a minipost
A few days ago I forwarded the first of what promises to be a series of pieces of a cultural study of Peloton users by Anne Helen Petersen. It’s interesting - she’s certainly an enthusiast and she’s making interesting observations. There was some interesting feedback- mostly on how big it might get, where Apple fits in and so on. I have some educated guesses where it sits in the home exercise stack and where Apple is as well as a very different direction they may take, but I think there’s something more interesting.
Around the world many found themselves isolated for a good deal of the past 15 months. Exercise equipment became an item for those with the money and time. Now that people in the US are coming out of isolation a good deal of that equipment, perhaps kit not as engaging as the Peloton, is turning up at yard sales.1 There are reports of more engagement in outdoor activities - amateur sports.
Over the years I’ve come across several social science papers on the sociology of exercise and amateur sport. Robert Putnam (the author of Bowling Alone way back when) pointed out that communal exercise - particularly amateur sports - creates a meeting ground where people of different beliefs and ideologies come together regularly. While they may not become close friends, many become familiar faces you look forward to seeing and chatting with. They're part of the 50 to 150 Robin Dunbar identifies as friendly familiars. More recently Putnam and others have talked about the service groups, amateur sports, etc that became popular during the Depression and persisted through about 1965.. a period of high social cohesion in the US (Putnam documents this more recently in his perhaps overly-optimistic book Upswing). Apparently it’s still true that social cohesion is high in these communal events - running, cycling, softball leagues, etc. etc. It’s certainly in evidence in pro-sports fandom worldwide - BBC's Why Factor had an excellent piece on the subject: Why do we care so much about games.
Norway has a unique approach to youth and adult sport and participation at the amateur level is much higher than any other country. The budgetary justification is two-fold: better health and better social cohesion. There's much more going on there and in the Nordics in general that leads to social cohesion, but in many parts of the world it seems to be decaying. Perhaps getting involved with others you don't know well at first is healthier for society than doing things by yourself or in your bubble.
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1 The need of social connection is strong. Peloton provides a bit, but it isn't rich and it's mostly tied to a rather narrow form of exercise - spinning. Isolated and semi-isolated workouts can be important, but I doubt it has a huge amount of growth potential unless it's very cheap. I think we're in a Peloton bubble that doesn't have much more life given an improving health outlook.
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