00:00:12.240Give me eight, seven, six, five, four, three.0.95
00:00:23.840I hate male fitness instructors. I do. I do.0.95
00:00:28.600except for Dennis Morton on Peloton, who I freaking love. I'm more talking about how much
00:00:33.900I hate male fitness instructors in person, in like real life exercise classes. And here is why.
00:00:41.900They do not seem to understand or give a shit about the limitations of my 43-year-old0.97
00:00:51.040multiple postpartum body, which mostly have to do with the fact that if I do certain jumping things,0.99
00:00:58.060I will pee in their gym. I'll just pee. I can't control it. There's nothing I can do.
00:01:04.540And these instructors are like, hey, do the jumping jacks, jump up on this block. And I'm
00:01:11.080like, do you want pee all over everything? And then they give me this look like, why would you
00:01:16.460pee? That's disgusting. And then they give me a fist bump. They're always fist bumping too.0.96
00:01:23.500I don't want to fist bump anyone. I'm not a 12 year old boy at the fucking mall. Don't fist bump0.99
00:01:30.900me. Okay. That recording was me in an actual workout class, getting fist bumped over and over
00:01:38.080again, because this past month was January. And January is the month of renewal and re going to
00:01:47.860the gym for a lot of people. It is also the month that I like to call attack of the fit fluencers.
00:01:57.920Yeah, yeah. This is a month where we get super targeted by brands, by influencers who want to
00:02:07.140sell you their courses, their classes that allegedly change your body. And they pay a lot
00:02:14.080of money to Instagram to make that happen. For the entire month of January, because for some reason
00:02:21.120we see this as a month of change, you are legitimately being attacked by the fitfluencing
00:02:29.740industrial complex. You are, you are. And that's what we're talking about today. We're talking0.62
00:02:35.260about the good, the bad, and the ugly of the fitfluencing world on Instagram. There's some
00:02:42.460great things that we can find on Instagram about moving our bodies. And I love moving my body.
00:02:49.880Moving my body is a game changer for me. It gets rid of my anxiety. It just, it's something that
00:02:55.560I have to do for me. I have to, and I've realized that and I do it, which is why I go to that gym
00:03:01.960class and get fist bumped by that fucking guy all the time. Anyway, anyway, I wanted to call0.99
00:03:10.880up an expert on this to make sure that I'm right. Like, are we really being targeted more in the
00:03:17.220beginning of a year by these people? Are they really trying to take more of our money and our
00:03:23.240time in the month of January, which I know has passed, but we had so much, so much great content.
00:03:29.220And also I wanted to get through January, you know, before we talked about this. So I called
00:03:33.760up my friend, Amy Schoenthal. Amy has been working in influencer marketing since the early
00:03:40.660days of online influence. She is also the author of the new book, The Setback Cycle,
00:03:47.640How Defining Moments Can Move Us Forward. She's also a journalist and also just a badass lady1.00
00:03:54.080in the world. I love her. I love her. Now, Amy knows very well how influencer marketing works
00:03:59.920because she used to be doing it. And so I called her up to be like, hey, we're getting
00:04:07.080uber marketed to in January, right? Like these fitfluencers and these brands that do fitness
00:04:14.380are in my face and are in my face all the time. I'm not imagining it, right?
00:04:24.440I'm a marketing consultant who has been working in influencer marketing since the early days of
00:04:30.780online influence. I want to preface this with the fact that I am not any sort of expert on health,
00:04:37.560wellness, fitness, diet, exercise, or anything along those lines. But what I am expert in
00:04:44.940is how people set goals, achieve goals, and what they do along that journey,
00:04:51.780especially when they're unexpectedly bumped backwards, aka when they have to work through
00:04:57.700an inevitable yet unanticipated setback. Setting new fitness goals or going on a wellness or
00:05:04.840fitness or weight loss journey is a journey rife with setbacks. Right now it is January 2024. And
00:05:14.360if you are a person with social media, you are likely being inundated with all the fitness and
00:05:20.480influencer marketing that encourages us to, you know, become the best versions of ourselves. And
00:05:26.360And for many women, that best version, I'm doing air quotes, equates to better health, better fitness, and let's just say it, being thin, right?0.66
00:05:36.780I keep thinking of America Ferreira's quote in the Barbie movie when she says, you have to be thin, but not too thin.
