Despite the crazy “outrage”, most people would love a Peloton for Christmas

I’m sure most of you reading saw the considerable recent media coverage given to Peloton’s “controversial” 30-second commercial. If you haven’t, you can watch it here. The supposed controversy surrounds the fact that the advertisement shows a husband giving his already slim wife a Peloton as a surprise Christmas present, which she then goes on to use for a year, proclaiming that it changed her life. The “outrage” was swift, starting as usual on platforms like Twitter, before spreading to the mainstream media. Widespread anger was proclaimed and a large amount of time was consumed discussing the topic. One can get into a discussion about the advertisement and the pros and cons of the scenario, but the controversy generated by what at first glance seems like a pretty innocuous bit of TV, speaks volumes for our society too.

I must have spoken to over a dozen colleagues about the ad, mostly female—and can honestly say that not one was even slightly offended by it. On the contrary, most said they would love it if their spouse bought them one as a surprise gift! Some of these colleagues were just about as liberal as one could get too, and thought the whole thing was quite ridiculous. So who exactly was upset? Well, like a lot of the “outrage” generated these days that consumes the media, it was likely a small handful of Twitter users. There’s a good chance that if you showed that ad to 100 people, 98 would find no offense whatsoever! Yet watching the media reaction to it, one would think the whole country was up in arms—deeply offended (google “Peloton controversy”, and it’s astonishing what comes up).  One of the craziest things about modern day outrage (or “cancel” culture) is that it gives a disproportionate influential voice to a tiny minority of vocal, very angry and typically humorless group of people (watch this outstanding New York Times video which parodies this). Unfortunately it’s not possible to do anything without offending somebody somewhere, and if we keep caving in to this every time 10 people voice offense or desire to be “100 percent Twitter-approved”, we’re going to be in for a very tough time. Our current media is complicit in this and blows things out of all proportion in their desire for click-bait. The occasions when outrage is actually warranted and done a service by publicity, are in the minority. Glance down any modern day publication, and it’s now dominated by “who offended who, “who said what on Twitter” and “who needs to apologize for saying something”. Not actual deeds or important events. At a time when we have very real challenges facing us across the world—including wars, famine and environmental disasters. I hope 2020 will finally be the year that the tide begins to turn and sensible people stand up against this permanent online outrage machine, insisting on only caring about real news and not always bowing to a tiny minuscule group of easily offended and angered people.

From Peloton’s perspective, it looks like they did everything possible to avoid offense (imagine they had actually picked an overweight person for the ad!). Sales are undoubtedly going to increase now, and to their credit—they didn’t cave in to the controversy like so many other companies do, and refused to take the commercial down.

From a medical perspective, Pelotons are amazing. I’ve a had a large number of patients, both male and female, who love their Pelotons. They are great for cardiovascular fitness and an enjoyable workout too. At a time when 70 percent of the US is overweight or obese, there are far worse things you could own (hopefully they become cheaper). And like the ad suggests, lots of people who do have one, confirm that it’s been truly life changing for them. In the meantime, if anyone wants to buy me or anyone in my family a Peloton for Christmas—we’d love one!