Whether or not you know anything about the world of fitness influencing and bodybuilding, you've likely heard the name Zyzz before.

A pioneer in his field, Zyzz rose to legendary meme and fitness influencer status in the 2010s on BodyBuilding.com. His reach expanded far beyond the world of fitness, inspiring viral memes, terms and catchphrases that live on to this day, including "'Mirin," "We're all gonna make it" (WAGMI) and a whole genre of so-called "Zyzz music."

In 2011, at the height of his popularity, Zyzz tragically passed away from an undiagnosed congenital heart defect while in a sauna in Thailand.

Since then, his brother, Said Shavershian, another well-known fitness influencer, bodybuilder and coach known by the nickname Chestbrah, has taken up the torch. Ever since his brother's death, he's done what he can to keep the name Zyzz alive and spread Zyzz's legacy, positivity and beliefs to the masses.

Now, Zyzz and Chestbrah are the subjects of an upcoming documentary titled Poster Boy: Becoming Zyzz, releasing on August 5th, 2026.

We spoke with Chestbrah to learn more about his brother's legacy, the impact of Zyzz, the documentary, the current fitness landscape dominated by looksmaxxing and more.

Q: Good to talk to you, Said. Can you introduce yourself for those who might not know you?

A:My name is Said Shavershian, otherwise known as Chestbrah. I'm the older brother of Zyzz. I'm an online fitness coach in the space, and I've been in the fitness world for the last 20 years. I help men over 30 achieve their goals, transform their physiques and live better lives.

Q: When did you get into fitness?

A:I was about 18 years old when I got into fitness, and it was mostly due to my upbringing. I grew up watching the old school action movies with Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I grew up in the 90s era, when that kind of masculinity was being pushed forward onto the world and onto the masses.

I was very heavily bullied for my stature when I was in high school, being the shortest and the skinniest in my grade out of a peer group of around 300 students. I vowed to myself when I finished school that I would do some kind of physical activity. It was either going to be wrestling or a sport, but I navigated towards bodybuilding.

I grew up watching these action heroes, watching WWF and WCW. So in my mind, it was heavily ingrained. Muscle-bound men. I saw these guys as role models and inspirations, and I wanted to be just like them.

I saw that they commanded a lot of respect from the masses, and I thought if I replicated them, a similar thing would happen. That's basically how it started. I had a little bit of a growth spurt at the end of year 12 and started bodybuilding and bought my first gym membership at 18 years of age, and I've never looked back.

Q: Do you think action movies and stars like that inspired a lot of people to get into bodybuilding? Why do most people get into bodybuilding from your experience?

A: I hear the story of bullying and guys getting into the gym because they want to impress girls. I haven't heard too much about people getting into bodybuilding because of watching those old school Arnie and Sly movies. I think I'm the first that's mentioned that as a bodybuilder online and always conveyed that message, like these were the guys that kind of propelled me into bodybuilding.

But I think the classic story of the guy wanting to get attention, wanting to get girls, wanting to transform himself is a very common story among most bodybuilders. That's how most get started. Most truly do get started to garner attention from women.

Q: Your brother Zyzz was one of the earliest and most influential fitness influencers. Did he inspire you to get into bodybuilding, or did you inspire him?

A: I actually inspired him to do everything that he did. He was always watching me and, as you know, with siblings, the younger brother emulates the older brother. He tries to impress him and take on his characteristics.

He would see me going out to festivals. He saw me bodybuilding in the gym, and he saw the gains that I was making. I would push him. He was a video gamer.

He was a World of Warcraft player, and he amassed over 1,000 hours of gameplay. I still remember to this day, he would sit in his room with a bottle of Coke Zero, just drinking Coke all day and playing video games for literally about 10 to 12 hours straight. I would always just go in his room and tease him and have a go at him like, "Man, come on. When are you going to come with me to the gym? You've got to go get some girls, we've got to get you looking buff. Look at my gains, look how much size I've put on. You can do the same."

Eventually it stuck, and then he sold his World of Warcraft account. The player that he was using was one of the top-ranked players because he had to put so many hours in at the time. It was about 25 years ago.

He sold his player for $1,000. About 25 years ago, that was more like $10,000. I remember just being amazed by how much he made from selling a pixelated character on a screen.

