The Death of Body Positivity & the Twisted Marketing of "Skinny"

"Is it just me or our body standards regressing?" What was once this Getslin' Fast Supplements of the '90s has now become this rampant abuse of ozempic. The jazzer-sized girl has become the pink Pilates girl or this rampant return of trend-dieting skinny talk, 75 hard, winter arcs, summer glow-up challenge, beach body fat burn, and then, oh, they're coincidentally selling you a course on how to do that. They have a partnership with some fitness brand, and of course, you just have to get that matching workout set. The yoga mat, the standing club, and of course, the $300 a month gym membership. Your body has become a product. They have to convince you to hate something about yourself so that you see it as a problem, so then, oh, they just happen to sell a solution. It has trapped you in this never-ending cycle, and this is the cult of glow-up culture. It's veganism one month, then carnivore diet the next month. Soul cycle, then Pilates, then, oh my God, I want to dance her body like Tape McRae, but then, oh my God, I want to be skinny like Bella Hadid. This cycle never ends, because solving the problem is not monetizable. Instead, they have to convince you it's CMOS, then bone broth, and it's this cleanse or that cleanse. They are trying to sell you on the idea of one thing being a solution to a lifestyle problem. When really, all you need is a little bit of consistency and dips a plan, get 1% better every day, and in 100 days, you will be where you want to be. But they don't do that, because there is a lot more money in making you chase this idea of a fictional body type, this subjective idea of perfection. And it's so sad to me to see these body standards regressing in our culture, if we just had some years of really positive improvements. So why did these toxic body standards come back? What holds this cult of glow-up culture together in mainstream media? Well, that is exactly the question we set out to solve here today. Welcome back to Nicky and I. I'm your host, Nicky Reardon. And this week we're really talking about this idea of glow-up culture, wellness, grind set, all of these things that I think are really essentially built up with the idea of trying to play into your own insecurities to convince you that you have a problem and then sell you a solution to that problem. And how this is something that has plagued our society for a very long time, as I'll talk about the history of, but also is really, really coming back in major ways. And really what's fascinating, I think, is that we're seeing this repackaging of things that have already existed in the past, right? I think one of the best examples in current culture is the ozemic craze. And this heroin chic look and hyper thin, it feels so reminiscent of the '90s and 2000s. And also, I think TikTok has perpetuated this and selling you products and this lifestyle idea of blah, blah, blah. I've compiled a lot of research and things that I think I want to talk about and will be very, very interesting. So with that, don't forget to subscribe to the channel. 94% of the people who have watched any of these videos did not hit the subscribe button. So hey, check, you probably forgot where these are getting hit in your recommended feed. So please, please help me out and support. And then we, I think, are 400 followers away? Sixers for followers away? On Spotify from hitting 10K. So please, please, please, be a homie. You can listen to this on your car right to work. We can listen to the pot at the gym. Everything is posted here, is posted there. And it would really, really help me out. So with that, let's dive into the cult of wellness and also just these toxic body centers making it come back. Big disclaimer, I want to talk about with this video, is that my goal of this is not to be commenting on people's bodies or telling anybody how they should look or shouldn't look or what they should do or shouldn't do. But in order to accurately talk about this topic and the way it has infiltrated the media we consume, the content we consume, and all these things, like, I'm going to reference some people as examples. My intention of this is not to belittle them or make commentary about their bodies or what their way lost journey or fitness journey is, but it is to kind of show why I think this has become a mainstream thing. This regression of body standards has become popular because there are popular people doing or exemplifying these things in this way. And this is also very much like, I think, an opinion episode. Like, I'm going to rant, I'm going to tell my shit a little, but it's really me. It is Nikki's opinion. It is what I see how these things make me feel. Another problem might not feel that way, and that is totally okay. Again, my goal is not to tear anybody down, but hopefully to challenge the way you think about this weird, again, like, cult of wellness and cult of glow up culture. So I think in order to do this first, is we really need to talk about this problem of the idea of like skinny and healthy being synonymous. It's a very interesting thing that has happened when health really has nothing to do with fitness. So what does it actually mean to be healthy? The World Health Organization defines health as, quote, "Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity." Two interesting things about this. One, I think it's very fascinating that in this whole, you know, discussion about wellness and hot girl blank, whatever, like, it is so much only about the physical. It is about