So, let me get this straight now, Gym Shark
doesn't just promote unrealistic expectations for skinny guys,
but they do it for plus size athletes as well.
Hey, what's up guys. Welcome back to the channel.
So today I'm going to be talking about a few recent posts from Gym Shark. Now,
one of them, the majority of you already know about,
and this post was done last week. It featured a girl named Nellie London.
She's a lingerie model from the United Kingdom and she posted a photo of herself
on her page, where she was wearing her gym shark clothing.
And she had the waistband up on one photo and down on the other,
showing that she does not have the perfect body or one that you would think a
lingerie model just might have. Right? And the post went viral,
it exploded.
And it looks like Gym Shark basically reached out to her to see if they could
put the photo on their page.
And this was on like September 7th and the post went crazy. I mean,
it has over 600,000 likes, uh, like 23,000 comments. I mean,
people just went nuts over the photo.
And a lot of people were basically saying like,
it looks like Gym Shark is finally going to pull away from all these
unrealistic body types that they've been promoting since day one.
And they might actually be promoting some normal people. I mean,
Gym Shark's been around for a while. They've been around since 2012,
there were like 131 countries.
The business is worth like over a billion dollars. I mean,
obviously the company is successful and a lot of people feel that the marketing
side of things, weren't really too honest.
A lot of the athletes that they had claimed natural, weren't really natural.
That's not what the video is about. Now.
It seems like they've pretty much tapped the market on the fitness side of
things and they want to start branching off into other directions.
And one of the only ways you can do that is by taking advantage of something
like the body positive movement,
let's market our clothing in such a way where people who aren't super huge
ripped and shredded or have super tiny waist still feel like they can be a part
of the brand. And that brings up the most recent post,
which is this one right here. And as you scroll through the images,
the first two images,
all the only ones that really promote that body positive message they're trying
to send. Then as you go through the other images,
there's some other models there, um, that looked like they work out.
There's a guy that's in great shape. There's a girl that's relatively skinny.
Maybe she does Zumba. I don't know.
But you get the gist of what I'm trying to say.
But when you really do a deep dive into both
posts, you come out on totally different ends of the spectrum.
And that's what we're going to talk about today.
And they don't really think a lot of you guys even have a clue about
anything I'm about to say right now,
which is why I'm going to dive in because I saw the post last week and I saw a
lot of people making a video about the Nellie London post.
And after reading a lot of the comments I decided to wait and reason why I
waited is because Gym Shark responded to a lot of people in
those comments saying things like expect to see more of this.
More like this is coming. We plan on doing more like this,
like things along those lines. And so in my head, I said, okay,
well I want to wait to see how long it takes before we start to see more like
this. And lo and behold, a week later, we have this post.
So we're going to dissect the two, but real quick boom, before we jump in,
I just want to say something about the Nellie London posts.
I wanted to read a couple of comments from here because I did like the things
that I saw. I mean,
these comments are from real people and based on how many likes the comments
has, there's a lot of people that feel the same way, and this is important.
So we've got this post from Pedro. If you get mad at this post,
think of it this way,
Gym Shark is basically saying you don't have to look a certain way to go to the
gym. Everyone starts from somewhere.
And I think that's what everyone is missing from this over
14,000 likes on this post.
And what's so incredible to me about that.
Post is this is something that I think needs to be preached more often.
I've had several clients that were a bit overweight that didn't want to go to
the gym. They wanted to train at home.
Cause they thought as soon as they stepped in the gym,
they were going to be ridiculed and stared at for not looking as in shape as
everybody else. When in fact it's the opposite because guys like me,
who've been in the gym my entire life.
I've seen all kinds of people come through the door and I know what it's like to
start out. Maybe not on the heavy side of things,
but I was super skinny when I first started and I felt intimidated.
But what I noticed is that as I walked through the door and I started working,
the other people in the gym, the veterans we'll call them.
They always wanted to show me stuff and they always wanted to teach me stuff.
Because as soon as you walk through that door,
whether you're overweight or skinny,
we made a conscious decision to change your body.
And everyone in the gym sees that when you walk through the door and that's why
people like me will come up to you.
If you're new in the gym and offered to help you,
not just because I'm a personal trainer,
not just because I have a YouTube channel because we see the effort and we want
to embrace it and help you. And let's read a few more posts.
We have one from this woman, mikzazon
How you say her name coming from someone who used to look at your clothing and
know that I didn't look like any of the athletes you had on your Instagram and
website. This means a lot. Representation matters. Thank you.
