He looks like a blond Clark Kent, or a Swedish hipster.
He talks like a DJ on a youth radio network.
But it is how he swims that is important, because Mack Horton now carries the expectations of Australia with him to the Rio Olympics, where he will represent the nation in what we like to think of as Our Race, the 1500m freestyle. 
And Mack Horton swims like he's embracing the water.
Of course he swims fast - his time in the 1500m Olympic trial on Thursday night was 14 minutes and 39.54 seconds, a personal best that had him leapfrog Kieran Perkins to take second place behind Grant Hackett on the list of best Australian 1500m times. This time would have won him the 2015 world titles gold and London Olympic silver. A few nights before he also qualified for the 400m event.
But despite his speed, Horton's technique is somehow languid.
He travels more than three metres a stroke, gripping the water like it's his home and he's just come back to it.
"His efficiency in the water is probably one of the best in the world," says his coach, Craig Jackson.
"When you watch Usain Bolt run, he looks like he's meant to do it. It's the same with Mack.
"Everything about him is designed to swim well. He just holds water beautifully."
The comparisons to greatness have begun. And with them have arrived the great expectations.
As the 19-year-old said following his qualifying race on Thursday night: "Australia has a 'ridiculous' history in the 1500."
That's teenage-speak for "huge".
"But," he continued, "basically I'm just trying to do my own thing and be the best I can be."
That's long-distance competitive swimmer-speak for, "I want to break records".
Australia's association with this gruelling race goes all the way back to Andrew "Boy" Charlton and Murray Rose, weaving through John Konrads and Bob Windle to land with the recent greats, Perkins and Hackett.
Horton's vision is famously terrible, hence the heavy spectacles.
He wears prescription goggles so he can see the black line at the bottom of the pool that is the lodestar and the sometime-tormentor of the Olympic swimmer.
If the shorter-distance swimmers are the show ponies and the macho men of the pool, then the distance swimmers are more introverted, their confidence less flashy.
But as fast as Horton swam in the trails, he is going to have to swim even faster at the Olympics if he wants to win gold in Australia's race.