Then he went and used that money and got a gym membership. That was it. He never looked back. So I was the driving force for everything. I kind of started the wave of his fitness and aesthetics, and he came and finessed it.

Q: How did you get the nickname "ChestBrah?"

A: There was a bodybuilding forum called bodybuilding.com. Me and my brother would frequent a forum called the Misc, the Misc forum.

On there, Zyzz, Aziz is his real name, had started to amass a decent following and attention. His username on there was Zyzz. Zyzz is the nickname that I gave him because I couldn't pronounce his name, Aziz, when I was young.

I figured, you know what? I need a catchy name too. I have to catch up with this fool. So I posted a thread. At the time, my username was Ecto1986, which means "ectomorph 1986," the year I was born. "Ectomorph," in bodybuilding terms, means a guy with a slender frame who's a hard gainer, who has trouble putting on muscle, trouble putting on weight.

I made a thread, and I was wearing an Ed Hardy singlet and holding a Motorola flip phone, an orange flip phone. I thought I was the s--t. I took a selfie, and I captioned the thread, "Are you admiring my chest, brahs?"

I was waiting to be glazed and adored by everyone in the comments, saying I was cool and all this stuff. That's what I was hoping for. In fact, it was the exact opposite.

It turned into a viral thread. Three, four hundred pages plus of me getting absolutely trolled into oblivion, people making memes and photoshops out of my body and my face, and everyone just like having a p-ss. Back then, the Internet was brutal. There was no censorship. You just have to cope with it.

But it did help me build up tough skin. In the subsequent threads I would make after that, because I gained a lot of fame from that viral 300, 400 page thread, everyone would reply under any thread that I'd make after, "Hey, it's that chest brah guy. I thought to myself, "Chest Brah, Chest Brah, Chest Brah. I like that."

So I changed my name on the forums to ChestBrah. The universe works in a weird way. As I went through my bodybuilding journey, my pectoralis muscles, or my chest, as you will, became one of the largest, most defining features of my physique. Like literally, my chest was overgrown and outgrown in comparison to the rest of my body.

So the name kind of stuck really well because my chest was extremely overdeveloped, and it just was so fitting. The rest is history, bro. I knew what I was doing.

I was emulating. I would always emulate a character. Me and Zyzz felt like we were characters living in a simulation of the real world. The same way WWF characters had names and had stories, Zyzz and ChestBrah also had a name and a story. At the time when the internet was just popping, that was a really good way of getting attention. A really, really good way of getting attention. Subconsciously, we both knew that, and we played on it.

Now more people know me by ChestBrah than by my actual name, Said Shavershian. I would say 90% of people know me by ChestBrah. It's kind of like The Rock. Are you ever going to call The Rock "Dwayne Johnson?" No, The Rock will forever be The Rock.

Q: What was the relationship between you and Zyzz like regarding fitness? Was it competitive or more of a relationship of camaraderie?

A: We were best friends. We were always, always helping each other. But him being the younger brother, I felt that he would always try to one-up me on everything, as the younger brother always does.

Whether it was, "Hey, I'm bigger than you, I weigh more than you, I lifted more than you this week," it was a healthy sibling competition. But there was never a rivalry. We were more like best friends than brothers. We shared a very special relationship. I do attribute that to our really, really strong upbringing.

We have parents who are still together to this day. We have very hardworking immigrant parents that came over here and really pushed for us to have a better life and instilled really good family values in us. So we were very, very, very close.

There was never a rivalry per se, but definitely a lot of competition to see who was the strongest, who was the fastest. We did everything together, not just bodybuilding.

We were both skateboarders in our early teens. We skateboarded for three or four years. It was the same back then. Who could do the better trick, who can ollie down the biggest stairs, who can do the cleaner kickflip and the better board slides and nose slides. We were always kind of crazy, man. Always in healthy competition with one another. When I think about it, it makes me sad. It was beautiful, man. I miss it every day.

Q: Why do you think memes are so greatly tied into fitness influencing and content online, and why do you and Zyzz attract so many followers?

A: I think it goes all the way back to the early days of the internet. Back in the Ronnie Coleman and Jay Cutler days and Cell-Tech, which was a form of creatine back then that claimed to put on, I think, seven pounds in seven days.

