How to Get Paid to Do Drugs (Men Only)
In the business of looking extraordinarily good, perfect genetics are not enough anymore.
My fellow men, you can now forget about all the diamond smuggling and crypto investing opportunities you’ve received in your spam inbox and pay attention to this: there is a job opportunity out there that can turn your recreational drug use into a 7-figure career — no experience nor LinkedIn Premium subscription required. And no, I’m not talking about part-timing as a member of Seth Rogen’s entourage until you get featured in one of his stoner movies.
There is a catch though.
You are required to have been born with an award-winning genetic makeup qualified for the “Shag-Worthy, Moist-Summoning, Fireball-Hot Cuntquistador Papito” level of the male beauty scale. Which is rather high.
But that’s only half the bother. Once you achieve hot dude, you will have to grow some muscle and lift that natural charm of yours up to magazine cover standards.
Such a perilous journey will demand you to hit the field — and by field I mean the field of chemistry: testosterone, human growth hormone, and all the other performance-enhancing drugs that you could possibly find in the “gym candy” jar.
And though I’m not saying that every chad who wants to look like Captain America is sipping a straw into the super-soldier serum, word has it that most do.
Welcome to show business.
[Performance-enhancing drugs] have already suffused our culture. We see their effects on the action heroes of mainstream movies, on the fitness influencers of Instagram, maybe even on the people lifting next to us at the gym. PEDs are becoming mainstream. That’s changed the way the larger culture, especially men, think about men’s bodies, what they look like, and what we think they’re supposed to look like. ( Alex Abad-Santos, ‘The Open Secret to Looking Like a Superhero’)
I don’t think we need David Attenborough’s explanation as to why: abs are family-pack and muscles have more definition than the deep space pics of the James Webb telescope. Even I can see the hotness through my straight male gaze.
And how incredible it is that science has found something in the periodic table than can take Kumail Nanjiani’s body from comic relief to sexual tension in less than a year anyway? He sure was hiding the cutting edge of the Pakistani’s gene pool under that “call centre IT guy” rack he’d been rocking for years.
You don’t have to like it, of course. A few centuries ago, dark-skinned muscles were considered vulgar signs of field labour. Kumail’s perfect body would’ve got him fewer chicks than a basket of boiled eggs — beauty standards change. It just so happens that ever since Schwarzenegger and Stallone started an action movie feud in the 80s, everyone’s been trying to outmuscle each other.
So don’t be fooled by the likes of Timothée Chalamet, Harry Styles and all the K-Pop stars making girls’ ovaries twitch by looking like their Y chromosome has neo pronouns in their Twitter bio. None of them could go shirtless and sell a superhero movie trailer like a Hemsworth does.
So if everyone is blending pumpers we gotta ask the question, are the drugs really needed to achieve these physiques?
Well that’d be the same as asking if a race car driver really needs to go way over the standard speed limit just for show. Do they even know what Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion is gonna do to them if they crash into a wall? See, the problem with taking the hurry and the prospect of fiery accidents out of the Daytona 500 is that all you’re left with is a glorified roundabout.
People want to pay for these forms of entertainment. Some entertainers are willing to put their health aside to provide it.
[The stunt guys] are taking massive hits and bouncing back up again. I asked, ‘What are you guys doing?’ ” According to the actor, a stuntman told him, “Steroids to get a build, insulin injections to get the cut, then HGH.” Stuntmen talk about drugs as a calculated risk that’s worth the advantage, so long as they get regular colonoscopies and screenings for prostate cancer. (Logan Hill, ‘Building a Bigger Action Hero’)
Much to the dismay of Scorsese, the aesthetics of Captain America et al. have become so ubiquitous that if you want a shirtless male frame in any piece of contemporary media, you gotta blend pumpers and stack Arnolds until you look like you’re ready to join the Avengers.
Actors and models don’t have it that hard anyway. NFL players have been liquefying their brains with head trauma for years, doing the same disservice to America’s average IQ as the Flat Earth Society. And UFC fighters will routinely get inverted-triangle-choked until they’re forced on a flashback of their troubled childhood before drooling into a comma.
Is your entertainment worth the risk?
I know some of you might have the urge to put all these actors and models in a 12 Steps program before someone accidentally ejaculates into a lab tube and gives birth to the Powerpuff Girls, but think about it.
The drugs aren't really the problem here.
Hell, even with the drugs, the physiques you see on screen are more volatile than a fart in a bucket. Remember Brad Pitt's look on Fight Club? He had to cut weight for every single bare-chest scene. Though perhaps not as hard as Hugh Jackman who, for Wolverine, went through a 36-hour dehydration period—you know, to make those veins really pop in the closeup. Had he pushed a little more he would've needed actual superpowers to survive the organ failure.
Showbiz is loaded with similar stories (ask Matt Damon about his shrunken heart) and I have no problem with them. It makes for an interesting read on the "career highlights" section of their Wikipedia entries.
But I do have a problem with the shroud of secrecy around it that I'd bet most of them are contractually obliged to maintain.
Because the same guys will then go on a press tour and talk about hard work, determination, and the power of eating “chicken, broccoli and rice” like not since the holy trinity we’ve seen a more sacred coalition.
Then you go on social media, and hundreds of influencer-wannabe fitness charlatans are following the same business blueprint: bulk up with ‘roids, take the post-workout mirror selfie, and sell their bullshit training programs and diet plans to the unsuspecting consumer.
Kids, there is only one program that can make you look like a Men’s Health cover and it’s called Photoshop.
Hard work is not enough — but it’s sold as being enough.
That’s where all the unrealistic expectations surrounding male body standards come from. That’s where the rising muscle dysmorphia and eating disorders among men are rooted in. That’s why teenagers are going through their first steroid cycle before they finish going through puberty.
Still, I don’t think this has to be a “Lance Armstrong” code just yet. Nobody phone Oprah.
I think these actors and models are just doing their best to keep up with the spoiled standards of an audience that, over decades, has been overindulged with ever-better renditions of the male’s aesthetic perfection.
To wit: these guys are supposed to look supernaturally good. They lure eyeballs precisely because they look extraordinary.
Let them. Bodies do come in all shapes and sizes, but not all bodies should fit inside a Batman suit. I expect Batman to look like he can kick ass. When Robert Pattinson said he wouldn’t bulk up for the role it just came out as lazy.
In retrospect, it could’ve been a silent protest against the steroid culture pestering the industry. But again, we’ll never know. Cause keeping quiet and protecting their secret, juiced-up identities is part of the job.
Hell, maybe after all these years of Marvel domination they genuinely believe they are fucking superheroes.