Looksmaxxing: How Some Men Are Going to Extremes for Male Beauty on TikTok!
Teenage boys and young adults have started adopting skin- and hair-care routines traditionally used by women to boost their levels of attractiveness.
The TikTok trend, known as “looksmaxxing,” encourages users to get a good rest, eat healthy foods, and develop an exercise routine to maximize their potential hotness.
Dillon Latham, an 18-year-old influencer from Virginia, told the New York Times the phenomenon involves “taking things girls have been doing to look better and telling guys to do the same.”
The term — named after the way characters level up and max out their statistics in role-play video games — has somewhat sinister origins in the incel movement.
Many incel groups peddle misogynistic and racist ideologies, arguing that beauty is defined by genetic superiority — and that finding a girlfriend involves trickery and manipulation, according to Know Your Meme.
Some looksmaxxers claim the trend has now evolved beyond its toxic roots to instead emphasize health and wellness.
But many accounts still promote potentially harmful and problematic behaviors rooted in pseudoscience, including “starvemaxxing,” or extreme fasting, and “mewing” — when a person places their tongue on the roof of their mouth with the hope that this will eventually give them a squarer jaw line.
Other looksmaxxers analyze the faces of celebrities and models to try to “unlock” the features that make them attractive.
One video with more than 1 million likes claims that most models have “hunter eyes” — or eyes that feature more horizontal pupils, compared to those that appear vertical, which are instead considered “prey” eyes.
“All well-known supermodels know how to engage their eyes and use this technique to enhance various aspects of their beauty,” the narrator claims.
Another video from the same TikTok account claims that Leonardo DiCaprio became so attractive because he routinely kept his mouth clenched and closed as a child, which built out his jawline as he developed.
But Latham allegedly focuses on more realistic, relatively mundane lifestyle changes, with a particular emphasis on hygiene — like getting a fresh haircut or remembering to brush one’s teeth.
Other users have allegedly gone to more extreme lengths to change their appearance, including by bone smashing, or hitting oneself with a blunt object to cause small fractures that promote bone growth.
Although experts have warned users of the dangers of such practices, there is little evidence that they are being performed on a wide scale, according to Insider.
