by Christian Duque
It isn’t quite 1984 – it’s worse! If you don’t get my George Orwell reference, 1984 was a book written about a future where Big Brother saw everything. Big Brother was code for cameras and some sort of machine keeping tabs on the rest of society. but never would Orwell have imagined what life would be like in the here and now.
There are cameras absolutely everywhere. There are alleged traffic cameras that only monitor traffic but I always wonder if they’re secretly recording. There’s cameras in pretty much every store you walk into for loss prevention purposes. There are cameras at courthouses, airports, I mean the list is pretty much endless. And of course we can’t forget about gyms.
Look at what happened to Wes Watson here recently when he had the novel idea of facing off against a man who wanted a one-on-one fight using the help of weapons and co-defendants. Now maybe Wes Watson isn’t the brightest bulb in the pack, but his flimsy self-defense story didn’t hold water for very much more than a couple of days. As soon as the real video surfaced, and as soon as a real reporter like Jon Bravo got involved, it was only a question of time until the real story got out. The real video footage, the real police report, etc. The reality of the matter is Mr Watson and his soon-to-be co-defendants will be implicated criminally and more than likely civilly as well.
You can’t beat down a man with weapons while he screams in agony and tries to get away all the while on his knees without there being witnesses and some kind of documentation to haunt you for the rest of your God-given life. And this is the reason for this article. It’s for anyone that may succumb to roid rage or maybe people that are just assholes to begin with who think they can push around the weak and the vulnerable without ever paying the consequences. There are video cameras at large, populated expos as well. We have seen this over the years where fights have broken out and criminal charges may or may not come as a result.
It’s a different time. Not to say that the time when beatings of this nature were met with no consequences were the good old days. I have never been one to glorify violence. I condemn it and I especially condemn it when it isn’t a fair fight. Anytime you need numbers against an individual or you have to rely on weapons to win a fight, you now are no longer just a guy looking to settle a score. You’re now a criminal. And I personally don’t like criminals in bodybuilding.
At the end of the day we can no longer look for the best in humanity. It’s been a long time since fights were resolved man to man. Because men are a dying breed in our society. I mean you have people like Wes Watson that are talking about manhood but not practicing what they preach. Back in the day if you got into a fight with another man and you lost, then you lived to fight another day. You didn’t hit somebody with a weapon and then beat on them when they could no longer fight. That’s not what being a man is all about. And the idea that this guy sells motivational programs and helps people become better men is laughable. This guy has no business preaching manhood as he can’t even fight fair and square.
The reality of the matter is it may sound like I have a gripe with Watson but he’s not the only one. There are plenty of other poor excuses for men in our sport. Sadly, I wish I was talking about mainstream society but I’m talking about our little niche. Our little corner of the world is plagued with punks. It used to be that bodybuilding was about hard-working people that followed the straight and narrow. Now, it’s like bums of the world unite.
We used to have police officers, military veterans, firefighters and union workers. We used to have paramedics and doctors and engineers. The one common denominator was muscle. The one common denominator was a focus on nutrition and sound supplementation. But all of a sudden we find ourselves surrounded by a bunch of gangbangers, hustlers, and society’s rejects. Since when did we attract this scum into our sport?
I would love to advocate for better values. I would love to advocate for a return to the way things used to be but that ship has long sailed. A lot of these people don’t know what honor is all about. They may tattoo the word on themselves, they might put it on their t-shirt, they might talk about it in their stupid videos for Instagram and YouTube, but they haven’t the faintest idea what it’s all about. Fortunately, society isn’t totally fucked.
The eye in the sky keeps us all honest. The eye in the sky can’t get jammed or broken. Most of these cameras could survive a nuclear onslaught. You can’t punch them out or disconnect them, either. They don’t run on batteries like everything else. The eye in the sky keeps everyone honest because it’s always rolling, it’s always filming. And nowadays it doesn’t even require actual film. It’s all digital. There is no video to change. There is no video that (inadvertently) will get filmed over. It’s like anything you put on the internet. you can try to erase, but good luck with that. Once it’s online – it’s there forever. The same thing with digital video. You’re not going to get rid of it. It’s not going to get lost. Even if someone tries to intentionally lose it, there’s always a back-up, there’s always a black carbon copy somewhere.
No matter where you go, from a GNC to a gym to a fitness expo, maybe even to a bodybuilding show, chances are you’re being recorded. And thankfully everybody has a smartphone in their pocket. If there is a fight, especially one that isn’t fair, you can rest assured someone’s filming with their phone.
There was a time when contest promoters tried to get people to leave their phones in their car or have their phones turned off. The days of regulating phone usage are over. You don’t have any right as a promoter or as a business owner to tell people to turn their phones off. People live on their phones nowadays. It’s how their loved ones stay in touch, it’s how their employers stay in touch, it’s how they monitor their bank accounts and their credit cards. There isn’t anybody who’s going to turn off their phone in 2025. And thankfully, phones have some of the best photographic and video-graphic capabilities. More so than any other device. In fact , influencers no longer use camcorders or even Go Pro’s. They have their phones.
Phones nowadays can shoot in 4k, they can shoot some of the most detailed photos. And every single person that has a phone can contribute to that eye in the sky vibe. But more than the eye in the sky, a person with their phone can not only record, but they can publish it to the internet faster than you can snap your fingers. And once it’s online – there’s a record that cannot be argued with.
Have you ever tried cross examining a video? If it’s admissible, your goose is cooked. Everyone from the jury to the judge to the media waiting for the evidence to become public will be waiting in line to see it. If you’ve done something wrong, you’re going to pay for it. And that’s thanks to the eye in the sky and that piece of technology that everyone has in their pocket nowadays. Maybe we can’t revive old school principles, but we can memorialize wrongdoing and those that commit it – will pay.
What’s your take on cameras, phones, and the fact that it’s harder than ever for bad people to get away with bad acts? As always, I hope you enjoyed reading my article, here, at Iron Magazine. I look forward to reading your feedback in the comments. Please consider copying and pasting a link to this article for all your social media feeds. It is surely going to draw up great conversation.
