Up until the early 2000s, even though Americans were less obese compared to today, it was implicitly understood that fitness/health-minded people occupied a sort of celebrity status or were different from the slovenly masses, who went to work and then crashed in front of the TV after getting home, eating whatever slop could be scrounged together from leftovers or trips to McDonald’s. There was a sort of bulwark between those rarefied fitness people and everyone else. No one was under much social pressure to assimilate the lifestyle of the former, just as no one watched Pumping Iron expecting to be like Arnold. Or watched The Incredible Hulk expecting to look like Lou Ferrigno.
Being a buff or athletic guy in the ’80s, ’90s, and all the way up to the early 2000s, such career options to capitalize on this were generally limited to personal training, private security, or acting (which can include the adult variety). Being an action star was out of reach for all but the luckiest or most talented (e.g. Arnold Schwarzenegger). None of these professions scales that well either. They all involve having to be somewhere in-person, which meant running up against the inevitable constraints of time. The category of “social media fitness/health influencer” did not exist until arguably the mid 2000s, which opened up new avenues for monetization that scaled better.
Sure, there were TV fitness models during the 90s and early 2000s (e.g. Six-Minute Abs) , which could be considered a progenitor of the modern-day fitness influencer, but these were contained to easily-ignored TV commercials. They were only commercials–it wasn’t the content itself, nor had it embedded itself into everyday society. Same for those Charles Atlas ads, which were only limited to print media and clearly delineated as advertisements, not actual content. Ads are much more forgettable or ignorable, in contrast to an entire genre of content built around it that has spread to the farthest reaches of the internet.
The rise of social media was the first to chip away at this barrier between fitness culture and the mainstream. Suddenly, fit bodies became much more commonplace and seemingly more attainable, steroids notwithstanding. But even so, the barrier was still there, and largely absent was the social pressure. You could choose to follow people or join groups that had no interest in fitness or health and be insulated from that sort of content if one was so inclined.
During Covid, the fitness influencer industry got a second wind that continues to this day. The lockdowns meant people had more time to produce and consume such content. There was also a crisis of credibility. Government experts were wrong about so many things–whether ignoring or downplaying the connection between COVID and obesity, flip-flopping on masks, or promoting ineffective and unpopular policies such as “flatten the curve”–that public trust eroded and people increasingly looked elsewhere for information, especially online. Elon’s buyout of Twitter saw the rise of an edgier, more confrontational style of social media influencer. Likewise, around the same time on Instagram, there was the rise of figures such as Joey Swole, who has a million followers–comparable to even mainstream celebrities. Popular health or wellness-focused podcasters such as Joe Rogan similarly saw a surge in popularity, culminating in a record-setting $100 million Spotify deal in 2022 for the former UFC commentator. Moreover in 2021-2022 there was the debate surrounding the controversial but highly-effective GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
Due to these factors, fitness and health culture went from being something either ignorable or on the periphery, to inescapable. You’d have to go back to the “running craze” of the early ’80s to see a similar phenomenon in which fitness captivated the nation, only to disappear just as fast by the early ’90s. (The sudden death during a run by a heart attack of the man who personified the obsession didn’t help.) The difference now is it’s multiplied by hundreds of social media celebrities, and continues undeterred despite headlines of deaths of major bodybuilders, whereas Fixx’s death, at least, was ultimately unrelated to running itself.
The popularity of professional sports and the Olympics shows that people are naturally drawn to superior human performance in all its forms. But Pre-Covid, it’s not like I watched football players on the gridiron and then aspired to look like a football player, or watched runners and aspired to also be a competitive runner or to be as lean as a runner. Professional sports has always had a barrier between the players and the audience, literally and figuratively. Even children who aspire to be like their sports heroes, typically outgrow that when it becomes obvious that it’s not in the cards. But social media, especially post-2022, changed that. Now it’s like “Do you even lift, bro?” But for the average person, an elite powerlifting lift, a bodybuilder physique, or a competitive marathon time are no more attainable than being an NBA-level basketball player. But no one is like, “Do you dunk, bro?”
Of all the posts on this blog, the one thing I got really wrong was in 2016 completely missing this trend. There was some interest, but it paled in comparison to today. Nowadays, stories and discussions on Hacker News or Reddit about losing weight or pertaining to obesity or weight loss-drugs not uncommonly garner many hundreds or even thousands of comments, indicating considerable public interest in this niche, and is also why I’m writing more about this topic, as it pertains to my own journey to lose weight.
As for the content itself, there are two types of creators seemingly at odds with each other, yet they both thrive. On one extreme is bodybuilding or powerlifting content, and on the other extreme are creators with a focus on cardio or nutrition. Bodybuilding or powerlifting, which typically involves steroids and emphasizes size, at first glance, would seem to contrast with the austerity of calorie counting. Or cardio, which typically favors leaner bodies instead of bulkier ones. But their audiences converge in terms of a shared value system, that being the attainment of some idealization of peak performance or appearance–be it superior endurance in distance running, leanness as an aesthetic ideal, or raw strength in powerlifting.
Today’s fitness craze also shares many similarities to organized religion. The routine or the process itself, such as adhering to a certain exercise routine or counting calories, is akin to the routine of going to church, reciting scriptures, and so on. Social media influencers fill the role of spiritual leaders. There is a sort of didactic moralism and the need to always be improving or growing, that, like religion, is a lifelong process. But instead of being closer to God, it’s closer to some conceptualization of the perfect body.
Incantations of advice or truisms (“CICO,” “track your macros,” “10,000 steps”) are repeated ad nauseam to the approval of the congregation or audience, as these comments are heavily upvoted. Yet the audience already knows this advice to be true. There is no new information. The result is a sort of echo chamber or preaching to the choir effect, but health advice instead of gospel. This is in contrast to other niches in which known or old concepts are building blocks for new concepts, than the entirety of it. This would be like on videos of physics people in the comments enthusiastically proclaiming “F=MA!”, which although true and important, physics has progressed a lot since then.
Self-improvement can be good, and social media can provide encouragement and advice. But on the downside, it means never being good enough when comparing oneself to others. You can never count one hundred percent of your calories, or ever have enough willpower, motivation, or self-discipline. In such content, there are the comments by the lapsed who promise that “this time is different” and to count their calories more closely, analogous to repentance in religion, where penance takes the form of longer dieting or fewer calories. You’re always falling short of idols who have superhuman willpower to resist junk food or to always count their calories. Even losing weight means not having a good enough “before and after” transformation compared to social media.
Genetics plays a huge role in terms of individual outcomes, whether it’s leanness, cardio, or strength. Only 2% of NCAA student-athletes go pro. Analogous to the 19th century carnival sideshows, social media is a parade of outliers, but inverted where the desired reaction is awe or envy, not pity. Compared to the genetic or willpower outliers who dominate social media, go to the airport to see what average people look like in a non-self-selected environment. Sure, this is a low bar, but social media has distorted our perception of reality to such an extent that we need to be periodically reminded of what reality is actually like.