Yeah, some young men are gathering in the gym and incorporating it as a pillar of their codified right-wing extremism. Also, the profound majority are not.
My area gyms are packed with women, usually a majority. Those men who are there are largely well-adjusted Gen Z and Millennials, with a few Gen X. They’re multicultural in ethnic composition, very helpful and welcoming and have good heads on their shoulders.
I understand the point this article is trying to make – Active Clubs and the like are real, they’re expanding due to the discontentment of young men who are rallying around opposition to recent mass-immigration and are doing so through a racial lens.
Still, I’m getting really sick of these sensationalist headlines. I long for the days when we had truth and integrity in journalism, and when editorials and opinion pieces were relegated to the back pages of our newspapers and our thoughts.
Edit: what’s with all you respond then block types. Your arguments are as week as your feeble, pasty bodies. Lol.
zlex on
The headline really doesn’t match the contents of the article. The article blames political leaders on the left for soft coding fitness as inherently right-wing, and abandoning the space ,leaving it open to be coopted by extremists. The headline, ironically, goes back and places the blame on the gym.
Personally, I think this whole topic is stupid. Groups try and politicize everything, and 99% of the people who workout don’t care about this terminally online shit.
afoogli on
Can’t you reversely say higher education has allowed the far left to build an iron grip on young people, and instill radical left wing ideologies. Is is a dangerous narrative to push
JohnGoodmanFan420 on
“How the gym has allowed” what a load of crap. It isn’t gyms jobs to try to bend the political tilt of the masses.
Do the people (bozos) who wrote endless articles about how working out and exercising is an expression of toxic masculinity and nod to the alt-right take any of the blame ?
There are consequences to just labeling everything you don’t like or don’t participate in as right wing: the people involved in that might start believing what you’re saying.
ExactFun on
More like steroids abuse is rampant and exposing yourself to that much testosterone and/or extremely low body fat percentages tends to make you an anti-social agressive lunatic. Throw in body dysmorphia and eating disorders with an unsupportive and dysfunctional enviornment, you got yourself a problem.
This isnt a political issue, its a mental health crisis. Men are dying from this, very publicly often too.
vafrow on
The article is paywalled for me, but I am curious to read it. Not that this particular theory interests me, but I think the gym is one of the few “third spaces” that exist for people, so its going to end up serving as an important socialization venue.
Young people in general don’t go out as much. Restaurants and bars become more expensive. A gym membership becomes an expense that most people can justify. And once they incur it, it allows unlimited access. If you want to do anything outside work and home, going to the gym is one of the few places you can go without spending money.
I don’t know how much far right recruitment is happening, and yes, that’s a bad thing, but maybe the solution is finding other activities than the gym that work on a similar model that could get young people out of their homes after work that doesn’t cost much. The generation that’s been expected to live with roommates until they die probably wants somewhere to go in the evenings.
CaptainCanusa on
It’s always interesting to see which posts attract which kinds of reactions.
To be clear to the people who are very upset at the author calling out this phenomenon:
The headline isn’t calling out “all gyms”. Obviously. It’s saying that gyms are a place where this happens. Which is true!
You’re still allowed to go to the gym and feel good about it.
I would say look back at history at the people who got angry because they felt personally targeted by generic statements like this and see if you want to be lumped in with them. BLM, Believe Women, etc. Don’t be the All Lives Matter guy. Just read the article.
Dusk_Soldier on
Gym culture, generally speaking was fairly anti-covid mandates. And gyms became more of safe space for people to complain about how covid was handled. Gym/fitness influencers on social media were more than willing to criticize/complain about the covid policies as well. And so I think it’s led to a casual correlation between fit people and covid conspiracy theories.
Most commercial gyms however have a fairly even split between male/female members. And so this idea of gyms serving as the far-right’s secret recruiting ground for young men; it is something that certainly sounds believable to progressive voters that aren’t into sports or fitness, but’s it’s not something that holds up spending a cursory amount of time in one.
