The Chaotic World of Male Diet Influencers
The strange, murky world of the internet's beefy boys.
Hi,
We’ll get to the horrific world of male diet influencers (AKA Beefy Boys) shortly, but first you will be glad to know that since I sent out the Webworm explaining why the assassination attempt on Donald Trump was not a false flag operation, I’ve heard from a load of people telling me it was definitely a false flag operation:
This stuff didn’t come from regular Webworm readers, rather a portion of society who stumbled on my piece who clearly have a different handle on reality. This was Larry:
“Please have your teams analyze the attached photo after enlarging and enhancing it with particular attention to the area right behind Trump’s ear. Besides the earpiece it appears there are 3 capsules of some sort that need to be investigated further and somehow explained. They look suspiciously like fake blood capsules. Note there is no blood spatter on Trump’s hair directly behind his “wounded” ear after supposedly being hit by a high-velocity round from an AR-15? And now we find out that Ronny Jackson flew in from Texas to bandage Trump’s ear. Just seems odd to me.”
Something’s fucking odd, but it’s not that.
Meanwhile, the shooting has given Trump and his team a grand narrative to help secure his win: God intervened and saved him, therefore proving God himself (he’s always a he) wants Trump as president.
On Fox News and in prayer breakfasts, supporters pointed out that the bullet was fired at 6:11 p.m., and pointed to the biblical verse Ephesians 6:11, which says, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”
All totally normal stuff.
Speaking of which — it’s time for Tony Stamp’s monthly installment of Totally Normal, where he breaks down the internet on your behalf.
Enjoy. I certainly did.
David.
PS: As I send this, I am heading into the deep south of New Zealand (Lord of the Rings territory) so I may be a little slow replying to comments — but I will be reading them if the 5G/4G/3G holds out! I will try not to get ravaged by any Orcs.
Beefy Boys: Totally Normal #28
with Tony Stamp
Before we begin, let me put a big ol’ content warning here: this is a meat-heavy article. Vegetarians / vegans beware.
Are men being held to the same beauty standards as women, for the first time? It’s an idea I heard recently, that I think carries some weight. Just compare, say, Bruce Willis’s physique in the 1980s, to, say, Chris Hemsworth’s in the 2020s.
Advancements in food tech, muscle tech, and having time to spend all day in the gym has led to every actor sporting a six pack, but for most of us that’s unachievable.
Disordered eating and body dysmorphia in men are on the rise. And it’s led to an influx of self-appointed experts preying on them. And on me.
In fact these big, beefy boys have taken over my Instagram, and my imagination, with their bulging brawn, and bizarre ideas.
When I went through a fitness phase around ten years ago, there was one food that everyone recommended: chicken breast. You may remember Hugh Jackman would credit being a huge jacked man to his consumption of fowl. Chicken and broccoli every two hours, to be specific.
But as my feed became awash with muscled men telling me what to eat, I noticed a change. Chicken is out. Ground beef is in. Broccoli is out. Fruits are in. Why? There seems to be a range of opinions, but the phrase “nutrient-dense” comes up a lot.
I have witnessed so many shirtless men eating absurd quantities of meat and eggs off bread boards. Always bread boards.
The more I watched, the more the tone became weirdly condescending. Your diet isn’t 80% cow? You’re an idiot! There was a grifty vibe to them, like I was being sold something.
What’s being sold, of course, is the answer to every schlubby guy’s prayers, the single thing to get them looking like Jackman at the height of his powers. You just need to like and subscribe.
At a certain point, the sole answer became a particular diet. The carnivore diet.
That’s exactly what it sounds like. And as it turns out, exclusively consuming animal parts won’t just repair your muscles, but cure every problem.
You will never pass gas, or burp.
You will stop sweating.
In fact you will no longer need deodorant, or soap, because body odour is a thing of the past.
The plaque will “fall off” your teeth
You won’t need to wear sunscreen anymore, because you won’t get sunburnt.
“Acne, inflammation, chronic pain and bloating after meals”, all gone.
The claim I found cruellest is that the carnivore diet will cure autoimmune diseases. I’ve seen this many times, like a big red sign marked ‘grift’. Up until now I’d found it all pretty funny, but preying on sick people was a new low.
What did stay funny was the many people in the comments who were either chronically constipated (one guy hadn’t shat in TWO WEEKS), or had chronic diarrhoea.
One suggested cure? More butter.
These guys LOVE butter.
Here’s someone eating it with an absurd amount of beef. And the same guy chowing down on a big stick of it for breakfast. Just… butter. Big soft mouthfuls of butter. Putting “super healthy” in brackets isn’t fooling anyone, bro (except scanning his follower count and subscription service, it sadly is).
Honey is popular too (raw, of course). I’ve seen MULTIPLE clips of people eating ground beef mixed with greek yoghurt and covered in honey.
This guy puts it on everything he eats (which is basically just beef or eggs).