the way you look and being hot and feeling hot and making other people think you're hot. So they want you and they desire you when health. And really, if we want to think what wellness is as a concept is so much more than that, you can be skinny and depressed. You can be curvy and happy. Like, there's no A, it's not A or B. And that is, I think, a really, really stary, slippery slope that we have fallen into with this. Also with this is also something I'm going to talk about, this discussion of BMI and how we measure this concept of health as a thing. So BMI, body mass index, is literally a formula. It's just, like, weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. I think that's it. Like, that is literally what the formula is. And then you get a number and they've said, like, this is what healthy is. And this is what obese is blah, blah, blah. And what's fascinating is skinny does not mean healthy. You can be extremely skinny and extremely unhealthy. Like, yes, you could eat nothing but lettuce for seven days. And your BMI would go down. However, you would be extremely malnourished. You would have no energy. You would be grouchy. Your pieces of your body would start to shut down, right? Like, you would not be healthy while you would be skinny or these measures of what health is, would look like you are being more healthy than you were a week ago, you would not actually be healthy. Like, in this conversation of skininess versus health, there is no discussion of, like, nutrients and macros and, like, are you getting a protein? Like, are you having a well-balanced diet, right? Like, that is what health is. Health is a requirement for that. Like, you need protein and potassium and vitamin C and all of the salts, like, your body needs salt and sodium. Like, these are important things. And the way that people are really trying to sell this idea of health is this idea of skininess. And that is not true. I mean, again, like, it's nice if you want, like, if you want to look that way, if that makes you feel satisfied and happy and confident, go for it. But also this idea of somebody being like, well, you are not super skinny. Therefore, you are not healthy. Or the idea of somebody skinny is healthy. A great example of this, I have a friend. I won't say her name 'cause I didn't ask her if I could tell the story. But she was born with a heart disease. Like, she has had to get open heart surgery. At least once in her life, I think multiple times and also had said by doctors, like, at some point, later in years, like, she will have to get open heart surgery again. And she has an incredible body, incredible. She literally, I have been with her. We're at the pool literally this past weekend. And I think three separate people came up to her and, like, compliment how good she looks. But it is because she has a lot of, like, metabolism issues and these issues with her heart and her issue with blood pressure and blood sugar and all of these things. So her body actually, like, cannot maintain mass. And it's actually a very deep health problem that she has to be, like, very extremely conscious of and eat things and have a lot of protein and, like, eat certain snacks and eat certain amounts of sugar, blah, blah, blah. And to 99% of the world, if you looked at this girl and showed, like, a picture of her in a bikini, people would be like, this is healthy. She looks amazing. She's so healthy. And she's, by definition, not healthy. Like, she has a heart condition. She has a disability sticker on her car because, like, if she goes locking too long, like, it is bad for her heart, right? So, like, this is, like, this big misconception and, like, a scary thing of this idea of, like, thinness equals hotness and hotness equals health when these three are completely separate things, which is terrifying to me. And another really fascinating thing about this is the ideal body type, and quotes, is always changing. And I'll give you multiple examples of this. From the 15th century to the 17th century, during the Renaissance period, the ideal body was to be plus size. They call it plump a lot of the time because it showed that you were of higher social status than the peasants. You had more money to have excess food. You didn't have to work some job in the field or in the sun or labor that would cause you to lose weight. There was also these interesting, like, how things that, like, doctors of this time used to think about that, like, pregnant women should be as plump as possible because they have to give as many nutrients to the baby. So, if somebody is trying to have a child or expecting child, they would eat all the time and blah, blah, blah. And, like, that was considered hot. That was the ideal body. That is why, in Renaissance paintings, you can look at these kings and queens, and they are, like, very, they're plump, like, and that would not be the hot body standard of today, right? you swinging to the 18th century or 9th? 19th century. This is when the corset era really, really brings in, right? It is so hourglass. It's not even just about like having a tiny waist. They would have these massive train skirts, like six foot train dresses behind them. And it was like to have this one specific shape. It wasn't even necessarily about like thinness or thickness. It was like you had to be both in this perfectly specific way. And like we're going to create these fabrics and literally like break your own ribs and do damage here to fit that. And then think of the 20th century, right? In the 1920s, we have the flapper. That