Hydrodipping: The 'Redneck' Artform Taking YouTube by Storm

Hydrodipped helmets. Image: ACE Hydrographics

Hydrodipping, a colloquial term that refers to using water transfer printing to apply colorful designs to three-dimensional surfaces, has quickly gone from a niche hobby to a viral trend. If you’re an avid hunter or outdoorsman, you’ve almost assuredly seen guns, boots, antlers, skulls, and other paraphernalia colored via this process. And even if you’re not, you’ve still probably seen a few hydrodipping YouTube videos, some of which have millions of views.

“Hydrodipping is a rad effect, an ingenious way to print on a 3D surface,” Pittsburgh-based illustrator Emily Traynor told me.

The process was developed by engineers in Japan during the early 1980s as a way of taking two-dimensional images from pieces of film and spreading them evenly across objects. The film, which had been gravure-printed with the image, is dissolved in the water. After the item getting hydrodripped is submerged, the image on the film curves around the item’s surfaces.

Hydrodipping has become especially popular in rural communities where hunting and recreational gun use have long been part of the culture—hence the existence of companies with names like Redneck Hydrographics and Redneck Dippers Hydrographics. As far as start-up costs go, a hydrodipping operation is a safer, more inexpensive proposition than many other small businesses: would-be owners can expect to spend around $10,000 to $15,000 on a water tank, film, paint, activating solution, spray guns, and an air compressor. Many larger hydrographics operations, such as Pennsylvania Hydrographics, host training seminars and also act as suppliers to smaller firms, selling these items in bulk.

“It’s something I can do in addition to car body work; there’s a lot of overlap and I can store my materials in the same place. Out where I am, I would say that most hydrodip requests I get are for firearms and hunting trophies—bones and skulls and stuff,” said Jacob Arenetti, who runs ACE Hydrographics out of his father-in-law’s car repair garage in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania. “But you can hydrodip most anything, from mining helmets to engagement rings, and of course I’ll dip it if the money is right. How it turns out varies a lot based on the size and shape of what you’re dipping...it’s not the best idea to hydrodip a golf cart in camo, I don’t think, but if that’s what you want, so be it.”

Ryan Christie, an army veteran and gun owner who lives in Southwestern Pennsylvania, expressed strong approval for hydrodipped art. “I guess it’s very much a hillbilly thing, a redneck thing, but like with any kind of art that develops this way, there are good examples and bad ones. I’ve seen some stupid stuff, but I’ve seen plenty of amazing designs, too.”

When asked why so many hydrodipping videos on YouTube have millions of views, Arenetti stressed the visual nature of the medium. “It isn’t slow, like painting a picture. It’s very dynamic. Processes that are dynamic, like throwing a clay pot or hydrodipping...people will want to watch that.”

Christie echoed Arenetti’s assessment. “You see an AR-15 go in after the tank is all set up, you wait, and then it emerges and it’s coated in the Confederate battle flag. I mean, it’s pretty close to magical, I’d say. You look at what goes viral on YouTube—trick shots, weird fails, amazing guns being fired, surprising feats of human ability—and it’s all stuff that triggers the part of our brains that is very primitive. We respond instinctively to it.”

“I’m all for it,” Arenetti added. “Watch those videos as much as you want, then get your own stuff hydrodipped. We want the business.”

from Hydrodipping: The 'Redneck' Artform Taking YouTube by Storm

John Cena May No Longer Be the King of Wrestling, But He Rules Instagram

Have Reddit Users Discovered the Perfect Exercise Regimen?

Reddit is a place for answers. Not all of these answers are correct, but they are numerous, covering nearly every subject from Dota 2 strategy to underground steroid purchases. And on r/bodyweightfitness, users have joined forces to answer a question being asked by millions of people making their New Year’s exercise resolutions: What is the perfect workout?

The result is an extremely convenient, bodyweight-oriented solution to a mystery that has sold billions of dollars of fitness books, gym memberships, and equipment. Their program, as outlined in this video by YouTube fitness celebrity (and leading r/bodyweightfitness poster) Antranik, consists of three hour-long workouts that utilize simple movements such as planks, l-sits, handstands, and pull-ups—time-tested exercises that trainees were doing in 19th-century gymnasiums. The regimen is intended to be progressive, meaning that trainees will hold these poses for longer amounts of time or perform additional repetitions as they develop greater strength and flexibility.

