HMN 2025: How From the Liver King to ultramarathons, health influencers are glorifying excessive masculinity where ‘ache is the mark’

A brand new Netflix documentary a couple of shirtless complement salesman who claimed to be “pure” and was exposed as a fraud would possibly seem to be a punchline.

But Untold: The Liver King is greater than only a character study of a widely known health influencer; it is a case study of performative masculinity on the earth of social media.

Brian Johnson, higher generally known as the Liver King, constructed a model on excessive exercises, consuming uncooked organ meat, and evangelizing about masculinity. He preached “ancestral dwelling” and radical self-control, all whereas secretly using steroids.

And his speedy rise to reputation reveals how social media rewards the spectacle of hypermasculinity—particularly when it leans into excessive behaviors.

Extreme self-discipline, extreme exercise, extreme eating and extreme “wellness” have all grow to be types of public efficiency on social media.

From influencers pushing steroids or “wellness” life, to the growing popularity of ultramarathons, a brand new model of masculinity goes viral: {control} your physique, grit by ache, work out exhausting, and ensure everybody hears about it.

The rise of ‘self-discipline content material’

Social media apps and web sites similar to TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, are flooded with content material that frames ache and excessive bodily effort as markers of masculine worth.

One evaluation of male health YouTubers discovered they established authority and discipline by a mixture of seen bodily energy and affiliations with industrial health manufacturers. In some instances, the influencers explicitly listed their private data or showcased their physique post-training as proof of their “masculinity” and self-discipline.

Influencers additionally usually body excessive leanness and muscularity as indicators of moral virtue and discipline, even when reaching it has taken a unfavorable bodily or psychological toll on them. The look of discipline has grow to be extra invaluable than the end result of it.

Posts are sometimes wrapped within the language of “resilience,” “discipline” and militaristic rhetoric. Men are advised to “go to battle” within the fitness center, to “stay hard,” and to usually deal with life like a battlefield.

What’s being offered is not stoicism: it is pseudo-stoicism—a time period researchers have coined to explain emotional suppression masquerading as energy and self-discipline.

Pain is the mark

Strava’s 2023 Year in Sport report discovered Gen Z athletes are 31% much less prone to train for well being causes in comparison with older generations. Instead, they’re extra prone to practice with a give attention to athletic efficiency—that’s, to push their bodily limits, enhance metrics similar to velocity or distance, and outperform others.

The similar report reveals a surge in excessive endurance exercise. Compared to 2023 information, uploads (actions shared with others) of gravel bike rides grew 55%, path runs grew 16%, and ultramarathon-style exercises grew by 9%.

Take Nedd Brockmann, who ran throughout Australia in 2022, and final yr ran 1,600 kilometers in ten days to lift cash for charity—all whereas sharing his self-imposed bodily torture.

Or take the numerous health content material creators pushing themselves by punishing routines for the digital camera.

These instances replicate a deeper shift of health being become spectacle, whereby struggling turns into an indication of legitimacy, and ache is “proof” that you simply’re severe.

Such excessive content material, which is usually visually hanging, can be pushed by social media algorithms. Research reveals how social media platforms systematically boost content that is intense, emotionally charged, and morally loaded.

In different phrases, posts that provoke a response are more likely to get promoted. And content material regarding “wellness” extremism is designed to impress, as it’s visceral, performative, and filled with motivational and self-help anecdotes.

Why this issues

This is a possible public well being concern.

Social media platforms amplify and monetize these performances, usually pushing probably the most excessive content material to the highest. And influencers earn cash, above the cash made instantly from these platforms, from promoting supplements, gear and training plans. At the identical time, they act in increasingly excessive methods to get additional amplified by algorithms.

The dangers of this dynamic, for each the viewers and creators, are very actual. They vary from hormone harm, to mental and physical decline, to damage, and even dying.

But there may be additionally a deeper ideological hurt, as younger males are fed a slender and punishing concept of what it means to be a person. They are taught ache equals goal, and that in case you’re not struggling, you are not attempting.

Where to from right here?

Public well being companies must reckon with this type of digital hypermasculinity.

Extreme health influencers aren’t simply poor function models; they’re the product of a system that earnings from insecurity and spectacle. The purpose should not be to ban or censor this content material. But we do must problem its dominance, and supply alternate options.

That means partaking younger males in offline areas, such because the Tomorrow Man mission, where they’ve an outlet for neighborhood and relationship constructing.

It means creating counter-narratives that do not mock, however model, more healthy variations of ambition and masculinity. For occasion, the Movember marketing campaign’s podcast Dad in Progress explores the assorted challenges and experiences confronted by new dads.

It additionally means holding platforms accountable for the way in which they amplify excessive content material.

In the absence of more healthy narratives, self-flagellation is the one factor younger males should aspire to.

This article is republished from The Conversation beneath a Creative Commons license. Read the authentic article.