Why watching male celebrities struggle has become my new online obsession

Upon first glance, Jeremy Renner and I don’t have a lot in common. Outside of belonging to the same species, we couldn’t be more different. He is a successful actor and (less successful) musician who enjoys extreme sports and flipping houses, while I am a mild-mannered writer who needs prescription swimming goggles.

Yet, despite our many differences, when his eyes glaze over as he talks about “eating clean”, we are the same.

Paul Rudd stars in Living With Yourself on Netflix.

Paul Rudd is another A-list celebrity whose life also bears little resemblance to mine (initially). Again, he is a charismatic superstar; I am an asthmatic four-eyes. But when he admits to begrudgingly avoiding bread, sugar and fried food in the foolish pursuit of a perfect body, I feel close to him. (This closeness is even greater when he confesses to being too embarrassed to show off said hard-won physique.)

Despite being deeply personal, these facts about Renner and Rudd are not private. Both men freely offered them up during interviews in which they detailed the gruelling diets and workouts they follow to look and move like famous people. I absorbed this information while bingeing the endless stream of videos that my YouTube algorithm one day decided would serve me: “Train like me”, “Fridge tour” and “How I got ripped” content.

I can’t say why the internet decided that I needed these videos. But I can say that watching them, and learning that Wilmer Valderrama wakes up at 4am to work out, has offered me a strange feeling of comfort and satisfaction without ever inspiring me to do the same.

In the past, I’ve written about my twisted relationship with this variety of content. Much like “what I eat in a day” videos, it can be depressing to see the art of preparing and eating a meal devolve into a gruelling chore as (usually) female celebrities explain why they only eat three almonds at a time. But when the subject is a loudmouthed white guy being paid millions of dollars to endure the early morning alarm, the content just hits differently. Seeing Tyra Banks hollow out her bagels to cut down on carbs is sad, but when it’s Glen Powell making a “breakfast sandwich” with slices of sweet potato in place of bread, I don’t mind.

In my experience, men generally aren’t as susceptible to the utterly insane and never-ending list of expectations around what our bodies should look like. Sure, they may feel a moment of deflation when a favourite shirt fits a little tight over their tummy, but they don’t wrestle with a lifetime of body expectations (that begin well before puberty) when they look in the mirror. They didn’t grow up being overtly and covertly lectured about the value and deficits of their physical form, understanding the real-world impact not having a good enough body can have on every aspect of a woman’s life.

Magazines, peers, parents and strangers didn’t feel free to comment and critique every change in their appearance. But Jake Gyllenhaal, who grew up in a showbiz family and has acted since childhood – and shared a video of himself grimacing while doing push-ups with massive chains while training for the Roadhouse reboot – probably did.

Which brings me back to these videos I can’t stop watching. To be clear, I’m not happy that James McAvoy has to get most of his carbs from boiled potatoes he eats cold (it lowers their GI index, apparently). Or that Rob Lowe now considers “bad boy” behaviour to be eating pizza. But there is solace in witnessing their gruelling journeys towards having a body that society feels is acceptable.

So much of my life has been spent trying to adhere to other people’s standards of how my body should behave, while not giving away any sense of the effort and sacrifice that work requires.

In these videos, men’s home gyms and fridges – and that complex negotiation between effort and appearance – are laid bare. The work, time, sacrifice and often embarrassment accrued become visible to the world. I’m not sure if the men I know understand what it’s like to walk into the kitchen and feel angry, confused and ashamed about what you believe you’re allowed to eat. But I know Glen Powell probably does when he reaches for that “breakfast sandwich”. Although the million-dollar paycheck probably makes that sweet potato a whole lot sweeter.

Wendy Syfret is an author and a freelance writer based in Melbourne.

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