Re: Guest Post - Bro Culture

1

Bro, the thing about raising teenage boys is how fast your food disappears.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 8:06 AM
horizontal rule
2

Anyway, homosocial activities for males that aren't actively destructive seem very good to have right now. But I don't even lift.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 8:15 AM
horizontal rule
3

I agree with 2. I also think the undercurrent of "You are expected to grow and change and reflect and improve" is a mostly good part of gym culture. And "you don't know everything - learn to take advice from a coach or expert" is a mostly good principle as well.

Though the devil is always in the details.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 8:38 AM
horizontal rule
4

I have a former student with whom I'm close, who is currently serving in Afghanistan and fully embodies this form of masculinity. I sent him a link to the essay because I am really curious to hear what he thinks of it!


Posted by: J, Robot | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 8:55 AM
horizontal rule
5

Jocko Wilink preaches a fairly unforgiving message of no-excuses personal discipline above all, which is potentially toxic if the individual preachee absorbs the message as an ideal but can't live up to it (ending in shame/self-destructive attempts to live up to an ideal) or (worse) can live up to it but uses it as a reason to judge/dismiss others who can't. Boot-strappism is easily toxic, even if personal ownership of effort tied to results is generally positive. (I came to read/listen to Wilink via Tim Ferris--who pairs a less rigid but still "success" -driven philosophy with a "one weird trick"/life hack shtick. Useful in small doses (I really like the Stronglift 5x5 weight-lifting program I found through Ferris, and other resources he points can be quite good or can be 21st century snake oil), but not someone to trust unreservedly.
I like gym rat culture on a gym-by-gym basis--some are definitely better than others. The best I've found was a mostly-free-weights-but-with-crossfitesque-accesories gym in the heart of one of the poorer areas of Minneapolis. It had a good proportion of serious male powerlifters--I watched a dude do multiple sets of partial range of motion squats at over 900 lbs.--paired with serious exercisers of both sexes and community members of all ages/incomes/backgrounds. Friendly, polite, zero harassment of women, and an assumption that everyone was there to work at their own level in a positive, generally encouraging, but reserved way. I liked it a lot but moved too far away for it to be practical as my regular gym. All of the gyms I consider in-range of my current home are of the giant mega chain variety (excepting the Y, which is the affluent nonprofit version of the same).


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 9:24 AM
horizontal rule
6

Like in Dodgeball, the movie.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 9:38 AM
horizontal rule
7

5 was me.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 9:57 AM
horizontal rule
8

Gyms are so static, though, and getting better at lifting weights is just not very functional, unless your job is moving furniture or something. Just wish these guys would move around more, and measure that instead.

Understand that the army focusses on being able to pull yourself over obstacles, etc. which justifies pull ups and the like. Again, not widely applicable.


Posted by: Charlie W | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 12:10 PM
horizontal rule
9

Are you lifting heavy objects or are the heavy objects lifting you?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 12:25 PM
horizontal rule
10

Gyms are so static, though

Lifting a gym would be really hard.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 12:55 PM
horizontal rule
11

8: I found getting better at lifting weights was very functional for goals like having my back feel less creaky and looking okay, and lifting heavy-ish stuff does also come up occasionally. I'm not sure that there's a different kind of exercise that would be much more functional for my lifestyle.

I mean, probably some kind of obstacle course-based boot camp would make me more capable of feats of strength and skill or something than I am, but I run into the need to move a heavy box more often than I need to scale a cliff.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 1:20 PM
horizontal rule
12

Right, but NYC-based elitists are different.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 1:22 PM
horizontal rule
13

Cindy Crawfords 1992 workout video is the most 90's thing ever, it's like watching an issue of brill's content ads with a nice soundtrack. some weight suggestions included.

weights now are going for like $2/lb insane. I am doing rowing lifts with a bucket of water, thinking about whether mounting a pulley on my probably frail trellis makes sense, would need a good handle anyway. It's irrational, I should just spend the money to be the best I can be, who can put a price on that.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 1:31 PM
horizontal rule
14

We're cliff-deprived.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 1:33 PM
horizontal rule
15

14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLabGjTlSeo


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 1:48 PM
horizontal rule
16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE_CM3tvkys


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 1:51 PM
horizontal rule
17

Once everybody gets the vaccine, used weights are going to be super cheap.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 2:02 PM
horizontal rule
18

They'll be all sweaty.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 2:09 PM
horizontal rule
19

True, people charge extra for that.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 2:14 PM
horizontal rule
20

Lifting is cool and I agree that most gymgoers are friendly and helpful but I actually think discourse has maybe overcorrected on this... I've seen a decent amount of ogling/leering and mansplaining as well as just guys being dicks to other guys about resting too long between sets when benches or squat racks are hotly contested.

