Podcast: Strength Trolls and Social Media with Jake Boly | BarBend (original) (raw)
Jake Boly is a writer, powerlifter, and online personality who has written (literally) thousands of articles covering the world of strength sports. He’s also BarBend’s Fitness Editor and a huge part of our social media team. Over the past three years, Jake has had a ringside seat to one of the biggest issues plaguing the strength community: social media trolls.
In this episode of The BarBend Podcast, Jake gives his honest take on the impact trolling has on the strength community, and why so much of that hate is directed at a couple of sports and strength disciplines in particular. We examine the origins of online criticism and how it’s shaping today’s discourse on strength training, especially the development of new techniques and strategies when it comes to getting stronger.
Jake and David also talk about some of the strength athletes they admire most, along with why it’s more common to see athletes jump between strength sports in a particular pattern.
Every time you post a CrossFit video or a post or an article, whether it be positive, negative, and so forth, there’s always at least one troll comment, no matter what. Without fail, there’s always one comment.
In this episode of The BarBend Podcast, Jake Boly and host David Thomas Tao discuss:
- How athletes in the strength community communicate online — and where misunderstandings happen (3:40)
- The strength sports that get the most hate online (7:30)
- Why people are so slow to accept new methodologies and advances in strength training (9:50)
- The reason Jake picked powerlifting as his athletic pursuit of choice (15:58)
- Athletes Jake admires for their performance across strength sports and disciplines (19:22)
- David and Jake talk about a very underrated athlete in strength sports, someone who moved from CrossFit to the World’s Strongest Man (!) (21:51)
- Jake and David talk about why some athletes commonly progress from one strength sport to another — but not the other way around (24:50)
- How athletes — and outlets like BarBend! — can promote more collaboration within the strength community (31:00)
- Jake turns the tables and examines how strength sports compare to “regular” sports when it comes to athletes respecting one another (33:28)
- Why strength sports are really so very similar — and why online trolls and critics are fighting a losing fight (36:47)
Relevant links and further reading:
- Check out Jake Boly’s author page at BarBend
- Follow Jake on Instagram
BarBend's Co-Founder and CEO, David is a veteran of the health & fitness industry, with nearly a decade of experience building and running editorial teams in the space. He also serves as a color commentator for both National and International weightlifting competitions, many through USA Weightlifting.