There was so much lingo and slang thrown around on the Misc forums, where a lot of our phrases were born. It was a very trolling type of era where people were just taking the p-ss. I don't know why it became so big and monumental in bodybuilding, but bodybuilding itself just got memed.

The lifestyle, the characters, the wildness of the sport and how niche it was. It was funny to people. But people couldn't understand it. People didn't know why there'd be overgrown men in tiny little underwear on stage posing for a bunch of judges. I didn't even understand it. It was genuinely Zyzz and myself that came into the game and gave it a name, "Aesthetics," and made it cool.

The way I like to say it is Zyzz was literally the Conor McGregor of the fitness industry. If you didn't know about the UFC, Conor McGregor was the one who brought you into it and made you fall in love with it. He amassed and brought an audience that otherwise would have never come to watch the UFC, myself included.

Zyzz was the same with fitness. He was so different than most bodybuilders, so eccentric, so funny, so charismatic, that he attracted the losers of life, the skinny kids that got bullied, the outcasts, the genetically inferior guys that didn't get picked for the school teams or were last in line to get picked in high school for teams. The guys that didn't get dates in the formal, the guys that were too scared to speak, the shy guys, the guys that were introverted, the guys that thought they would never amount to anything.

He spoke to a generation of men and women that otherwise probably would have never gotten into bodybuilding. He made it cool, and he brought a different audience in, which is why I always tell all my friends and people around me that he was literally the Conor McGregor of the fitness industry. He wasn't the biggest, he wasn't the most shredded, not even close, but he definitely had the biggest influence on the industry. As much as Arnold, if not more. It's crazy, dude. It has nothing to do with the physique.

Because back then, his physique was seen as one in a billion. Now these young teens would comment on his physique and call him mid. An average physique, which I think is wild.

I myself, as a bodybuilder, have won pro cards in federations and top three finishes in shows, and I got to a level where I was like 100 kilos at 5'11", like enormous. Then I thought, "Well, this doesn't look good. I don't like being this big." Even my own girlfriend didn't like me being that big.

So, I've downsized now that I'm 40 years old. I'm happy being around 86 kilos and lean and much more nimble, much more flexible. I could play sports a lot better. I can play sports and run and jump and do all sorts of things that I probably couldn't have done when I was a competitive bodybuilder sitting around like 98, 99 kilos. I think I hit the nail on the head in terms of a physique that the majority of the masses would want that is quite attainable with hard work. I think that's where a lot of the allure came in.

Q: The modern fitness influencing landscape is all about looksmaxxing. What's your opinion on looksmaxxing?

A: Dude, how did we go from "We're all going to make it" to "I mog you to death?" Listen to those two phrases and how different they are. "We're all going to make it." We, you and me, we can all make it in our own respective rights to be whoever we want to be versus "I mog you to death." "I am better than you. I am physically superior to you. I look better than you. I'm stronger than you."

It's gone from a collective unit of like, we can all do this together if we work hard on ourselves and be the best version of ourselves, versus "Who's better than who." I'm better than you. You're better than me. A comparison contest.

It's gone from something so pure and beautiful to something a lot more toxic and lame, to be honest. I see the comparisons in looksmaxxing and obviously what has started and what I continue to preach, but it couldn't be any more different. We always rooted for the little guy. We still do. I still do. I think there's a big discrepancy between the two movements, but I do see how they overlap and intertwine.

Aesthetics was more about mind, body and soul and physical fitness and physicality. Whereas looksmaxxing seems to be about surgical enhancements and toxic methods of appealing to women through bone smashing and face pulling. Really, really weird practices, to be honest.

Me, as a 40-year-old man, I don't understand. It's a little bit strange. I get the allure of wanting to look better. I'm all for that. You know what I mean? I'm all for having a nice haircut, getting a good tan, dropping your body fat so your face can be leaner, having nice teeth. I'm all for that.

But when you take it to the extremes like looksmaxxing, I think it could be super damaging for young men, and I don't think it's preaching the right message.

No 14-year-old should be thinking about that. I was playing Pokémon cards at 14 years of age. The kids are growing up so much faster these days, and they're into stuff that they shouldn't be into. Truth be told, end of the day, women don't care about looks as much as these boys seem to think that they do.

