There is a fashion, among men, for workout programs that consist exclusively of heavy compound lifts, focusing on the legs more than the arms. This leads to men who have large gams and relatively slim upper bodies. The goal is large amounts of functional strength, shunning aesthetics.
Personally this is not my goal. I like being functionally strong, but I also like having pretty arms and shoulders. And I get better results at the gym when I don’t pretend otherwise. I feel more enjoyment, and work harder, when I think, “aha, here I am, producing a more chiseled figure that I will be pleased to inhabit,” and fit in vanity-focused dumbbell stuff in with the big barbell lifts.
Shunning aesthetics doesn’t mean you are focusing on what is practical. It means you are ignoring aesthetics, which is a highly practical subject. For most people, it is simply a hallucination to believe that squatting 300+lbs is more functional than looking good and squatting 200lbs. At a certain point you are strong enough to do everything you want to, but perhaps haven’t maxed out potential social returns to being attractive. Lifting has made life physically easier for me, but given the enormous utility of marrying well, I’m going to say that being less scrawny has been the main advantage.
Okay, sure: There is a hazard here of being lost in a world of appearances, forever making yourself miserable by comparing your body to an ideal. But as the kids say, this is a skill issue—much like learning to be a gourmand without constantly overeating, or learning to dress well within a budget. There is a way to enjoy the game of appearances, to play your hand as well as possible without losing sight of more important things, or falling into an ego-hell of constant comparison.
This point goes beyond physical fitness. When I coach creative people, I sometimes hear things like, “I feel bad that I’m producing work because I want to look good.” To which my response is: Why? Do you think great artists don’t like being sexy and glamorous? Do you think there’s anything wrong with wanting to be liked and respected? If you make work that people like, and they like you, that represents an increase in worldwide joy. Again, there’s a balance: Audience capture can disconnect you from the intuitive/emotional foundations of creative work. But, equally, social incentives can serve to coax the muse, and provide motivation to get over the anxiety of public exposure.
I think there is some element of social gamesmanship going on here. It is low-status to transparently demand attention, and not offer anything in return for the attention demanded. And it’s high-status for attention-getting acts to seem natural and easy. Oh, I just woke up this way. I just dashed off this love poem in a few minutes. It just so happens that my internet stream of consciousness is witty and well-considered. These casual photos on my Instagram just happen to make me look beautiful.
You could be fooled into thinking that these people don’t really want attention, and thus, if you are taking them as exemplars, you shouldn’t think about looking good in public. But that is obviously the wrong lesson. Nonchalant attention-getting is only natural in that it evinces the naturalness of mastery. People who do this don’t want attention less—they’re just good at getting it in the quantity and quality they desire.
Laboring in obscurity, or pretending you don’t want people to look at you, isn’t nobler than the alternative. It’s just bad strategy, assuming that your goals in life involve other people.
With "squats squats squats" weightlifting programs, I think there is some path dependency by way of Starting Strength being the thing that made lifting accessible to weird internet nerds.
As far as I can tell, the "core customer" who inspired Rippetoe was a young guy who is already an athlete, but with not much muscle, who wants to put on a bunch of weight fast so he can go out for the varsity football team. Heavy focus on squats and deadlifts make perfect sense for this guy. In fact he's in a weird situation where explosively driving force through the posterior chain, is directly worth a lot of social status, much more than beautiful biceps and traps.
In general, I think it's great to leverage base motivations---like wanting to look good, wanting to be attractive to the opposite sex, wanting status, etc.---to build skills and improve. As someone who often struggles with motivation, motivation (in any form) feels like a gift that I should make full use of. It's not that the lofty motivations don't exist! I, of course, also have a spiritual and deep reason for wanting to get fit--but sometimes I also just want to look hot. Both things can coexist and offer a sense of reward for doing the skill, which is really the main thing you should be doing. The motivations will vary, but doing it consistently is what ultimately matters. With vanity and looks specifically, I also find that it's useful as an indicator of physical health. Of course, that doesn't apply to all forms of vanity of appearance, but it can be something that motivates you to take better care of yourself like eating healthy for better skin and exercise for a better physique.