Does your bf know who EmRata is?
An examination of men on social media/ an ode to offline purity
A few weeks ago Brynn Wallner, founder of DIMEPIECE and watch columnist at Harpers Bazaar, tweeted that her boyfriend “doesn’t know who EmRata is.” Her celebration triggered a challenge for the romantically involved with text message screenshots and quote tweets of girls sharing similar humble brags that their boyfriends aren’t familiar with one Emily Ratajkowski. While the skeptic in me assumes half these men are lying to keep the peace, there’s something deeper at play: the coveted innocence of offline men.
We’ve seen EmRata on the big screen in Gone Girl. She’s walked the runway for major designers like Marc Jacobs. And yes, she got her big break as the naked muse in Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines'' music video. But Ratajkowski's multihyphenate career and sex symbol status are largely supported by the 27.3 million people on Instagram who’ve sold their souls to an ab crack. I’m one of them. I like EmRata, and I’ve even written about her before. So what is the precise appeal of a man who can’t ID her? It signifies a disconnect from mindless pop culture, social media, and, most importantly, the subset of moderately to very online men whose concept of the ideal woman has been irrevocably FaceTuned.
My friend’s boyfriend Mike has no social media. Mike is a graphic designer, a painter, a poet, a runner, a motorcyclist, a gamer, and an all around good human, and his online presence begins and ends with an obligatory LinkedIn. When I first learned this about Mike, I was bewildered. Like he was some endangered species who, if protected, could heal the world of its toxic preoccupation with what everyone else is doing. Mike works in tech. He always has a phone with the best camera and takes breathtaking photos (sometimes he’s even in them!) to share nowhere. This level of restraint is hard to conceive. But according to Mike, not having social media allows him “to connect more with the world around him.” He explained, “Historically, we had neighbors and knew a lot about them. How can you live your life and keep up with 500+ neighbors?”
Of course, Mike is an extreme example. We’re not hypocritical or unrealistic enough to expect men to go off the grid completely. All we really want is someone who resists these insatiably horny times to use their phone with some degree of wholesomeness.
When I scroll my current explore page, every bare-assed, big-titted model (no shade, honey, get your bag) has been “liked” by at least one guy I know with a girlfriend. How nice to have such devoted fans who will literally risk it all on a mirror selfie, much less one with a supplement discount code in the caption! Whether this behavior is acceptable depends entirely on the couple, but my question is more of a rhetorical “why?” What do men gain from these one-sided interactions, and why are they comfortable even potentially inciting insecurity in their partners for it?
One of my guy friends is obsessed with this German beauty on Instagram. Over 5 million followers enjoy her exposed nipples framed by sandy blonde locks, leaning against balconies in exotic locales, or her shadowy, wet hourglass figure pressed into the glass door of a shower. (It’s almost as though if you’re hot enough and have a huge reach, you are above the platform’s strict community guidelines on nudity. Anywho...) The influencer exudes a pornographic femininity so exaggerated it verges on Hentai. One day he was showing me her account and said, in such adorable, devastating sincerity, that he hoped to meet her someday. To be with her someday. It was in that moment a sliver of hope I’d been clutching for dear life slipped from my hands like a helium balloon.
We are expected to greet this as normal—to accept that we are insecure and in the wrong to be disturbed by something as innocuous as a “like.” Yet behind these double taps are guys like my friend who hold some delusion that these women are theirs for the taking. And they wonder why they find something wrong with every girl they meet IRL, or can’t perform in bed when they come to find real bodies don’t look like that. The issue lies in this state of accessible fantasy; the more time one spends consuming and engaging with airbrushed hotness, the more susceptible one is to believing that as good and true. Men become detached from reality, more interested in strangers on their phone than their partners beside them.
Things get murky when it comes to women guys know, or tangentially know of. I’ll be the first person to say I “like” everyone’s photos, and plenty of respectable men, with and without girlfriends, engage with my posts. There is kindness in supporting someone online, even if it’s just a moment when they felt sexy and decided to share it. But too many of us have horror stories of “when you know, you know” moments of shadiness. It’s his old college flame who just happens to be newly single. It’s his sister’s boyfriend’s cousin whom he’s never met, but just happens to follow and his finger just happened to bump into her Miami vacation pic in which she just happens to be wearing a thong. There’s context here, and the fact that there’s even loose connection creates an air of possibility. I had an ex who cheated on me admit that he masturbated to girls he knew on social media. That state of accessible fantasy becomes even more so when the women are within living reach, and before you know it, lines are crossed. I’ll say it with my chest that receiving that news hurt worse than being cheated on. To learn my partner, who had a history of cheating already, would willingly feed thoughts of infidelity by surfing Facebook for jerk off material was indefensible. I repeat: whether this behavior is acceptable depends entirely on the couple, but you must understand my plight.
People argue that it’s our fault as women for being scantily clad on public platforms. As a purveyor of hot photos myself, to condemn this behavior feels like moral posturing. Who am I to say a “like” or a story reply from a taken man is so bad when I post the very “thirst traps” that garner them? I don’t know. All I know is for the overwhelming majority of women I’ve spoken to, they would appreciate the bare minimum respect from their partners of not fucking doing that. But this is where personal responsibility comes in: if you never communicate that you see it and are not cool with it, how can they know to stop? We get anxious about asserting our needs for fear of looking controlling. But what’s so hard about not engaging with random models on social media? Our culture of independence is so vigilant, we’re gaslit into believing that’s asking a lot.
Brynn Wallner was on the Dewy Dudes podcast discussing the EmRata tweet and what little moments like that mean to her relationship. She said it’s indicative of her boyfriend’s online activity, whose explore page is just basketball and skateboarding videos. I asked my partner to show me his, and it was literally identical. Wallner then explained that two hyper-online people shouldn’t be together—that the constant state of glazed-eyed cringe should be balanced with someone grounded. I’ve always joked that I’ll marry a guy with a flip phone. I may not be a bonafide e-girl, but the internet consumes enough of my life that the simplicity of someone truly removed feels like a Tahitian retreat.
Thus, I think much of our fantasies around guys without social media stem from the shame we feel toward our own screen time—our own insecurities amplified by looking at professionally hot people all day; we don’t want an enabler, we want an escape from ourselves. I can’t imagine dating someone who doesn’t understand meme humor and the pain of eternal log-on. Yet I find myself writing elegies for eye contact, guys who plan hiking trips and think the gaps between your teeth are sexy. They are real and they are among us; it just takes sifting through the trash to find them.
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