and aspirational. While making financial topics relatable, finfluencers contribute to the financialisation of everyday life by embedding investing into daily routines and discourses. This study advances research on podcasts and influencer culture by focusing on the role of finfluencers as ideological intermediaries and the ways they disseminate hegemonic neoliberal discourse.
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Porttikivi et al. (2026) studied this question.
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