From my experience no, most gymbros are decent IMO. It's just the younger ones that are more into that, well at least on my country. > 25yo gymbros/gymsis mostly talk about their job, although i have been guilty of admiring my gymcrush. Like 95% of my talk with my partner is about being tired from job lol
this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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the western world, especially anglos, have a bizarre relationship with health and fitness. like others have said, the focus has been from increasing health to image, something these people are obsessed with. this is why i prefer to workout at home, this capitalist way of thinking is prevalent everywhere but at its worst at the gym.
Perhaps we can link the fascistic nature of purity culture in the west to the vapid, egocentric gym culture?
yes, this is true. you see in short form videos "you must consume x amount of this" or "you must do x workout this many times", it's why you see so many clones wearing the same gear parroting the same stuff may sometimes even have an adverse effect on health.
Defo, makes me glad I ditched protein shakes a while ago, a study found that far too many have a heavy metal concentration worth being concerned about... I remember hearing RFK Jr's team defunded the team that held a study confirming that... so yeah :/
Are most gym bros just terminally insecure man children?
Yes sadly, right wing media apparatus targeted men's fitness pretty hard around 2016, barely any progress has been made to decouple the two :(
Threads like this make it really obvious as to why the right wing has so much success pulling men in, when the left criticizes all of them for wanting to just be fit. It's pretty well known this mentality is due to right wing propaganda yet here is another thread of "all men that go to gyms are just dumb assholes." Again we devolve into attacking the people instead of the system that causes this. Let's not do anything to build up a healthy masculinity on the left. Let's just berate them and drive them further to the right. It's hilarious how easy we make the rights job for them.
Leftists: "Why gym bros driven to the right?"
Also leftists: "Hey let's have another entire thread calling men stupid, vanity driven, sexist assholes for stepping foot near a gym."
Nobody is criticizing men for wanting to be fit. I actively encourage them to do so. However, an urge to be fit does not necessary means you have to become an misogynistic asshole. You build positive masculinity by revealing the fascist nature many gym bros currently have and offer an alternative.
That's not at all what's happening here lmao
when the left criticizes all of them for wanting to just be fit.
Who here is criticizing men specifically for wanting to be fit? Point to the comments in question, let's see it.
They also tend to uhh, put down people who are overweight for trying to excersize. Im not a very strong person, but I had to restrain myself from attempting to knock two people the fuck out for saying "look at that loser" to someone who was working out at the gym.
Are most gym bros just terminally insecure man children?
Most men are terminally insecure man children...
Patriarchy really did a number on the human race
Yea it kinda did…
The idea that dying in war or from incurable illnesses at a manufacturing job makes us manly men didn’t leave much space for emotional maturity.
Its completely a disaster I agree, plus anger is the only socially accepted emotion for men to have. Its so strange, sadly it will take a long time for equity between the sexes to bring equality but I do have hope because as much as the fascists in the west want us to believe the world is ending, it is not, just theirs is, and thats okay
going to get so much pussy for lifting
Body dysmorphia is rampant amongst gym bros. Not getting laid is the driving force. Internet market delivers toxic results. Also, yes dudes can be that dumb.
In a loving, longterm relationship, still feel terrible about my body image even though I'm in the best shape of my life, shit hurts
dudes rock bc they dumb as rocks, fr fr
This is why I go to planet fitness and workout with old people
I have a theory: Just do sports, don’t lift, at least not as your main form of exercise. I have always felt that women can somehow smell it on the guys, I dunno.
The funny thing is that while most male Americans (and increasingly Westerners in general) are fat (which isn’t attractive to most straight women) the maximum body for getting the ladyfolk is not that much muscle and you should be slightly underweight but not shredded.
The biggest thing about a great physique for attracting mates is confidence, and for men it ends up creating a really fucked up body dysmorphia. I worked at the university gym during college and let me tell you the bizarre things I heard like some guy refusing to go ask a woman out that was sending him all the signs of attraction because they were embarrassed that their calf muscles were too small or upset that their lats weren’t looking better.
I heard like some guy refusing to go ask a woman out that was sending him all the signs of attraction because they were embarrassed that their calf muscles were too small or upset that their lats weren’t looking better.
She dodged a nuke ngl
I know I’m probably in a bubble as a sober, vegan communist but still.
I mean yeah. It's a good bubble to be in, if one is going to have to be in a bubble, but there is a lot of reactionary bullshit out there...
It's weird to be aware and to be trying to do something about it, and also live within that stuff. Reminds of the following line from when I was trying to read through: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:No_Free_Left
E. M. S. Namboodiripad found a flaw in Ningal Enne Communistakki. The characters, he wrote in 1954, "are puppets with no relationship to living communist activists." Where are the voices of the dalits, the adivasis, the worker and the peasants, the heart of the communist movement? Thoppil Bhasi, Namboodiripad felt, had not adequately addressed the struggle to become a communist which often runs through several phases – fighting one's circumstances, certainly, but then the break with established ideologies, ability to find activities to do to contribute to the struggle while living in this world. In close-knit communities at the nether end of the social order survival is an anxious business and social humiliation is a constant hindrance. The communists who emerge out of these worlds are often talented and bright – those who could make lucrative careers and could be the shining lights of their communities. Yet, they chose to go to the trenches of political battle. They refuse to leave their world, but in adopting the transformative social agenda of communism they remain within at a curious distance – unwilling to conform to conservative social trends. What Namboodiripad seemed to indicate is that communists live a double reality – fighting against this world to make a better future, and living in this world within one's social order. To inhabit the present and the future is a stern burden on a communist. None of this comes out in the art on communism – too middle class in its orientation, only able to see the Maoists or the communists as figures of romance. It makes it so much easier to disdain them when the romance fades.
