The Gym

Well I decided to change my subculture from hipster to working out. My fieldnotes were taken at my local gym.

 As I walk into the gym I am greeted by an employee who takes my cousins account number and enters it into the computer system. I then must sign a sheet asking for my name, age, where I live, my cousins account number, and check a box if I have been there before. I look around and see many people of all shapes and sizes using the exercise equipment. To the right there are two rows of treadmills and  in the first row there is a man wearing a grey Ohio State tshirt. He is very sweaty and is running at a steady pace. Further down there is a woman in black pants that seems to be struggling while she is running. She is listing to something on her iPod touch and seems to be singing along. It smells of rubber and disinfectant that is used to clean the equipment. There is a slight breeze due to the massive purple and yellow fan that is on the ceiling. In front of me are the ellipticals and towards the back and directly in front there are bikes. Rock / 90's music is playing softly in the background as well as the humfrom the various machines. Along the Left wall are free weights that range from 2.5 lbs to 75 lbs. As I walk to the back left corner I see many bench machines as well as an area to stretch. As I am leaving through the automatic doors I see a few people walking in to the gym.

The Weekend

So this weekend I got a bit more into the hipster subculture. I was given the opportunity to ride a fixed gear bike.   It was a very different experience from riding a traditional road bike or a mountain bike. There was no brakes and your feet are directly connected to the back wheel. The only way to stop is to slow down how fast you are pedaling. It was actually very fun to ride. I tried to do what hipsters call a "skid" to stop, which is when you lock your legs and the back tire skids out to stop, but I was unable to do it. Great experience though and it makes me want to turn my road bike into a fixed gear bike. If you get the opportunity to ride one, do so because it is a whole different biking experience.

Possible Subcultures

Some of the possible subcultures that I might research are extreme sports (skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, scuba diving, whitewater kayaking, etc.), hipster, and possibly board/puzzle/card games. The reason that I might choose extreme sports as a subculture is because I enjoy doing extreme sports and many of my friends are also involved in extreme sports. The hipster subculture would be interesting for me to study because a few of my friends from my hometown are hipsters. I have seen brief things from this subculture but think that it would be interesting to explore it more in depth. The last subculture that I could possibly research is the board/puzzle/card game culture. I am very much a part of this subculture in that I know so many card games I couldn't count them on both my hands. I also know many board games and can solve a Rubik's cube in under two minutes.
In this subcultures there are definitively fixed positions that I have, especially in the extreme sports and board/puzzle/card games subculture since these are ones that I am apart of. From a subjective position I would like to learn more about the culture behind hipsters. The types of things that they do, why they do those things, and many other things that intrigue me.  

A bit about me

My name is Ben Bruno, I am a fifth year Mechanical Engineering student at Ohio University. In my free time I enjoy being outdoors. I am a avid whitewater kayaker as well as a certified scuba diver. On the weekends I enjoy biking and playing disc golf. Some of my other hobbies include fishing, hunting, and skiing.