Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unintentionally became the subject of two viral Instagram videos after showing up to work out at a public gym.
Two gym-goers positioned on either side of RFK Jr. at a Gold's Gym in Austin, Texas, filmed the moment and posted clips mocking his StairMaster session, racking up millions of views. Some on social media say the real magic happened when the algorithm delivered the two clips back-to-back on their feeds.
RFK Jr. visits the local gym
Following his recent bizarre and off-putting workout video with Kid Rock, RFK Jr. made the choice to take his exercise routine to a public gym.
As he stepped onto the stair climbing machine, the gym-goers to his left and right each independently recognized him, and apparently neither could resist the opportunity to film and comment.
First to post was @elxavipapi on the secretary's right.
"This wasn't on my bingo card," the video caption reads.
He then panned the camera to the right to show RFK Jr. slumped over his machine as his neighbor mouthed "what the f*ck."
"Yes he was wearing jeans," the user confirmed, racking up nearly 6 million views on Instagram.
The next day, @deniscepalacios uploaded her video showing the health secretary from the left.
"RFK is on a stair master next to me," she wrote. "I've never been so determined to stay on this thing in my life."
"I had been on this stupid torture machine for maybe 10 min when he walked up and got on the stairmaster next to me," she added. "I was about to pass out and thought I was hallucinating. I locked in out of spite."
This gym-goer went beyond making fun of the man's pants. Her final shot shows her time on the machine at over 31 minutes—far outlasting the top health guy.
"He didn't even hit 12 minutes," she reported. "I outlasted RFK. Denisce: 1. Fascists: 0." Her video accumulated 1 million likes on Instagram and 1.5 million views on TikTok.
In the video description, she added that she "stairmaxxed him," though she admitted she was "suffering." This one has nabbed over 14 million views at the time of writing.
Algorithm magic
By Wednesday, multiple people had experienced a phenomenon in which these two videos showed up on their Instagram feeds one after another.
Redditor r/newphonehudus called it a "mythological algorithm pull."
On X, @cfree94 wrote, "sometimes i want to delete social media but then my algorithm shows me two different people making fun of RFK being in their gym and it turns out they were doing it at the same time."
Both of these posts are doing numbers on their respective platforms as commenters note just how many people must despise the man for this to happen.
"Imagine being so awful both the people on the sides of you are going viral making fun of you," wrote @sapphoshasha on X.
"This is the only time filming someone else at the gym is okay," said @courtlynn3695.
Meanwhile, on Reddit, folks imagined what they would do if RFK Jr. took the machine next to them.
"I would have asked why his stupid a** was wearing jeans," r/LeopardNo6083 claimed. "Such a wasted opportunity."
"I would get kicked out of the gym at the very least," wrote r/auntiefuh25.
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