Zach LarkinsThere's a GYM on Every Corner...
So the conversations around watercoolers in faceless offices, in staid buildings, would have us believe that there is an impending epidemic upon us. Something so large that it challenges man's continued existence on earth. Not too large however, that it cannot be measured in stones, kilos or pounds, but still quite rotund all the same. The 'Obesity Epidemic' has hit Australian shores, leaving all fifty U.S. states in its wake, taking no prisoners and leaving an aftermath so devastating it makes Hurricane Katrina look like Little Red Riding Hood (confused about that analogy, yeah me too).
We are led to believe, or we all in fact lead its belief, that "fat" is an inherently lazy disorder bestowed upon the couch-potato. Its place here on earth is constantly questioned, for electric blankets, air-conditioners and the aptly named 'fat bats' have given its insulating qualities a redundant existence. The porty are ostracised everyday on our streets, with pound-predjudices increasing in number all the time. Shows such as the patronizing 'Biggest Loser' parade the big-boned around like Catholics in the Colosseum. Their fate awaits judgement from those at home, ironically sitting on their couches in their glass houses. One can always take comfort in the misfortunes of another, as we are lulled into a false sense of security from the grand treadmill-infested and pretentiously-pulleyed work-out places that we attend. Like the hedonist who goes to church every Sunday, only to continue leading a life of sin, his judgement awaits.
The GYM (Gentlemen Yearning Matriarch) acts as a beacon for the insecure. The house construct and nature of its setting, gives the "gym-junky" their fix of 'home.' The gym evokes a sense of nostalgia amongst users, evident in their obsession with the smell of a home-cooked meal (in this case body odor and urea), which keeps them coming back time and time again for Mum's cooking (a few more reps on the bench press). Transporting the junky to another time and place, the gym can fill a certain void that an individual may have. The power of this establishment comes from the people who frequent it, often quoted as saying that nothing is ever as good as your first lat-pulldown. Anything else is just an attempt to relive that first experience.
So as gyms are erected all over the country do we ever stop and think, is this just a virulently vain attempt by image consultancies to make money? A new marketing frontier for firms to conquer? Well I say, like several popular social movements before it, 'gymism' is just another fad, faze and expendable progression that is in vogue now, but like the 80s, it will give us more cringes than Darryl Somers.
Fat is the new black. For the fat can be lost, but an arsehole will always smell of shit!
We are led to believe, or we all in fact lead its belief, that "fat" is an inherently lazy disorder bestowed upon the couch-potato. Its place here on earth is constantly questioned, for electric blankets, air-conditioners and the aptly named 'fat bats' have given its insulating qualities a redundant existence. The porty are ostracised everyday on our streets, with pound-predjudices increasing in number all the time. Shows such as the patronizing 'Biggest Loser' parade the big-boned around like Catholics in the Colosseum. Their fate awaits judgement from those at home, ironically sitting on their couches in their glass houses. One can always take comfort in the misfortunes of another, as we are lulled into a false sense of security from the grand treadmill-infested and pretentiously-pulleyed work-out places that we attend. Like the hedonist who goes to church every Sunday, only to continue leading a life of sin, his judgement awaits.
The GYM (Gentlemen Yearning Matriarch) acts as a beacon for the insecure. The house construct and nature of its setting, gives the "gym-junky" their fix of 'home.' The gym evokes a sense of nostalgia amongst users, evident in their obsession with the smell of a home-cooked meal (in this case body odor and urea), which keeps them coming back time and time again for Mum's cooking (a few more reps on the bench press). Transporting the junky to another time and place, the gym can fill a certain void that an individual may have. The power of this establishment comes from the people who frequent it, often quoted as saying that nothing is ever as good as your first lat-pulldown. Anything else is just an attempt to relive that first experience.
So as gyms are erected all over the country do we ever stop and think, is this just a virulently vain attempt by image consultancies to make money? A new marketing frontier for firms to conquer? Well I say, like several popular social movements before it, 'gymism' is just another fad, faze and expendable progression that is in vogue now, but like the 80s, it will give us more cringes than Darryl Somers.
Fat is the new black. For the fat can be lost, but an arsehole will always smell of shit!
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Jon.