Obviously, looks are important. No one's saying they aren't. Looks are very important, of course. But what's more important is also wealth. Personality and status, all these things coupled with looks, create the big package. You can't just focus on one and neglect the others.

As a man in today's world, if you want to be seen as a man, not be invisible, you've got to have a good job. You've got to work hard. You've got to have dreams and ambitions and goals. You've got to have a great career. You've got to be in physical shape. And you know what? You've got to be charismatic. You've got to be smart. You've got to be charming. You need to tick all the boxes.

Solely focusing on looks in such a toxic manner at such a young age, I think it's teaching the wrong thing. And I truly don't think women find that kind of stuff attractive.

So I think when it's taken to the extremes at that level, I think if anything, it's seen as a little bit weird and strange, especially if a woman were to find out some dude that she's dating is bone-smashing and face-pulling and wearing makeup. No matter how good you look, it's just not going to be taken in the kind of way that these kids think that it's going to be taken. But I'm all for self-improvement in a healthy way.

Seeing a lot of these looksmaxxing influencers online injecting their faces with all sorts of things and bone-smashing and everything, I think it's just a little bit excessive. They have nothing to do with fitness. Half of them don't even know how to train. I've trained them. They don't train properly or bodybuild.

These girls aren't wowed by what they're doing training-wise. They're wowed because they're in the spotlight, they're trending, they're booming, and they've got a bit of status. If you're getting notoriety and fame and status, then by nature, women are going to be attracted to that because women are attracted to hypergamy, dating up, dating guys and being with guys that have a lot of status or are making good money or have a good career.

So really, the attention that [looksmaxxers] are getting from women, I don't think it's the looksmaxxing stuff. I think it's just the fact that they're cloud-chasing and they want to be in the spotlight.

Q: How have you helped keep Zyzz's legacy alive in the years after his passing?

A: When Zyzz passed away back in 2011, he had a whole bunch of videos on this hard drive here. I knew that if I released them in a timely manner, year by year, it would kind of immortalize him. His biggest wish ever was to be larger than life and be famous. He loved the attention. He was built for it. He truly was. So I granted him that wish.

Every year, I would release a video on YouTube in his honor on either his birthday or the day of his passing. The first one I released was "Zyzz The Legacy," which I pieced and put together myself, and that's amassed 20 million views. He got more famous in his passing than when he was ever alive.

I noticed that his fame was just increasing year by year. Every odd year, I'd release another one. Second year after his passing, there was a video called "Zyzz The Revolution." I made that one, too.

The year after that, "Zyzz: The Legacy Continues." The year after that, "Zyzz Genesis." For four years, I kind of did that once a year, and I would build a lot of hype in his audience and my audience and really take them on the journey and release the videos in a timely manner.

At that time, people didn't really understand. They'd be like, "Release the footage now. We want to see him now." But now, as I'm older, a lot of these younger dudes that grew up with him and me kind of thanked me. They're like, "Dude, there was a method to your madness. We really appreciate you doing what you did because it's really immortalized and given him a legendary status."

Q: Where did the catchphrase "We're all going to make it, bro" come from?

A: He had one of these raw videos where he's sitting in his chair in his room with his shirt off, and he's just giving a speech about things that he's felt in life. You can tell he's trying to motivate and inspire.

I watched it, and he basically says, "At the end of the day, no one gives a f--k. If you want to be shredded, you have to look after your body. You have to kind of put your best foot forward. You have to look the part, look great. You've got to be lean. You've got to be tanned." Then at the end, he finishes the message with, "We're all going to make it, bro." That's it.

I think in his young 22-year-old mind, he was trying to push people to be the best versions of themselves and empower them to feel great within their own skin and to really strive and to be the best versions of themselves. I think it was a really beautiful message for a 22-year-old to have preached to the world.

I put that at the end of the first video I ever created for him, not expecting it to become a cultural phenomenon. But it did. It spread from crypto to the music industry, to film, to fitness everywhere. It spread like wildfire. I was not expecting that at all. I knew it was a beautiful message.

I didn't know the reception for it would be as large as it became, but that is the origin of it. It was on this hard drive. I dropped it for the world, and then it basically spread like wildfire.

[That message] is needed now more than ever. People should be banding together and uplifting each other rather than tearing each other down. It stands even stronger now. It's a true testament to the strength of his legacy, how it's withstood the test of time and just become more golden as the years have gone by, which is really the beautiful nature of it all.

