When idly filling out a dating profile and looking for a few choice words to describe yourself, what would you pick? All those nouns and adjectives at your disposal, you’d probably plump for words that made you sound strong, smart, dependable, romantic, ambitious maybe. You would, I imagine, be highly unlikely to consider “himbo” but… perhaps you should. After decades of ridicule and irrelevance, the humble himbo is re-emerging.
Originally coined in 1988 by Washington Post movie critic Rita Kempley, himbo is, of course, a derivative of the now outmoded “bimbo”, one of the many words used to berate women who don’t fit into society’s ever-narrowing view of what is and isn’t acceptable. Funnily enough, bimbo itself originally used to refer to men, but the patriarchy did its usual artful deflection. In its original sense, a himbo was brawny, plain-speaking – out of necessity – and the kind of guy you’d find splashed over posters for Hollywood action blockbusters packing out cinemas throughout the 1980s: mononymous, musclebound heroes such as Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Van Damme. The guy from the Athena poster looking down in awe at that baby, maybe. Any dude from an American soap who wasn’t plotting to take over an oil company. Himbos have come and gone over the years: the guys in Magic Mike; any Love Island hunk that wasn’t a manipulative mansplainer; Jason in The Good Place; Armie Hammer on Instagram.
A true himbo must be, according to Tumblr user scofflawsins, “beefy, kind, and stupid”. Twitter and Tumblr blew up recently with defences and criticisms of the himbo concept, especially after one Twitter user – who suffered such an onslaught I’ll avoid naming them – said that being attracted to a himbo was “ableism”. Attractiveness is as high a currency as it’s ever been, but why, when we value achievement, intelligence and the ability to win over almost everything else, would a lack of grey matter be so desirable, aspirational? What can we learn from them? Even if we lack some of the key components, is there a way we can all be a little more “himbo”?
It’s handy that, generally, we’re encouraging ourselves and others to pivot to kindness. This is the himbo’s speciality: his good deeds come without motive. He’s not just nice because he wants to sleep with you, or to get a promotion, but because he’s an empathetic soul and it’s the right thing to do. A himbo is trusting and goes with his instincts, usually from a place of optimism. Beware, however, of “we’ve all had enough of experts” rhetoric, which is populism masquerading as himboism and has been appropriated by those acting dumb, gaslighting us all with their affected clownery. A himbo always believes in the science, even if he doesn’t understand it, and if he’s ever unkind or misleading it’s unintentional and he recants almost immediately. He deals with the consequences of his own actions, once they’re explained to him. The key to embracing himboism is not to feel resentful at not being the sharpest tool in the box or feel shame at your incompetence, but be glad your simple soul is free of malevolence or envy – other than the endearing, light jealousy that comes from wishing you looked as good in Speedos as another himbo sitting two sunloungers away.
Not 100 per cent down with being objectified as a sexy dumbass? I get it. Shift the stupidity slightly to a kind of… innocence. It’s not about lacking intelligence or common sense, more that their thoughts are as yet unsullied by the cynicism and toxic opinions that make him a man to be wary of. The himbo is unthreatening because he doesn’t feel threatened himself – he’s secure enough in his masculinity not to act entitled or lash out when challenged. As MEL’s Miles Klee explains: “These gentle oafs are a special breed, too innocent to hurt out of malice or insecurity, too serene in their size and strength to even start a war of words… He dreams not of acquisition and conquest, as his humble imagination leans toward the basic comforts: a home gym, nice friends, grilled dinners and an energetic dog.” A himbo isn’t just remarkable for what he is, but who he isn’t. He’s not an evil mastermind, a brilliant genius, a coercive bully or a disrespectful fuckboy. He may not be the man you want on your quiz team, but he’s the guy you want in your squad when stuff needs doing. Moving house, settling down with a boxset, shed building, pepping up your wedding photos because all your other groomsmen look like Gollum’s reflection in the back of a teaspoon. That kind of thing. Dependable, no hidden agenda. Fallible, but not afraid to admit it or make things right.
Things have been going this way for a while. The himbo’s resurgence is a natural reaction to the once-lovable sexy nerd, the alternative heart throb of the last decade and antidote to stereotypical bad boys or confident geniuses. The sexy nerd combined a gentle nature, underdog charm, a thirst for trivia and a quirky hobby with ironically ugly spectacles and a dull, yet contrived, collegiate wardrobe – and the mainstream loved it. T-shirts emblazoned with “GEEK” became a seasoned favourite; will we see “HIMBO” merch before the year is out? However, our hot geek realised brains, a new gym membership and a year-long course of antibiotics to clear his “backne” weren’t enough and got drunk on power. You can now find these sexy nerds cultivating their participation trophy complex underneath any social media post by a woman, explaining their joke back to them or correcting their use of “whom”. Yep, just like many former plain Duanes who get a whiff of hotness and popularity, the sexy nerd got mean, creating the desire for a less complicated and acerbic brawny hero, whose sarcastic repertoire begins and ends at “like, duh” and is used only in self-deprecation.
The himbo still has hurdles to overcome. We love an underdog, so it can be hard to root for anyone who looks so good, let alone associate this strong physique with kindness or gentleness. Maybe it’s because some men get muscles as a defence mechanism, in search of hyper-masculinity; maybe they were weedy incels at school or grew up in the shadow of beefed-up, belligerent dads. Weren’t we always taught that the squadrons of roided-up meatheads causing trouble on a Saturday night were the macho stereotype to be avoided? But this is the key difference: the himbo leans into this aesthetic, but doesn’t exploit it. He’s got your back, but a himbo doesn’t cause trouble or need to exert strength to frighten anyone – he just likes the way his pecs look in a T-shirt. Like Superman and his powers, a himbo uses his swoleness only for good.
He’s happy with his lot too and this dearth of obsessive ambition is a puzzle for many men. We’re supposed to want it all: be the cleverest, the fittest, the most capable, the sexiest. We’re supposed to be team players, yet sweep everyone aside and stay focused on our goal. We’re meant to be keen multitaskers, with uncountable digits crammed into infinite pies. It’s no wonder so many of us have failure anxiety or impostor syndrome – the truth is, this “all” has never been available to us. In Tales Of The City, Armistead Maupin introduced us to Mona’s Law: you can have a hot job, a hot apartment and a hot lover but you can’t have all three at the same time. Acceptance of this is fundamental to himbo philosophy: rejecting the concept of “all or nothing”, embracing being “happy with some of it”.
I’ve looked in enough mirrors and heaved enough kettle bells over my head to know I’ve as much chance of being labelled a himbo as I do of winning a Pulitzer. I’m way too doughy and overly cynical. But if pescatarians can exist, then I can claim a sliver of himboism. If you lack the body, the dimness or the doe-eyed innocence, you’ll never officially be a true himbo, no, but embracing himbo principles is simple. Resist the temptation to be a smartarse, suppress every frothing molecule in your DNA that says you should start every sentence with “well, actually” and acknowledge you don’t need to be right every time or the first to do or say everything. Life is not a series of challenges for you to complete, it’s to be enjoyed and experienced – sometimes, quite passively. Wait to be told, turn toward optimism, discover things by accident, learn to laugh at – and learn from – your mistakes and make these errors visibly, no cover-ups. A himbo is too open, too pure, to enter into conspiracies, to crave control, to coerce or to deceive. If you’re not prepared to be objectified for your body or forget everything you learned at university, then get to work on your personality. And then, to riff on a Mariah Carey classic, you’ll finally see the truth… that a himbo lies in you.
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