{"id":34861,"date":"2025-07-31T11:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T11:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/34861\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T11:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T11:57:13","slug":"fitness-influencer-joey-swoll-quitting-social-media-his-i-am-done-message-sparks-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/34861\/","title":{"rendered":"Fitness Influencer Joey Swoll quitting social media? His \u2018I am done\u2019 message sparks concern"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Joey Swoll, a popular fitness influencer and CEO of Gym Positivity, has announced he’s leaving social media, and it all started with a tribute video to wrestling legend Hulk Hogan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Joey Joey Swoll, a fitness influencer, is leaving social media following backlash for honoring Hulk Hogan.(Instagram\/Joey Swoll) <\/p>\n

When news of Hogan\u2019s death broke, Swoll reposted an old video of himself dressed as the wrestler, complete with bicep curls and iconic poses. Soon, backlash erupted as critics pointed to Hogan\u2019s past controversies, accusing Swoll of ignoring those aspects.<\/p>\n

He defended the video on TikTok. \u201cJust because a person made some mistakes in their life, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be recognized for the positive things they’ve done as well,\u201d he said during a livestream. That livestream, however, included where he used the word \u201ccolored,\u201d which only intensified criticism.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ| Woman deletes tweet celebrating Hulk Hogan\u2019s death after severe backlash: \u2018Karma will find you, it won’t be kind\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

After viral apology, Swoll walks away from social media<\/p>\n

Within days, Swoll posted an emotional apology, acknowledging, \u201cI\u2019ve done a lot of research and learned all of the horrible things that man has done.\u201d He then stunned followers with a quiet but final announcement: a story on Instagram declaring he was quitting social media for good.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the good I’ve done, all the people I’ve helped, all for nothing. I truly hope all the people I’ve inspired do great things in their life and pay it forward to help others and carry on my message,\u201d his post read. \u201cBut no matter how much good you do, people just wait for a reason to hate you and tear you down. You either die a hero, or live long enough to be the villain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you for your support. I am done,\u201d he concluded. The post quickly went viral both on X and Instagram, with over 10 million views on Elon Musk’s platform.<\/p>\n

Swoll, who built a following of over 13 million across platforms by standing up to \u201cgym creeps\u201d and preaching respect.<\/p>\n

While some believe the farewell was posted due to emotional exhaustion, others speculate he might just need time away.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ| Who is Sarah Rockwell? Alachua Schools’ board chair under fire for celebrating Hulk Hogan’s death<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYour first mistake was apologizing. Your second mistake is giving up. Just post your way out of it,\u201d X based journalist Collin Rugg commented.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were reactive and on top of your incredibly tone-deaf hulk hogan post, doubled down and referred to black people as \u201ccolored\u201d on a live stream. You are not a victim, and this is not accountability, which is ironic given you built your platform demanding it from others,\u201d another commented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joey Swoll, a popular fitness influencer and CEO of Gym Positivity, has announced he’s leaving social media, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[64,63,538,31894,31895,137,20273,31893,1314],"class_list":["post-34861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fitness","tag-fitness-influencer","tag-gym-positivity","tag-health","tag-hulk-hogan","tag-joey-swoll","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}