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The hashtag “gym creep” now has over 37.3 million views on TikTok. Honestly, I’ve watched hundreds of these videos and the only weird behavior I can spot in any of the clips are from the women recording the unsuspecting men while they work out. “Watch this creep,” the lady will say as a confused male just happens to glance at the camera that’s been shoved in front of him. Scandalous!
Gina Love is one of these women. The TikTokker, whose feed mainly consists of her trying on different shades of lipgloss, went viral after posting a video of her doing deadlifts, supposedly catching out one of these so-called #gymcreeps. “Watch this creep come over to my personal bubble while doing Romanian deadlifts,” Love wrote. She added, “The gym was practically empty, and so many corners to be in and he chose this one.” The Guardian wrote that “in the clip, the man stands directly behind Love as she lifts dumbbells before deciding to leave.”
@ginaveelay Be careful out here girlies cause wtf #creep #weirdo #gymcreep #k18results #gymweirdshit #awareness #awarenessvideo #creepyguys #fyp #viral #fyp #gymprobblems #gymissues #inconsiderate #inconsideratepeople #selfawareness #selfaware #danger #creepy #creepyguystaring #creepyguystory #creepyguywithacamera #workingout #fitness
Perhaps I’m naive, but in this clip all I can see is a man working out five feet away from somebody else. How big does Love need her personal bubble to be? The space between them is bigger than my apartment. If he is looking at her, which we can’t see, as his face has been conveniently covered by the creator of the video, it’s probably because she’s decided to film him during a sweaty workout without his consent. But like everything on TikTok, the trend of filming unsuspecting gym bros has caught on quickly. In the court of public opinion this man is now a creepy predator, and the accuser gained a large following because of it. Now you can bet that every member of the Sweaty-Betty-TikTok-gang won’t enter a gym without their tripods, ready to find their latest victim for a viral video.
When asked how the man standing five feet away from her lifting weights made her feel, Love claimed “it’s like they’re trying to undress you in their heads.”
First, how hot do these women think they are? Second, we are now in the post-#MeToo era that means a male looking at a female in the gym is sexual harassment. Let’s bear the double standard in mind: if a man surreptitiously filmed his time in the gym and his interactions with others, he would be branded a predator or a pick-up artist. A woman does it and it’s Instagram fodder: she’s casting herself as the main character among a supporting cast of slavering perverts.
It won’t be long until a social media influencer gets crushed by a heavy weight on livestream because the men surrounding her will be too scared to offer help, in fear of being labeled predators.
You may think I’m exaggerating, but it’s almost happened already. Last month Jessica Fernandez, a lifestyle content creator — whatever that is — posted a video on Twitter where she wrote, “This guy kept making me extremely uncomfortable at the gym.” Fernandez said, “This is why I’ll end up crying on stream [because] I feel so grossed out at times with the amount of sexualization I experience. Hopefully, this spreads awareness for girls who experience this type of treatment at the gym.”
The clip shows Fernandez lifting weights, while a man in the background glances over at her. “Stupid piece of fucking shit behind me,” she says on the video. “I hate this. I hate when there’s weirdos. Gets me so uncomfortable. Feral, feral, feral, feral, like, fucking feral.” The man then approaches her and offers to help put the weight on her bar. In fairness, Fernandez later apologized. She wrote on Twitter that, “He didn’t do anything wrong to me and I blew our interaction out of proportion,” but these admittances of guilt are rare.
Now, I’m not an expert. I fall into a gym maybe three times a year, but when I do the gym bros that frequent the place are nothing but nice to me. They’re always on hand to show you how the equipment works, or to help you put some weights on the bar. Unlike the TikTok and Instagram-obsessed influencers they are there for the sole purpose of exercising. For these women, the gym is now the latest backdrop for a fashion shoot. It used to be one of those cafés with a flower wall and $15 matcha lattes.
The toxicity of gym-Tok has also led to plain old bullying. In a now deleted video, an account under the name @gwinie_the_pooh gained backlash after making fun of an elderly man for simply exercising. In the video, the TikToker recorded herself doing a workout at a gym that zoomed on the man behind her who was kicking a punching bag. After spotting him, the TikToker turns the camera on herself, and while grimacing she snides “what was that.”
There is also the other thing that nobody wants to say. Online influencers have sexualized workouts. Why else would you wear see-through mini shorts, a bra and a full face of makeup to the gym? Can you really blame somebody for glancing over at you when you’re dressed fit for a nightclub? This fact is so overwhelmingly obvious now that some fitness companies are cashing in on it: Gymbox, the British fitness company, recently announced a collaboration with the adult content app OnlyFans. Fabletics, the gymwear company, sell fitness leggings that show your entire bum.
If I listened to the warnings, I could never go anywhere. I couldn’t get in a cab, or walk down an alleyway. Car parks are off limits too. Dive bars? Forget it, you’ll get groped. In fact, anywhere after 9 p.m. you pretty much can’t move for the fear that you’ll end up being chopped into tiny pieces and put into plastic bags. Now, add gyms to that list.
As women we are indoctrinated to be scared. We are told that whatever we do, whatever we wear, wherever we go, there will be some kind of Jack-the-Ripper figure lurking in the shadows. It’s no surprise that the #gymcreep trend has picked up, because as women we are always looking for the worst in men. But ladies, next time you go to the gym, please bear in mind that the person most focused on you… is you.
