1. It Fits the Definition of a Pyramid Scheme
A pyramid scheme is a structure that allows few to benefit at the expense of others. The members make money by selling a dream to new recruits who are expected to do the same to receive a higher rank. The earlier you join a pyramid scheme, the more you profit. The gains are even higher if you are one of the founders.
What does bodybuilding sell?
The industry promises you a nice physique. Then they sell you the means to make your dream a reality. How generous, right? The problem is those means don’t work.
Supplements, training courses and special equipment are not behind the modern muscular mutation. Steroids and growth hormone are. A man on steroids builds more muscle than your average natural without even lifting.
Who benefits? Only those at the top. The average loser kid saving his lunch money to buy protein powder promoted by a steroid-loaded bodybuilder on the cover is at the bottom of the pyramid.
The reaction of the scammed
a. Admit defeat and move on.
The individual realizes that he’s been scammed and cuts the circulation of the con.
b. Be stupid, continue to lie to yourself.
The individual is insane and does not realize that his actions result in perpetual stagnation.
c. Join them
The individual realizes the lie, but his desire for thicker muscles is strong enough to carry him to the truth (i.e. steroids are the secret). Once enlightened, he or she joins the camp of the oppressors.
2. It Exploits People’s Thirst and Ignorance
Thirst and ignorance catalyze the process. When a kid steals money from his mom’s purse to buy creatine, he is doing it for two reasons:
a. The promised gains activate the obtain-at-all-costs mode. (thirst.)
b. He is convinced that the product is necessary for his ascension. (Ignorance.)
The desire for muscle mass is extremely strong within the modern male. Masculinity is what’s wrong with this world according to society. This notion along with the boundaries that the system needs us in create an environment where it is exceptionally difficult to exercise your role as an authentic man.
Boys develop insecurities that need to be addressed somehow. Muscles are a logical choice because they are seen on every man on TV presented as a savior. The naive are wrongfully convinced that a set of thicker biceps can compensate for everything and sign the contract.
This logic is not limited to young and uneducated people. You don’t have to be diagnosed as a moron to act like one. You can be what I describe as a smart idiot in A Hater’s Synthesis – someone who has good education but lacks wisdom. Men smarter than me fall for cheap street cons because they lack vision all the time.
3. Bodybuilding Sells a “Blurry” Product and Takes No Responsibility
What does bodybuilding sell you? Programs, supplements, training equipment and merchandise. The first two form the biggest share since they are easier to distribute and come with decent profit margins.
But what are those programs and supplements really offering?
Muscle mass.
The number one reason to buy protein powder is muscular growth which is the actual product that the muscle industry relies on. This makes the product “blurry” and undefined.
The complexity of the task, as well as the high number of variables involved in the game, create many opportunities for the industry to bail out when things don’t work out. E.g., ” You are not getting results because you are not doing our program properly.”
In other words, their responsibility is low. When you buy a computer chip, it works. When you buy protein powder, it is “supposed” to work. That flexibility makes it easy for those at the top of the pyramid to avoid repercussions.
When was the last time somebody wanted a refund from a supplement company? Exactly.
The industry always blames the user whenever things don’t work out.
4. The More People You Recruit, the Larger Your Bonus Becomes
The men selling false hope to the natties are recruiters. Every apprentice convinced that creatine is the key to extraterrestrial hypertrophy becomes a new member occupying the bottom layers of the pyramid.
The ability to recruit a high number of people is highly appreciated. The more you can bring, the higher your rank goes.
5. The Offers Are High Energy and Low Substance
Motivation is big within the bodybuilding community. Muscle constructors love watching videos of sweaty men lifting weights while strings in staccato mode play in the background.
The common denominator of all motivators is that they focus on how good it is to have something rather than on how to get it.
A similar example would be the sites making money online by telling you how to make money online. They constantly produce articles revealing how great it is to be a self-employed blogger working from home while the masses are out there fighting traffic but rarely if ever include concrete steps that will undoubtedly produce this effect. This happens because reality does not sell well. Dreams, on the other hand, do. To achieve the presented goals, you have to deploy a strategy written between the lines.
Bodybuilding uses the same principle to manipulate your right brain and make you susceptible to suggestions that benefit only the higher echelons of the pyramid.
P.S. If similar topics interest you, check out my first and most popular book – A Hater’s Synthesis. It is only USD 2.99 for a limited amount of time.
The book is dedicated to those dreaming of a dislike button. If you are one of them, you may like it.
At the end, you also sell your book.
Give them for free if your ideas are true and free from bodybuilding “patreons”..
Be my guest
I would if it was easy to write one. I can’t make everything for free because it takes time. I doubt you would like to work for free either. Why should I do it? Besides, it’s not like my books are expensive.
Unlike bodybuilding “patreons” Truth Seeker does not sell a dream.
