The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
the b-side
Thursday, November 12, 2015 — 2B

Day One: Aerobics with 

Richard Simmons and the 

Silver Foxes

When I started this video, I 

wasn’t really sure what I expect-
ed the Silver Foxes to be. Some 
svelte figures in metallic jump-
suits were about what I had in 
mind. But alas, the Silver Foxes 
were not blondes in high pony-
tails, but instead the 70-odd-
year-old 
parents 
of 
famous 

figures from the ’80s: the moth-
ers of Farrah Fawcett, Sylvester 
Stallone and Simmons himself, 
as well as the father of Al Pacino. 
Immediately, I knew I made a 
huge mistake, but I had made a 
commitment, so I proceeded on 
my journey with the Silver Foxes.

First thing’s first — Richard 

Simmons doesn’t mess around. 
Maybe there was something in 
the water in the ’80s, but I could 
barely keep up the movement of 
my feet when paired with enthu-
siastic clapping and hip shaking. 
Mrs. Stallone had this thing down 
pat, looking like a goddess in a 
peach sweat ensemble.

It hadn’t even been 20 min-

utes of the 50-minute video 
(read: 17 minutes) when I real-
ized I desperately needed a 
water break. This is coming 
from a girl who does hot Bikram 
yoga twice a week. I’m telling 
myself this has more to do with 
the large plate of sushi I had 
eaten a couple hours earlier that 
stripped me of the moisture in 
my body than with the vivacity 
of the Silver Foxes. It was also 
around this time that I realized 
Sal Pacino looked too much like 
the father of an ex-boyfriend for 
my comfort. My concentration 
was in a shaky place, I needed 
the wisdom of Simmons’s perm 
to bring me back.

25 minutes in. Another water 

break. But I was starting to 
get why these videos were so 
popular. So soothing. So visu-
ally pleasing. I’d love to find a 
way to have Richard Simmons’s 
voice and positive energy inher-
ent in my daily life.

I don’t know if it was the jazzy 

music, the matching velour 
jumpsuits or the ever-smiling 
faces of the Silver Foxes, but 
I had a great time doing this 
video. I’ve never taken a formal 
aerobics class, so I can’t say how 
this video compares to a class 
for those born in the later half of 
the 20th century, but I definitely 
worked a bit of a sweat. Some of 
the exercises were incredibly 
goofy, like the “rump bends” that 
looked undeniably like humping 
the back of a chair. But honestly, 
the Silver Foxes were everything 
to this video. Immediately after 
it ended, I had to look up what 
happened to Jackie Stallone, 
hoping she was still doing high 
knees somewhere. However, I 
wish I hadn’t. It looks like old 
Jacks filled up too much of her 

later years with bad plastic sur-
gery and a role on “Celebrity Big 
Brother.” RIP to the image of 
that goddess in the peach sweat 
suit I briefly knew and loved. 

Day Two: Sweat and Shout

I have a confession to make: I 

took a three-day break between 
the first workout and this one. My 
workload was insane, and my sleep 
levels were subpar, so exercise fell 
to the wayside, per usual. But after 
things settled down, I settled back 
into Simmons.

This second tape starts with 

a much more flamboyant Sim-
mons backed up by a gospel 
choir singing, “Shout!” Before 
I could gain my composure, the 
dancing starts. Already, this 
tape is 100 percent more intense 
than anything the Silver Foxes 
could keep up with. The new 
cast of supporting dancers is 
brightly clad but definitely sec-
ondary characters to Simmons’s 
fabulousness. I’m not sure if 
it’s a year difference (I couldn’t 
actually find the year this video 
was made) or the absence of 
septuagenarians, but Simmons 
definitely expressed his famous 
personality in this video more 
than 
the 
last. 
After 
some 

research, I learned that Sim-
mons has never actually con-
firmed his sexuality, squashing 
my uninformed belief that he 
was some sort of gay icon.