First-time posters on r/bodyweightfitness typically describe themselves as out of shape and lacking access to a gym or information about fitness and nutrition. For individuals with such limited means and low starting skill levels, the workout would be effective, Equinox trainer Jason Strong told Motherboard. “I watched Antranik’s video and I must say I am impressed,” he said. “The workout is simple but thoroughly thought out. The progressions and regressions are very important. The breakdown of the workout is smart and follows traditional procedures--warm-up, skill movements, strength--and I love the prerequisite to move on to pull-ups. Now, if this is all you ever did, it is lacking rotational movements and stretching, but I do like it.”

Anthony Roberts, a fitness journalist and trainer, agreed with Strong’s assessment but cautioned that the absence of weight training from the workout would slow and eventually limit a trainee’s ability to continue developing total-body strength.

“Bodyweight or gymnastics movements will get you better at those types of movements,” he told Motherboard. “The disadvantage is that without using an external load such as a barbell or kettlebell, you're limited to your bodyweight. You're unlikely to get very big or terribly strong with this kind of training, but you can certainly attain an athletic build on just bodyweight exercises. And this routine has a minimal barrier to entry, as it requires no equipment or gym membership. Plenty of guys in prison develop very respectable physiques with just bodyweight training. But 100 percent of them would have better physiques if they had access to weights.”

Ryan Johnston, who co-founded Panther CrossFit at the University of Pittsburgh, stressed that no single workout regimen will prove effective for all trainees. “Many people are just looking for someone to tell them an exact routine to do so they can start doing it tonight and tomorrow,” he said. “The great thing about computers is that they take a lot of cognitive load from humans and allow us to do things with our brain that are easier and more fun to do. The bad thing is is that we're so used to getting our answers from them now that we forget we don't need them to do simple addition.”

Even so, for out-of-shape novices looking to drop a few inches and pounds, a one-size-fits-all workout is way better than nothing.

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Google Users Can’t Stop Searching for the Ketogenic Diet

At nutrition industry trade shows such as the Arnold Classic in Columbus, Ohio, and the Olympia Fitness & Performance Expo in Las Vegas, one term has bulked larger than all the others: “ketogenic diet.”

The ketogenic diet, several versions of which placed among Google’s top 2016 search terms for diets, entails eating high-fat, low-carbohydrate foods while moderating the consumption of protein. Although some form of this diet has existed for centuries, the modern version of the ketogenic diet was developed during the 1920s and was successfully used to treat patients who suffered from epilepsy.

Anthony Roberts, a fitness journalist and co-author of Anabolic Steroids: Ultimate Research Guide, highlighted the ketogenic diet’s long history as a way of explaining its recent resurgence. “It’s an old diet—it’s essentially the Atkins Diet,” he told Motherboard. “These new variants are perhaps a little more extreme, but the foundation for the diet has already been laid over the past half century. People already have a considerable amount of intellectual currency in terms of the diet, so it's easily understood. Combine that with the fact that results are immediate for most people, and we have the perfect storm for a viral diet.”

Quest Nutrition co-founder Tom Bilyeu concurs. “You have to have a ketogenic product line—that’s where everything is going, and rightly so—and we’re at the forefront of that,” he said to a gathering of reporters at last year’s Mr. Olympia Expo. “And we have the full complement of items ready to go: high-fat, low-calories cookies and chips that will cause the body to burn fat reserves even as they keep you satiated.”

Quest, which prides itself on being at the cutting edge of nutrition research, believes that American diets are far too calorie-rich because calories are far too inexpensive. “We’re going to raise the cost per calorie to starve our customers,” Quest co-founder Ron Penna told Motherboard. “It sounds awful when you put it like that, but it’s for their own good. You don’t need 2,000 calories a day to be at your best; in fact, research shows that significant calorie restriction is the key to life extension.”

Anthony Roberts emphasized that market imperatives, not humanitarian ideals, best explain this rapid transition toward ketogenic foods. “Remember all of those absurd fat free products of the 1990s through the 2000s? That was a multi-billion dollar industry. Now that keto dieting is big, we have another multi-billion dollar industry in the works, and a lot of vested financial interests working to keep their low/no-carb profits rolling in,” he said.

