Hallelujah brother!! Nothing must dull the suffering. Now THHHPPHHHAABBBAAARFF!
Which loosely translates as āYou must excuse me. I must complete another interval of soul-shattering intensity and duration! May your competitors rue the day they pinned on a number!ā Or something to that effect 
whoaaa, Iām not sure GvA will approve. please report to flogging station ā17a immediately!!
Iām not the one needing Flogging 
I think Iām getting to what youāre saying and your impression about our attempt to promote diversity having moved from Sufferfest app to SYSTM app in the sense that it feels to you that weāre only achieving uniformity as a result (the antonym).
ā warning: super long post following ā
And I think itās a very interesting point and such a tricky one to address, especially considering how some brand alignment philosophies tend to place ābrand consistencyā (therefore uniformity) over everything else. In that respect, it then becomes very difficult for brands to āconsistently promote diversityā (if that makes sense) and get different things to cohabitate vs all the things blending into one.
Some brand imagery might succeed in showing a diversity of people while not ticking all the boxes on the diversity front.
For example, a brand would score well on gender representation but not cover all the ethnic or socio-economic diversity. So a brand would think theyāre doing OK because they are showing white-Caucasians people and Afro-Americans but then they have no Asian people for example. And thatās just looking at it from a North American perspective while the product caters to people living on the 5 continents with different approaches to diversity. Then the same can be said from the age diversity. You can tick all the boxes on all the other fronts only to realise that you donāt cover a wide enough range as far as age is concerned.
You could also look at the vestimentary style of people. In many cases, that would be seen as a marker of belonging to a same socio-economic group. So are you truly promoting diversity if you have people of different age, gender, ethnies wearing similar style of clothing?
I mean for argumentās sake you could even look at attitudes for all I know! Should all the models adopt the same gaze? Where is the diversity of attitude there and mental approach there?
Itās just such a hard maze to navigate to get it right first timeā¦
Now add another layer of difficulty by bringing all this within the context of sportās training where the number 1 key to success is consistency. How do you get to have a diverse range of content that caters to various needs while remaining consistent in your approach?
How do you maintain a brand like āSufferfestā with a very specific outlook and attitude towards performance (with a heavy dose of flogging, kicking ass, bleeding eye, HTFU, and the likes) that people will interpret at their own level (some take it with a pinch of salt, some take it literally) and get it to cohabitate with other ābrandsā that could be seen as promoting a different outlook? If nothing must dull the Suffering, why should I do Yoga? 
By virtue of getting all those brands to populate your training plan, you get to be a Sufferlandrian one day (with all it entails about embracing the Suffering and pushing through the pain barrier), and be someone totally different the other day (with a message that might feel diametrically opposite telling you to not push beyond the pain barrier).
Itās all such a hard hard thing to achieve and one Iāve been scratching my head with for a long long time.
And i often wonder if this why Zwift, for example, is not focusing so hard on the training side of things on their platform because it would likely have them promoting two contradictory ideas. One saying āconsume often, consume a lotā (do all the races, the rides, the events, the badges because itās essential to their business model) and the other one, emanating from the training philosophy, saying āconsume sparingly and moderatelyā (manage your recovery, monitor your fatigue, donāt come here every day to push yourself so hardā¦) which would somehow contradict their primary message (āfun is fastā) and/or force them to develop a whole raft of things to make riding slow fun, which would, in turn, dilute the effectiveness of their primary message and impact on how loyal folks remain to the core of their product. Iām not sure: is there an algorithm on Zwift to warn you when you might be overdoing it and recommend that you do not use the platform or enter a race?
Finally, to end this VERY long post, I think that all these conversations people have been having since the launch of SYSTM highlight the level of loyalty that people have felt towards Sufferfest and how much of an impact it has had on their personal life at a very emotional level. I know it has had a massive impact on my life on several levels, so much so that I ended up working here in the end!