Again, I kept messing up the 

quick movement changes while 
the backup dancers kept up per-
fectly, which led me to ques-
tion how many times they had 
to practice this one-hour rou-
tine without cameras. What if 
someone in the back messes up? 
Do they have to film the whole 
thing over again? This tape has 
literally no breaks, Simmons 
powers through one hour of 
intense dancing without slow-
ing down at all. This tape is also 
significantly more difficult than 
the Silver Foxes — I’m sorry I 
doubted you, Richard. The old-
ies soundtrack naturally made 
me want to dance, and I’m sure 
I could have reached euphoria 
if I weren’t concentrating so 
hard on keeping up with the 
moves. Like the Silver Foxes 
video, there were some weird 
humping maneuvers, this time 
done with less stable eye con-
tact with the camera and more 
vivacity, echoing the younger 
cast of the background dancers. 
Other moves had names like 
“sweating ponies” and “sham 
shammies.” Your guess to what 
those are as good as anyone’s. 

The video’s name did not lie. 

I did sweat, but I did not shout 
because my roommates were 
home and would have been con-
cerned if I had. However, I was 
very out of breath by the time 
the cool down period started. 
Doing weird stretches with my 
arms while the gospel choir 
sang (they came back just for 
the end) was oddly satisfying, 
and I felt a spiritual connection 
to the higher being which is 

Richard Simmons. My potential 
soreness the next day was left to 
be determined.

Day Three: Disco Sweat—

How to lose 15 pounds in two 

weeks

When I stepped out of bed this 

morning, there was an unmistak-
able soreness in my quads from 
my sweating and not-shouting the 
day before. Now with a definite 
sign that these workouts actually 
do something, I culminated my 
three-day experiment with what 
sounded like the hardest Simmons 
workout YouTube has to offer — 
one that guaranteed I would lose 
15 pounds in two weeks, though 
never actually specified how often 
these workouts had to be to accom-
plish this. Once a day? Twice a 
day? I’m unsure.

This time, instead of being a 

recluse in my bedroom vigorously 
dancing alone, I set up the HDMI 
cord in the living room and did the 
workout with my roommate, an 
actual dancer. Though the tapes 
were fun alone, they were defi-
nitely more exhilarating in a group 
setting; I was no longer afraid to 
sing along to the music or “whoop” 
when Simmons did. This was the 
most difficult of the Simmons vid-
eos, and my keeping up with it was 
more than debatable.

We made it a little more than 

halfway through the video, 
slightly after the dance routine 
to “I Will Survive,” when my 
roommate had an epiphany: “I 
HAVE to show you this work-
out video I used to do with my 
mom in our living room.” And 
with that, Richard was hijacked 
and replaced with Billy Blanks’s 
TaeBo workout. Richard, I’m 
so, so sorry. But if your videos 
intentionally had a twinge of 
humor, TaeBo was unintention-
ally the funniest thing I’ve ever 
seen. The background music, 
clearly made for this specific 
workout, made me feel like I was 
in a video game. And though I’m 
sure I would have gotten a fan-
tastic cardio workout with the 
mix of martial arts and aerobics, 
I genuinely could not stop laugh-
ing when Blanks would yell, 
“DOUBLE TIME,” and the room 
would go inexplicitly dark and 
the movements were twice as 
fast, looking like a fever dream. 
We only made it about halfway 
through TaeBo when we both 
called it quits, and I left with an 
unmistakable guilt toward the 
spirit of Richard Simmons.

While I can’t say if I’d 

voluntarily elect to do Simmons 
dance tapes on a regular basis 
again, I understand why people 
do. They’re fun, positive and 
make you feel good about 
yourself. While I’m not sure if 
you’d actually lose 15 pounds in 
two weeks, you probably could 
over a greater length of time, 
because holy smokes, if you put 
all your energy in it you can 
sweat bullets doing these. I’m 
glad I did my little experiment, 
but I think I’ll stick to hot yoga 
after all.

