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Peer Pressure In Fitness Essay

Soul Cycle It is a funny thing about how Soul Cycle and other usually over-priced fitness and similar classes pervade popular culture nowadays. It is also not all that uncommon to hear mentions of CrossFit and other fitness phenomenon in the normal daily lexicon of language. The author of this report will define whether popular workout classes meet the common definition of popular culture and why that might be the case. The author will talk about the thinkers talked about in the readings viewed Soul Cycle. Whether the authors approve or disapprove of the nature of the classes will be discussed. The author will conclude with a revised personal perspective about the matter in its entirety. While people becoming and keeping fit is a good thing, there are some aspects of Soul Cycle and similar classes that are a little concerning and perplexing.

Analysis

In the author's opinion, the over-priced fitness classes mentioned in this report do indeed qualify as popular culture under the traditional definitions. Just about anything can become part of popular culture. Sometimes, it is completely random and with no major reason. The author of this report would point to the Life Alert and similar emergency necklaces for seniors and disabled and how their "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up" has been around for years yet it is still made fun of, brought up and otherwise mentioned in popular culture. Another example the author of this report can point to is the "don't tase me bro" line that was brought about by a man at a John...

However, they are still very much a part of popular culture and thus there will be further analysis that centers on the perspectives and opinions of authors that also covered the subject. Before getting into that, however, Soul Cycle should be defined and summarized. A group of exercisers are mounted on bikes and they do workouts in alignment including variances in speed and so forth. A Vanity Fair article about the class not-so-subtly drops the word "cult" when it speaks about the classes. However, "cult trainer" Stacey Griffith, the leader of one of the SoulCycle classes, shouts "you're all sexy" and "that is a sexy-ass sport right here." She also says "if you weren't sexy, confident, and strong, you wouldn't be here" (Grigoriadis). Indeed, this would seem to be a sterling example of popular culture at work.
Literature Review

Culture was once the paradigm and realm for the upper class and well-to-do. However, Rosenberg and White note that this came tumbling down in the early 1800's (Rosenberg, and White). Adorno and Horkheimer asserted as far back as the 1940's that when it comes to the "culture industry," what would seem to come across as enlightenment may actually be mass deception. To further make the point, they assert that there is a "ruthless unity in the culture industry." When it comes to the fitness classes…

Sources used in this document:
Works Cited

Edwards, Tim. Cultural Theory. London: Sage Publications, 2007. Print.

Gans, Herbert J. Popular Culture And High Culture; An Analysis And Evaluation Of Taste. New York: Basic Books, 1975. Print.

Grigoriadis, Vanessa. 'The Cult-Y High Of Soulcycle -- "And The Sport'S Celebrity Following'. Vanity Fair. N.p., 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2015.

Horkheimer, Max, Theodor W Adorno, and Gunzelin Schmid Noerr. Dialectic Of Enlightenment. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002. Print.
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