Gold’s Gym as a “home”: exploring the tensions between traditional bodybuilders and fitness influencers in a commercially branded space

• Main Author: Wellman, Mariah
• Other Authors: Tully, Melissa
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: University of Iowa 2018
• Subjects: bodybuilding; branding; digital media; Gold's Gym; influencers; YouTube; Journalism Studies
• Online Access: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6336; https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7668&context=etd

Bodybuilding “mecca” Gold’s Gym Venice is a popular hotspot for athletes, celebrities, and their fans. Traditional and new media celebrities inhabit the space together and use it for a variety of purposes. Social media influencers often congregate within the walls of Gold’s Gym, using the commercial space to film, host meet-ups with fans, and socialize with other social media stars. Recently, Gold’s Gym Venice has placed restrictions on when, where, and how the influencers can film. This study explores fitness influencers in relation to their environment, the commercial space of Gold’s Gym Venice, through the strategies and tactics (De Certeau, 2011) implemented by different social groups and the self-work (Banet-Weiser, 2012) done by influencers to construct authenticity for their followers and fans. Influencers have often been studied separately from their surroundings, and this thesis analyzes the social media personalities in connection with their surroundings in order to understand how new digital workers navigate creative work in a traditional commercial space.