I.
“If there hasn’t been an Ozempic allegation against you by 2025, are you even hot?” I joked with a friend over text a few months ago. I was teasing him about the rumors surrounding his recent weight loss, but he replied with a screenshot of a group chat from last year. In it, he and his friends had been discussing whether or not I was on Ozempic. “No one can look like this naturally, right?” someone wrote beneath a photo of me. “Ozempic queen!!!” another replied. I didn’t know whether I should feel flattered or offended.
Ozempic is one of the brand names for semaglutide, an injectable drug first approved by the FDA in 2017 for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. It is a member of the rapidly expanding GLP-1 class that now includes Wegovy, Trulicity, and Mounjaro. These medications stimulate the pancreas to secrete more insulin and the liver to produce less glucagon. In simpler terms: they slow digestion and suppress appetite, which can trigger rapid and dramatic weight loss. In 2024, Healthline estimated that 13 percent of American adults had already used injectable weight-loss drugs, a number that is expected to rise. At the time of writing, Novo Nordisk—the Danish pharmaceutical company that manufactures Ozempic and Wegovy—is the second most valuable company in Europe.
Over the past three years, the drug has become increasingly accessible to anyone with disposable income, regardless of health status or weight class, and in the process has evolved into a massive, mainstream cultural phenomenon. Since then, we have collectively witnessed a Great Disappearing Act: bodies have been shrinking drastically, en masse, and with significantly less effort than before. But we know exactly how this particular magic trick is done. By suppressing appetite, semaglutide makes it possible to shed pounds without hunger, deprivation, or the agony of aggressive exercise.
“Oh, oh, Ozempic,” goes the jingle in the medication’s ad campaign, set to the melody of 1975 hit “Magic.” Although Novo Nordisk’s advertisements made their way across major networks, they likely did far less to drive Ozempic’s popularity than media coverage of its use in Hollywood. “Hollywood’s Secret New Weight Loss Drug, Revealed,” Variety reported in 2022. It was just one of countless headlines at the time that linked Ozempic with the rich and famous, which increased its allure in the broader public imagination. This messaging, combined with a flood of homegrown #myozempicjourney content on Instagram and TikTok, helped fuel a massive rise in “off-label” users—that is, users who are not obese or diabetic. Their BMIs already fall within the normal range, and their primary motivations are aesthetic or emotional: they simply want to be thinner.
The spike in demand created a supply shortage, and in 2022, Vanity Fair reported that some celebrities were paying $1500 out of pocket for a month’s worth of doses. Given the correlation between poverty and obesity––and the abysmal state of health insurance in the US––lower-income communities whose health was compromised struggled to access drugs like Ozempic while Chelsea Handler and Scott Disick comfortably stored it in their fridge. The semaglutide shortage ended in early 2025, and costs now vary based on the individual’s location, drug of choice, insurance policy, or method of access.
The idea that getting thin on these drugs is “easy” is, in most cases, a massive misconception. While some people experience few or no side effects, others face debilitating physical––and sometimes social––consequences. Common side effects include nausea, vomiting, stomach cramping, and nearly every gastrointestinal issue under the sun (including, in some cases, fecal incontinence), as well as less severe symptoms such as “sulfur burps,” bad breath, and unwanted cosmetic outcomes such as “Ozempic face” (a hollowed, sunken appearance) and “Ozempic butt” (flat, deflated glutes). The most alarming side effect is arguably dependency. Most people who stop taking semaglutide regain some or all of the weight they lost—and have to stay on some form of GLP-1 indefinitely to maintain it.
The ubiquity of Ozempic has spawned a culture of suspicion and accusation, playing out both locally and globally. Publications like The Cut have treated celebrities’ responses to semaglutide allegations—or their candid admissions of use—like tabloid fodder, with each confession or denial earning its own headline. On Instagram and TikTok, before-and-after photos of everyone from Christina Aguilera to Ariana Grande flood FYPs (some websites even feature sliders so users can reveal the “before” and “after” with a mouse). This cultural compulsion to analyze, assume, and, more often than not, judge, sits in the same Venn diagram as body shaming and body checking.
I wasn’t on semaglutide when the aforementioned photo in the group chat was taken, and I never have been. However, at the time in question, I was profoundly unwell. It was the worst I had ever felt—and the best I had ever looked, at least according to those of us brainwashed by white, Western beauty ideals. There is a simple explanation for this: in periods of great emotional turmoil or stress, I find it difficult to eat or sleep. And yet, I was constantly showered with praise for my body during this traumatic chapter of my life. My size began to feel like the only consolation prize for what was happening behind the scenes. I resolved to enjoy the privilege and had never felt more physically confident or carefree. I knew I would eventually return to my natural base weight, but I found it quietly disturbing that I had never felt more seen or valued than I did at my unhealthiest. Our culture, it seemed, was even sicker than me.
The Great Disappearing Act of the 2020s is twofold. It refers to disappearing body mass, but also the disappearing values of the previous decade. One of the defining cultural concepts of the 2010s was “wellness.” Now, a growing segment of the population––particularly “off-label injectors” who feel ill in their pursuit of thinness and those who admire them––seems to aspire to unwellness instead.