14,000 likes a Maddie boom,
I'm here for this kind of content. We need more of this. So it goes on and on.
And you see all these supportive comments, which I think is great.
And if we take a look at Nellie, she has a really inspirational story.
I'm going to post a link for you guys.
I suggest you go over and read it to learn more about her. But basically she,
I grew up and she hated her body. She hated it.
And she talks about how she had multiple eating disorders. She,
from as young as I can remember, I hated my body.
And at my worst stage of disordered eating,
I was suffering from three eating disorders, anorexia bulimia,
and binge eating. And she was also periodically abusing laxatives.
Something that has unfortunately caused permanent damage to her digestive
system. And she also talks about how, for years,
she couldn't get the help she needed because doctors told her that she was
within the correct amount of weight for her height and her age.
And it wasn't until she really opened up to her parents,
that they took her to see an eating disorder where she finally got the help she
needed. And then she talks about how, when she was in her teens,
she never thought she'd be a lingerie model today. I mean,
her story is incredible.
And this is the kind of thing that I think Gym Shark should promote.
And she is the kind of person that I think they should bring on as an athlete
for their marketing campaigns because she's relatable.
And she has an amazing story and she doesn't have that
Perfect look that Gym Shark usually posts. I mean, if you look at her photos,
she looks great,
but she clearly did some damage to her body and she's holding body fat in
certain areas. She has stretch marks, but she embraces all of that. And Nellie,
if you're watching this video, I mean, my heart goes out to you.
You're inspirational to anyone, whether you are a girl or a guy in shape,
out of shape, it's an inspirational story. And it's amazing.
But the difference between her posts in the most recent one by Gym Shark is
that her post is something that they probably asked her
if they could put on their page,
they even took her caption and that she wrote on her original post on her
profile and they repost it. Now,
if you look at the most recent posts they did,
this is more of a marketing campaign.
This was done internally by Gym shark with models that they hired.
Well, I guess Nellie's a model too, but you understand what I'm saying?
These are people they flew in and they did a photo shoot because they were
launching some new clothing and they wanted to get the marketing campaign done. Now,
if we scroll through the first two people,
they look like some people who you would think were, you know,
average people who worked out, that's kind of the messaging that trying to send.
These are your everyday average people who work out and still wear our clothing.
Then I just scroll through some more.
You've got some other guys and some other girls that, you know, they're,
they're not, they're definitely not average. They look like they work out,
but they're not super ripped either. Like unrealistic.
They're all obtainable body types, which is great messaging.
If we take a look at the post itself,
they actually tagged all the models that they had in the campaign.
And so I thought to myself,
the first two people are supposed to be the relatable guy and the relatable
girl. So I click on their social media handles and see what they did.
Do they take fitness seriously? Do they go to the gym?
Do they post workout footage?
Why were they picked to be a part of this campaign that's supposed to be
politically correct or bring about more brand awareness?
The people that maybe aren't necessarily trying to get ultra and ripped,
but I enjoy casually going to the gym and maintaining their health.
And so the first person, his name is Benny.
I took a look at his profile page on Instagram at the very top.
It says that he's a big and tall model.
I don't think he models that much cause he doesn't have too many posts on his
page. And if you scroll down to the bottom,
it looks like one of his original posts is from a Gym Shark photo shoot that he
did in 2019. And if you compare that photo to the photo now,
not to be mean, but it doesn't look like he got much taller,
but he certainly got a little bigger, which raises the question.
Why are you reaching out to people to be in a campaign for Gym Shark
which is a fitness brand. If they don't take their fitness seriously,
because that's still not relatable.
Maybe that they're not trying to go after people that are trying to get you
didn't ripped in the gym,
but they're still trying to be relatable to people who still workout and try to eat
consistently to be healthy. I mean, at the end of the day,
if you start at point a and you're trying to get to point B,
even if you don't have the best diet or the best workout program,
if you are consistent, you should see some level of gains.
You will start to see a little bit of weight loss.
You will start to see a little bit of toneage in the arms and legs and that's
not happening here. So fail number one, number two, is this girl Sunny.
She was a bit more difficult to decipher and it's tricky because she's a plus
size model. Now I don't know how much you guys know about the modeling industry.
I used to model back in the day full of a lot of shady people.
And they really want you to look a specific way. And according to Sonny, in a,
uh, interview that she gave back in March of 2019, you guys can Google it.