is like short hair. It's very a lot more tomboyish, but kind of still like pixie girl. Completely different from any of the things we just talked about. Then in the 40s and 60s, we have this post-Rodler one, Wardle II era, where the ideal body type became this domestic woman. I think very Marilyn Monroe, like she's skinny, but she's the lump she was. She has a cinch waist, but is wearing padded bras and big dresses and an apron. And then you can go to the 70s and 80s. It's now the jazzer size era, right? It was like this lean and muscle-toned bodies with the ideal body. Then 90s and 2000s, it's heroin chic, those low-rise jeans, low, low-rise jeans. And then 2010s, it's curvy but fit. You know, the BBLs that you have a flat stomach and the huge lips, like think Kylie Jenner lip challenge, think Kim Kardashian with that paper magazine shoe, which is like popping champagne on her butt. And I also think of an interesting side note discussion is like, we really need to have conversations about the way we label some of these body types. Like the idea that people labeled Kim Kardashian as like a curvy woman when she was just like a woman with a butt, but then perfectly thin in like every other way. It's like insane to me. And now in the 2020s, we are swinging back to this hyper thinness. Like the BBLs are quite literally getting removed. You're there are celebrities you have where having their BBLs removed. And you can even think this is like women like the way straight girls love twinks now. Timothy Shalamay, Tom Holland, the boys from challengers, like they love this like skinny rat boy. It is we are going back to heroin chic in this body centeredness in a scary way. Like there is somebody in your friend group who would scissor role model. They a woman that would do that with that man. Like you know what I mean, like they let the skating tattooed boy is like the hot boy now. And you think in 2010s, like that was not what it was. You think in like 80s and 90s or what the Beatles looked like versus what Michael Jackson looked like versus what make David Bowie looked like. Like these things are not unanimous. They are not uniform. They are ever changing. So because of that, again, you are chasing a standard that does not exist. You are changing a goal post that is perpetually moving. Which begs the question truly like, why do body standards change? Well, when beauty standards masquerade themselves as health standards, they have to convince you to hate something about yourself in order to sell you the solution. You can be skinny, but you don't have a pilates body. You can have a pilates body, but your butt is flat. You can be curvy and thick, but then your waist isn't small. So what do they do? They find a way to monetize your agony with a new trend versus pilates, then soul cycle, then buries boot camp, then you have to drink bone broth or okay, great, you're skinny, but now you need to gouache or get your lymphatic whatever the fuck drain. It is insane. And there's a reason all of these things cost money. They have to move the goal post. So you have to keep buying and pursuit of this thing. Like this quote of wellness is a marketing scam. It is a marketing scam. It is convincing you that you have something wrong with you. So they sell you a solution. That is what the entire thesis of it is. And it's so terrifying and very weirdly stage capitalism shit that like we're just cool with that and love it. And I've also convinced ourselves into being like, this is not only normal, but like optimal. Like that is optimal living. You should have to spend hundreds of dollars a month on facials on a nice gym, on a workout class on getting your things drained on getting like, that's not normal. That is not normal. It's never been normal in history. We need to take a step back and reevaluate that. And that is why glow up culture has become sort of repackaged body dysmorphia. They have to manufacture a new subculture. The pink pilates girl or the hot girl, this or that, because by then defining that group, they can then isolate people from that group where they have to pay money to be accepted into that scubbed culture, right? An average Pilates class costs 30 or 40 dollars a session, $300 a month for a membership. An alayoga bat costs $150 luxury gyms like equinox costs $300 a month. And they are doing that to create this subculture of what you wear, right? It's not just the memberships and the classes, then it's the Stanley Cup, then it's the Lulu lemon leggings, and it's the matching set from Aretsia, and it's fascinating is like this sort of idea of athleticism to create a class divide is not new. One of the best examples of this is golf antennas, fun fact, is that like during these times when we were desegregating and whatnot, there were these things where they tried to create like predominantly white spaces on purpose. One of the great examples of this, again, golf antennas, where like they intentionally made it so in order to participate in something like golf, for example, you have to have a specific dress code in this thing. You had to be a membership at this specific country club, blah, blah, blah. So the only people who could do that were like the people who already had a mass this wealth in some way, which didn't happen to be these people who were like recently desegregated couldn't have access to a better education system, blah, blah, blah, right? Same thing with tenants. They have found ways to bake in these norms of adding an aestheticism to a physical activity because then not only can they exclude