CycleryNorth81

Peloton sparks sexism mockery over commercial called ‘The Gift That Gives Back’ showing a husband surprising his wife with an exercise bike on Christmas morning

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...cise-bike.html

noimagination

Well, some people just want to be upset, I guess.
It's the holidays. Companies want to sell their products. People are buying lots of stuff. Much of the stuff they're buying is intended as holiday gifts for others. A company makes a commercial about someone buying one of their products as a holiday gift. And the controversy is ... ??? If the commercial was about a wife buying one for her husband, would there be this level (or, any level) of outrage?
I don't see what the big fuss is about, even after reading the article and the commentary. I guess I'm just not "woke".

shelbyfv

P&R

Moe Zhoost

Contriving a controversy of outrage is just another cry for attention.

Marcus_Ti 

Peloton has made some turd commercials every year. For years they've been the butt of jokes.

https://brobible.com/culture/article...twitter-jokes/

This one....I'm in the critic camp. If you actually want to know what the fuss is....it isn't hard to find op-eds unpacking it:

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/12/pel...lease-help-her

nomadmax 

Maybe the husband giving the gift of an exercise bike wanted his wife to have a better life thru fitness; possibly even join him in an activity he loves almost as much as he loves her. Many times, people see the worst in things or other people because of what they dislike about themselves.

tkamd73 

Another one for the perpetually offended.
Tim

one4smoke

Good grief. How friggin' sensitive will people continue to get?!?

Flip Flop Rider

victim mentality. hashtag woke

hubcyclist

well, if there's any time the following would be appropriate, it appears to be here: ok, boomer

eja_ bottecchia

It is the new “normal” to be permanently outraged.

It is a sad, sad world we live in.

eja_ bottecchia

Boomers created the Internet that you surf and we created the technology that allows you to surf the Internet.

Just saying.

Phil_gretz

The ad certainly doesn't offend me. I'm a bit amused by the image of fit, financially strong and active people who buy Peleton.

More amusing would be typical American slobs, living paycheck to paycheck, deciding to mortgage their future by borrowing to buy a Peleton. Both begin using it, and are transformed in 1 year. The commercial would be a Christmas look back at the prior year. That might be effective. In the end, they've moved up to better housing, have bright-eyed children who skip to school, rewarding careers and enriched relationships. All through Peleton...

Unca_Sam

Zwift needs to make with a couch potato gamer to cycling stud commercial to compete. Complete with new Tri Babe girlfriend.

Unca_Sam

That was sexist! Girls can be potato gamers too. Do one for each then.

hubcyclist

Yeah and I'm just saying there's a pervasive mentality that refuses to see beyond themselves and see what kind of messages are sent with stuff like that ad. I'm about to turn 40 so it's not like I'm some spring chicken, I'm old enough to shake my head at some generational stuff but a little more awareness would do a lot of us some good

eja_ bottecchia

I read an article also criticizing this particular ad by Peloton.

The critics were in two distinct camps. There those who were outraged at the high cost of the Peloton bike and Peloton classes. They bemoaned the fact that many Peloton ads depict the bike in upscale homes and settings. Yes that is a marketing ploy to make the connection, in people’s minds, between the Peloton bike and having “arrived” financially. But I am sure that there equal numbers of Peloton bikes being used in garages and basements. I have a Water Rower rowing machine, the ads depicts the rower in similarly upscale settings. Well, I don’t own a $3M home, my very “fancy” rower is in my garage, right next to my bike trainer.

The second group of critics seem to be in the body envy group. They were upset that the husband would gift the Peloton bike to his already slim, and apparently fit, wife. These critics are probably overweight couch potatoes who cannot understand that fitness is an ongoing process. You just don’t lose weight and then stop training...you must keep going in order to preserve the fitness gains that you have already achieved.

BTW, after a few close calls my wife no longer likes riding on the road. We are considering getting a Peloton bike for her. It is pricey, but if it keeps her motivated to exercise, then it is worth it.

People just need to relax and worry more about what they are doing and worry less about what others are doing..

burnthesheep

1. Example of the outrage and cancel culture we have these days.

2. There is such a thing as "skinny fat". You don't have to be really overweight to be unfit and unhealthy. Think Joe Dirt.

3. What company doesn't sell with unrealistic views of wealth or visual cues? Car ads for base model Kias don't show the rundown side of town with a single mom of 4 driving her kids to daycare for her shift at McD. Same for Peloton. It's all about selling what people want to see themselves as, not reminding them of what they actually are.

eja_ bottecchia

Awareness of just what though?

It is just an ad.

You know what I find really offensive?

All the ads this time of the year depicting happy families getting together, doing fun things and having a grand time buying stuff.

First, those ads encourage unbridled consumerism. This time of the year people go into heavy debt just trying to buy gifts.

More importantly, however, those ads perpetuate the myth of holiday-happy families. Not everyone has a happy family to go to during the holidays. Those ads can lead to depression and feelings of hopelessness.

unterhausen

In this thread, I find evidence that there are people that are perpetually outraged at people that are perpetually outraged.

All I have seen before this thread was ridicule of this ad. Buying someone a peloton without their knowledge seems like a good way to have a piece of exercise equipment sitting around, unused. There is a parody of the ad where the woman gives the husband divorce papers at the end of the video she made, that seems pretty likely.

StanSeven

Let’s keep discussions around Peloton and cycling. If it gets to commercialism in general, off to P&R it goes.

noimagination

OK, I read it.

Still don't see in the commercial what the op-ed author sees.

IMO, this is all about perception. What one reads into this commercial says far more about oneself than it says about the commercial. It seems clear that the writer of the op-ed is coming at this from the standpoint that this is sexist, and reads into the commercial all sorts of stuff that is not explicitly stated. Obviously, the unstated is the whole point of the commercial, and what the audience is intended to read into the ad is that a gift of a Peloton is life-affirming in some sense. This is nonsense, of course, the object itself has no moral or emotional significance, any value assigned to the object is assigned by the user and is separate from the object.

Kind of like the commercial.

livedarklions

IRL, you'd have to know the context of that gift to know what implications it conveyed. If "already fit" wife had been complaining about the difficulties of getting to the gym and/or riding on the street in order to keep fit, this could have been quite a thoughtful gift to make things easier for her. If none of that is true, and he's been saying things like "you'd be really cute of you dropped a few" or "you should keep yourself to 1500 calories a day", then he's probably a jerk.

Peloton markets a really expensive product that does something that much cheaper products can do. No surprise that they'd have to come up with elaborate scenarios to get people to buy it as a gift.

OBoile

Wow! That article was a master class in over analysis and manufactured outrage.

hubcyclist

The thing with buying exercise gear for someone is that one should be sure it's something they actually want and not something being thrust upon them, and I think the issue people have with the commercial itself is that this bit of fitness equipment appears to not have been requested and there's apprehension on the part of the woman beginning. And the whole approval seeking thing was just off-putting. Of course the whole seemingly already fit looking person doing a fitness activity for a year makes it a challenge to portray what the benefits are, since a lot of the benefits are in the form of better cardiovascular health and not necessarily outward changes.

As for the bike itself, if it's what people need to get motivated to follow a plan, great. I think it's grossly overpriced for what it is, when one could get a nice entry level road bike and a nice direct drive trainer and a trainerroad subscription (new generation Hammers are under 800, plus a 800 bike and you're still coming out less than a Peloton, plus you can ride outdoors). But frankly that's pretty overwhelming for someone with no background and the plug and play aspect of Peloton is definitely appealing to lots of folks.