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Woman's viral TikTok thanks a man at the gym for NOT staring at her while she did squats

Libby Christensen/TikTok

A guy was caught not being a creep in the gym, prompting praise and discussion over gym etiquette.

Videos of creepy guys staring at or harassing women at the gym are plentiful, and their virality underscores how common such experiences are. However, we don't often see the opposite go viral—the guys at the gym who aren't creepy, who are aware of how their behavior is perceived and who do what they can to make women feel comfortable while they're working out.

Now a video of one of those guys has gone viral.

TikTok user @libbychristensen shared a video she took of herself doing squats on a machine at the gym, which happened to catch a man who was working out directly behind her. (If you're wondering why she was filming herself, some people record their workouts to check their form. Christensen said in the comments that she films each set from a different angle—it wasn't about catching someone else on film.)

The video shows the guy directly facing her from behind (nice choice of set-up, gym) but looking down at the floor before lying back onto the bench press.

Watch:

@libbychristensen
Visit TikTok to discover videos!

The video includes "The Golden Girls" theme song, "Thank You for Being a Friend." Christensen wrote that she'd been feeling uncomfortable while doing her hack squats, thinking someone was staring her down. She was thankful to see that the man behind her was looking at the floor and said watching the video back made her "at ease."

"[Thank you] for your service kind sir," she wrote in the caption.

The video has been viewed 4.5 million times and has garnered thousands of comments.

"That's called the 'ah yes the floor is made of floor,'" wrote one commenter.

"I think there’s more guys doing everything they can to make sure it’s very clear they’re not staring at women in the gym," wrote another.

"Most dudes are like this," added another. "This is our special moment to appreciate the nice flooring."

"This is gym code 101 for any decent guy. Head stays looking at the ground or your phone till you're done with the set 😂," wrote another.

Some commenters criticized Christensen's clothing, suggesting she shouldn't wear tight clothing if she's uncomfortable with people looking at her. "Wear baggy clothing if you're uncomfy," wrote one person. However, others were quick to point out that clothing choice isn't an invitation to be a creep.

“Why are we focusing on her clothing," wrote one person. "People still get harrassed or assaulted in things other than ‘skin tight’ attire.”

“I feel like some of y’all won’t be satisfied till females are wearing sweats & a turtle neck to the gym,” wrote another commenter.

"WERE ALLOWED TO WEAR WHAT WE WANT. I wear a huge T-shirt and baggy shorts and still get stared at goodbye," wrote one person.

"These comments… wearing cute gym outfits literally improves my workouts," wrote another gym-goer. "Yes it’s okay for people to look! But to stare and be a creep is not okay!"

Most women know there's a difference between someone taking a quick look at a person and staring creepily at them. It's the latter that needs to stop. And women pointed out that they notice and appreciate the guys who are clearly trying to be gentlemen and not even come close to gawking.

"I always appreciate when they do this. I always notice too like thx for not making me uncomfortable lol," wrote one commenter.

"Anytime I'm in this situation I always try to start my set the same time he does so I don't make him uncomfortable" wrote another. Several commenters pointed out that he was likely uncomfortable in the situation as well, and Christensen wrote "I think he and I were trying to do the exact same thing which is how we got this result 🤝😅"

"Some are so nice and ask if it’s okay to workout on the machine behind me," wrote another. "A lot of the regular creeps at the gym I’ve learned to ignore."

Bottom line: It's really not that hard to not be creepy.

As this guy shows, it's not that hard to avoid being or appearing to be a creepy ogler. Most people aren't going to be bothered if you just look at them briefly, but staring really is uncomfortable. Women are going to wear gym clothes at the gym, and gym clothes are often fitted and minimal for freedom of movement, reduced chafing and ability to see muscle engagement. Gym attire isn't an excuse to stare at someone while they're working out.

Thanks for being a good example, random gym guy.

From Your Site Articles

A guy definitively listed the 12 things that make men happy and it's 100% accurate

Guys literally only want one thing and it's a cool stick.

Nolan Reid / TikTok

There's an old joke slash meme that goes something like this:

"Guys literally only want one thing and it's disgusting."

Its used to imply, obviously, that men are shallow and crude creatures.

TikTok creator and simple-life advocate Nolan Reid, however, has a different idea of what men really want.

Nolan recently made a video about "Little things in life that make men happy."

The hilarious list includes:

A fridge full of beer.
Drinking said beer in the garage. With your dog. And a good buddy.
Finding a cool stick.
Kicking a rock.
Staring at water.
Dropping rocks into said water.

As a fellow man, I would say: Yeah. That pretty much covers it.

It really doesn't take much! Watch Nolan's full video to see the rest, and just appreciate how much joy and satisfaction he gets from these simple thing.

@nolanreid7

People loved Nolan's list – so much so that they began adding their own ideas of "simple things men love."