people from it based on that, they get to monetize it more. They get to monetize it more. You got to buy the golf shirt, you got to buy the golf pants, and you have to buy shoes for this sport or different shoes for that sport. This is a naughty new thing. I think what's fascinating is we have seen it recently make its way into one very women-donated spaces, like this internet, this wellness section of the internet is so I think very female-dominated, you know, when you think of like again, these pink Pilates girls and the clean girl and all that type of thing, and they found a way to do that not through sports, but through these like group based fitness activities. I think it's really what has boomed in the past like five years. And again, then it always has to change so that they can make you buy it all over again, right? Like the pink Pilates girl will not be a thing in three years, and it'll be something else or, you know, I remember when everybody in like 2016 YouTuber era, when they were all moving to LA, it was like all doing soul cycle, you know what I mean? Like there's always like a new thing that they do to convince you that, you know, this is some new thing you need to buy into to fix this problem that we have convinced you have when you're just a normal girl. Also, I think it's very important to acknowledge like when you think about a lot of these creators, even when I just like went on like hashtag skinny talk, hashtag pink Pilates girl and researching for this video, why is that girl always skinny and white? You know what I mean? Like it is pretty much all of the time. And it's interesting that like it's not this like direct line of whiteness, but almost like selling you on this idea of like the idea of beauty is being as close to this specific thin white girl as possible, or that this idea of like the way you should look is this person. And oh my god, they'll have to be all happen to be the skinny white girls. Like I don't know what it is exactly. Feel free to leave comments about like your theories about exactly as to why this is and why it has been marketed this way all the time, both in terms of people purchasing and paying in it, but also the brands who like do this is so fascinating to me because there is for sure some element of racial identity baked into this in some way, or also I think maybe this is just me spinning theories. Again, this is an opinion episode. Pretty much being white is like the only ethnicity where you don't have a culture at all. So like a lot of times like they kind of manufacture these ritualistic experiences, or you know eating a certain way or doing a certain challenge, like doing a certain thing because they don't have any sort of like cultural foundation that just is doing that for them already anyways. Do you understand? Like, and again, I don't really know. I could be wrong. These are just my theories. Another thing that I have really found fascinating when thinking about this is like why is Gen Z so motivated by hotness? And why do we need a stupid fucking saying or slogan to convince us to do something that is good for us? It's winter hour because some are glow up challenge and beach body bear and then 75 hard like what the fuck are you saying? What are you saying? You're just coming up with a new name for working out duh duh and wow, working out and eating ready is good for you. This is not groundbreaking science, right? But being hot and selling this idea of new hotness is so monetizable. And it's fascinating. We live in a world where it is arguably more monetizable to be hot than it is to be talented or smart. Like at the very least you could make the argument that like you have to be both in some way. But there are so many people who have built these massive careers. I think of really just like I look this way and you want to be like me. So do this thing that I am doing. And that's why this podcast does so well. I'm just kidding. And it's because I'm talented and smart. Like it's just when you're the whole package like things come easily. But on a serious note like it is just so fascinating to me. And I think again like a very fascinating thing that we're going to. I want to make a video about this. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet. It's like this world that we live in is so based off of quantity of attention over expertise. Like more people listen to some random hot girl that's like posting her gym routine that you follow and happen to like the content of. Then and people are listening to an actual personal trainer, like an actual health professional or an actual thing. We don't care about credibility as a society anymore. We care about scale. We care about number of people paying attention or maybe at the very least when there is a lot of people paying attention, we just have this subconscious tendency to assume that that makes it credible, which is not true. And again, not to say that every person who makes fitness content is not educated and smart about what they do. There are many incredible people out, incredible creators out there. But the fact that it's like not even really, I think a thing discussed for like factor considered is so fascinating to me. And I think we've really seen this pendulum switch back and forth again, that's marketing of hotness with like corporations. And the interesting thing also about corporations is like they only ever engage in some sort of social movement if it is to tokenize them for profit, right? Like we saw the great example of this was like all like the target pride stuff and