There is no question that in recent decades academics have veered sharply left, and none more so than the humanities fields - but linking government spending to male body image may have set a new standard. Whereas the academic left used to attack the right, now they attack the left that won't continue to raise taxes - neoliberals.

Dr Jamie Hakim of the University of East Anglia School of Film, Television and Media Studies has written 'The Spornosexual': the affective contradictions of male body-work in neoliberal digital culture' in the Journal of Gender Studies and contends that more young men are striving for gym-fit, photo-perfect bodies that they use to create a social media brand because of British austerity due to the ongoing economic malaise. 'Spornosexuality' is a rather forced portmanteau of 'sports star' and 'porn star', coined in July 2014 by media commentator Mark Simpson, in an article in The Daily Telegraph about the rise of men attending the gym primarily for reasons of appearance, rather than for health or fitness. Apparently it was only in 2014 that British men cared about their appearance.

Traditional routes to success and power have been eroded in 'Austerity Britain', Hakim contends, causing young men to seek value instead through their bodies. 

How so? Since the 2008 financial crash, there has been a rise in young men sharing images of their worked-out bodies on social media platforms. And armed with correlation causation arrows going the wrong way, a paper is born. 

"One of the most interesting aspects of this development is the power-shift of a segment of society who have historically defined themselves through their mind, whilst at the same time defining those they have subordinated - women, gay and working-class people - through their bodies. The former group has historically been employed as high-paid decision-makers, whilst the latter have had to rely on their bodies for low- or no-pay work, such as manual and domestic labor, slavery and sex work," says Hakim. "Austerity has eroded young men's traditional means of value-creation so they have become increasingly reliant on their bodies as a means of feeling valuable in society. In theoretical terms, so-called 'spornosexuality' is an embodied response to material changes brought about by neoliberal austerity." 

To make the case, Hakim examined data from Sport England that showed a significant year-on-year increase in the amount of 16 to 25-year-old men attending the gym between 2006 and 2013. Meanwhile, the market research company Nielsen found that sales of sports nutrition products that are used to strip body fat and build muscle increased by 40 percent in Britain's 10 largest supermarkets - the second-largest growth in sales of any product sold in supermarkets in 2014. 

Hakim says that this demographic is both consuming and producing print and digital media that relates to body building. The print version of Men's Health magazine became the best-selling title in the British men's magazine market in 2009, selling nearly twice as many copies as its nearest competitor, GQ magazine. At the same time, the overall consumer magazine market was dramatically decreasing in circulation, while fitness-related hashtags on social media sites numbered in the multi-millions. 

Meanwhile, young people have become increasingly adept at building a social media brand based around their worked-out bodies and similarly savvy about marketing themselves through social media. Kim Kardashian paved the road for everyone.

Yet Kardashians success is hard to duplicate so these young people may have to settle for being healthier.

Hakim said, "The rise of men going to the gym and sharing images of their worked-out bodies began around 2008, coinciding with the intensification of neoliberalism that occurred in response to the 2008 economic crash and the following austerity measures. This is no coincidence. 

"There is a correlation between the rise of young men fashioning muscular bodies and sharing them online, and the austerity measures experienced by their generation. These economic tactics are widening inequality, especially for those born after 1980, with prohibitively high house prices, the loss of secure long-term contracts, tuition fees and other hurdles to economic security.

"The projection of what constitutes a 'good life' has become so spectacular even while the means of achieving home ownership, a prestigious career and a high income are radically diminishing."

Through interviews with young British men who regularly use the gym and have built a social media 'brand' based on their worked-out bodies, Hakim found each man talked about the importance of peer response to the images they circulated. "They continue to addictively pursue these fitness goals because the joys of accumulating spornosexual capital are one of the few remaining for young men in Britain's post-crisis austerity economy. This is an embodied and mediated response to the precarious feelings produced by neoliberal austerity."