And the Google search statistics appear to substantiate Roberts’ claim. People who have resolved to improve their health and fitness in 2017 are looking for the next panacea, and the ketogenic diet seems primed to fill that bill. So as you shop for healthier foods on the internet, rest assured that nutrition companies will have plenty of high-fat ketogenic solutions available for you to purchase.

from Google Users Can’t Stop Searching for the Ketogenic Diet

Melanotan II Gives Us What We Always Wanted: Dark Tans and Powerful Erections

If the two things you can’t live without are a dark, even tan and a fast-acting, long-lasting erection, then add Melanotan II to your holiday shopping list. This synthetic peptide hormone, which was developed by a research team at the University of Arizona during the late 1990s, darkens skin pigment and may stimulate erectile activity. And despite continued concern and controversy within the medical community regarding its use, it remains available for sale over the internet in a powdered form that can then be reconstituted for subcutaneous injections.

Melanotan II first captured the public’s imagination when the mainstream media briefly touted it as a Viagra-like panacea for middle-aged men. Norman Levine, a dermatologist who led the team that developed the drug, had first conducted experiments in which he darkened the pigments of frogs by injecting them with a hormone called Alpha MSH. After Melanotan II was modified for human use and put through clinical trials, Levine reported that “one very astute observer who took this drug told us that he was developing spontaneous erections.”

During the 2000s, the Melanotan II peptide and the metabolite derived from it, the erectile dysfunction-focused Bremelanotide (also known as PT-141), were patented and then licensed to biotechnology companies hoping to develop them into profitable prescription drugs. However, these companies also offer the peptides for direct sale to researchers. These transactions occupy a legal gray area, since the peptides are banned for human use outside clinical trials. While they can be purchased from various websites specializing in research chemicals, the purchaser usually has to affirm prior to final sale that the peptide “will not be used for human consumption” and is being acquired for “research purposes only.”

Although obtaining Melanotan II and Bremelanotide is relatively easy to do, both substances come in powder form and then must be reconstituted using sterile water prior to subcutaneous injection—a method of administration that can cause lead to skin bruising, cross-contamination, or infection, if the person performing the injection is inexperienced and the syringe isn’t clean.

Despite those drawbacks, both Melanotan and Bremelanotide now enjoy considerable popularity within certain subcultures, such as the “gay muscle” scene.

“You’ve got this stuff, particularly PT-141—which causes you to want to have sex with everybody and everything—really making the rounds,” bodybuilder Zander Wiebe told Motherboard. “People are incorporating it into their sex parties, along with other performance-enhancing drugs.”

Research substantiates Wiebe’s anecdotal claims. Melanotan.org, a forum dedicated to the peptide that shut down in 2011, had thousands of regular posters, many of whom have since migrated to other discussion boards. In 2009, a BBC report tracking just six needle exchanges found that hundreds of individuals had visited these exchanges in order to receive syringes for Melanotan II use. A year later, the Norwegian Pharmacy Association disclosed that, in Norway alone, several thousand syringes had been distributed to individuals seeking to inject the peptide. Linn Connie Danielsen, a model and blogger, told the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gangthat Melanotan II helps ease the stressful impact of extended winter sun deprivation. “A nice tan in the winter is good to see,” she said.

However, the Food and Drug Administration and its equivalents in other countries have issued repeated advisory notices about Melanotan II, urging consumers to stop using and purchasing this unapproved product. David Carter of the United Kingdom’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency was unequivocal in his denunciation, warning would-be buyers against being “fooled into thinking that Melanotan offers a shortcut to a more even tan.” Liverpool John Moores University researcher Michael Evans-Brown cautioned that the peptide may be linked to dyspepsia and various cardiovascular problems, such as increases in blood pressure, while others have noted it appears to stimulate the growth of moles on the body.

Robert Love, a urologist in Dallas, understands why there is such back-channel demand for a product like Melanotan II. “People sometimes want to handle performance issues on their own, without a physician involved, either because they are embarrassed or because they may be uninsured or lack adequate insurance,” he told Motherboard. “Handling things this way is not advisable. We have prescription drugs that address erectile dysfunction issues. And although this isn’t my area, there are alternative ways of getting suntans—tanning beds, spray tans—though of course extended outdoor sun exposure should be avoided if possible.”