(bold emphasis mine)
And I would add, unlike the concept of a cult and other formations that emphasize a sense of superiority as a justification for being outside the norm, communism has no such mental buffer exactly? Instead, there is I think more of a humbling going on and an uncovering of scientific ruggedness in existence that might otherwise be more softened or hidden by fanciful ideologies of elitism and false promises. It is like you are seeing the raw nerve endings of society and watching as a steady diet of fast food is paved over with running a lot (figuratively speaking). But you can't simply pretend you exist outside it and act from a safe vantage point. You're in it even as you try to change it and are awash in its influences on you.
Idk if that makes sense, but I'm trying to get at something that is hard for me to put into words.
I learned a long time ago that I need to wear headphones in the gym, on planes and on trains. Human beings in general are pretty fucking stupid, it's not limited to the gym or to men.
You sound very up your own ass
Why does my perspective upset you so much? Are you one of the morons having loud, senseless conversations in public?
You think you are far more important than you really are if you believe your comment on a forum on the internet upsets me. I do like to have conversations with my friends in public, yes. I even like to meet and converse with people I have not met before, something which one might find challenging if they have a lions' ego in a mouses body. You just sound like a removed who thinks they are smarter than the rest of the world. Get off your high horse, and learn to socialise. I commented because clearly you needed an intervention from someone before you go fully crazy
I don't go to the gym or fly to socialize. Me wearing headphones shouldn't perturb you as much as it appears to, no matter how much you protest that it doesn't. You wrote a lot of words for one who doesn't care.
I couldn't give a damn what you do with or without your headphones on, having an attitude that humans in general are stupid is where you lose me, using a lot of words does not change that. Why are you even on a forum connecting communists if you do not believe in the capability of a collective human race? You sound like a maladapted freak
Why are you being a jerk to some internet stranger? Your thread reads more like a you-problem that you're projecting on others.
I just cannot jive with someone who thinks that human beings as a species are stupid, point-blank. That is a useful (incorrect) excuse to sweep away the consequences of real systemic choices made by pro-capitalist governments of the past and present, which have brought us into this position we are in. On this same comment fork, I respond to the binary person on why there is a distinction between talking about gym goers in the western sphere of influence and humanity...
The intensity of your reaction seems overblown.
Sure, there are larger, systemic forces at work that have led the world to this point, but it can also be fairly argued that the average human is...average. Our leaps and bounds of progress are generally only found by aggregating the work of the entire species, over lifetimes of toil.
What about that bothers you so much? You respond like it was something deeply personal, and not a generalization, or reflection of our current society. Moreover, you just seem angry. Which is off-putting.
I fully agree with your first paragraph, and it is because of that I just cannot stand overblown reductive generalisations on humanities' capacity to change. Not appreciating the fact that the way the west operates economically/socially/politically aren't set in stone is why we are in this mess in the first place. It has nothing to do with humanities averageness. It's rot, society hasn't helped foster what we believe it should, otherwise all kids would be well-educated. Yanno, flowers can still grow in a crack of concrete, but we cannot expect a forest while there's a city on top.
Plus I just can't stand people on the internet being full of themselves, so I call it out when I have time to kill. I can learn something about myself when I reflect on the way the west, through patriarchy, has ruined a large amount of a generation of men. I can't do shit but think I'm hot stuff if I think humanity is stupid. It helps noone. I've seen it in person and online, and I hate people who believe it and what they do/don't do. And to still do so this far into the wests social rot is worth calling out, which is why I went at binary person
Moreover, you just seem angry
Super valid, I think I'm going to log off now
But it was okay for OP to dismiss male gym goers as being stupid based on one coversation. Interesting logic that.
Making sweeping declarations for the capacity about the majority of humanity is not the same as observing a trend within arguably the most propagandised subset of western society. One makes you, a self aggrandising loser, seem up your ass, and the other is an interesting phenomenon worth talking about.
Since 2016 definitely, but even before, the billionaire class has invested in pipelining young insecure boys/men who are interested in fitness into an adjacent form of purity culture. As a result, lots of those people are very rigid, from diet to their political beliefs, which tends to lean right wing. See Joe Rogan/Andrew Tate and their audiences.
Also, words and beliefs harbour the capacity to bring reality to them, if I drop to your level and believe most humans are too stupid (instead of intentionally undereducated, and fostered in a culture not designed for individual growth by its government) I will stop bothering to care and try to help bring change. You might not admit it, but everyone else sees you as a cancer. So fuck off you loser. Go fly or something
It isn't an interesting phenomenon, it's just wrong. Gym goers are no more stupid than the bulk of humanity.
Good luck with bringing about change.
Yeah a lot of gym bros do it for vanity nowadays and the rise of steroid usage proves it. It’s disappointing to see the route mainstream fitness has taken nowadays but it was to be expected in a capitalist society.
Been going to various gyms for about 18 years now and this is not something I encounter.
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