If the Barbie movie somehow felt it needed even more attention, it could have sent Mark Zuckerberg down the pink carpet in L.A. without a shirt. Or maybe with a tight T-shirt, something Y2K-ish. Because the internet is ablaze with reactions to the shirtless photo he posted Tuesday. He posed with nothing but a pair of workout shorts alongside people who, Insider informs MMA ignoramuses like me, are “two of the most successful modern MMA fighters of this generation,” Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanovski.
A rule of the modern media seems to be that when billionaires get buff, the world must come to instant attention, like a wildebeest at a watering hole hearing a bloodthirsty predator rustling in nearby brush. This is, of course, different from what happens with famous women, who go anywhere with any amount of flesh exposed and then must be subjected to the Daily Mail’s cellulite beat reporters. Celebrating a woman’s body seems to come at the cost of scrutiny and ridicule most of the rest of the time. But when a billionaire puts some effort into his physique and fitness, glows himself up with all that money and drive, people get excited.
Zuckerberg’s moment of public buffness harkens Jeff Bezos’s in the previous decade. One day in 2017, Bezos was just running Amazon like any office man in ill-fitting clothes, the next he was showing up to a conference in Sun Valley with unmissably muscular arms bursting forth from his well-fitting polo shirt and puffy vest. And thus the narrative about Bezos as not only a Buff Man, but also a “style icon” was born. I don’t have to tell you about all the paparazzi shots of him shirtless on large boats that followed.
How did Zuckerberg go from posting regular guy content involving pizza, hamentashen, iced Meta cookies, and “schnitzel for days” to the distinct vibes of a paleo influencer? First, he fenced with Olympic gold medalist Lee Kiefer in 2021, capturing the session on flop Meta product Ray-Ban Stories glasses. But then circa last September, his MMA passion became an all-new beat for tech journalists after he posted a video of himself sparring with Khai Wu, the fighter who trains him. Wu spoke to reporters about Zuckerberg’s prowess on the mat (in the cage? bear with me if in the unlikely event you are a Back Row reader who knows a lot about MMA, because I cannot understand how to talk about this sport in the span of a single morning):
“You’d never expect these guys to be able to take you down. Next thing you know, they’re attacking you with these extremely technical moves,” Wu added. “You don’t know this nerd is a silent killer.”
In February, our “silent killer” brought together his two passions, the Metaverse and martial arts, when he invited Volkanovski to the Meta office to wear little AI suits together and make avatars of themselves fighting.
UFC commenter Joe Rogan took note of all this. Following Zuckerberg’s gold medal win in a jiujitsu tournament, he remarked on his wildly popular podcast in May, “Mark Zuckerberg is a fucking savage.”
Perhaps Zuckerberg took note of his newfound “fucking savage” status. Perhaps he decided, You know what? I work hard. I’m worth a hundred billion dollars. I have muscles. It’s time for my Hot Girl Summer.
And so it began, as many Hot Girl Summers do, on Memorial Day, when he posted a photo of himself in a weighted vest and shared that his time for completing the Murph Challenge (running a mile, doing 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, then running another mile) was 39:58.
BuzzFeed picked up the photo right away, declaring, “Mark Zuckerberg Posted A Thirst-Trappy Pic, And People Have Reactions.” Naturally at least one of those involved “thirsting” for his buff body.
Hot Girl Summer originator Megan Thee Stallion has said, “It's just basically about women (and men) being unapologetically them, just having a good-ass time, hyping up your friends, doing you, not giving a damn about what nobody gotta say about it.” Maybe that very energy inspired Zuckerberg to reply to Elon Musk’s June tweet, “I’m up for a cage match if he [Zuckerberg] is,” with “Send Me Location” in an Instagram story:
This potential billionaire X billionaire cage match has become, ridiculously, one of the biggest news stories of the summer. It’s like the Fendace collab: the natural reaction is, of course, Why!? But also: That makes sense. I personally want to escape it like I want to escape knowing anything about Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav but that ship has long sailed.
Anyway, it was with the Musk-Zuckerberg rivalry nearing peak fascination that Zuckerberg did something else wild involving a Meta product. Only, unlike the Metaverse and those Facebook Ray-Bans, people were truly excited about it: Threads, Meta’s new microblogging app that the media has called the “Twitter Killer.”
Threads launched a week ago, and by Monday, it had 100 million users, making it the fastest growing app of all time. Not only that, but after enduring so many scandals — election disinformation, disturbing statistics about how Meta’s products negatively affect teen girls, data privacy — millions of people were, weirdly, rooting for Zuckerberg to win.
It was in this uniquely favorable climate of people hating Twitter — intensely resenting what Musk did to it — that Zuckerberg posted that shirtless photo. Common adjectives used to describe Zuckerberg as he appeared in that image include “ripped,” “chiseled,” and “shredded.” Here’s MMA Junkie’s headline: “Mark Zuckerberg shows off ripped physique after training with Israel Adesanya, Alexander Volkanovski.” Insider: “Mark Zuckerberg posts shirtless pic looking chiseled with two MMA fighters amid Elon Musk cage match talk.” UNILAD: “Mark Zuckerberg looks ripped as he poses with MMA fighters ahead of Elon Musk cage match talk.” South China Morning Post: “See Mark Zuckerberg’s ripped physique amid Elon Musk cage fight talk.” MMA Fighting: “Israel Adesanya, Alexander Volkanovski post training photos with surprisingly ripped Mark Zuckerburg.”
What’s next for Zuckerberg? Maybe he will cage-fight (and beat) Musk. Maybe he’ll indulge that all-too-common hot-girl impulse to get photographed on yachts like Bezos. Maybe he’ll change up the cut of his pants and become the subject of “style icon” stories in newspapers globally. Who knows! What I do know is that this guy has Kenergy for maybe the first time in his life, and the bathing suit paparazzi are going to make sure that we don’t stop hearing about it for a long time to come.
This is like the Friends storyline when Pete the millionaire wants to become the ultimate fighting champion!
There were/are many adjectives/phrases here (chiseled!) that made me chuckle albeit uncomfortably, but I believe “bursting forth!” Is the real winner here!