At this point things get even stranger. Because it’s not just a love of meat fueling all this (or butter, or sweet, sweet honey), it’s also a hatred of vegetables, backed by some truly gonzo pseudoscience.
Oxalates, which occur naturally in vegetables, are to be feared because they form crystals? Vegetables contain residual pesticides? They have their own defence mechanisms which are destroying us from the inside?
I would love to check back in with these people in around ten years and see how this has panned out for them.
Here’s some dudes eating raw eggs, including the shell, because of the “extra calcium”. I like these ones cos you can tell they’re in some pain. Almost like the egg has its own ‘defence mechanism’, just like veggies. Or you could maybe take the fucking shell off?
Seed oils are a strict no no. Bone broth is essential, as is beef tallow. The deeper you go, the more beef tallow, exclusively grass-fed (those two words come up a LOT), sounds like some precious elixir, and not what it is: the rendered fat of a cow.
Of course I started getting ads for it from NZ companies. Along with bone powder. Yummy!
Another pervasive trend is drinking raw milk. Here’s a guy losing his mind that cereal is legal, while raw milk is not.
Raw milk has become its own bizarre thing in America, with sales soaring despite it containing harmful bacteria and links to bird flu. Republicans have pounced, and inducted it into the Culture War. I’m sure someone has called pasteurisation ‘woke’ at some point.
It’s here that we get to the subtext that lurks beneath all this. It’s reasonably common knowledge that over-farming cattle contributes to global warming, and that moving to a plant-based diet is a good thing to do for future generations. So doing the exact opposite does have a slight tang of MAGA to it. Still, while anti-vax sentiment pops up from time to time, I haven’t seen anyone hailing Trump or whatever. Yet.
Now we cross the rubicon into more abstract madness, some of it self-described as ‘bio-hacking’.
To run through a few examples, here’s a man eating raw meat with (also raw) ice-cream.
Someone rinsing blueberries in baking soda so their testosterone doesn’t lower.
Eating liver (liver is most popular, but organs in general are regarded as superfoods)
As we know, the internet has enabled and encouraged inherently hostile and defensive modes of discourse which benefit no one and only foster dissent, and I am always willing to be proven wrong.
Having said that, what a load of fucking hokum.
I imagine these people will become riddled with parasites, bird flu and dredge god knows what viruses back into circulation, but until then I can’t get too upset.
I did get pretty livid when I started seeing parents boasting about raising their babies on a carnivore diet, though. Two separate clips claim to be giving their ONE YEAR OLDs steak instead of birthday cake.
The trend is concerning enough that it made it into Newsweek.
Worth noting: any consumption of meat by babies in these clips is very, very fleeting, and I’m sure it’s all an illusion for the cameras. Hopefully. Regardless, to hell with these idiots.
Eventually my dalliance in meat world led me to a place called Bali Time Chamber.
Named after a thing from Dragon Ball Z (!), it’s a “settlement for men” that has “appeared on the island of Bali”. Not allowed: women and vegans.
Selling points include access to a gym, and chefs who will help you “eat clean”, (meat, on bread boards), with “no distractions”, (women).
Some clips feature client testimonials about launching businesses from the island (?), but they mostly just repeat the no women or vegans thing, in the same bizarrely-inflected AI voice.
Oh, and no blue lights after dark: rooms are flooded with red light instead (if you’re not exhausted of all this, look up red light therapy. Spoiler: it’s more nonsense).
It’s telling that the more I was fed this meat-related madness, the more it rippled out into misogynist, or anti-government rhetoric, and what can only be described as conspiracy theories.
The internet enabling this all-or-nothing approach, and enabling grifters in general, is nothing new. Anyone out there doing your own research, please be careful.
Everyone else, please don’t worry about your lack of abs. Do be aware of things like heart disease and cholesterol.
Balance in everything.
Eat some cake.
Be happy.
-Tony Stamp.
I forgot to mention one of my favourite things I stumbled across: a 'carnivore pizza', where the base was made from ground up chicken, then they chucked some steak on top hahaha
I’ve noticed, via my two sons (19&20) this interest in men’s body ideals. I see it in their (sometimes) what feels like obsession over their clothing and hair choices and for my oldest in his attendance at a gym most days. Mostly I’m ok with it for them and we regularly talk about moderation and when I get sent pics of ‘bro dinner’ which usually involves steak and eggs, I’m always being that mum who texts backs applauding a great meal and noting the addition of veg. I’ve also seen my eldest move from GYM.EVERY.DAY. to a more relaxed approach when he started a new job he loved.
But this piece resonated with me - women have been dealing with diet culture every where, all the time, consistently. And it’s tiring and insidious and overwhelming to the point where it just becomes normalised. It’s just one of the things that women continually have in their mental load to watch out for, not get sucked in by, be prepared to combat if it’s offered up (by social media, well meaning friends, tv radio magazine ads…) and also talk to our young people about. I feel sad for the men who are now experiencing this toxicity and trust that most too can recognise the rubbish from reality.