The Rise of the Meathead Influencer.

On social media there is a rise of a peculiar new breed of influencers – pumped up gym rats on steroids posting not the most educated of views but still getting a respectful following. The new kids on the social media block are parroting snippets from each other with favourite topics: immigration (against), race (white), sexuality (straight), paedophiles (execution), climate change (lies), women (traditional), men (traditional), government (the problem), violence (permitted), Nazis (misunderstood), trans rights (against).

I think you get the picture.

These men – I will concentrate on the male influencer here- have discovered the usefulness of these platforms to pedal extreme views because, well, I guess they can. Using these virtual town squares, the meathead influencer can find others and admirers  to increase followers and likes only adding more fuel to their extreme fire. They feed off each other with in depth comments like “You should be PM”, “All the way with you, Bruh” and with emojis of hands clapping, fire, thumbs up; all conflating already enlarged egos. They flex online as they flex in the gym.

Occasionally they jump to mainstream media and are given a larger more respectful stage but when they do, these masculinist influencers visibly deflate. One such occurrence was on SBS a few weeks back where a panel of six men, all representing different views apparently, were bought together to discuss, of course, masculinity. What could have been something worth watching quickly became a discussion on what type of women they like and a preference for women with a lower “body count”- the number of sexual partners of a woman before meeting this particular man; the less the better according to misogyny law. To its credit, SBS had made some attempt at diversity: a shallow celebrity from some forgettable reality show, some Christian guy who wants virtuous women only, a fellow Queer who was the most articulate, a well known influencer whose sister was murdered in an act of domestic violence, someone else who didn’t leave much of an impression at all and the juiced gym junkie- a meathead influencer. The last one was unusually quiet and polite, perhaps neutered by the bright studio lights and the fact he was going to be on the telly compared to his online persona full of controversy (his words, not mine), bravado, and not much else.

And here is the sticking point: there is little to no substance to these influencers except their verbal flexing rather like their flexed poses in front of a mirror after hours of a really intense workout. They are echo chambers of each other, boosting egos, becoming instant alphas in front of their audience, and, to be so Queerly honest, creating a very homoerotic atmosphere which I am sure would trigger them if mentioned.

And they are dangerous.

With the rise of the extreme Right and the visible presence of neo-Nazis, these gyms are a breeding ground for the more unsavoury aspects of the conservative movement with the National Socialist Network (again, the homoeroticism!) recruiting and grooming some gullible young men who are at an age when you are temporarily lost, trying to make an identity in a world that you may feel has forgotten you.

The construction of masculinity in the 2020s does not take kindly to more sensitive people with blatant disregard for anything outside what they perceive as normal. If you’re empathetic, physically weaker, gender fluid or even if you’re a bit more articulate than the average dude, you’re less than a man in this blinkered world where politics meet gyms meet privilege meet estrangement and meet imagined traditional roles meet a nostalgia for a time that never really existed.

We talk of a crisis in masculinity. I disagree; it’s not a crisis, it  is a primal reaction to a shift in power structures that have been evolving for decades. They were quietly fermenting until these platforms were formed. And now they’re loudly crying foul.

We need to watch these guys carefully as fleeting as their loud voices may be.

Proudly realised I have written this blog without using the term “toxic masculinity”.