This.
Lots of guys lift for pussy. You look at an IFBB pro, you're looking at big giant physique that takes a lot of time, training, and drugs, and isn't what women want.
These aesthetic guys, especially the ones that got on youtube early, hit the trifecta as far as subscribers - Guys looking to get buff, schmoes looking for something else, and some women. They also have better out reach and pump out better content visually than most bodybuilders.
Jay Cutler's web presence sucked till he got a real team behind him. Very few want to watch straight ahead type bodybuilding stuff.
Edit - forgot I posted in this already 
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Great post.
I'm also flabbergasted at how many IFBB pros stay covered up at expos - even if they are in good shape. It's weird.
I've mentioned I get a lot of attention for my physique lately. That's not because I have an amount of size that's overwhelming - it's because I have been wearing tank tops all summer, and because I am in shape,
period.
How many men out of 100 have a sinewy/muscular physique at all? Then how often on a daily basis do we see any of them? And if we do, are they showing any of their physique, or are they covered up?
Kai Greene was notorious for being covered up head to toe at expos, and that was for literally a nearly a decade while I was attending them:
So the combination of being in a fat society, and most people - even people who ARE in the top 1-10% of aesthetic shape - staying covered up all the time - created a huge market for these men's physique competitors, who are in the top 0.1% of in-shape men, and some of whom had no problem producing YouTube content while training shirtless or in a tank top.
I was always consistently flabbergasted while watching Battle for the Olympia videos with bodybuilders completely covered up. You'd have Dennis Wolf and others covered up - sometimes with pros completely covered with a hoodie - and they were oblivious to the fact that people BUY THE VIDEO to see the physiques of the bodybuilders.
You'd think with a physique like Wolf's, you'd want to show it off. But no.
But I guess big-o-rexia is hard like that. It makes the biggest men on the planet think they are small.
One thing about me is I know that most people don't see lean muscular people out and about, which is why I purposely don't cover up. And the way some people look at me, it's like they've never seen a man with a muscular physique who weighs over 200-lb before.
In particular, after chest or shoulders day, I make it a point to be seen publicly. I'm going to enjoy being in shape while I can.
Getbiggers act like it's common to even have the physique I do. Meanwhile, I get someone stopping me to ask me about training, on average,
every single time I am exposed to the general population [again - because I wear tank tops. If I was covered up, that probably wouldn't happen].
And that's looking like me. So anyone in the shape of a men's physique competitor should churn out video after video for YouTube, the way Scott Herman did, of ScottHermanFitness. He was making a substantial income from that, and that's because he consistently made videos while he was in shape.
And why not, if you look like this?:
Although, in a tank top, Scott and I are much closer in appearance, since my main flaws are covered up.
Scott churned out video after video when he was in shape, and developed a huge following because of it:
Even at ~16% body fat, I enjoyed some modest success doing this a little on YouTube:
I am confident that any of us could get online views if we were willing to do what it takes to get to under 10% body fat. But I'm assuming that would require fat-burning drugs for most people, and for me in particular, so I'd rather not.
Or at the very least, bodybuilders should stop being so covered up.
It's amazing how insecure even the most in-shape people in the WORLD are. No wonder so many stay on juice forever.
If you're sub-10% body fat, there is a huge market for people who want to watch videos of people like that. Be it normal bodybuilding fans, or people who can't watch NSFW content at work, or whatever the case.
Yet everyone stays covered up.