how that used to be such a big thing for them and then Trump administration comes in and suddenly they're like, "Toting down and I'm not gonna do as much pride." blah blah blah, right? Like they don't actually take a stance. Their loyalty is to profit. And there are moments in culture where it's more profitable to be very accepting. And there's moments in culture where it's more profitable to be exclusionary. And it's sad that we are in a moment right now where the very exclusionary, the very authoritarian, like this sort of like supremacist ideology is what is winning. And it's very sad and something I just want to bring up and encourage to remember five years from now the pendulum fucking swings back. Remember what they did this time? And they will do it to you again. Like there is no loyalty in this. Again, we're seeing a di initiative. It's not a great example, you know what I mean? How it was so amazing and you know the 2010s and talking about how they were so much emphasis on, they were saying the company bringing in new perspectives, helping people with marginalized groups, helping handicapped people, helping veterans. And then you know, boom, oh no, now that's an issue. Now we're not gonna do it anymore. Right, it's all about profit. And also just this idea of like selling hauntness. What's fascinating to me about brands like AirOne is they don't sell $30 smoothies, they sell status. Like you are getting a $30 smoothie and you feel good about yourself because you somehow know that like I bought a thing that other people cannot buy. This is exactly the same way that like luxury bags have value, right? Like a product bag is not actually $2,000 worth of leather and raw materials. But by having the $2,000 bag, it means that there are less other people out there who have that thing. Therefore it feels more desirable, feels more exclusive to be doing that thing. And that's also fascinating to me about AirOne. It's like they're the first brand to do this in food. It's not just a luxury item. They are selling you the idea of luxury with your basic needs, with your groceries, with your lunch, with your smoothie. It's such a fascinating thing how they have cultivated that. When again, like what you're buying is really, you're buying a water bottle girl, like $2 or $6 for it, like that's up to you. Does make you a better or worse person, but that has really worked on people. That it is a very big business and a growing business. And also again, talking about this idea of like exclusionary tactics. It's a sound like element of the human condition that when you tell other people that they, "Hey, everyone else can't have this thing, but you can have it." That somebody else out there is like, "Wow, that makes me love it more." When it's actually just the same thing, whether they're 100 people going to have it or 10 people going to have it. And that is really, really sad to me. I have this theory that the Plaudi's body became a status symbol because it is something that cannot be obtained through Osempic. And when you think about these people, like Bella Hadid and the Kardashians, Haley Bieber, they really monetized this idea of aspiration and telling you the idea of being skinny and looking like them, dressing like them, having makeup like them. But once the idea of skinnyness became commercialized, like you can literally pay $1,500 a month for an Osempic thing, then they had to find a new way to exclude you. So the way they did that is now the Plaudi's girl, the clean girl, where it's about this new look. Again, the goalpost always moves. They have to convince you that something about you is inadequate so that you look to them for aspirations so they can tell you a thing to be like, "Hey, you can be closer to me more like me if you have this, if you buy this, if you do this." And that is the underlying theme of it all. It's so, so terrifying. And with this rampant rise of Osempic, we really have no body positive role models in a way that's scary. And I don't say this to like, trying to comment on these people, but it's bodies. But I think it's interesting to think about, right? Like, I'm gonna look at somebody like Oprah, for an example, when she was like really coming up and was getting big and all of this. Like, I feel like one of the cornerstones of her brand was that she was not like this hyper thin girl. She had a very like, she's a little curvy. She had a very normal body. Like, it wasn't super thin, it wasn't super big. It was just like, like, I really think she was just, like, looked like the way most of her audience looked and that felt so exciting. Especially in that time, like, cable television. So much so that she literally at one point was like, on the board of directors for Weight Watchers. She was like, like, a very, very big thing. She pushed it all the time and talked about this importance of building a healthy lifestyle, blah, blah, blah. And then she took ozempic, lost all the way, and now is not on the board. She got fired from the board of Weight Watchers for it, I believe. And then is now endorsing ozempic left and right, which is a very like class thing. Like, not $1,500 a month for ozempic is insane. That's a lot of money. Also, I think we've seen this even too with, like, music artists. I think two big examples are Meghan Trainor and Lizzo, which were two people who really blew up and like, I think the ethos and story of their music and community was like being a plus sized woman and being so proud of it and feeling hot and creating music that other girls who looked that way