The video racked up hundreds of thousands of views across TikTok and Instagram.

One commenter wrote, "He just described my whole personality." Another added, "This guy gets it."

Others chimed in with their own additions to the list, like staring at a fire for hours. Or just peace and quiet.

But most of the nearly 200 comments were just people chiming in to say one thing:

"Hell yeah."

Finally, someone who understands us.

Nolan's ultra-relaxed vision of "masculinity" is honestly so refreshing.

Men on social media are usually bombarded with the Andrew Tates and Jordan Petersons of the world, influencers who constantly berate us to make more money, lose weight and add muscle, sleep with more women, take charge, relentlessly self-improve.

I like Nolan's much chiller idea of masculinity. It reminds me of being a kid, taking pleasure in the simple things, not racing to be anywhere, not trying to impress anyone or prove anything.

Nolan's entire account is a breath of fresh air, an antidote to hustle culture. His videos find joy in:

Breaking down cardboard boxes
Driving at sunset
Going fishing
Throwing a frisbee
Wearing t-shirts

A daily visit to his page is almost like a meditation. I highly recommend giving him a follow to add a little counterprogramming to your social media feed.

Nolan says in another recent video that he started making TikToks and Instagram reels just for fun, but discovered along the way that he was really passionate about the message.

"I never thought that my simple living and love for little things would resonate with so many of you."

He said he hopes to inspire people to "take a step back and enjoy the good simple things in life."

I suddenly have the urge to go chuck a rock into a river, so I would say: Mission Accomplished!

From Your Site Articles

men

Family

Technology expert shares the one message that can get teens to rethink their screentime

“Social media is free because you pay for it with your time.”

via Dino Ambrosi (used with permission)

Dino Ambrosi speaks at a school assembly.

In a 2023 TEDx Talk at Laguna Blanca School, Dino Ambrosi made a startling revelation that perfectly underlines the big question of the smartphone era: What is my time worth? Ambrosi is the founder of Project Reboot and an expert at guiding teens and young adults to develop more empowering relationships with technology.

Assuming the average person now lives to 90, after calculating the average time they spend sleeping, going to school, working, cooking, eating, doing chores, sleeping, and taking care of personal hygiene, today’s 18-year-olds have only 334 months of their adult lives to themselves.

"How you spend this time will determine the quality of your life,” Ambrosi says. However, given the tech habits of today’s young people, most of those months will be spent staring at screens, leaving them with just 32 months to leave their mark on the world. "Today, the average 18-year-old in the United States is on pace to spend 93% of their remaining free time looking at a screen,” Ambrosi says.

dino ambrosi, teens and technology, smartphone addiction An 18-year-olds remaining time, in months. via TEDx

The idea that an entire generation will spend most of their free time in front of screens is chilling. However, the message has a silver lining. Sharing this information with young people can immediately impact how they spend their time.

How to get teens to reduce their screentime

Ambrosi says his work with Project Reboot through on-campus initiatives, school assemblies, and parent workshops has taught him that teens are more concerned about time wasted on their phones than the damage it may do to their mental health. Knowing the topic that resonates can open the door for an effective dialogue about a topic that’s hard for many young people to discuss. When teens realize they are giving their entire lives away for free, they are more apt to reconsider their relationship with smartphones.

“I actually don't get through to a lot of teens, as well as when I help them realize the value of their time and then highlight the fact that that time is being stolen from them,” Ambrosi told Upworthy.

A Common Sense Media study shows that the average 13 to 18-year-old, as of 2021, spent an average of 8 hours and 39 minutes a day on entertainment screentime.

“It’s important to get them to view time as their most valuable resource that they can use to invest in themselves or enjoy life and tick the boxes on their bucket list. I really want them to see that that's something they should take control of and prioritize because we're all under the impression that social media is free, but it's actually not free. We just pay for it with our time.”

dino ambrosi, project reboot, teens smartphones Dino AMbrosi speaks at Berkeley.via Dino Ambrosi (used with permission)

Ambrosi believes that young people are less likely to hand their time to tech companies for free when they understand its value. “I find that kids really respond to that message because nobody wants to feel manipulated, right? And giving them that sense of being wronged, which I think they have been, by tech companies that are off operating on business models that are not aligned with their well-being, is important.”

He also believes parents should be sympathetic and nonjudgmental when talking to young people about screentime because it’s a struggle that just about everyone faces and feels shame about. A little understanding will prevent them from shutting down the conversation altogether.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

How to reduce my screentime

Ambrosi has some suggestions to help people reduce their screentime.

The ClearSpace app

ClearSpace forces you to take a breathing delay before using a distracting app. It also asks you to set a time limit and allows you to set a number of visits to the site per day. If you eclipse the number of visits, it sends a text to a friend saying you exceeded your budget. This can help people be accountable for one another’s screentime goals.