8 Comments
Is the ‘Iron Grip’ in the room with us now?
Yeah, some young men are gathering in the gym and incorporating it as a pillar of their codified right-wing extremism. Also, the profound majority are not.
My area gyms are packed with women, usually a majority. Those men who are there are largely well-adjusted Gen Z and Millennials, with a few Gen X. They’re multicultural in ethnic composition, very helpful and welcoming and have good heads on their shoulders.
I understand the point this article is trying to make – Active Clubs and the like are real, they’re expanding due to the discontentment of young men who are rallying around opposition to recent mass-immigration and are doing so through a racial lens.
Still, I’m getting really sick of these sensationalist headlines. I long for the days when we had truth and integrity in journalism, and when editorials and opinion pieces were relegated to the back pages of our newspapers and our thoughts.
Edit: what’s with all you respond then block types. Your arguments are as week as your feeble, pasty bodies. Lol.
The headline really doesn’t match the contents of the article. The article blames political leaders on the left for soft coding fitness as inherently right-wing, and abandoning the space ,leaving it open to be coopted by extremists. The headline, ironically, goes back and places the blame on the gym.
Personally, I think this whole topic is stupid. Groups try and politicize everything, and 99% of the people who workout don’t care about this terminally online shit.
Can’t you reversely say higher education has allowed the far left to build an iron grip on young people, and instill radical left wing ideologies. Is is a dangerous narrative to push
“How the gym has allowed” what a load of crap. It isn’t gyms jobs to try to bend the political tilt of the masses.
Do the people (bozos) who wrote endless articles about how working out and exercising is an expression of toxic masculinity and nod to the alt-right take any of the blame ?
There are consequences to just labeling everything you don’t like or don’t participate in as right wing: the people involved in that might start believing what you’re saying.
More like steroids abuse is rampant and exposing yourself to that much testosterone and/or extremely low body fat percentages tends to make you an anti-social agressive lunatic. Throw in body dysmorphia and eating disorders with an unsupportive and dysfunctional enviornment, you got yourself a problem.
This isnt a political issue, its a mental health crisis. Men are dying from this, very publicly often too.
The article is paywalled for me, but I am curious to read it. Not that this particular theory interests me, but I think the gym is one of the few “third spaces” that exist for people, so its going to end up serving as an important socialization venue.
Young people in general don’t go out as much. Restaurants and bars become more expensive. A gym membership becomes an expense that most people can justify. And once they incur it, it allows unlimited access. If you want to do anything outside work and home, going to the gym is one of the few places you can go without spending money.
I don’t know how much far right recruitment is happening, and yes, that’s a bad thing, but maybe the solution is finding other activities than the gym that work on a similar model that could get young people out of their homes after work that doesn’t cost much. The generation that’s been expected to live with roommates until they die probably wants somewhere to go in the evenings.
It’s always interesting to see which posts attract which kinds of reactions.
To be clear to the people who are very upset at the author calling out this phenomenon:
The headline isn’t calling out “all gyms”. Obviously. It’s saying that gyms are a place where this happens. Which is true!
You’re still allowed to go to the gym and feel good about it.
I would say look back at history at the people who got angry because they felt personally targeted by generic statements like this and see if you want to be lumped in with them. BLM, Believe Women, etc. Don’t be the All Lives Matter guy. Just read the article.
Gym culture, generally speaking was fairly anti-covid mandates. And gyms became more of safe space for people to complain about how covid was handled. Gym/fitness influencers on social media were more than willing to criticize/complain about the covid policies as well. And so I think it’s led to a casual correlation between fit people and covid conspiracy theories.
Most commercial gyms however have a fairly even split between male/female members. And so this idea of gyms serving as the far-right’s secret recruiting ground for young men; it is something that certainly sounds believable to progressive voters that aren’t into sports or fitness, but’s it’s not something that holds up spending a cursory amount of time in one.