00:05:46.180And you can never say you want to be thin.
00:05:48.280You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin, right?
00:05:52.380We all related to that. And I think especially in January, we are all in that push and pull.
00:05:58.040It kind of brings up all these vulnerabilities and insecurities of all the times that maybe
00:06:03.880you've attempted some sort of fitness journey in the past and the setbacks that you endured then.
00:06:09.780So we all start the year out motivated, but then that motivation inevitably wanes.
00:06:15.560So maybe last year you set a habit that you didn't keep up or you saw the number on the
00:06:20.660scale that you didn't like, or maybe you had an injury and it felt too overwhelming to start
00:06:26.460moving your body again after you started to recover from that injury. No matter what happened,
00:06:31.700it's like maybe you're too afraid to try again, right? That happens to a lot of us. And marketers
00:06:38.100and influencers know that. We're all feeling this pressure to reset in some way and maybe,
00:06:44.560you know, start on those fitness journeys that we've long given up on. So I looked at Google
00:06:51.740Trends today in anticipation of this interview. And if you look at the past 90 days of search
00:06:58.280trends, lose weight is at an all-time high, fitness, exercise, they all, these search terms
00:07:06.880all peak on January 2nd. Huge surprise, right? But there's like this plateau from October to
00:07:13.880January, and then it spikes on the 2nd. And that, you know, this is what people are searching. And
00:07:19.060so this is very indicative of what people are craving and what they're trying to do in terms
00:07:25.060of their bodies, their habits, and that reset, right? They're trying to drive up motivation
00:07:29.680for exercise, weight loss, health, fitness, all these things. And a deep understanding of
00:07:38.540consumers' motivations is paramount to a successful marketing campaign. As marketers, we always say
00:07:45.400we need to meet people where they are and we need to seamlessly integrate our message into their
00:07:51.380feeds and create, I'm doing air quotes again, thumb-stopping content. We love saying thumb-stopping
00:07:57.800content as marketers. So now that marketers know what you're looking for, they're bidding on these
00:08:04.760health and wellness search terms in the hopes that their ad or their influencer campaign will
00:08:10.760end up in your feed because they know that's what you're looking for. That's how the platforms make
00:08:15.700money. That's how advertisers spend money in hopes that people are going to buy their products,
00:08:21.500especially during these moments of vulnerability. And so for products like weight loss supplements,
00:13:35.440I've done a little bit of research into kind of the history of New Year's resolutions and how January and the New Year even became this time when we are kind of programmed and encouraged to reset.
00:13:48.360And, you know, there are some interesting insights, like having to do with the fact that we do respond well to these moments that feel like a natural kind of reset.
00:14:03.120you know even there's there's only 24 hours between december 31st and january 1st but
00:14:07.440mentally psychologically it can be beneficial for making a change um so but but it's but it's
00:14:13.400also so funny that those 24 hours it's like let's party hard until midnight i know and now and now
00:14:21.080i'm on a cleanse exactly exactly yeah yeah and so much of the marketing around um you know healthy
00:14:32.080living in January is about kind of doing penance for however you behaved in December. There's a
00:14:40.120definite kind of punitive tone to it. But yeah, so it's prime time for anyone who kind of pedals
00:14:50.080in selling the fantasy of a whole new you. It's when they thrive. And probably when we're most,
00:15:00.720you know one of the periods when we're most vulnerable um to that kind of messaging as well
00:15:06.160um so as far as fit fluencers um it is hard to know where to start right well all right well
00:15:16.000let's start tell me what a fit fluencer is it's such a funny word yeah i mean and it's a really
00:15:22.160broad amorphous definition um basically a fit fluencer is any social media influencer who
00:15:29.840posts, shares any kind of fitness-related content. That's kind of how it's defined,
00:15:37.500at least in the academic literature. So there are people who call themselves fitfluencers when
00:15:44.760actually only a fifth of what they post has to do with fitness or exercise. But it's broadly
00:15:52.580defined as anyone, you know, anyone on social media with a large following who talks about
00:16:02.120fitness, exercise, shaping your body. Like you said, it is broad. It is a broad
00:16:11.820definition. Now, you did a story. You do so many great stories for The Times, and you did one on
00:16:18.220the negative impacts of fitfluencers. I want to hear what some of those are.
