The stakes of putting yourself out there are different when doing so entails sharing your geographical location with the world. Was occasional profanity still acceptable? But while such concerns apply to all social media, Strava poses a unique challenge. As a Puma-sponsored Olympic athlete, Seidel inevitably became a little more self-conscious about what she posted. On the one hand, that might just be part of the deal when you acquire a large public platform. This is nothing against Strava, but the number of people has been kind of overwhelming, so it’s lost some of that fun-ness.” “I think I’ve always been someone who is very open and honest about my training and my life, but it’s easier to do that when not a whole lot of people are paying attention. “Over the last two years, it’s changed so much,” Seidel says. After she became famous overnight as the newly minted Olympian who worked as a babysitter and barista, it became more difficult for her to maintain a low-key profile on the app. Seidel says she started using Strava years ago, when she was still undecided about her future as a pro runner, as a way for her to connect with the Boston running community. Sometimes, however, such prestige comes at a price. Canadian Running proclaimed that Seidel was “the new Queen of Strava.” When Seidel posted her Olympic bronze medal-winning performance on Strava (title: “full send in Sapporo”) it received the most “kudos” for a women’s activity in the history of the app. Olympic Trials, she has accrued a considerable following-220,000 followers on Instagram and 68,000 on Strava-supplementing her superhuman athletic feats with an affable, runner-next-door internet persona. Ever since her surprise second place finish in the 2020 U.S.
Last month, the Olympic bronze medalist and longtime Strava user announced on Instagram that she would be making most of her runs private “to be more respectful of my own sanity.” This was news, in part, because Seidel is the embodiment of a successful distance runner in the social media era. Needless to say, it isn’t only soldiers and clandestine operatives who have an interest in keeping their “patterns of life” discreet. The Pentagon eventually issued a memo curtailing the use of GPS-enabled fitness apps in sensitive locations. Meanwhile, a Wired article suggested that the app made it easier to track the so-called “patterns of life” of the intelligence community. A Guardian article noted that the platform was potentially divulging “extremely sensitive information” about troops stationed in Syria and Afghanistan.
Although there was no evidence that the safety of military personnel had been compromised, the media coverage at the time was damning. Back in January 2018, the fitness app Strava got some unwanted publicity when its heatmap feature allegedly revealed the locations of covert military bases.
0 kommentar(er)