Don’t sleep with your phone

Ambrosi says to charge your phone far away from your bedside stand when you sleep and use an alarm clock to wake up. If you do have an alarm clock on your phone, set up an automation so that as soon as you turn off the alarm, it opens up an app like Flora or Forest and starts an hour-long timer that incentivizes you to be off your phone for the first hour of the day.

“In my experience, if you can stay off screens for the last hour and the first hour of the day, the other 22 hours get a lot easier because you get the quality rest and sleep that you need to wake up fully charged, and now you're more capable of being intentional because you are at your best," Ambrosi told Upworty.

Keep apps in one place

Ambrosi says to keep all of your social apps and logins on one device. “I try to designate a specific use for each device as much as possible,” he told Upworthy. “I try to keep all my social media time and all my entertainment on my phone as opposed to my computer because I want my computer to be a tool for work.”

Even though there are significant challenges ahead for young people as they try to navigate a screen-based world while keeping them at a healthy distance, Ambrosi is optimistic about the future.

“I'm really optimistic because I have seen in the last year, in particular, that the receptiveness of student audiences has increased by almost an order of magnitude. Kids are waking up to the fact that this is the problem. They want to have this conversation,” he told Upworthy. “Some clubs are starting to address this problem at several schools right now; from the talks I've given this semester alone, kids want to be involved in this conversation. They're creating phone-free spaces on college and high school campuses by their own accord. I just think we have a huge potential to leverage this moment to move things in the right direction.”

For more information on Ambrosi’s programs, visit ProjectReboot.School.

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smartphones

Pop Culture

Video does a perfect job of showing how American English sounds to non-English speakers

You'll never hear the language the same again.

via Brian and Karl/YouTube

Karl Eccleston and Fiona Pepper star in "Skwerl."

If you are a native English speaker, it is probably hard to imagine what people who don’t speak the language hear when you are talking. “Skwerl,” a short film by Karl Eccleston and Brian Fairbairn, attempts to demonstrate what English sounds like to people who don’t speak the language.

The film was created in 2011 for Kino Sydney, “a monthly open-mic night for filmmakers” based in Sydney, Australia. Since being posted to YouTube 12 years ago, it has received over 52 million views.

The short film stars Eccleston and Australian actress Fiona Pepper as a couple whose special evening is disrupted when underlying relationship tensions creep up.

Warning: Strong language

Here's a sample of the script:

THE MAN

So I ran to yourk around the wash today.

THE WOMAN

Oh?

THE MAN

Yeah. That doll's areen blunderface. Can berave that mory alpen john. Joo flan by the long blatt call?

THE WOMAN

Yeah. I coon by the mex areen. Oh you bleed that pribadium by the ronfort line today?

The video received some thoughtful reactions in the comments section. The SkyWolfie6655 summed it up perfectly: “As an English speaker, it feels like I SHOULD be understanding this and I'm just not, like I've heard them wrong or something, this is really well done.”

The film also connected with people who learned English as a second language. “Man, that's exactly what I used to hear when I was younger, before learning English properly. This is actually quite nostalgic,” another wrote.

The video also is an excellent example of what people with a disability may hear even if they speak the language. “This is kind of what it feels like to have auditory processing disorder,” HorseFace1044 wrote. “It's super frustrating because you can almost get what the person is saying, but not quite enough to understand what in the world they are talking about.”

This article originally appeared on 8.19.23

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language

Health

19 people reveal the things they think are 'frowned upon' for no good reason

What’s wrong with not having children?

via Unsplash

“What things are frowned upon for no obvious reason?”

There are a lot of things that people are socialized to look down on that aren’t all that bad when you take two minutes to think about them. But the problem is that people are hard-wired to make snap judgments about others when it’s none of their business.

According to The Learning Mind, Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy, Ph.D. says we make quick judgments about people for two reasons.

First, we want to make sure they are trustworthy. “If we don’t feel we can trust someone, we instinctively feel the need to protect ourselves and our interests. We respond to the warmth of a person, their openness and authenticity,” Francesca Forsythe writes at The Learning Mind.

Second, we want to know if someone is worthy of our respect. “This question revolves around how competent we deem a person to be. This comes from the qualifications or specific expertise and experience,” Forsythe continues.

Being that just about everyone we encounter is constantly making judgments, it’s our job to seriously consider which ones we all allow to affect us. Conversely, it’s also our responsibility to be conscious enough to avoid being reflexively judgmental of others.

Both are very difficult tasks.

A Reddit user by the name fren-z703 asked the online forum a question that plays perfectly into the problem of snap judgments outlined by Cuddy. The Reddit user asked, “What things are frowned upon for no obvious reason?”

The post received a ton of great responses and a lot of them dealt with social behaviors that others may deem untrustworthy such as being quiet or going places alone. But what's so bad about keeping to one's self?

