This was a wide-ranging conversation.

We talked about mIRC WWE roleplays, the impossibility of creating a genealogy of bodybuilding forums, how trolling evolved from Usenet to Twitter, the implicit similarities between Aimee Terese and Zyzz, why the digital invites body modification, male-to-male transsexuals, and the lasting impact of what the New York Times’ once dubbed “the male fitness internet.”

Read Oliver’s EXCELLENT reporting here:

The Unheard History of Bodybuilding Forums

Steroid Solidarity

Muscle, Smoke, Mirrors

The Life of a Jacked Guy in 2019

How Selfies and Social Media Shaped Modern Bodybuilding

What Could Have Triggered Elliot Rodger?

Books referenced:

Muscle, Smoke, and Mirrors by Randy Roach

Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder by Sam Fussell

Theme: I Should Have Walked Away by KAAZE