Shannon McDade's boyfriend got hot all of a sudden. At least that's what you'd think if you scrolled to her TikTok.
The 27-year-old from New Jersey took part in a recent trend buoyed by Sabrina Carpenter's new song "When Did You Get Hot?" where users of the social media platform are posting before-and-after style videos of their boyfriends and husbands pre- and post-glow up. Her video has more than 110,000 views, though similar ones are racking up millions upon millions.
McDade's beau lifted heavy weights in high school to do shot put, and was a D1 athlete at Penn State. But once college ended, he formed new hobbies like surfing and hydrofoiling and slimmed down. He was a "big thrower guy, and then became this skinny, tan surfer dude," McDade says. "It's just a funny transformation. We joke about it, and we're like, wow. What you do with your body changes how you look quite dramatically sometimes"
But is there any harm in this trend that revels in objectification? Yes and no, says Kimberly Vered Shashoua, of Vered Counseling, a therapist for teens and young adults often navigating their first relationships. "In my opinion, the 'husband glow-up' trend is less about body image, and more about the joy of bragging about your conventionally attractive partner, with a nostalgic twist."
