the fandom of zyzz and development of the body aesthete

changing speeds from some of the recent scientific articles featured here, a social science study in the international journal of drug policy published earlier this year captured my attention and felt it was worth discussing.

the article titled “exploring the social lives of image and performance enhancing drugs: an online ethnography of the zyzz fandom of recreational bodybuilders,” qualitatively assessed those recreational bodybuilders in australia that follow the zyzz philosophy of aesthetics.

to summarize, zyzz is the online persona of an australian recreational bodybuilder that rose to social media fame and cult status within the bodybuilding community after his somewhat rapid and shocking body transformation. he tragically died in thailand from a heart attack. although never himself implicated, his older brother was charged with possession of anabolic-androgenic steroids (aas). moreover, there have been suspicions of synthetic assistance to achieve his physique, which the online community appears to have embraced, perhaps even more so since his passing.

one of the key findings from this study was the perceptions of recreational bodybuilders and fans of zyzz that the illegality of image and performance enhancing drugs (iped) had failed and was not preventing iped use. more than this, participants also noted that the inability to admit to sped use impeded their ability to seek appropriate medical advice and would then rely on “bro science”. They also suspected that the clinical impacts of aas were overblown and unjustified, likely due to the circulation of information amongst iped users. in fact, iped users were convinced that the media portrayal of medical consequences were “bullshit”.

the article also discusses the reasons for iped use - clearly the hypertrophy and body composition effects were paramount, but there were also other concerns in this recreation context. the author discusses the concept of an “aura” - a metaphysical quality that raises ones status to ‘alpha’ and demands respect. it seems that rather than using ipeds to attract attention from women, these users instead desired to “take revenge on women” whom had previous rejected them. This desire to be ‘alpha’ and be respected above ‘betas’ (both men and women) was a common thread in the comments given in this paper.

although many more interesting points were present in the paper, we will point out only one more here. the author of the paper points out that the term ‘bodybuilder’ was somewhat disliked by these participants, as it had implications to the professional and competitive body building worlds. Instead, the author offers the term “body aesthete”, highlighting the importance placed on the appearance of the body, independent of the function of the body. i believe this term may also be a better descriptor, as there are clearly differing perceptions and motivations for iped use in this population and it is becoming more important to distinguish them and their iped use.

this paper shares important insights into the use of ipeds and the mentality of many non-competitive users. i highly encourage the full reading of the paper so that all who are interested in this area can interpret its findings and draw conclusions on their own.

reference

underwood, mair. “exploring the social lives of image and performance enhancing drugs: an online ethnography of the zyzz fandom of recreational bodybuilders." international journal of drug policy 39 (2017): 78-85.