heard and also felt hot. And then they both lost a ton of weight and they don't look like that anymore. Again, like, I'm not trying to be mean. I'm what I'm saying is I think young people have lost their representation. There is no more body-positive representation in the culture barely at all. And if you are somebody who really felt all this confidence and seen for the first time by listening to that music, by watching somebody like Oprah and then all these people don't look like that anymore. Like, and you're a 15 year old girl. Like, I feel like that has to be so isolating in a world where you are already so isolated. And again, like, I'm not trying to be mean. I'm happy that they're doing what makes them happy. It is their body, it is their choice. Like, they are allowed to do that. And it's also a very sick and twisted thing about women and media is like, you know, people are going to hate them when they're fat and then they get skinny and people hate them for being skinny. And it's like, okay, well, you know, what am I, what do I do? You know, like, I very much sympathize with that problem. And again, that's why I'm not trying to comment on their bodies. I'm trying to like talk about this idea of representation. Like, a young girl, a young person has none of that anymore. It really feels like, and their great example of this we're starting to see is with surgeries. Not even just this idea of things like ozempic. There was a big drama with Remi Bader, who is known, huge creator for making plus size fashion content and doing very honest reviews of it of the brands, of the clothing, being super realistic about it. And then she lost roughly 130 pounds in a year through this bariatric procedure known as SADIS, which is a surgery that removes about 80% of the stomach and rerouts part of the small intestine to promote weight loss. Then apparently she didn't, I guess, didn't talk about it at all in her content and reportedly was even deleting things and comments or blocked users that were asking about it until recently she went on a podcast with Courtney Kardashian or Chloe Kardashian. And then talked about how she had had this surgery. Again, like, I don't, I am happy that she did what she felt was best for her. It is her body, it is her choice. It's literally not my body. It doesn't matter. What I'm trying to talk about is like, I imagine that you are just a, you know, a young girl or a young person out there who is not only, you know, hitting puberty and anxious and hormonal and having experiences with boys for the first time and figuring out what you look like. And all these things, like, but now is like, oh, even this one person who I used to watch the content of because they were like so able to speak to the experiences I have, I just, it's just, they just not like that anymore. Like, do I think that that feels so isolating to these people? And I think that's really what I'm trying to say. It's like, I, I fear for the youth who isn't having a person to like look up to and a person to tell them it's okay and figure out their own journey and navigation through that. And I went, again, like to talk about myself for an example, like I, when I was in high school, I used to be like over 250 pounds. When we put a picture up here, like I was very, I was, I was big and I had a lot of struggles with late. I have a lot of, had a lot of struggles with eating disorders. This is a different video for a different time. But it took me years to lose that years. I'm talking about, I think like, I don't think I really got like skinny, skinny until like college, I guess. And then my right fluctuated up and down a lot and then the pandemic came around and I gained like 50 pounds girl. Like, you know what I mean? But I felt lucky to have doing that in that time because there were elements of culture. There was movies and actors and musicians and things that like made me not feel isolated for being that way. It felt like I had helped, like this healthy idea of like who I was. Like I knew that I wanted to lose weight and I found a consistent way to do that where I was going to the gym four times a week and I wasn't killing myself. I wasn't starving myself. Like it was healthy. It was healthy. And I fear that like if I, you know, we're exactly that way now and exactly the culture believe in now with his olympic craze, with this pink bloody stuff, You know what I mean? Like, would I still have been able to have that experience or would it? it have been so overwhelming and so exclusionary to me that it would have made me even more anxious and even more afraid of these things like the gym, which already give me so much fucking social anxiety. I hate the gym, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it always. I hate it now and I'll hate it until the end of fucking time. I don't know if I'd been able to do that at 16 years old. I really don't. And also other weird things I think we're starting to do is things like things like veneers. It was so fascinating to me like Amy Lou Wood on the white lotus, like everybody was talking about her teeth so much and like when she was like a cast and all this and I'm like, I think that's a reason like this is even a topic of conversation for you people is like it's actually been such a long time since you've seen an actor without like veneers. Like you forgot that like not everybody has like perfectly straight teeth. And we're just these sorts of things I see appearing more and more and more and more often which makes it so the bodies that we are all born into versus the