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW

 “I just got here and I think 
I’m losing signal already....
sorry,” says a sepia-toned 
Adele, windswept upon her 
arrival 
to an old, 
abandoned 
house at 
the end of 
a secluded 
country drive. 
 And so we 
enter with her the microcosm 
of a tender, long-hidden 
memory in the balladeer’s 
latest video for “Hello.” This 
abandoned house is a time 
capsule where we relive with 
Adele the narrative of a love 
long lost. Much of the video is 
filmed from the first-person: 
her old boyfriend speaks 

directly to the camera, and 
we see Adele’s hands reaching 
out to him as if they’re the 
viewer’s own. When her ex 
isn’t talking to us, Adele stands 
next to a rusting, ivy-wrapped, 
vintage London telephone 
booth in a sun sprinkled forest 
clearing pouring her heart out, 
a perfect millennial queen.
 Though the narrative 
force behind the video isn’t 
incredibly novel, I call Adele a 
millennial queen for a reason. 
The video is heartbreaking 
but soothing to watch at 
the same time, managing to 
assuage several anxieties of 
the millennial generation. 
The entire thing is saturated 
in nostalgia: the whole video 
is filmed in sepia, Adele is 

visiting an old abandoned 
house, and although there are 
phones in the video, not one of 
them is a Smartphone. Instead 
both Adele and her former 
lover use flip phones — an 
elegy to the 2000s — or corded 
phones in the mysteriously 
placed phone booth or inside 
the house.
 Not only is she letting 
viewers enter a vintage 
fantasy; she’s also overcoming 
other social problems 
prominent in contemporary 
popular media. Adele looks 
absolutely stunning without 
conforming to the standard 
body type of the female 
celebrity, and her ex is 
Black while it’s unfortunate 
that a biracial couple in a 

mainstream music video is 
worth noting, like everything 
else in the video it definitely 
seemed purposeful. All in 
one video, Adele manages 
to answer the millennial 
obsession with nostalgia, 
overcomes unjust expectations 
on women’s bodies, and takes a 
step toward racial equality.
 Though the video doesn’t 
necessarily push artistic 
boundaries, that’s not really 
what Adele is about. She’s 
about the vintage, she’s about 
the nostalgia, and she’s about 
being a champion of capturing 
our emotions. All this she does 
in the video of her latest single, 
“Hello.”

- REGAN DETWILER
XL

B+

Hello

Adele

As freshmen, my friends 

and I giggled abashedly as we 
downloaded the app – only 
to 
swipe 
sarcastically, 
we 

affirmed. Though we stood 
proudly as anti-slut shamers, 
we turned a side-eye to those 
who prowled for casual sex, 
and even more for long-term 
relationships. Especially with 
aggressive pick-up lines like, 
“Your cute wanna fuck?” — 
there has stemmed a sense 
of stigma with its use. News 
sources have criticized the 
app for “ruining romance” and 
inciting the “dawn of the dating 
apocalypse” — pinning culprit 
on the millennials who use it.

Contrarily, in New York City 

this past summer, with a much 
larger swiping vicinity, my 
coworkers’ solution to all my 
dating woes was always, “Have 
you ever tried Tinder?” In the 
Big Apple, dating apps aren’t 
taboo; they’re simply ways to 
make an isolating city intimate, 
a way to meet like-minded 
individuals 
you 
typically 

wouldn’t. In Ann Arbor, with 
less opportunity for mobility, 
stumbling across friends (or 
GSIs) on the app always feels 
too close for comfort.

However, 
John 
Cacioppo, 

a psychology professor at the 
University of Chicago, found 
that more than one third of 
marriages between 2005 and 
2012 started on the Internet. In 
his 2013 study, he ascertained 
that couples who have met 
online 
have 
1.6% 
fewer 

marriage breakups, and also 
higher marriage satisfaction 
ratings.

Currently, the average age for 

first marriage is 27 for women 
and 29 for women – a wedlock 
rate down 10% from just the 
previous generation. Though 
Cacioppo’s 
study 
proved 

positive long-term effects, how 
does online dating fare with 
casual 
relationships 
among 

millennials at a time when they 
aren’t necessarily looking for 
The One?

So, with mixed responses, I 

delved further into the world 
of cyber-romance — warily, 
but with an open mind. For 
the purposes of my study, I 
limited my age range from 22 
to 30, a pool representative 
of 
“millennials” 
— 
mostly 

upperclassmen and recent post-
grads.

