Fitness content on social media for many has become tumour-like on our feeds for years now, with some major changes along the way. The online bodybuilding space is an especially volatile example of this, reflecting the progression of men’s body standards in popular culture. We’ve seen this with the “Aesthetics” movement, coined by infamous gym-influencer, Zyzz. For the most part, the online gym and bodybuilding community has been a hyper-masculine sector of the internet that funnels watchers into other cesspools of toxic masculinity, such as the red-pill movement. However, in spite of their unwavering hyper-masculine ideals, they are still subject to the damaging impact of the patriarchy, its rigid ideas of masculine aesthetics feeding body dysmorphia.
With the personalisation that comes with TikTok and Instagram, gym content isn’t just about exercise anymore: it's about establishing an aesthetic or adhering to a popular one. Bodybuilders have become so deeply idolised on the internet due to this aestheticisation, with their fandoms of online gym bros expressing great loyalty to both their workout routines and their ideologies surrounding gym progression. For many, this is part of the inspiration — but there is most certainly a much darker side to this idolisation that has been fuelled by the community’s digital expansion.
Many right-wing extremist groups use the appeal of gym-bro aesthetics and connotations of strength and domination to push patriarchal and often white supremacist values, co-opting bodybuilding lingo regarding motivation and genetics. The manipulation of bodybuilding terminology is quite prevalent online, not just in the bodybuilding space, but more broadly. Aside from the more obvious instances of misinformation over exercises, the discourse around dieting and nutrition has generated a plethora of harmful content. This is symbiotic with the ‘looks-maxxing’ trend that stems from online eugenics forums that flourish off of body dysmorphic ideals, rooted in white supremacist ideology.
While the promotion of disordered eating on social media has long existed, as the sport of bodybuilding becomes more mainstream, so too do the pre-existing issues with the sport.
Many larger bodybuilding influencers have described the current influencer landscape as incredibly saturated, at the detriment of effective bodybuilding information. This has pushed many younger gym goers to place more value on smaller creators, on the basis of their aesthetic and body goals. This has only exacerbated a well-established epidemic of fitness advice’s ‘validity’ being based on the physical attributes of those distributing it. Putting such emphasis on another’s body as a goal inevitably generates unrealistic body standards akin to the 90s-to-early-2000’s era of modelling advice that encouraged ideals of disordered eating. With the aesthetics of that era being re-explored through fashion, the harmful standards have returned as well, particularly with a focus on the male body, increasing the prevalence of both orthorexia and anorexia resultantly.
These current types of disordered eating content coincide with the two primary phases of bodybuilding dieting: bulking and cutting. However, what is consistently being left out by influencers, is that bodybuilding is not a casual sport, but a full time commitment. The normalisation of this type of exercise structure is as harmful as it is delusional. This extreme end of a high-commitment activity is justified as a masculinist rite of passage that thrives on misinformation.
In relation to bulking, references to dieting terms such as caloric deficit/surplus have skewed the perceptions of food for muscle growth as only having importance when it comes to protein and calories. The emphasis on protein, especially, is amplified by an influx of incel and right-wing arguments that modern diets and lifestyles are inherently emasculating and lowering testosterone levels amongst men. On a more casual basis, this is where we find the trends of wooden chopping board meals that prioritise protein via animal products, eerily echoing 2000’s dieting trends. What this shows is that these trends are primarily just masculine retellings of harmful “feminine” dieting practices, rebranding them to avoid perceived emasculating connotations.
This link has been drawn to numerous trends in the post-Covid bodybuilding landscape, such as the “lean is law” slogan sounding practically identical to “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” and the hyperfixation on zero-sugar carbonated drinks as a ‘cheat-code’. The focus on different parts and their dimensions as a measure of success is also part of this, creating body-standards without consideration for genetics and potential steroid usage.
The similarity of these trends is that, overwhelmingly, the patriarchy has such a vice-grip on the fitness industry as a product that the industry is barely able to progress past. These contemporary practices are just rebrands of trends worn out by past generations. If anything, the resurgence in these practices prove the current ineffectiveness of bodybuilding, culturally, in doing anything other than regurgitating toxic masculinist standards.