Why social media’s horny for The Bear chef TV series

Every once in a while, social media is bound by an unashamed thirst for, typically, a straight white man. This man, is now that man.

Every once in a while, social media is bound by an unashamed thirst for, typically, a straight white man.

We all lived through the chokehold of “sexy felon” Jeremy Meeks, a naked Orlando Bloom and his stand-up … paddle board, and lest we forget the era of Pete Davidson and his alleged BDE.

Earlier this month, that longing transferred to the tousled hair and tattooed forearms of Jeremy Allen White’s brooding young chef, Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto, in Hulu’s new cooking dramedy The Bear.

“I’m too scared to watch The Bear because I’m actively in therapy to stop falling in love with men who look like this,” one person wrote on Twitter of the series lead.

“By falling in love I mean wasting my time.

“Unfortunately for me I’m now Jeremy Allen Wet.”

Multiple overseas reviewers have noted that there’s no romance in The Bear, no sex scenes to fantasise over; not even a “knowing look”.

Yet somehow the series – which hasn’t even premiered in Australia (and won’t until the end of August) – has triggered a, for lack of a better word, feral response across all corners of the internet, courtesy of series lead Jeremy Allen White’s portrayal of brooding young chef, Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto.

Carmy’s appeal is perhaps best summed up by Sarah York, first in a viral Twitter thread and then in a piece for Bon Appetit, as that of the “Sexually Competent Dirtbag Line Cook”.

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I have moved on from men that look like Jeremy Allen White because I have self esteem, BUT—there really is something about his hands pic.twitter.com/M9DkIsHmm0

— Meech (@MediumSizeMeech) July 11, 2022

Im too scared to watch The Bear because I’m actively in therapy to stop falling in love with men who look like this pic.twitter.com/7FZ6aHhaVm

— Alex Zaragoza (@byalexzaragoza) June 24, 2022

I haven’t watched The Bear yet but I’m thrilled that people who’ve never worked in a restaurant are being introduced to an exclusive strain of Sexually Competent Dirtbag™️ that only exists in a restaurant kitchen pic.twitter.com/ZnZJOdM0l8

— Sarah York (@thesarahyork) July 6, 2022

“If you’ve ever waited in vain for a text back from a man with no bed frame in his apartment, you’re already pretty familiar with this type,” York wrote.

“Imagine no-bed-frame man, but he only drinks from plastic quart containers and cooks a spaghetti carbonara that will make you write in your journal for the first time since high school. Has he showered today? No. Are you going to be the one to change him and make him want to settle down? Also no!

“What if Pete Davidson drank even less water? That’s what Sexually Competent Dirtbag Line Cook looks like. He’s usually covered in tattoos – look for the signature dual knives on his forearms. He perpetually smells like a campfire, partly because he works over an open flame, but mostly because he spends his nights burning through a pack of American Spirits out on his favourite dive bar’s smoking patio.

“He will send the exact same text in response to your artful nude as he did when you told him your childhood cat died: ‘whoa lol’.”

Or, as another Twitter user put it: “It’s giving no bed frame and one pillow!! I’m in.”

Regardless of what’s responsible for his magnetism, our collective thirst speaks to the heart of a wider, universally acknowledged truth: there is nothing sexier than a man who knows his way around a kitchen.

Is Carmy the kind of man that would not have curtains in his home and, as suggested above, whose bedding would consist of a single, sad pillow that’s flat, yellow and approximately 100 years old? He is. He absolutely is.

Some people down bad for this guy, if you know a chef I guarantee that he’s been a version of this guy at one point or another. My wife still makes fun of me for not having curtains when we started dating but enough money for fancy knives. 🍴🔪

— Dylan Weiss (@Redeyeweiss) July 6, 2022

my roommate said "worth the yeast infection" pic.twitter.com/ZNQUcz6Bd2

— Tony Tulathimutte (@tonytula) June 30, 2022

He's got a mattress on his floor, and that's how you know both that you should come in, but also that you should never come back again.

— Ken likes board games. (@Nowayjose1979) July 6, 2022

this screenshot did more for the bear than any advertising could pic.twitter.com/E1cj8Bsa7G

— iana murray (@ianamurray) July 3, 2022

This is absolutely some guy I would have slept with in my 20s and had him saved in my phone as something like "Guy from bar DO NOT ANSWER"

— Casey K. (@CaseyCannolis) July 6, 2022

But he’s also the kind of man who, as pointed out by York on Twitter, would own a $1400 knife that’s “only for cutting fish”. And that, I hate to say it, is hot.

“You can argue that chefs, especially ones whose biceps flex just so while they’re, ahem, marinating a large slab of meat, are just an attractive crew. Or that there’s something aggravatingly romantic about trying to make a small business work in this economy,” Danielle Cohen wrote for The Cut, noting that his “sex appeal eclipses the many red flags his personality reveals over the course of the series”.

“But really, Carmy’s constantly tousled hair and non-existent emotional availability seem to be the real draw. On paper, he falls squarely into a specific category of slutty scumbag whose appeal is, despite our collective better judgment, irresistible.”

The Bear will be streaming on Disney Plus from August 31