00:16:25.220There had been a new study that came out last year that basically suggested that
00:16:31.640two-thirds of the hundred most popular fitfluencers, you know, either posted inaccurate
00:16:42.420advice, misinformation, or messages that could negatively impact people's mental or physical
00:22:28.540You know, this idea that, which is as old as time that women are the weaker sex.
00:22:33.620Um, so when you look at that, that sort of that landscape, um, the notion that a woman
00:22:40.920would, would proactively seek out physical strength, you know, lift weights, train for0.93
00:22:47.080a marathon was completely absurd. And so there had always been kind of exercise marketed toward
00:22:56.860women that was about, you know, holding onto your honeymoon figure, being more graceful, being
00:23:02.920lovely, but never about vigor or strength or power. And so from those early days, the often
00:23:11.860like quite pioneering female fitness evangelist they couched their messages which were about you0.99
00:23:19.760know cultivating muscle and encouraging women that it was beneficial to you know it was not only
00:23:26.000worthwhile but beneficial to kind of do push-ups but they couched their messages in the language
00:23:33.000of beauty culture and it was like yes working your body will make you feel stronger and will
00:23:38.320make you you know will make you healthy um but but more importantly it will also make you more
00:23:45.940attractive to the men in your life so you know i kind of in the book i talk about it as like
00:23:50.740broccoli dipped in chocolate because you know selling strength for strength's sake would have
00:23:54.740been dead on arrival so that messaging was um intertwined with fitness for women from the very
00:24:02.880beginning and then a really interesting and kind of depressing thing happened as as fitness as
00:24:10.180moving your body in a in a vigorous and strenuous way became more um accepted for women and
00:24:17.400acceptable for women uh the body standards inched further and further out of reach like it became
00:24:23.540also more expected you know so whereas in the 60s it was it was there was such a focus on being thin
00:24:31.860you know there was the twiggy ideal and aesthetic yeah yeah as fitness culture took off it wasn't
00:24:38.620enough to just be thin you then also needed to be thin and toned and then as you know weightlifting
00:24:46.100became more normalized it was then you needed to have you know bodies of steel zero body fat1.00
00:24:52.520and like even Jane Fonda struggled to look like Jane Fonda you know she was this ideal for1.00
00:24:59.520so many millions of women but she you know very famously she she was at war with her body she had0.97
00:25:05.960an eating disorder you know so um she's talked she's talked about this so much now yeah you know0.92
00:25:11.520this was she was this ideal in the 80s i remember doing the jane fonda videos with my mom i also did
00:25:18.720the sweat into the oldies videos yes with my mom and like you know i actually i wish i i should
00:25:24.860probably look them up on youtube because i think my kids would really enjoy doing them with me now
00:25:28.460like they're just ridiculous is what they were yes yes and i do want to say here that we're not
00:25:34.140saying any one kind of body is better like when i say oh the twiggy ideal i'm not saying oh my god
00:25:40.840it's terrible terrible to be thin i what i'm trying to say is that it's terrible for anyone
00:25:45.760to tell you that your body is not the right kind of body uh when when we talked about when i talked
00:25:52.720about ballerina farm i had a lot of people saying oh my gosh you're thin shaming her and i was like
00:25:57.580No, that's not what I'm doing. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think anyone should put forth any kind of ideal for a kind of body or what a body should look like.
00:26:11.840Exactly. And, you know, exercise and movement, as we all know now, brings so many very real benefits for women, especially, you know, for mental health, emotional health.
