and if you are the kind of person that thinks this is funny or cool then you are a terrible person. I say this about recording other people without their permission because they are doing an exercise incorrectly on a machine or with weights and in worst case scenarios the reason why the recorders do this is so they can publicly shame the person they are recording online on TikTok or some sort of YouTube compilation.
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I have noticed a lot of videos of people trying to become Instagram famous by recording themselves and while this is also annoying in a busy gym it pales in comparison to the people who are trying to find someone who is struggling or doesn't know how to do an exercise properly and then putting them online without their permission.
The amount of time and effort it takes to go through the trouble of finding someone who is new and then making fun of them online is despicable, especially when you consider that it would take a fraction of the amount of time to just help the person do it correctly. I think we kind of live in evil times though and this is kind of proof of it.
One of the gyms that I attend has a strict no filming policy in that you are not allowed to film anyone, including yourself, while working out. Obviously this is very difficult to enforce when everyone is constantly staring at their phones all the time in the gym anyway but I have seen a few people get busted and even see a couple of people throw a fit claiming that it is "part of their channel" or something along those lines. The staff are calm about it and tell them that it is simply a policy of the gym and that the customer needs to find another gym if that is what they want to do. Obviously this can work against a gym financially speaking but I think that I speak for most people when I say that I completely support this notion of eliminating filming in the gym. The people that are doing this take up much more time on a piece of equipment and I have even seen videos where aspiring "influencers" will get upset with other people in the gym if they "get in the way of their shot."
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Joey Swoll has been bringing a lot of this toxic gym culture to the forefront and I applaud him for doing it. I realize that he is mostly doing this for personal gain and he has made a lot of money off of it but it needs to be said by someone.
It is much worse when people are filming others just for the sake of making fun of them though because all of us were beginners at some point and not everyone can afford the rather crazy cost of hiring a personal trainer to teach us how to do exercises properly in the gym.
This policy was enacted by one of my gyms at the start of 2023 and has been met with mostly resounding approval by the members. I really feel like going to the gym was a lot easier and less stressful before everyone felt as though they need to document everything that goes on there. Thankfully, there are a lot of cases of the internet banding together to find out who the people uploading these pics and vids are and having consequences for them. My gym will warn you the first time, then demand you delete the video and if you refuse you will kindly be shown the door. I support this policy 100%.
You are a massive dick if you are going to make someone's life more difficult when all they are trying to do is go to the gym to better themselves. They don't need the added stress of thinking that if they screw up or don't know what they are doing that they are going to end up viral on the internet for all the wrong reasons. We could always just help these people you know....
Imagine how much better the gym could be, as well as life in general, if we put as much time into just being nice to people and helping them as we did trying to "big up" ourselves at someone else's expense?