Bodybuilding is a visual sport, so the only way to sell your "sport" is to do something to attract attention.
Bodybuilding will never be that popular and we don't have household names such as you see in basketball or NFL etc, and so the only thing bodybuilders can do to get noticed unfortunately is to hit a double biceps in front of landmarks or "normal" things like police cars.
Other sportsmen can get away with doing nothing because they are celebrities and personalities - you don't see Tiger Woods walking round NY or LA with his golf clubs or Michael Jordan spinning a basketball. Bodybuilding and bodybuilders themselves don't really have that luxury.
I see what you're saying. But I still find it rather puerile, and doing nothing to help the image that the public has of BBing. Everybody has the idea that bodybuilders are these huge beasts walking around, eating everything in site, injecting steroids and hitting poses. How does Zack in the above photos; or Ernie Taylor walking around NY in his posing trunks after a show, or any other examples that can be found online- how does that do anything to change the public image of BBers? It does the exact opposite. It show the public that, especially the upper echelon of BBers pro or not, it reinforces the negative thoughts the public already has.
I've followed the BBing community for a long time. No longer a neophyte, I realize that the image will never change because BBers do not do anything to be proactive and help the image change.
Isaac Newtons law applies, if you really want to spend time thinking about it (and no, I have not spent much time thinking about this, I sleep well at night
):
''To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions''. If bodybuilders do nothing for
improving their image, unless you consider Ronnie Coleman showing up on late night TV in the studio in a posing thong an attempt, why should it progress to anything more than what it is today? Instead, maybe Ronnie should have worn a suit though shy away from his loudly colored suits- there's a time and place for those, but while trying to improve the image that is not the time.