Q: For a lot of young people, looksmaxxing is likely the first or only thing they see regarding fitness on the internet. What would you tell a young person today who wants to get into fitness today?

A: I would ask them, why do you want to get into fitness and why do you want to get fit? And I would see the core reasoning behind it. I would encourage the young boys or women that are looking to transform their physique to do it for the right reasons

It's really easy for me to say as a 40-year-old who also did the exact opposite, who did it for girls. But I can tell them from my experience that it will literally turn from something so vain into something so fruitful and beautiful. For me now, these days, I go to the gym, and I look after my fitness, not because I want to be the biggest guy, not because I want to be the most ripped guy, but mostly because of mental health and because I want to be the strongest, healthiest version of myself.

A strong body equals a strong mind. So I would tell them to brace themselves for the journey. Outside of wanting to impress their peers and women, I would tell them that if genuine fitness and health are what they enjoy, if they genuinely enjoy it, which a lot of people do when they get into it, I would tell them to go all in. Do their due diligence, stay consistent, work hard, and good things will come with physical movement and exercise. It just takes time.

I'd tell them to enjoy the journey because it's a long and beautiful one, and that's it really. A lot of these young kids, they just want to reach peak physique and reach that kind of look soon, but it's a lifelong journey, it's a lifelong thing, it's a lifestyle.

I would tell them to just embrace and be ready for the lifestyle and to enjoy it for its severity and everything that it encapsulates.

Q: Bodybuilders, especially fitness influencers, sometimes get a bad rap online. What's a misconception about the space that you see all the time?

A: I feel like the general public sees bodybuilders as meatheads and uneducated, kind of like, you know, not well-spoken and stupid and aggressive.

And obviously, as you can tell from speaking with me, I'm very articulate. I'm very well-educated. I'm well-spoken. I have a good education. I've gone to uni. I've got a double degree. I'm a multiple business owner, and I stand on my business. I'm also a bodybuilder. So I would tell them that, you know, the stereotypes normally aren't true. Bodybuilders can be some of the softest, nicest guys that they will ever meet.

Bodybuilding in itself is such a disciplined sport. Like you have to be disciplined with your food and disciplined with your nutrition and disciplined with your schedule, disciplined with your training, disciplined with your sleep. As a byproduct of discipline, it builds character and really good masculine traits that men need to possess in today's society, like structure and routine.

Any man that can stick to a routine for a long period of time and seek something out normally will put that same kind of energy, say, into his relationships or into his careers or into his family. So I think that bodybuilders are very misunderstood. I think that a lot of them are a lot smarter than what people give them credit for.

I think a lot of them are also, you know, super nice people at the end of the day. I can understand where the stereotypes are drawn, you know, from the aggressive meatheads and the not approachable bodybuilders. But I think times have changed.

I think males, especially men who are bodybuilders now, are becoming more and more open, more and more in tune with their feelings and who they are, more able to express themselves. So I just want to quash those rumors and say that a lot of bodybuilders are actually some of the nicest people that anyone could ever meet. They're some of the most disciplined and hardworking people, and they carry those traits into other parts of their lives.

@aesthetic_gyzzy U mirin Brah?🔱 #zyzz #zyzzlegacy #viral #zyzzreincarnated #dance #fyp #foryou ♬ stereo love – 𝙕𝙮𝙯𝙯 🇸🇰

Q: The bodybuilding and fitness influencing lifestyle can also be seen as dangerous, as we've seen from the deaths of people like Connor Murphy and your brother Zyzz. Do you think it's an inherently dangerous world?

A: There is a very dangerous road that bodybuilding can go down, of course. This is also mixed and intertwined with fame and social media. So when you combine the two extremes of mega fame online and attention, as we live in an attention economy and bodybuilding to an extreme degree, the two aren't a good mix.

Sometimes it's like treading a fine line. I would definitely tell people to err on the side of caution and just be smart with the decisions that they make. Anything in excess is bad for you in this life. Even the good things in excess are bad for you in this life. Too much aspirin isn't good for you. Too much of a certain food, even if it's healthy, isn't good for you.