bodies that we see on billboards and TV screens and phone screens are getting further and further apart. And that is a really terrifying thing for young people for young boys and girls who like are, again, already hate their body, are you anxious? All these things like I fear for them. Which kind of brings me to my overarching problem with wellness and glow of culture is that wellness is focused on telling you what to think, not how to think. You see it's all the time with like billion dollar morning routine and then 75 hard and not random serodogo water guy like they are telling you you have to wake up at 4 a.m. then you have to go to the gym at this time then you have to read this amount of pages of the book. But like the real value of these things is just discipline and consistency, right? It does not matter if you go to the gym at 4 a.m. or 9 p.m. as long as you finish the workout, it does not matter. What you eat as long as you are having a calorie deficit and getting some good nutrients, right? Like you can have a salad, you can have chicken, you can have this thing, you can have that thing, you can have an outside bowl, you can have smoothie, it does not matter. It does not, you do not, it's not. You can have this cleanse. It's to lose eight pounds in two weeks. You can do it in a thousand different ways. Do you have discipline? Do you have consistency? Are you creating a lifestyle that supports this result, right? But it is not monetizable to say that. It is monetizable to tell you about how you gotta have this one specific smoothie and then they partner with the protein product brand. Or you gotta have this one specific workout class or workout routine, then they're selling you the routine or there's, you know, it's an overarching again, let's subculture in lifestyle. Or they're working out at the allogen and then wearing that two-piece set that happens to be $150. Like it is not monetizable to give you the truth. It is monetizable to sell you this elevated fiction. And that's terrifying, it's terrifying. I don't wanna say I feel this way very often about like spirituality sometimes. Like you cannot manifest your way out of a lack of discipline. You can make the vision board, you can say the affirmations, but none of that is going to replace you actually having to do the fucking work. Like write that first paragraph, go to the gym, post the video, whatever it is. Everything you want in life is a result of discipline and consistency, you need the discipline to start and the consistency to finish. And if you get 1% better every day in 100 days, you will have what you want. And that is not because of some fucking vision board or some affirmation you set in the mirror, but because you work for it as you should and be proud of yourself. Like this is why we people talk about imposter syndrome all the time, is because you're going and talking about how it was from your vision board. Like no, you went to the gym fucking 25 times this month. That's incredible, be proud of that, own that. It is not a fucking manifestation. (laughs) You know what I mean? Like this is my issue with this whole thing of spirituality. And I don't think it's a coincidence that at the same time there is this increased discussion of things like manifestation and spirituality. There's also this increased discussion of imposter syndrome. Like I think that these things are linked. I think that people are constantly looking at things outside of ourselves to validate some sort of feeling, whether that's accomplishment, whether that's a lack of accomplishment, whether that's self-esteem, whatever. Yeah, you might have wrote it down on a vision board at the end of the day, like you fucking worked hard for it. And be proud of that, be proud of that. You don't need to like talk about the affirmation or whatever, which brings me to like my closing arguments for this. And I would like to make it very clear. Fitness is a good thing. It is a great thing. It is important for your physical health. It is important for your mental health. And just even just having things in your life that build routine is so important. However, the problem with it, my problem with it, and I hope to take away from this video, is that we keep pushing these one-size-fits-all ideas. Whether that be the in-body type or manufacturing this subculture to feel like you need to be XYZ or to be that girl, it is doing these things in the wrong way or at the very least taking 1% of the equation and telling you that's why the problem was solved when it was one of many, many factors. Many, many, many factors. Especially many things. I mean, I've even been talking about things like this and like skincare, you see it's all the time too. And it's like, that is so genetic-spaced. It is just genetic-spaced. Like, you, someone might look at me and be like, "Oh my God, Nick, you have great skin." I had to go on three full rounds of Acutane for three years. It was miserable. I was peeling my skin off like a lizard, right? You might think I look great and I could tell you my skincare routine. But most of that is 'cause I did fucking Acutane. It was a hormonal imbalance but like needed to be corrected and I had to go through three full treatments of it, three nine month cycles of it. And that fixed it. But on the surface, you might be like, "Oh my God, wow, I need skin care routine." Right? That is not correct. And it would be very monetizable for me to tell you my skincare, right? Like, I can make a video like that. You know, I can talk about this product and that product and