RICHER IN AN INSTA!
Make Your Profile Pay
As soon as Sadik Hadzovic walks through the door of Powerhouse Gym in New York, two young men accost him. “It’s swole time!” they announce, pulling out their iphones for selfies. For Hadzovic, who has 2.1 million followers on Instagram, this kind of greeting has become an everyday occurrence; he is having the windows of his BMW M6 tinted because men keep knocking on his windscreen. He loves his followers and is generous with his time, but being an Instagram star can be exhausting. For several weeks, Hadzovic ignored my emails requesting an interview: he’d assumed they were from yet another stalker.
Though he has won several bodybuilding titles and was twice the runner-up for Mr Olympia, the stage that matters to him most is the one in your hand. On social media, Hadzovic is a symbol of self-maximisation – a man who has not only enlarged himself physically but has built up his body into a brand. His profession is “fitspiration”, a word that was recently recognised by Oxford Dictionaries. But while the jargon may be new, Hadzovic is part of a tradition of holding muscular male physiques up for adoration that dates back at least to the ancient Farnese Hercules statue.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s boyhood idol was Reg Park, an
English bodybuilder-turned-actor whom he first saw in the 1961 film Hercules and the Captive Women. Arnie himself helped to initiate the bodybuilding craze of the 1980s with Pumping Iron and Conan the Barbarian, the latter a homage to Park’s swords-and-sandals movies. But today’s Herculean role models have left the multiplexes and found a new home online, where tags such as #aesthetic and #motivation provide forums in which body artists can flaunt their work.
Despite the dedication and deprivation required to achieve such physiques, there is no shortage of men trying to emulate their idols. Motivations vary, but it often starts with ’mirin – that is, “admiring stares”. You, too, can become Hercules simply by following his meal plan and workout. You can purchase the clothes he wears. Sometimes, you can even hire him to coach you on Skype.
IRON MEN
Studies into fitspiration show that, regardless of the earnestness with which fitness influencers talk about training for health, it is ultimately the way they look that attracts followers. Grafting in the gym counts for little if your efforts aren’t conspicuous, and the bigger your body, the larger your following. Breaking the million mark as an averagesized man is a feat only achieved by the likes of Joe Wicks.
“The brawnier male aesthetic is increasingly something that people are pursuing,” says marketing guru Daniel Saynt. He compares the trend to how Kim Kardashian’s fame has caused many women to aspire to a fuller figure. Bodybuilders also offer the enticing spectacle of transformation: the before and after. “It’s like you’re following them on a journey,” he says. “You feel connected to them.”
When Ulisses Jr, who lives in London, began uploading videos to Myspace in 2003, most of his friends laughed at him. “No one cares about your tips,” they said. “Anyway, trainers don’t make any money.” He persisted, transitioning to Facebook and then Instagram, where as @ulissesworld he now has 4.7 million followers. In a sense, Ulisses’s friends were right: his earnings don’t come from his work as a trainer. Now he makes his living from sponsorships and appearances, alongside his clothing and supplement lines. But these days, people do care about his training tips. They want to know how he acquired his outrageously sculpted body.
The bodybuilding stars of social media have considerable earning potential. For a sponsored Instagram post, the general fee is £80-100 per 10,000 followers. For someone with Hadzovic’s following, that could mean £21,000 per post; at the same tariff, Ulisses Jr could command £47,000. Hadzovic tells me he can also make as much as £5,000 for a personal appearance, which includes “first-class flights and five-star hotels”.
In 2015, Hadzovic had just 5,000 followers. His success has been swift. He attributes this to “being real and not trying to live up to some online persona. I’ll say things like, ‘Dieting sucks, but you’ve got to do it.’”
He’s also consistent. He posts five to six times a day and punctuates the food and gym pics with photos of himself and his girlfriend, which feature plenty of unclad, rippling skin (his, that is). Hadzovic is clearly wise to the game. “People will ‘like’ a body shot more often than they’ll like anything else,” says Saynt.
LIVING STATUES
Hero status doesn’t come easy. Hadzovic adheres to a rigid training schedule, often working out twice a day. Whittling body fat down to a single-digit percentage demands precise eating. He measures every morsel. This strict attention to detail is part of the appeal: Hadzovic frequently posts photos of his meals with graphics indicating the stats of each component. But there’s no escaping the reality that, despite the fame and fortune, the lifestyle is austere. Partying won’t help you retain a pose-worthy physique.