As toxic ‘gym bro’ content on social media fuels a self-esteem crisis among young men, AI-generated cat memes helped change my thinking my body
The day before last Christmas, a relative asked me to talk to their son. He was obsessed with going to the gym and getting abs. Why? Because that’s how you attract girls, he explained. He was 11.
Sharing a room with him that year, I saw with my own eyes how Minecraft YouTube videos automatically morph into toxic fitness content targeting young men. The videos often feature over-the-top muscle rigs promising viewers everything from the body of their dreams to becoming a full-fledged “alpha male,” in Andrew Tate’s reprehensible extreme.
The fact that such young viewers are being pushed towards this type of content is one of the factors behind the growing crisis that is shaking the world. self-image And unrealistic body standardsMore than half of British men show signs of body dysmorphia, a recent report find, while another study The use of image and performance enhancing drugs in the UK is estimated to have increased tenfold in the last ten years. Among adolescents and young adults, increased use of social media has included: been associated with symptoms of muscle dysmorphia. But what can be done? I recently discovered something that may provide an unlikely (at least to me) solution: a specific brand of AI Cat Memes.
The format is as follows: an AI-generated image of an anthropomorphic cat undergoes some sort of emotional trauma that is resolved by going to the gym and becoming a hyper-muscular giga-cat, invariably narrated—in slideshow form—to the tune of a cat-voiced cover of Sia’s “Unstoppable” (aptly titled “Unstopmeomeo”). A clear satire on the ubiquity of gym-bro content, these videos garner over a million likes on Instagram and receive comments like “Meowtivation,” “The moral of the story is: meow meow,” or, quite simply, “Meow meow.”
A friend and I have become absolutely obsessed with these videos, captivated by their particular blend of kitten drama and Chen, Cute Accelerationism And gym speech. In stark contrast to the content my 11-year-old cousin was consuming, these videos seemed to indulge in their fantasy, their AI-generated cat donis clearly signaling unrealistic body standards and mocking the ultra-masculine gym-bro content on which they are based. One video even features our adorable cat hero confront a shark underwater to protect her litter of kittens.
One way that “gym talk” harms young men is by promoting a vicious form of toxic masculinity that advocates “physical superiority to adhere to internalized patriarchal norms.” Martyn Ewoma writes. When I was hospitalized for anorexia at age 14, compulsive exercise was a major component of my behavior, and it took me nearly a decade to set foot in a gym. When I did, it was extremely distressing. The environment was filled with mirrors that forced me to scrutinize my body, while the muscular, grunting men provoked in me a socially programmed sense of inferiority. In the same way that social media had told young men they had to be muscular to be manly, it told me I wasn’t because I wasn’t.
And I’m not alone. I’ve seen firsthand how prevalent body dysmorphia is among gym-goers. Many of my male friends go to the gym, and the conversation often ends with them complaining about our size or shape. However, unlike fitness content creators who preach the idea that you can never be big enough, among our friends, these insecurities were inevitably met with words of affirmation and, most importantly, reason from the rest of the group. These interactions introduced me to an alternative “gym dude” culture, built on mutual recognition of our insecurities and a hyper-awareness of the dangers of social media. It was this same experience that seemed to be captured in the AI cat memes we shared with each other.
“For those who understand a meme, there’s the pleasure of being recognised, of being part of a group,” says Dr Akane Kanai, a lecturer at Monash University in Australia who specialises in online self-representation practices. This notion of “understanding” a meme takes the form of “gf spectators”, a term Dr Kanai coined to describe the way in which understanding digital content relies on shared social experiences. “In gf culture, relatable content is meant to reassure the audience that you and your audience are ‘normal,’” she explains. “It often relies on revealing some kind of small, specific but generic failure to live up to a middle-class feminine norm, communicated through self-deprecating humour – for example, not getting up at 5am to do yoga.”
This concept mirrors in reverse the way these cat memes resonated with my friends’ and my inability to conform to the hyper-masculine norms we were exposed to online. “I like the idea of using the bystander girlfriend as a way to re-signify what is toxic and extreme. When you unexpectedly use her playfulness to poke fun at a male obsession with conforming to a harmful body norm, it takes on a whole new direction,” agrees Dr. Kanai. “I think there’s a lot to be said for how kindness can subvert and also make otherwise thorny and overwhelming issues more approachable.”
In many ways, Dr. Kanai hit the nail on the head. Most men who work out are painfully aware of the standard “gym bro” narrative—a shirtless dude with a near-impossible body who places an exaggerated emphasis on physical appearance—so seeing this format satirized in such a ridiculous way helped open up a conversation with my friends and, through their infectious sharing, add a sense of community to our inability to conform to these unrealistic standards. In this way, through their satire of harmful body standards, these unassuming AI cat memes can be useful in reconceptualizing what we consider normal in the first place.
As statistics on male body dysmorphia and research from the UK Anti-Doping Agency mount, the harms of hypermasculine “gym dude” content become increasingly apparent. Beyond these depictions, we need content that clearly signals their fantasy, privileges their insecurities, and satirizes the hubris that lies beneath it all. We need… AI cat memes. Meow.