For people like Zander Wiebe, however, pleasure will always remain the top priority. “For a lot of folks, it’s all about having the best time in their bodies that they possibly can,” he said.

from Melanotan II Gives Us What We Always Wanted: Dark Tans and Powerful Erections

Why Trump Tagged Linda McMahon to Lead Small Business Administration

If there were any lingering doubts about the close relationship between the reality TV presidency of Donald Trump and the unreal world of pro wrestling, the appointment of former WWE CEO Linda McMahon to head the Small Business Administration ought to erase them.

Linda McMahon and her husband Vince have long supported Trump’s activities, co-promoting events with him and donating millions to the Donald J. Trump foundation between 2004 and 2014. Trump, for his part, contributed to her two failed Connecticut senate campaigns and has even served as an in-ring adversary for Vince McMahon, shaving the musclebound billionaire’s head at WrestleMania 23.

Given the WWE’s sometimes questionable business practices and McMahon’s own free-market and limited-government beliefs, her appointment to head a government agency with a $700 million dollar budget will likely further upset those already critical of the lobbyists, political insiders, and far-right journalists who have joined Trump’s administration. Aside from her two losing bids for the Senate, which she financed with $50 million of her own money, McMahon’s government experience consists of a year spent on the Connecticut Board of Education.

The SBA offers government-backed loans to individuals hoping to start small businesses, including tech start-ups through its Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer initiatives. It also ensures that small businesses receive consideration for prime federal contracts, with a special emphasis placed on awarding contracts to women and service-disabled veterans. The libertarian-leaning Cato Institute has harshly criticized both programs, describing the loans awarded by the former as “corporate welfare for the banking industry” and the latter as benefitting “a relatively tiny number of small businesses at the expense of the vast majority.”

Linda McMahon, who like her husband Vince grew up in eastern North Carolina, graduated from East Carolina University and then endured many lean years before the couple purchased the family wrestling business in 1982. In 2010, McMahon told Business Insider that her experiences during that period, which included a bankruptcy and a stint on food stamps, allowed her to empathize with the struggles of working-class individuals. “It’s humiliating,” she said of her time on government assistance.

As for the many health and safety complaints lodged by WWE wrestlers—independent contractors who pay for their own travel expenses and who are usually forced to go without insurance or purchase their own—McMahon has repeatedly said that the company addresses these problems internally, thereby making government regulation or oversight of the industry unnecessary. The various reforms undertaken by the WWE over the past decade include a ban on blading (intentionally bleeding during matches) and direct chair shots to the head, improved concussion protocols, and a much-improved drug testing program for full-time wrestlers. Last month, a Connecticut judge dismissed two wrongful death lawsuits brought against the WWE by attorney Konstantine Kyros on behalf of Nelson (King Mabel) Frazier and Matthew (Doink the Clown) Osborne, though other cases filed by Kyros are still pending.

The WWE, a publicly traded corporation of which the McMahons own a controlling 52% stake, has experienced significant fluctuations in its stock price since 2014, when it moved from a pay-per-view business model to one based on subscriptions to its streaming WWE Networkservice. However, the recent sale of the UFC for $4 billion dollars suggests that the WWE, which also reports annual revenue in the $600 million range, could be worth as much as $3.5 billion. According to the Stamford Advocate, the WWE now employs 840 employees, not counting the 100 or so wrestlers on its roster (who are, like tech and writing freelancers, classified as independent contractors).

Long-time wrestling observers were unsurprised by this move, given the extent and duration of Trump’s relationship with the McMahons. “This is yet another sign people should be looking to us for Trump analysis,” wrestling blogger Jim Jividen told Motherboard. “If anyone out there understands the perils awaiting an organization run by a grandstanding millionaire who should be a billionaire, along with his doofus son-in-law, it’s a wrestling fan.”

from Why Trump Tagged Linda McMahon to Lead Small Business Administration

Why Personal Trainers May Not Be Immune from Automation

On a recent episode of the Fitcast podcast, guest Steven Ledbetter made a bold assertion: most people who were interested in getting fit were buying health monitors and downloading fitness apps rather than joining gyms.