There were also a lot of responses where people are judged because they make decisions that show a disregard for status. Some people think that people who are unconcerned with status aren't worthy of their respect. When, in reality, it may be the height of enlightenment.

Here are 19 of the best responses to the question, “What things are frowned upon for no obvious reason?”

1.

"Spending time by yourself that is intentionally 'non-productive.'" — myaskredditalt21

2.

"Getting the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu." — fizzytangerines

3.

"Getting help for anything." — gliitch0xFF

4.

"Going out alone. Anywhere. Park, cinema, restaurants. All my friends and relatives think I'm weird, but I just want to have some good time with nobody I know around." — North_15

5.

"Confidently being quiet/silent." — Celq124

6.

"Certain jobs. If you tell someone you’ve been a janitor for 6 years there’s a good chance their response will be a frown." — Jabber-Wookie

7.

"Calling out sick when you’re actually sick. Especially when it’s more than one day." — Snoo-6071

8.

"Not having an opinion on a subject." — flacocaradeperro

9.

"Off-brand clothing. Who cares if I'm wearing Bobos, I don't have $300 to spend on Jordan's and even if I did I wouldn't. My daughter is entering middle school this year and is so nervous about her clothing not being in style. We do the best we can getting her name-brand things bc kids are fucking mean. Luckily my triplets don't give AF." — Fun-Oraganization8742

10.

"Going to a movie by yourself. You literally sit there quietly watching a screen for hours. I usually catch them by myself, but people act like I'm disposing of a body when I do that." — yankstraveler

11.

"As a dude, ordering a sweet and fruity alcoholic drink. Sorry I don't like to drink isopropyl, give me my 'Bahama Mama,' and shut up." — gummby8

12.

"Talking about your salary. Frowned upon and people think you aren't supposed to do it but that's just the man trying to keep your pay as low as possible!" — Mister_JayB

13.

"Having a slightly different sleep schedule/ability than others. My god, the number of times I've harassed by Boomers for "staying up late/all night" when I stayed up 1-2 hours later than them, slept in the same amount, and maybe didn't have breakfast with them. They act as if I've murdered a child." — ephemere66

14.

"Being a recovered addict. There’s so much stigma towards the disease of addiction and people see you as a monster when in reality you’re just trying to be a better person dealing with a mental illness that overpowers you if you don’t learn how to control it." — csrlmnv

15.

"Men watching their own children. We usually get the 'Oh babysitting today are we?' No Karen, I'm doing what a parent is supposed to do and taking care of my kids, maybe if you'd pay a bit more attention to your demon spawn it wouldn't be trying to choke that goose to death over there." — Rare-Outside-8105

16.

"Being a male in the early years education sector. When I was an ECE teacher (Early childhood educator) I had a male collègue. Parents etc were always worried about him with their kids—but he was a better teacher than most. He used a rough and tumble play approach and kids loved him. He also taught them boundaries and consent at a young age because a lot of kids weren’t listening to 'keep your hands to yourself.'" — Apprehnsive_Oven924

17.

"Taking care of your mental health." — ABAxStorm

18.

"Wearing your pajamas all day when you aren't going anywhere. like bruh do you want me to step into a suit and tie for literally nobody, if im gonna be in my house sleeping all day then im gonna look like it." — SeaShark14

19.

"Choosing to not have children." — ParfaitOrganic3597

This article originally appeared on 7.7.22

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psychology

Humor

Some joyful genius recreated 'The Sopranos' opening but with an orangutan and zoo animals

via HBO and SmelfordDip/YouTube

Tony and Rambo.

Earlier this month, Stephen Colbert blew humanity’s collective mind by showing a video of a female orangutan driving a golf cart. Not only was the ape an accomplished motorist but she drove in style with just one hand on the wheel, looking as cool and confident as any human.

While Colbert joked that the orangutan was in Florida, it was actually part of a menagerie in Dubai belonging to Sheikha Fatima Rashed Al Maktoum, the daughter of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates.

The orangutan is named Rambo and has been driving various vehicles since she was young.

A YouTube user by the name of SmelfordDip noticed the ape’s cool one-handed driving technique and something clicked. She drives just like Tony Soprano in the iconic opening credits of “The Sopranos"! So he edited the video to mimic the sequence and added the show’s theme song "Woke Up This Morning" by Alabama 3.

Smelfordip named the video “The Zoopranos” and asks “What if Tony Soprano was [a] monkey?” in the video’s description.

Zoopranos

The only thing that could take this incredible mashup of an unbelievable video to the next level would be to invite Rambo to New Jersey, throw her behind the wheel of a Cadillac, give her a very large cigar and let her cruise the turnpike in a Cadillac.

This article originally appeared on 1.13.22

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comedy