Poking Fun at Ourselves

I want to revisit this post to not apologize for it:

Calling someone a psycho for simply getting in shape and not telling the world about it because he missed out on all the content he could have shared is clearly ironic and meant for comedic effect.

This isn’t mocking getting in shape. Quite the opposite.

For most of history, when men got in shape, they didn’t have a public platform in their pocket to tell the world about it. They did it because it was good. They did it for their family. They did it for the Lord. No doubt they shared their progress with the bros. But they didn’t broadcast it to an indiscriminate audience of strangers.

Now, if you’re a coach or trainer using your own results as advertising, that makes perfect sense. But if you’re posting primarily to inspire strangers or to be admired by them, I’m still going to question it. I think it’s strange. It runs against both history and what has generally been normal male behavior.

What’s being mocked here is our overly performative culture. We’ve become accustomed to treating nearly every personal accomplishment as content for public consumption. It’s immodest. It lacks restraint. And I don’t think it’s healthy.

Someone asked who I had in mind when I wrote this post. It was me. I had myself in mind, and my tendency to overshare, which I’ve been disciplining. I’ve made major strides on some serious health issues, including my weight. I’m sharing some of that with close friends and family. Some of it. Not with you. Once upon a time, I would have.

Someone else suggested the post was “copium.” I think the idea behind that is that I’m mocking people who do this because I don’t have the results they do. Nah. As I said, what I’m mocking is the sharing of everything. I’m mocking me. I’m mocking us. I’m happy for their results.

Is it wrong to share stuff like that? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s going to depend on so many things. But I think it’s good to make fun of our culture (and ourselves) as we figure this stuff out.