I would preach the message of playing the longevity game. I'm speaking from personal experience. I've gone from a bodybuilder who's lived that extreme lifestyle, and now I've downsized, and I'm focusing on longevity and health. I'm 40 years old, and I look and feel great. I'm in phenomenal shape, and I really look after myself.

Having gone down that path before, that could have been seen as a very dangerous one. I pulled myself out. I would tell people just to really think about how long on earth they have to live and to really see bodybuilding and training as a fundamental and a staple that would just be a lifelong thing rather than a short, quick burn. And to enjoy and embrace the journey and to not rush anything.

Q: Conor Murphy's death was very sudden and tragic. Did you know Conor? What can you say about his death?

A: I didn't know Conor Murphy in person. I had never met him. I know that he was a huge fan of Zyzz and absolutely loved him. I know that every photo or video you'd see on his channel, he'd always be throwing up the Zyzz pose. He and I thought that was pretty cool.

He did post a really controversial video a few years back, which was completely untrue, claiming that Zyzz took his own life because of a botched nose job in Thailand. I thought that was really, really disrespectful and completely untrue. It really upset me and angered me a lot at the time, to be quite honest with you. So I didn't really think too much of him.

But I'm also a man and also an adult, and when I see a young man who's lost his life, passed away in such a tragic way, you can't help but feel bad for his immediate friends and family. As an influencer myself, knowing the pressures of social media and bodybuilding and being in the spotlight, I can kind of understand how hard it would have been for him mentally and physically to maintain that appearance and maintain a certain image.

My condolences go out to his friends and immediate loved ones because it's a crazy world out there living in fame, growing up with fame and bodybuilding. Two extremities. It's super tragic. I didn't think his death would impact me as much as it did, especially with the things that he mentioned about us. It was really sad, and I think it's important as well to step outside of my own emotions and feelings and see that this was a young man with a family. He had goals, he had dreams, he had aspirations like the rest of us, and we all make mistakes.

We all do things that we regret, and sometimes we can go down a path that would lead us astray, and that's what I saw in the end with him. Which is why I can sympathise with his situation and look past any wrongdoings. He was one of the OG aesthetic guys in the YouTube scene when it first began, so it's not nice to see someone in the same industry as me but on a different path go down like that.

All I could think about was his parents, man. No parent should have to bury their son. It's sad, and it hit very close to home. It hit very close to home.

Q: What's your favorite meme that was inspired by Zyzz or yourself?

A: I mean the classic, "You 'mirin," "Come at me bro," which was super viral. "You 'mirin" just spread all over the internet for like 10 years plus from 2007 to 2017. "Come at me bro," which we used a lot, that was from Ronnie from Jersey Shore, when Ronnie got in that fight on the boardwalk with the guy that was trying to talk to Sammy. That was a mega popular meme.

"We're all going to make it," obviously. Those are the top three that pop in my mind when I think of memes.

Q: Zyzz had a huge resurgence in virality around 2020 during COVID. What was it like seeing that?

A: Beautiful. Zyzz had a resurgence during the COVID era in 2020. His popularity spiked to a level that was like back to 2011-2012 era. COVID had a direct impact on the popularity of Zyzz as a whole. His videos were being clipped everywhere. I think it was when clipping first started happening on TikTok, around 2019-20, when it became super popular. He got clipped everywhere, and the young generation found out about him.

Everyone was in their homes a lot more during COVID, and his videos spread like wildfire on TikTok. It was wild to see. I believe Zyzz's hashtag on TikTok has amassed over 2 billion uses. I haven't seen many hashtags as big as that in my life.

I thought it was awesome. A lot of music and a lot of artists and DJs came about and adopted their own identity through ads like MQXbrah and Zyzzlifts; all these DJs are known to make Zyzz-style music for modern times. It was big from 2020 to about 2024, and it was just getting memed everywhere all over TikTok. It was a really, really cool time and a really positive time on TikTok and a big time for us and for myself and for the legacy.

It was really awesome to witness and see. It felt like he'd been rebirthed. Obviously, as an older brother, to see that just gave me a lot of warmth and joy and happiness. It made it feel like he's still alive. I have all the fans to thank. It's such a tragedy in my life, and his name being constantly kept in reverie and shouted from the rooftops has made it feel like he's still alive, like he's still here with me. I can never thank everyone enough for that; it's such a comfort that I can't even explain.

