Gen Z boys are obsessing over their skin, their jawlines and their bodies in a new trend called “looksmaxxing.”
These young men swap tips and scrutinize themselves in the mirror, going to extreme and sometimes harmful lengths to improve their appearances. They’ve baffled the internet and the media, but there’s absolutely nothing surprising about the rise of looksmaxxing.
Young men are simply following in the footsteps of their female peers, who have long been convinced by the same sources that they are not good enough as they are and must do everything and anything to improve their appearance.
For decades, women have been subjected to nonstop messaging telling them that appearance is everything. It started with magazines, movie stars, and music videos. Then the internet came along and made everything 100 times worse.
Girls were canaries in the coal mine for its effects. According to Meta’s own internal data, Instagram made body image worse for 1 in 3 girls. As it turns out, boys were just a couple years behind girls in developing crippling insecurity.
It turns out that young men are also adversely affected by a constant stream of filtered and idealized faces and bodies on social media. Girls learn that appearance is everything from beauty and fashion gurus, while boys have been taught the same by fitness influencers and the manosphere.
Everyone who is shocked that boys are massaging their lymphatic system to reduce bloating, developing extensive anti-aging skincare routines as teens, pumping themselves up with steroids and testosterone, and “smashing” their faces with hammers to supposedly chisel their jawlines need to take a step back.
For decades, women have been getting fillers, Botox, and implants. They’ve been shelling out thousands on skincare and makeup. They’ve spent countless hours scrutinizing themselves in front of the mirror. They’ve mutilated their bodies in pursuit of youth and perfection.
Looksmaxxers are simply joining the club. But their sudden influence says something important about the power of the web.
Young women tend by nature to be insecure and concerned about their appearance. Young boys not as much relative to their female peers. But the visually-driven online world apparently has the power to inject self-consciousness into just about anybody.
While girls tend to shrink in the face of insecurity, boys have gamified their insecurities, competing against one another as they go to ridiculously extreme lengths to improve their appearances.
On the light end, looksmaxxers are investing in hair mousse, exfoliating face wash, and organic foods.
On the extreme end, they’re taking copious amounts of beta carotene to tint their skin orange, injecting themselves with steroids, taking hair loss medications long before they could possibly be balding, and tapping their faces with hammers so the bones “grow back” more defined.
They should be regarded as ridiculous, but Looksmaxxers are actually amassing some serious cultural prestige in the internet era.
Clavicular, a 20-year-old influencer who has reportedly taken to crystal meth as a way to stay lean, is the ringleader of looksmaxxing online. He’s amassed half a million followers on Instagram, been the subject of profiles by just about every legacy media outlet — including the New York Times and GQ — and even walked in New York Fashion Week.
He’s clearly struck a nerve with a culture obsessed with appearance. But he shouldn’t be celebrated.
Self-improvement is a good thing — until it turns into self-destruction.
Countless young women have scars on their wrists or plastic surgery procedures they regret as a testament to this fact. If looksmaxxing continues in its current form, soon young men will have hormonal imbalances, body dysmorphia, and depleted confidence to show for it.
The truth is, social media is reducing everyone’s confidence — men and women, young and old alike — to the level of an insecure teenage girl. There’s no way to be fed a constant stream of perfection and aspiration without scrutinizing one’s own shortcomings.
Looksmaxxers are just the latest testament to this fact.
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