But I think itās essential to remind ourselves that āloyalty is truly only found in family and friends, where there is no financial obligation and the relationship is built on love and trust that is eternal. That doesnāt mean there canāt be trust between employees and employers (or customers and companies), just know that it is limited and not always there when you need it most. A business is not and does not replace family and friends.ā (Arthur Viente)
And at times, I wonder if we donāt all direct our attention and need for love, trust and loyalty in the wrong directionā¦ 
Yoga is a whole OTHER level of suffering. While I understand the benefits and I will continue to do it, I HATE yoga. HATE it I say. HATE HATE HATE. Thank Grunter itās in 15 minute bite size bits where the first couple minutes are just breathing and the last couple minutes are lying down so itās really only 10 mins of yoga 
In any event, I still HATE it. Screaming Toe pose?! Reclining Hero?! Half Reclining Hero?! Boat Pose?! Crow? Eagle? Half-monkey? Wheel Pose ( come on! really? 
). Now there is Silver Surfer and that one is pretty cool but make no mistake, I still hate @abicarver and am pretty sure she is the real GvA #everyonehatesabicarver #everyonehatessirneal #everyonehatessirmac
@Glen.Coutts Agreed - screaming toe pose - it is the worst suffering on the platform. I would rather eat nails!
I try to have a profound and meaningful outlook on things and you doā¦ THAT! Now thanks a bunch @Glen.Coutts - I think Iām going to go and alter your numbers in the app as retaliationā¦ 
Grunter forgive me but I havenāt ridden indoors since April so I welcome whatever advanced and personally altered suffering you choose to inflict Sir @Francois-Wahoo
But @abicarver is so sweet and nice! She is also elastigirl because she makes Yoga-fering look easy.
This is such a great overview of the challenge, and the opportunity, which is in front of us here. Being everything to everybody is folly, but blinding allegiance to what got us here was dangerously close to its sustainability āsell byā date.
Everything in SYSTM is designed to help us efficiently become better, healthier, and happier athletes in an increasingly hectic and multitask focused world. I am stoked to have an ever-increasing amount of professionally designed on and off the bike training options at my disposal. Given the fact that we still have all the stuff we had before, it is hard for me to see how any of this is overwhelmingly negative.
Seeing that someone at the helm puts thoughts this deep and profound into the product I learned to love makes me happy to be a part of the voyage.
Youāre all right of course. And Iām not being ironic here.
@Francois-Wahoo put what I thought in a nutshell (a fairly large nutshell perhaps, but still ). Itās a lot about the diversity versus uniformity problem. My English is not sophisticated enough to phrase it so precisely, which perhaps was one reason why I was mistaken for not supporting diversity in general.
Everything all of you say makes sense, the business view on things, the broadening of the training base (Iāve always loved that fact that the Sufferfest offered so much more where other brands are very one-dimensional), the fact that Sufferlandria was made by the people, not the homepage, and the fact that this community will be even more fantastic in the future with a greater variaty of people, backgrounds, mindsetsā¦ all that seems very true to me.
I just think we had something unique in Sufferlandria. And I would miss it dearly if it was gone, even though I just move across the boarder about a year ago. Letās just hope you will all be right and each and everyone here will suffer, but the spirit!
And one last time, and then I shall not talk about this any more:
Did you REALLY have to take down the Sufferlandria site? I meanā¦ REALLY?
I do understand the direction you were running into, but are you sure you did not just miss the finish line somewhere and just ran a bit too far here?
That for me was a tone setter, that was what I fell in love with when I searched for trainings appsā¦ Itās like you really love your girlfriendās red hair and of course everything else about her, her character above all, and then one day she surprises you with her hair back to brown. I mean, you still love her obviously, butā¦ really?
Side question: Would somebody at Wahoo mind sending me the old Sufferlandria site texts via email? I would badly appreciate that!
You can find the thread about the sufferlandrian pages here:
In this Thread is also the following post stating they will bring the Sufferlandrian pages back:
David.McQuillen.KoS 18d
Weāre working on getting a home for those pages at Wahoo website. Stay tuned!
If you canāt find all the pages I can post them for you if you want just send me a pm or ask for them in a thread. I downloaded them also just to be safe.
Made my day!
Thank you so much!
You were just doing Sufferlandrian missionary work elsewhere.
Yeh. Thatās right. Spreading the good word to any and all whoāll listen (as well as those that donāt)
I prescribe more yoga to engender kinder feelings towards me. Youāre clearly not doing enough.
It gets easier! After attempt roughly 400 attemptsā¦
Thank you for coming to my defence! I need all the support I can get!