I'll post the link down below. She even talks about how,
even though she's a plus size model,
there is still a specific look that you,
you need to have to be successful.
And that look is the hour glass look big on top big on the
bottom, skinny in the middle. And she also goes on to talk about how,
when she first sat a modeling,
she wasn't quite plus sized and she wasn't quite regular sized.
And she was having a hard time fitting in.
She said that they actually put some special padding on her to make her look
more like that plus size look they want to have.
And so whenever we hear a plus size modeling to people who don't really dive
into it too much, we associate that with body positivity and body acceptance.
When in reality,
they don't even have body positivity and body acceptance within their own
space, in their own plus size modeling industry. If you want to be competitive,
you have to look like this is what they tell you. Just like,
if you want to be a runway model, if you want to be competitive and runway,
you have to look like this. So both sides of the spectrum are terrible.
It's terrible industry. It's why I don't do it anymore.
I did it for like a year and that was it.
So then I started kind of scrolling through her photos and I find myself very
bottom of her page when she was about 18 years old. And she was,
I'm actually quite thin. And then as time progressed, you start to gain weight.
She started having some body problems. I saw our video on her YouTube channel.
She talked about, you know, going through body dysmorphia and things like that.
Um, and then her body started doing this weird transformation where it's like
throughout 2018,
she started packing on body fat and she was holding a lot of it in her
torso area. And she still kind of had a butt and thighs.
But if you compare her photos from 2018 to her photos,
now it's like her body did this weird hourglass transformation.
And I'm sitting here wondering how the hell did this happen?
Because I know you can't spot reduce fat.
And I also know you can't spot gain fat.
And I also know in the plus size modeling industry,
these women will do crazy things to their bodies in order to stay
competitive. If you do a simple Google search,
some of the things that they do is they try to do, um,
this injection and their neck in order to reduce the fat there,
to get rid of the double chin, but still remain plus size.
A lot of these women will get liposuction that way they can have the hourglass
look, suck the fat out of the torso top looks big.
Bottom looks big and you're good to go.
And then you can also do things like a Brazilian butt lift,
where if you want your button thighs to look bigger,
they'll take some of that fat.
They sucked up and they'll squish it right back in and your butt and thighs.
Now I'm not saying I know for certain that she did any of these things.
I don't know. At the end of the day,
I'm just looking at photos and photos can be deceiving
but these ones, just to me,
they look a little too deceiving is remaining competitive in the
industry, starting out here when she's 18 and looking like this,
now the transformation, it just, it doesn't make sense to me again.
I just don't think that this person is realistic or a
relatable person to the average person.
You're trying to reach out to if you're trying to be a bit more politically
correct. If anything, I think Nellie is that person.
And I said it in the beginning of the video,
Nellie went through a really traumatic childhood, dealing with her eating disorders
She learned how to overcome them and above everything else is a
lingerie model and she's proud of her body and how she looks.
And it looks very clear to me that she hasn't done any type of surgery to try
to fix anything. She truly loves herself.
And that is the ultimate body positivity.
And based on just the likes and comments alone,
I think they should be reaching out to her. In fact,
they should have seen that post and then realized they had this campaign that
they're going to launch. They should have scrapped it, hired her,
paid her as an athlete and did a campaign with her.
I think it would have went over a lot better at the end of the day, guys,
you know, I'm not a Gym Shark fan. If anything, they usually end up in my INSTA-GAHHBAGE
videos I rock Jed North.
And if you guys do want to get some clothing that fits that athletic look that
you're looking for. Use my code, Scott20 checkout, Jednorth.com.
I've been with JedNorth for about a year now. And you know,
they actually stand behind natural athletes because I'm one of them.
But I want to know what you guys think.
Do you think that Gym Shark is trying to head in a more politically correct
direction or are they just trying to take advantage of a new niche market to
make more money? I mean, the brand could pretty much do whatever it wants.
They have a huge fan base. They have 4.7 million followers on Instagram.
If anything, if they want to be more relatable to their audience,
they should be reaching out to them, those people to possibly put in a campaign,
not the local modeling agency, but what do you guys think?
Let me know down in the comment section below, and if you enjoy the video,
you can show me by tapping that like button remember of likes and comments boost
the YouTube algorithm. And that's what pays the bills for your boy.
So you know what she needed to do. And in the meantime,
if you guys are looking for a new one workout series.
You can check out this link right here. It's my five days bodybuilding split.
It's where actually what I've been doing for the past few weeks now and I'm
feeling great. And until next time again,
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