Thinning the Herd

Gatekeeping. Digital Noise. Emperors with no clothes.

Phrases like fear-mongering, rage-bait, and outrage-porn have worked their way into most people’s vernacular. So, going into the new year, let’s reflect on some other distracting characterizations that veil themselves in effectiveness.

I recently read a post on" “trauma goblins”, a non-diagnostic term. However, as a clinician reading that particular social commentary, I have to say it was quite accurate.

I was also looking over my own Substack feed this morning while I thought about what I wanted to write in this week’s article. It’s not the first time this observation has hit me, but it did again. My feed was full of “discipline smut.”

I blame myself for getting enthralled with these kinds of topics and even extensively writing about them myself. Everything just looked so similar. It certainly wasn’t “bad”, hell, most of it I agreed with at least on the surface; even tapped a few ‘likes'.

Maybe it is more and more AI generated titles, images, and content. Maybe it’s the rat-race we can’t avoid. Maybe I’m telling on myself… again.

This got me thinking, rather than one of millions of “reflections” or “top 10s” that proliferate this time of year, I thought it might be a good idea to write about content and people it would be prudent to avoid, not just in 2026, but for the rest of your life.

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Trauma Goblin:

This is a person whose suffering has become their identity. It’s so much the case that this is their forever defensible position that they fall back to any time they feel threatened. Their cynicism is as corrosive as their pain is hoarded like currency.

Discipline Smut:

This content is typically created by the well-meaning and curious, but often without teeth or personal flare. The concepts run deeper and truer than motivational hype-reels, but without follow through this is more rhetorical masturbation polluting the ‘self-help’ world. Talking isn’t planning. Planning isn’t acting. Acting isn’t thinking. Thinking isn’t feeling.

Longevity Evangelist:

Repent! Doom is upon you heavy lifters, Olympians, triathletes, CrossFitters, and combat sports athletes! Concede that you will die and that the best strategy moving forward — backed by science of course — is to avoid any and all risk. Fear everything. Achieve nothing. Live a little longer, maybe.

Diet Fascist:

Rest assured these folks have got it all figured out with the nuance of a drinking straw. They’ll remind you how insolent you are for not having done so as well and often rely on logical fallacies like appeals to emotion and reason. Further, you should adopt the practices that are currently working for them, as they’d undoubtedly be the best for everyone under all conditions — according to so-and-so on TikTok.

Fitness Prima Donna:

These folks have to shit on other people’s work to sell their own. This is done both with and without evidence supporting outcomes of their own practices. They’ll happily sell you a proprietary solution explaining the novelty of their model, why you must use their verbiage, why everyone else is wrong, and how their way will revolutionize the future. You’ll probably need more than one hand to count how many times they say “functional” in every conversation. There’s nothing wrong with making a buck, but exploiting people or just being a jerk is a different story.

Optimal Bros:

Fond of terms like hypertrophy and muscle-protein-synthesis, has a ready list of PubMed citations, boasts modest results, and is caught somewhere between “I’ve always done things this way but can’t figure out why I have injuries or don’t get the results I want” and “can never stick to single program or goal longer than 30-days because that’s when the next Muscle and Fitness edition comes out.”

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Around this time of year it’s popular, particularly in the health and fitness world, to tell others what to do — specifically what they should or shouldn’t do as if it’s some sort of moral imperative.

A few more transparent people worth listening to will tell you what they got wrong this year and what they hope others can learn from it by sharing such stories.

Nevertheless, hoards will flock to gyms over the next week. They’ve made their “resolutions” but their resolve has likely never been tested. Most will have abandoned their goal(s) by Valentine’s Day. A few will hang on until Spring Break.

Summer vacation and BBQs hit like a plague. Then to wrap up the year we have a candy holiday, followed by a pie holiday, followed by a cookie holiday, followed by a booze holiday and call it “flu season.”

Sound hard? It will be.

Most things in life that are worth doing usually are.

While it is true that we don’t get extra credit for making things extra hard on ourselves, there is no substitute for proof-of-work. It is the only consensus mechanism that has ever mattered.

You can never put enough “stake” into something to do the work for you. The caveat is that it’s of no use to anyone to dig yourself into a grave in the wrong location, so pay attention.

There is no secret…

There is no special diet.

There is no magic workout.

There is no ligament strengthening potion.

There is no muscle building voodoo.

There is no enchanted chalk.

There is no mystical climbing shoe rubber.

There is no short cut.

Hydrate well.

Eat well.

Sleep well.

Train well.

Climb well.

It takes years and years.

If you have the patience,

if you have the discipline,

if you have the self-control,

if you have the motivation,

… you will succeed.

~ Will Anglin

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