My pandemic exercise goal for the fall has been to decrease my mile time to X:00. My unscientific strategy for doing this has been to just wake up every day and run 1 mile as fast as I can. Seems to be working pretty well so far.


Posted by: torque | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 2:56 PM
horizontal rule
21

||

Bro!

Culture.

|>


Posted by: Doug | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 3:29 PM
horizontal rule
22

Every time I turn around, someone translates Beowulf.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 3:39 PM
horizontal rule
23

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.


Posted by: Opinionated Shade of Seamus Heaney | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 3:54 PM
horizontal rule
24

The Texas state legislature can eat a bag of Spear-Danes.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 4:13 PM
horizontal rule
25

Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.


Posted by: Opinionated Beowulf Poet | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 4:18 PM
horizontal rule
26

Google translate isn't helping.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 4:36 PM
horizontal rule
27

I've spent decades as a gym rat (reached the 200lb club the same week I finished my thesis, and mentioned it in my bio -- that sort of gym rat), and while sure, I guess in theory I can buy into this idea of gym culture as self-improvement and self-actualization, in real life I think it doesn't work that way. And I wonder what women think of all this, of what their equivalents are. I have this vague suspicion that it's close to what eating disorders are like. I'm not saying that working out is bad: just that using it as a metaphor for real life is ..... idiotic.

And again: I started lifting age 21, and have done it (with cycling and last 10yr, swimming) as my primary forms of exercise.


Posted by: CHETAN R MURTHY | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 6:50 PM
horizontal rule
28

I topped out at about 195, I think because work and age interfered with my beer and wings habit.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 7:33 PM
horizontal rule
29

Salaries, ACT/SAT scores, max bench. GO.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 8:08 PM
horizontal rule
30

reached the 200lb club the same week I finished my thesis, and mentioned it in my bio -- that sort of gym rat

Chet is McLovin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nEQtj_iC7k


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 8:13 PM
horizontal rule
31

Oh, I thought it was body weight.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-14-20 8:58 PM
horizontal rule
32

Wow, the kid from Superbad got old real fast.


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 8:55 AM
horizontal rule
33

Hypothesis: gym culture is to physical work as gun culture is to hunting. Working out is fine and good and certainly a better use of time than what was known, and forbidden, in my childhood home as "playing shoot people," but maybe we don't really need to have performative substitutes for traditionally masculine tasks?


Posted by: DaveLHI | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 1:36 PM
horizontal rule
34

The prohibition of deer hunting in almost all of the city parks in Pittsburgh is an attack on traditional masculinity.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 1:52 PM
horizontal rule
35

Almost?


Posted by: DaveLHI | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 1:59 PM
horizontal rule
36

Just the one.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 2:02 PM
horizontal rule
37

Bows and shotguns only, at least?


Posted by: DaveLHI | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 2:27 PM
horizontal rule
38

Just bows with arrows. Shotguns are too heavy.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 2:29 PM
horizontal rule
39

If you want to be real he-men about it, how about a knives and spears season? Could be an valuable urban wildlife management tool!


Posted by: DaveLHI | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 2:33 PM
horizontal rule
40

Persistence hunting. I've suggested it before.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 2:46 PM
horizontal rule
41

Atlatls.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 3:04 PM
horizontal rule
42

In the Berkeley hills, you are allowed to shoot animals on your property that are eating your fruit (possibly any of your garden, can't remember, but IIRC animals eating your edible crops are ... fair game).

More of my professors were armed than I realized. And these were only the ones that admitted it!

Also, while you may be thinking of the common small suburban pests, I had a five-point buck as a pace animal more than once, and mountain lions come into town occasionally (the police shoot them).


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 3:05 PM
horizontal rule
43

Eastern deer are smaller generally, even in the woods.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 3:15 PM
horizontal rule
44

I tried to shoo that buck off someone's rosebush once and it didn't shy away from me.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 3:17 PM
horizontal rule
45

There was a doe bedded right outside my window. It was very hard to chase her away, but I did it by brandishing hedge clippers. There was blood when she rose, probably from a dog.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 3:20 PM
horizontal rule
46

Deer know exactly when hunting season starts. One day before hunting season, happily eating the rose bush and not eager to move. Opening day, hiding in the brush from dawn to dusk.


Posted by: DaveLHI | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 3:23 PM
horizontal rule
47

Snow Day!!!!


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 4:16 PM
horizontal rule
48

Limited by geography. Check your local listings. Void where prohibited. Don't eat the yellow snow.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 4:28 PM
horizontal rule
49

If a deer stands it's ground when you run upt to it, emit a surprised but forceful bark. Works every time for my dog, so far.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 6:27 PM
horizontal rule
50

How do we know a deer runs from the same noise as your dog?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 12-15-20 6:54 PM
horizontal rule