00:26:24.500But when we are focused on moving to lose weight or to meet a certain ideal that, you know, is out of reach for us and we feel shame and guilt and pressure,
00:26:36.500it counteracts so many of the positive mental and emotional effects of moving you know all of the
00:26:42.340feel-good hormones that are released feel-good chemicals um can be blunted when we're exercising
00:26:49.020out of um you know from a place that's either kind of punitive like i have to do this i have
00:26:55.720to do this because i you know to either burn off whatever i ate or to look a certain way um or
00:27:02.860because we feel like we should so our motivation for moving really does matter right exactly and
00:27:12.360those are the fit fluencing accounts that i do find the most dangerous the ones that say do this0.90
00:27:20.200to look a certain way and not because hey moving your body is fucking great like moving your body0.91
00:27:26.960is good for your body. It's good for your mental health. And so, yes, the ones that are punitive,0.95
00:27:34.280that's, I think they're really dangerous. I genuinely do. But there's a lot that aren't.
00:27:38.820There are a lot of accounts on Instagram. Again, I like to see the good side and the bad side and
00:27:44.600everything in between. There are a lot of accounts that are just encouraging you to move your damn0.99
00:27:51.180body. And I like those. And I know you like some of the, I know you like those too. What are some1.00
00:27:57.900that you curate for yourself that you follow? Yes. Yes, there is. I, you know, and I almost
00:28:04.200feel like I'm sort of the exception, but there, I really feel strongly and I like to make the case
00:28:08.980as often as I can that, um, that Instagram and social media has done so much good when it comes
00:28:17.160to making fitness more inclusive and accessible so it's you know it's both it's both of course
00:28:24.560um i so i do try to follow accounts that focus on you know functional fitness on moving to feel good
00:28:34.740accounts that showcase a really wide array array of um ages body type backgrounds um
00:28:45.380um also accounts that sort of directly uh try to you know sort of um debunk what some of the
00:28:54.780more negative accounts are doing i can tell you some specific accounts i follow as well and that
00:28:59.620i you know yeah i love it freaking freaking tell us i mean i always i think you know all content
00:29:04.620is hard to find from books to podcasts to instagram accounts and suggestions bring me so much joy
00:29:12.240um same same it's i mean and these are there thankfully there are um many many um you know
00:29:22.240i mean body positive or body neutral accounts that um that are out there and once you start
00:29:27.960following you know some of these like obviously the algorithm will be more likely to serve you
00:29:32.320up more of the same there is a social worker uh who is also a therapist named stephanie
00:29:38.020roth goldberg um and i've actually interviewed her for several stories um i think her handle is
00:29:45.560is embodied psychotherapist and um she is she works with athletes she works with some fit
00:29:56.120influencers. And she specializes in basically working with clients who are trying to disentangle
00:30:08.200their interest in movement and fitness and sports from diet culture and disordered eating.
00:30:16.500So she's just terrific. And she posts a lot of, I find really helpful, you know, evidence-based
00:30:23.100content um about moving you know for joy um um i love that and also you know and this is a good
00:30:34.920point to bring up which you just mentioned the algorithm is trying to get you so if you start
00:30:41.660following a lot of these accounts that are before and afters again most of which i think are all
00:30:47.380smoke and mirrors you're going to get more before and afters if you follow accounts that are here's
00:30:52.440how to move your body for joy, that's probably what you're going to get. Yes, exactly. Exactly.