On the first night, Tinder’s 

new “super-like” feature landed 
me at Marnee Thai for dinner 
with 
Matt*, 
a 
24-year-old 

University 
graduate 
student 

whom 
I 
found 
physically 

attractive 
enough 
and 
his 

profile intriguing enough to 
reciprocate his super-like.

However, like many stories 

go, his unkempt facial hair 
didn’t quite mirror the carefully 
vetted photos on his profile 
— and his bio’s claim that he 
had studied across Asia didn’t 
actually 
materialize 
itself 

into a cultured personality. 
On “paper” (online), we had 
common interests in travel, 
literature, and art museums — 
but when discussing in depth 
and in person, we realized how 
vague “commonalities” were 
really just dissimilarities.

After our two hour dinner, 

Matt still had no idea where I 
was originally from, what my 
college major was, what my 
career aspirations were — no 
details about my family, friends 
or hobbies. While I attempted 

to reciprocate genuine curiosity 
about his life in response 
to his online “super-like,” I 
never felt his real-life interest 
reciprocated back.

Had Matt and I initially met 

each other in person, it would 
have 
been 
evident 
within 

the first five minutes that we 
couldn’t be well-suited romantic 
partners. We wouldn’t have 
wasted time over a superficial 
dinner or poured effort into 
online impression management. 
However, offline — in person — 
we probably wouldn’t have had 
the chance to meet each other in 
the first place.

My Bumble, Hinge, OkCupid 

and Coffee Meets Bagel dates 
all ensued in a similar fashion 
— with men where there was 
fleeting cyber infatuation, but 
little chemistry in real life. 
Our lack of connection wasn’t 
necessarily due to a deficiency 
on my or their part. Rather, it 
was simply a lack of social and 
dispositional compatibility that 
a mobile app couldn’t possibly 
discern with six photos and a 
three-line bio.

On day two, I tried Hinge. 

While all the apps paired 
by 
proximity, 
Hinge 
took 

similarity-pairing to another 
level – matching based on 
mutual Facebook friends — 
forming connections that could 
very well be made in person in 
real life. My coffee date with 
Patrick*, a 23-year-old recent 
University grad who shared 
few acquaintances, didn’t incite 
any romantic sparks, but we 
found a platonic affability from 
which we could keep in touch as 
friends.

After OkCupid and Coffee 

Meets Bagel, I had swiped 
through many of the same 
men across the different apps. 
I felt like I had small-talked 
all of Ann Arbor to the point 
where I copied and pasted the 
same responses to the same 
stale questions: What was I 
for Halloween? Did I have a 
favorite travel destination? Did 
I want to come over that night 
at 11 p.m.?

On day five, I explored Bum-

ble, an app founded by Whitney 
Wolfe, the sole female cofound-
er of Tinder, one year after she 
sued her original company for 
sexual harassment. Inspired by 
Wolfe’s experiences with sex-
ism, Bumble contests tradition-
al gender conventions by giving 
females 24 hours to initiate 
conversation before their match 
disappears. Though the men on 
the app should presumably be 
comfortable with women mak-
ing the first move, I received 
comments calling out my “con-
fidence,” “assertive” nature and 
“forward” personality. After 
lunch with Logan*, a 25-year-
old model from London, he 
“teased” that I should pick up 
the bill — because that’s what a 
“feminist Bumble-user like (my)
self would do, right?” Though I 
generally have no issue paying 
on dates, I want my generosity 
to stem from pleasure instead of 
obligation. The criticisms that 
dating apps favored men more 
evidently peaked through.

By day six, I reached my final 

app: the dreaded Match.com. 
Notoriously a serious platform 
geared toward a middle-aged 
demographic, I worried about 
finding men in my 22-30 range. 
Unlike the five free mobile 
apps I tried, Match thoroughly 
vetted potential candidates — 
down to the minutest of prefer-
ences in both appearance and 
personality.

First and foremost, I real-

ized how appearance profiles 
weren’t based on reality — but 
rather on the confidence (or 
cockiness) with one chose to 
convey oneself. Some response 
options to the “body type” ques-
tion included: “slender,” “ath-
letic and toned,” “heavyset” and 
“a few extra pounds.” Not only 
did I have to classify myself, 
but I also had to preference the 
physique of my ideal date — as 
well as the option to make body 
type a “deal-breaker” quality. 
However, even if I demanded 
an “athletic and toned” man, I 
would only end up with some-
one who deemed himself wor-
thy of that title.

