Muscle In The Age Of Instagram

How social media is changing the way men build and think about their bodies.

- Daniel Kunitz

AS SOON AS HE WALKS IN THE DOOR of Powerhouse Gym in Syosset, New York, Sadik Hadzovic gets blitzed. Two young men announce,“It’s swole time,” that they’ve got their pump on, so now is the moment for selfies, whether the bodybuilder has completed his own workout or not. It’s become so bad that Hadzovic is having the windows of his BMW M6 tinted, because people will bang on his windshield to ask for an autograph while he’s still parking – at first, Hadzovic even ignored my emails, assuming I was yet another stalker. As a rule, he loves his followers, and is generous with his time; but being an Instagram star does attract some whack jobs.

Although Hadzovic, 30, has won four bodybuilding titles and twice was runner-up for the brass ring, Mr. Olympia, the stage that really matters to him is the one you cradle in your hand. On social media, Hadzovic stands out as a symbol of self-maximisation, of a man who’s not only physically enlarged himself but also expanded his body and self into a brand. He is an exemplar of the shredded ideal, a goad to his followers’ vanity, a charismatic creation of dense muscle so unblemished by fat that every striation is like a cord in a thick wire cable. His job is “fitspiration”. But while the jargon may be new, Hadzovic is really just carrying on a tradition of ideal male physiques that dates at least as far back as AD 216 and the ancient Farnese Hercules statue.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s boyhood idol was Reg Park, the bodybuilder-turned-actor he saw in Park’s breakout 1961 film Hercules and the Captive Woman. Schwarzenegger himself helped kick off the bodybuilding craze of the 1980s with Pumping Iron and Conan the Barbarian, an homage to Park’s sword-and-sandal flicks of the ’60s.