00:30:59.780Kelly Roberts, who I quote in the fitness influencers piece in the times, she's the1.00
00:31:07.000founder of this running club called the badass lady gang. And she is hilarious and amazing. Yeah.0.99
00:31:13.160Yeah. She, she, I've just, I'm such a big fan of hers. So especially if you're interested in
00:31:20.440running uh she's a great person to follow latoya shante snell um who is a an activist for size
00:31:29.300inclusivity um body inclusivity and also in running um uh there's an account brooklyn strength uh
00:31:38.880cadenced abuse is her name and um she she is a personal trainer a pilates teacher and also just
00:31:47.120just really smart posts um a lot of good content around around you know training yourself to
00:31:57.140kind of figure out how to move in a way that really genuinely feels good and feels sustainable
00:32:03.480and is not about kind of meeting these external pressures um and then i just have to add that i
00:32:09.820personally find celeste barber's stuff like so oh yes you know just like you can't you know humor
00:32:18.700cannot be um overrated it's like it's there's i i i love what she will explain you know all right
00:32:26.500so i'm let's manifest something because i am dying to have celeste barber on this podcast0.98
00:32:31.960for our audience right i mean like i'll fly to australia for that bitch0.97
00:32:37.500for our for our audience who doesn't know her can you describe celeste barber's account1.00
00:32:43.440yes okay so she's an australian comedian um and her the way that she kind of my understanding is
00:32:53.660the way she kind of rose to massive fame is people will send her these clips i don't even
00:32:59.780know like where these clips come from but of models um that represent the most extreme0.59
00:33:07.840and unattainable beauty ideals like dancing or doing like doing physical actions um that are1.00
00:33:17.000usually like meant to be like very like basically like a striptease kind of and then she uh like
00:33:25.440attempts to reenact it um there's a lot it's a lot of really physical comedy a lot of like uh
00:33:31.220smishing yourself into bikinis and just she's just um the way that she's like satirizing it and
00:33:40.160and um you know revealing how ridiculous it is is for for all of us women who um0.93
00:33:50.640don't look like yes for all of us women who don't look like that i mean she's yes she squeezes0.99
00:33:57.820herself into these ridiculous bikinis she like one of my favorite ones she's like in a bikini1.00
00:34:03.920riding a dirt bike because some supermodel is in a in like a g-string riding a motorcycle and1.00
00:34:10.540she's like the last barber for the win if you don't follow her what have you been doing with1.00
00:34:15.580your life she will bring you so much joy yes yes she's like a perennial palette cleanser if you're
00:34:23.360ever feeling a perennial palette cleanser exactly exactly um those are actually my only questions
00:34:31.740i'm so happy that we had you on tell everyone where they can find you on the social media
00:34:35.840yeah i am on instagram at danielle friedman writes um i'm also on threads under the same
00:34:44.160handle this is the first time i've actually like promoted my threads account but you can find me
00:34:49.120there uh yeah i'm on the thread i'm on the threads too but i don't know how to use it yes i know i
00:34:55.020know that it's like twitter i just don't do it yeah yeah agree i know it's it's one of my intentions
00:35:00.260for the new year to try to figure it out um and um yeah and i contribute regularly to the new york
00:35:07.280times well section so you can look for my articles there every couple weeks and your book is great
00:35:12.640tell everyone to buy your book because all i do is tell people to buy the sicilian inheritance
00:35:17.980and pre-order it right now because i am a marketing monster um you gotta do it you gotta do it yeah
00:35:25.020so my book is let's get physical how women discovered exercise and reshaped the world
00:35:29.840it is available in hardcover paperback audiobook kindle and tells the uh the inside story of how
00:35:39.040fitness culture was born in this country. I love it. And I love you. Thank you so much for being
00:35:45.260on. Thank you. This has been so much fun. That is all that we've got for today. Fist bump,
00:35:53.840giving you a virtual fist bump right now. You guys are awesome. Thank you for being here with me.
00:35:59.560I love recording this podcast. It is literally the highlight of my week and I appreciate all
00:36:06.140of you so much. So many of you have written me and DM'd me. You tell me ideas that you have for
00:36:12.240this show, which I'm reporting all of them right now. You tell me when you ordered the Sicilian
00:36:17.860Inheritance, which I appreciate, and I add you to the sub stack immediately, or at least as soon as
00:36:23.680I get my kids to bed. And sometimes you just send me notes that say, hey, love you, love your stuff.
00:36:30.820And that is nice because we should tell each other way more often that we like each other,
00:36:37.160that we appreciate one another. So first off, after listening to this, go do something nice
00:36:42.300for yourself. But then also maybe call up a friend and just say, you're doing great.
00:36:48.780You are doing amazing. It's going to change her whole day. I promise. Talk to you soon. Bye.