I knew I reached a red flag 

zone 
when 
inquired 
about 

my marriage history, poten-
tial children and current sal-
ary – queries rarely of careful 
contemplation to a millennial 
audience. Perhaps more dis-
turbingly, the site forced me to 
preference his relationship sta-
tus and salary range (in case I 
wanted to date a married father 
or a Sugar Daddy).

Ultimately, though I value 

Match’s careful selection pro-
cess, the site certainly revealed 
the discriminatory side of dat-
ing apps. Match.com forced 
me to be picky — but in super-
ficial terms of appearance and 
financial worth. By the end, 
both parties would have quite 
comprehensive outlines of their 
personalities and lifestyles – 
the good, the bad, and the ugly 
up for interpretation.

After navigating through the 

“winks,” “likes” and “faves” 
the site offers, I deemed one 
message 
worthy 
of 
pursu-

ing: Connor* was 29, but his 
photos coddled puppies and 
his four paragraph biography 
detailed his adventures around 
38 countries in the past year. 
His hobbies included tea, yoga, 
and simply, “massage.” I never 
would have imagined I’d be on 
a Match.com date, but there we 
sat at Mani Osteria with our 
napkins in our laps and pizza 
fresh on our plates. Compared 
to the previous five dates, it was 
actually the most pleasant, per-
haps because our similarities 
were so carefully vetted.

However, while all five of the 

apps I tried are free, Match puts 
a $16.99 per month price tag on 
the elusive concept of love — 
which consequently heightens 
the desperation to find romance 
when attached to a financial 
investment. For its target demo-
graphic, Match may be worth 
the pretty penny — but for a 
generation that isn’t looking for 
Mr. or Mrs. Right, it seems silly 
to make a monetary transaction 
for a relationship.

Another 
observation: 
dat-

ing apps bred a desperation I 
never knew I had. As a college 
senior planning to move across 
the country soon, I rarely 
yearn for romantic commit-
ment or even companionship 
at this point. However, after 
just one week perusing six dif-
ferent online sites, I developed 
a vicious addiction to checking 
and rechecking for matches — 
a guilty pleasure in selectively 
replying to messages as it gave 
me a sense of ownership over 
my dating life.

Ultimately, these are all my 

singular experiences with the 
apps — neither representative of 
all experiences, nor my future 
luck on the same apps.

A week before my experi-

ment, I had given my friends 
the task of finding me a blind 
date — a match made the “old 
fashioned” way. After seven 

DATING APPS
From Page 1B

RICHARD SIMMONS
From Page 1B

entire days, they returned with 
text messages from their male 
friends:

“Lol a blind date? That’s so 

weird.”

“#tbt to the 19th century.”
“How would I know she’s not 

a monster or a serial killer?”

All these messages came 

before even seeing my photo or 
learning any personal details.

Though I expected real-life 

match-making to occur much 
more organically than any app 
encounter, the guys in real life 
seemed to make the situation 
far more awkward (and frus-

trating) than any initial mes-
sage on Tinder or Match.com. 
They may often be labeled as for 
the “desperate” or the “thirsty,” 
but apps have become more 
popular for dating, regardless 
of how stigmatized.

In real life, initial face-to-

face conversations with crush-
es are (and always have been) 
clunky and terse. Perhaps the 
issue 
with 
“the 
millennial 

generation” is not that we’re 
“flighting from conversation,” 
but that we’ve reconstructed 
methods of communication to 
make us feel more comfortable 

– and in turn, make us more 
approachable.

In real life, there’s no way 35 

“matches” could (or want) to 
pine after me. Online, it’s easy 
to feel wanted — lusted after in 
the moment. However, the fal-
lacy of reality is that the initial 
desire often dissipates when 
online chemistry doesn’t trans-
late outside of cyberspace.

Ultimately, 
the 
goal 
of 

any relationship is to build 
a connection. Does it matter 
whether that’s done through 
a mutual friend or through an 
online venue?