Ledbetter, the CEO of the motivational coaching service company Habitry, characterized this state of affairs as nothing short of an “app-pocalypse.” “People are investing in products rather than services,” he told Motherboard, noting that a billion-plus fitness app downloads far exceeds the number of individuals looking to join gyms or hire personal trainers. “The already underpaid trainers at big globo-gyms like LA Fitness are in real trouble, once companies collect the data needed to develop apps that can effectively program workouts and motivate clients. I hate to say this, since I’m a coach, but one-on-one coaching is inefficient; most of us would rather learn from and work with a robot.”

Taken at face value, Ledbetter’s prediction may lead one to believe that the personal training industry, like so many others, is on the cusp of total Uberization. But trainers at elite facilities doubt that their own jobs are at risk, given the many subtle adjustments in technique and volume that serious trainees must make from workout to workout. “If you need results, you hire a real live pro,” personal trainer Jason Strong told Motherboard. “Top gyms look to schools with great exercise science and kinesiology programs for recruits, and my own company, Equinox, works closely with UCLA regarding research in physiology and nutrition.”

Anthony Roberts, a fitness journalist and co-author of Anabolic Steroids: Ultimate Research Guide, has followed the industry for two decades and heard more than his fair share of exaggerated claims. “Personal training will always be around,” he said, “and having access to online information is no different than a decade ago, when you could pick up a bodybuilding magazine on the newsstand. When Muscle & Fitness published a 12 week beginners routine, nobody said ‘welp, I guess nobody needs a personal trainer anymore…’”

Instead, Roberts believes that most apps and other online training aids will continue to operate in a complementary manner, even as their reach becomes ever more widespread. “I don't know if apps are making a huge difference in terms of giving people a workout to follow or whatever. I don't see that trending. It’s not going to be automated like that. But online training has already far surpassed in-person training for all but specialty areas. CrossFit brags about being open source, and they post a daily workout - anyone can go to the main site and follow it. Lots of people do that.”

Daniel Thomas, a trainer at CrossFit Thames, also doesn’t see personal training ever becoming fully automated, in the manner of a driverless Uber vehicle. “When I see the phrase ‘Uberize,’ I’m thinking more of an an on-demand service,” he told Motherboard. “A lot of personal training programming and nutrition programming from what I've seen is being done remotely. An app like TruBe or UrbanMassage lets you request a service on demand, for personal training or massage—which is fine as long as the trainers and therapists are experienced.”

Both Anthony Roberts and Jason Strong cautioned that a truly “Uberized” fitness program would have to address many possible problems, such as the continuity of trainers. An individual couldn’t simply request a random trainer each day of the week, as they might an Uber driver, and expect to make progressive improvements or receive accurate assessments (Working Against Gravity, one of the fastest-growing Uber-style services with weekly check-ins and 24/7 coaching support, attempts to address all of this). “The biggest place I’ve actually seen the Uberizing is in meal prep,” Roberts said. “People are getting all of their weekly meals delivered now. They can get to work on Monday, and before noon, someone brings them a week’s worth of lunches.”

Steven Ledbetter is confident that new and improved apps will bring fitness know-how to those tens of millions of Americans who are not among the nation’s two million exercise enthusiasts. Nevertheless, fitness app creators are facing an uphill battle: many of the past century’s fitness crazes, from jogging to bodybuilding, have marketed themselves via widely disseminated do-it-yourself publications and peripherals that ultimately had little lasting impact. Similarly, many of today’s one-size-fits-all apps fail to make appropriate use the best practices in behavior change theory. In fact, the only area that has witnessed truly exceptional, sustained growth is the market for selling exercise apparel—today dubbed “athleisure,” and an essential part of many millennial wardrobes—to a relatively sedentary population.

Therein lies the solution, Ledbetter contends. “Once data-collecting companies like Google can get properly-designed automated coaching inside the clothing—and look, Nike has already partnered with Apple, which also specializes in data collection, so this is underway—we’re going to see some major changes in how the majority of the population works out, especially among that large class of people who don’t already go to gyms.”

from Why Personal Trainers May Not Be Immune from Automation