blah, blah, blah. But like, that is not real. That's not the truth. It's just what makes money. And I do like, in concessions I would like to make to this idea of like fitness culture and wellness and culture, I do really understand the idea of trying to make it a collective experience to make it feel more tangible and relatable. And I do think that works for a lot of people. I mean, even just friends I have, I know who are like really struggling to working out and they got into some sort of group fitness class and that really motivated them to go. And they love the idea of like going with a friend and now it's this, you know, creating this idea of a third space which is a very rare thing in our culture right now and blah, blah, blah. But that also creates exclusion, right? Like if you are creating one group, it means that there's somebody outside of that group. And that is this I think thing we need to balance and talk about and be cognizant of. Another pro I think is in these sorts of things like a 75 hard where it really tells you what to think, not how to think. I think the vision of those types of things is, they're like, yeah, this is a ridiculous challenge but my goal is that you do it for 75 days and like maybe you discover three things that you actually really enjoyed. Maybe you really actually got into a habit of reading 10 pages a day and that was awesome or you really got into a habit of waking up at 7 a.m. and you love that. And at the end of it, it's okay if you don't do the other things 'cause you found these two things that really, you know, improved your life in a positive way. I get that. I think the fear of it is again with trying to make this idea of like altering your body of viral challenge is that when you create this like all-encompassing package, people become so overwhelmed by the idea of it that they just shut down altogether, right? If they're like, oh, like I did one gym routine but like I'm not gonna have time to make it to the second gym appointment of my 75 hard challenge. So like I also don't need to read the 10 pages or I only drink half a liter when I was supposed to drink a full liter of water. So blah, blah, blah. Do you know what I'm saying? Humans are momentum-based creatures and the way we get into things is build a ramp. It is very easy, right? Like you could have not worked out in two years and you could give, you could do five push-ups right now. And then tomorrow you could do seven, six push-ups. And then next day you could do seven push-ups. And the right, like, and you build the ramp until it's doing 100 push-ups is easy and then maybe it's not, it doesn't feel like an issue to like pick up a dumbbell or whatever, right? Like people, we cannot go zero to 100 and so much of these challenges and these ideas are based off of that. This idea of like you haven't worked out in so long. So now try 75 hard, we're gonna throw you into the most insane deep end of it. Like working out twice a day, drinking all this water, not eating this and that, not drinking it at all, reading all the time, blah, blah, blah. All these things that like are the challenge and that has turned people away from just creating a consistent lifestyle that works for them. And that believes me to my final point is like, you need to find something that works for you. That can be a class, that can be swimming, that can be hiking, that can be joining a run club, that can be playing basketball with your friends, that can be having a friend over where your meal prepped together every Sunday, whatever it is, like it needs to be for you, it needs to be doable for you and it needs to be consistent for you. You know, if that means that you haven't been in the gym in a long time and you're like, I'm so much anxiety about getting back in the gym, I hate my body right now. Like, okay, great, your goal for this week is I want you to go to the gym three times, you're gonna get on the treadmill for just 15 minutes and then leave, that's it. And then after you do that for a week or two weeks, you're gonna realize, okay, this is just the idea of like going to the gym is not as scary anymore. Like, I've gotten over that anxiety. Now let me like do 15 minutes on the treadmill and then 50 minutes of like, you know, some equipment of something. And then, okay, and then just being in that sort of equipment zone is less scary to you and then you boom, boom, boom. Right, then this is really what like exposure therapy is. It is psychologically proven that you can get over fears and anxieties and mental blocks by taking them into the tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny increments and then just increasing all the time over time. It's also like how you build muscle even biologically, right? You lift 20 pounds and then you lift 25 pounds and you lift 30 pounds, what about, right? And these challenges, this wellness, this goal of culture is not geared towards that. It's all like, this is how you're gonna lose eight pounds in two weeks and like, that's terrifying. It's also kind of unhealthy. So with that, this was the cult of wellness, the cult of goal of culture. I hope you enjoyed this video. that my point of like not trying to be belittling to anybody or anybody who enjoys these things. Again, this you do you girl, you do you. I'm just saying this overarching problem today. So you see as a culture and this regression of body standards, I think we're really moving towards. So please don't forget to subscribe. Follow me on Spotify. Please, please, please. And I will see y'all next week. Bye.