Can Men & Women Be Friends Again? - James Smith

Girls, you have been expressing your icks about guys for clout on social media for about a year now. So, if I'm not allowed to make up a hypothetical situation with a hypothetical ten out of ten, you are not allowed to rile together your female community to talk about icks.

(music) James Smith, welcome to the show.

Hey, it's good to be back. It's, it's been a bit of a, a long stint since I've been on. It feels like I was on a couple of months ago, but it's been nearly a year.

It's been a long time, yeah. What's going on?

I'm, I'm a different man.

Why?

I'm completely different. Look at this setup for a start. We were just talking about this offline. Last time, I'm embarrassed of the version of myself a year ago.

Technologically?

In many ways. Professionally, technologically, personally. Like, last time we did this talk, I was wearing a broadcaster headset, which at the time, I thought was innovative-

Pinnacle.

... podcasting. I was like, "I've got a mic, I've got headphones connected." Now, a Shure SM7B, the pinnacle of podcasting microphones, I've got three of them in here, right? A DSLR, which, you know, I never fully appreciated the power of podcast clips an hour ago. The game has changed.

Yes, sir. Were you... How long have you had In-, uh, TikTok now?

(inhales sharply) I've had it for two years, but I've only started respecting it as a platform probably six months.

And you've got how many followers?

1.5 million.

Out of nowhere.

Mate, I did, I did 580,000 in a week.

What was that due to? What did you talk about?

There was one, uh, video that really boomed off, which is a subject that I've actually spoken about for years, so when I did the video on it, it kind of reeled off the tongue, which is the swimmer's body illusion, where... I don't ever say this to shit on fitness people, but I- I'd say to people in the video, "Look, imagine there's a person who wants to get in shape and they look at different physiques. They wanna, you know, idealize, and they go, 'Oh, I would be a runner, but then I'd probably be a bit skinny and look a bit miserable.' Or, 'I could be a bodybuilder, but then I might be a little bit too big and look a bit thick.'" So then they go, "Oh, swimmers. I love a swimmer's physique, so I'm gonna start swimming." Then, three, four months pass, and they, like, realize it's an illusion. Swimmers don't always look the way the look 'cause they swim. They swim 'cause of the way they look. Similarly, to me, the people always go, "Oh, it's right for you. You're big and broad, and that's why you, you know, that's because you play rugby." And I was like, "No, I'm big and broad, so I play rugby." When 50 lads in a year play rugby, the big, broad, dense, heavy guys stay on and enjoy it, and the people that don't, don't. And in the gym, people that lift weights for six months and don't build muscle don't continue the endeavor, and they start picking other sports. And there's always the adage that you don't pick your sport, your sport picks you, and so many people in the fitness industry, there, there are people genetically who have a much easier time getting in good shape and maintaining good shape. And when they take their tops off on holiday, rather than people going, "Oh, you're empathetic, intelligent, you care about people, you should be a coach," they go, "Wow, you're in great shape, you should become a PT." And that's unfortunately the state of affairs of the, the fitness industry largely is people aren't, you know... People don't look the way of what, because of what they preach. They preach what they preach because of the way they look.