His book is worth every penny. And way more than that. Honestly. Cheers from France
I’ve read all of his books multiple times.
They are that good.
I feel terrible that he’s only selling them for $3.
The Truth Seeker did give away the book for free for a limited time only about a year ago. So he is generous, besides, people pay 50-100 dollars for scam programs and dont have couple of bucks for book full of truth? Its ok to make a QUALITY product and expect pay. You dont work at your job for free, you get paid, does it make you a bad person?
There’s nothing immoral about making money or Capitalism if what you sell is legit.
i’ ve bought all your books. but i keep receiving promotion emails from time to time to buy them. your books are worth everyone’s time reading afterall.
Thank you for the support.
The rage that builds when you tell it like it is.
At the beginning of the book by Aldoux Huxley “Brave New World” there is a scene in which we are shown that the humans of that “utopia” are taught from a young age, with clasical conditioning, to hate outdoors and nature. Why? Because it does not help to move the cogs of the economy. The world controler goes as far as to say about the peope of the past “strange to think that even in Our Ford’s day most games were played without more apparatus than a ball or two and a few sticks and perhaps a bit of netting. imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It’s madness. Nowadays the Controllers won’t approve of any
new game unless it can be shown that it requires at least as much apparatus as
the most complicated of existing games.” That scene has stuck up with me for decades, and bodybuilding is a perfect reflection of what the world controler is saying. The truth is that bodybuilding is one of the cheapest activities a human being can do, all you need is a pararel bar, your body, and maybe a post if you want to master the human flag. Total cost? maybe 25 or 30 dollars for setting in the bar and thats it. But the industry sells us all kind of crap and play with our emotions and desires to get our money. I think this article should be in the front page even if you write other articles, it exposes perfectly well what is happening in the world of bodybuilding.
It’s all about choices.
The naivete and ignorance of the natural lifter subsides when he learns the secret , and then he is confronted with the choice of whether having big biceps or not having his health compromised.
Me, personally, my choice is twice as simple: Health is something that no amount of looks could ever equal to.
Are you kidding me?
USD $3.00?
How do you eat?
I still have my office job, but this year will be my last as the firm is shrinking and I am a veteran there. I also do some construction work from time to time.
Great post as usual. I specially enjoyed the comparison to onlinemoney making busineses techniques in which they create in your brain “the fear of missing out”. The analogy is spot on.
TS, Money very well spent on your work-Please much more to come! Enjoy every moment you can today.
I do have a question.
Shouldn’t ‘the secret’ be out by now? In other words, why is it not obvious to everybody that only drugs and other PEDs produce significant muscle games to every physique? Why are the supplement and fitness industries still around? Don’t you think that naive and ignorant young lifters should know better by now, with all the instant access to online media education?
I’m age 62; been bodybuilding for forty-six years since I was age 16 in 1972.
I’ve observed the fitness and supplement industry for those forty-six years . The industry literally banks on uncertainty and on what might be called “humans’ wishful thinking”
Long before even I I began bodybuilding, a large mass of differing, conflicting, and even contradictory claims about training, nutrition, and potential for results existed. Meaning, the simple truths that supplements are virtually pointless: and, that to build even a mediocre magazine-grade physique requires genetics which respond at least fairly well to AAS and a minimum of 600 mg (and likely 1,000 mg) per week of AAS plus ancillary drugs, is buried among all those differing claims. It can take a beginner two or three years to separate the nonsense from the truths. And what can delay that realization is many beginners ignoring and even resisting the truths, out of wishful thinking that somehow, they can get the physique without steroids, without proper genetics, and with the “right” supplements.
The wishful thinking continues even among many intermediates — even after a guy has realized the truths, he may, desperate to get the physique he wants, continue hoping that if he finds The Latest Scientific Training Method and/or The Newest Incredible Supplement, he can somehow, some way, build it without steroids.
The industry knows this about uncertainty and wishful thinking and has known it since Eugene Sandow’s era. The industry has literally banked on it successfully for the whole time.
I got woke when i was over someone’s house and noticed these bodybuilding photos on a wall. He revealed he was the state bodybuilding champion a few years ago, which seemed impossible since he was your average out of shape office worker type guy. His wife laughed and said it all went away when she insisted he stop the drugs. I realized I’d been had all these years and bodybuilding was a scam from the start.
Was at a poolside with my wife about ten years ago, and struck up a conversation with a guy about my age whom I rightly guessed was another (drug-free) bodybuilder. Turned out he owned two gyms.
Our conversation included discussion of what constitutes the essential information for progress in drug-free bodybuilding. I mentioned that everything anyone will ever need to know about proper training, nutrition, and genetic limits can be explained in about one hour.
He chuckled, nodded in agreement with me, and replied, “True…but, if we tell people that fact, then I and everyone else in the fitness industry will be out of business!”