@thezyzzproject Zyzz's dance moves were FAST! #zyzz #dance #gyntok #fitness #fyp ♬ dźwięk oryginalny – ALAN

Q: Do you think meme culture and memes in general are largely to blame for you and Zyzz's success?

A: I almost got memed. I would say me and Zyzz got a little bit memed ourselves in a good way. We were treading on that fine line. Then we went from memes to cultural icons, which is cool. You don't always want to stay a meme. For a while we probably were a bit more meme-ish, and then Zyzz just catapulted to cultural icon status. He's up there with the Aussie greats like Steve Irwin.

If you think of Australia, if you tell anyone from all over the world to name 10 things that remind them of Australia, Zyzz would be one of them.

I owned [the memes], bro. I owned it, and I cultivated it. I became a serious online coach in the space, and I think over time people saw that I was really genuine and authentic with my message. I think that kind of quashed any chance of meming me for life, because I was taken very seriously. I'm very lucky to have broken past the memes and be taken very seriously and be respected by my industry.

Q: You sort of took up the baton after Zyzz died. Did you feel that was necessary, and what's that been like?

A: It was not something that I had envisioned would happen. I obviously had no idea that Zyzz was gonna lose his life the way he did. I was left with such a legacy and a burden on my shoulders. One, to complete my dead brother's dying wish of reaching superstardom and fame, which he loved. I knew I could do it for him. I had all these videos, and I knew how special he was, and I felt like it was my duty as his bigger brother, knowing what he wanted, to spread his soul with the world. I guess because of that, I became the torchbearer of the legacy.

Some people like to refer to me as the godfather of Aesthetics. Think of Blink-182. There are three people in Blink-182: you got Tom DeLonge, you got Travis Barker, and you got Mark. Zyzz would have been Tom DeLonge, and I would have been Travis Barker in the back on the drums. But you need everyone in the band to make the band. So, I was the torchbearer after he had left, and everything that I did would always be reflected to him.

Obviously we're brothers; we share a lot of similarities. We kind of sound the same, look similar, have similar fashions, but we're also very, very different. I would live and preach his legacy while also writing my own. Then I stepped into my own by becoming a competitive bodybuilder, which he never did or had any interest in doing. I won a pro card in a bodybuilding federation and became a professional bodybuilder. I got many accolades in the bodybuilding world, top three finishes in IFBB. Then I became a very trusted and admired online coach in the transformation space of fitness and bodybuilding.

I took my own path as well, but I never forgot my roots, and I never forgot my brother. I always kept his name close to my heart and always preached and pushed it. I was basically living my life for two men: for his dreams and ambitions and my own. It's been tough, but I think I've done okay.

Q: You've been filming a documentary called Poster Boy: Becoming Zyzz about Zyzz and your whole bodybuilding and fitness influencing journey. What's that been like?

A:It's been about a four-year journey to create this documentary. We were faced with a lot of challenges and a lot of things that we thought would have been complete hurdles in releasing the documentary. Very luckily, by the grace of God, we were able to bring it to fruition and enable it to happen and to share the whole story. The true story. The final story.

I believe it is important to help save men's lives and steer people in the right direction. It also acts as a little bit of a cautionary tale, while celebrating the life of an absolute legend and icon.

It came about after I was reached out to by producers with the idea. I'm narrating the whole documentary, and obviously there are scenes of me in there speaking on Zyzz's life, speaking on my life. It shows parallels of basically what I'm doing in my life, doing competitive bodybuilding and living my life now as a 40-year-old man. It was quite the journey.

I'm really, really proud of what we created with the team. I think it's a work of art. I can't wait to share it with the world. I think everyone's going to really love it. I hope everyone really enjoys it, and I hope everyone feels the same love and joy that I did creating and putting it together.

I got an email saying [the trailer] is [the production company's] highest viewed and engaged post ever in their history. I can't say I'm surprised. I told them that was going to happen before it happened. 2 million views in 24 hours. I'm refreshing it every night, watching the numbers go up, just feeling immense joy and pride. It's awesome.

---

A big thank you to Chestbrah for speaking with us. You can follow him on Instagram at chestbrah.official, YouTube at Chestbrah, and TikTok at chestbrah.official.

---