{"id":322166,"date":"2026-03-04T23:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T23:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/322166\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T23:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T23:24:08","slug":"has-looksmaxxing-gone-mainstream-experts-talk-latest-craze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/322166\/","title":{"rendered":"Has \u2018Looksmaxxing\u2019 Gone Mainstream? Experts Talk Latest Craze."},"content":{"rendered":"

From smashing the bones in their faces<\/a>, undergoing dubious surgeries<\/a> to lengthening limbs, young men across the country are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars<\/a> to tweak their chins and jaws in pursuit of greater attractiveness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLooksmaxxing,\u201d as it\u2019s called, is just the latest fashion craze to spring from the proverbial vanity mirror of influencer marketing. As the practice has gained mainstream attention, with profiles<\/a> of popular Looksmaxxer Braden Peters, who goes by \u201cClavicular<\/a>,\u201d appearing all over the news, it has also sparked concern about whether these extreme forms of body modification are harming a generation of impressionable men.<\/p>\n

We asked some of our experts in the social sciences to unpack what might be going on. Nathan Blake<\/a>, an associate teaching professor in the College of Arts, Media and Design, said that the term \u201clooksmaxxing\u201d follows the logic of the \u201cquantified self<\/a>,\u201d a concept that some experts describe as a broader cultural obsession with constantly improving yourself through data-driven ideas about your life, body and health.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the phenomenon is \u201calso an outgrowth of the attention economy, where the way you distinguish yourself is through extreme stunts, outrage and other forms of performance designed to get clicks,\u201d said Blake, who studies \u201cdiscourses of masculinity, disability and the technologically-altered body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looksmaxxers are driven to achieve a certain kind of physical symmetry: angular chins and jaws, trim waists and proportional torsos. Many observers have plainly pointed to the problematic undertones, with one noting<\/a> in The Atlantic that, beyond the self-mutilating aspect, looksmaxxing is \u201ccruel, racist, shot through with social Darwinism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blake sees these aesthetic ideals as having a basis in Eurocentric racism and ideas of genetic superiority that have long shaped Western conceptions of beauty and physical hierarchy \u2014 going as far back as traditional Greek thought around \u201cidealized proportions\u201d in art and sculpture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"TwoRachel Rodgers, an associate professor of applied psychology, and Associate Teaching Professor Nathan Blake say that \u201clooksmaxxing\u201d trends reflect an increase in the pressures on young men to invest in their appearance. Photo by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University and Courtesy<\/p>\n

Now, Blake said those standards have largely been taken up by incels<\/a>, or involuntarily celibate men, many of whom believe (without evidence) romantic relationships are largely shaped by genetic traits outside a man\u2019s control. That line of thinking has infused the incel community and its related subcultures with a degree of what he describes as \u201cromantic nihilism,\u201d Blake said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis might explain the lengths these men are willing to go to change their appearance,\u201d Blake said.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rachel Rodgers<\/a>, an associate professor of applied psychology at Northeastern University, said looksmaxxing is itself a burgeoning industry, extending appearance ideals from a discourse centered on diet and exercise to one that also includes what consumers can afford and the risks they\u2019re willing to take.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn increasing number of people have a piece of this pie and the pie itself is getting larger,\u201d Rodgers said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about all of the appearance and entertainment industries, a large proportion of the health industry. There are new surgeries, new procedures, new markets that are being created and developed all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodgers shares the view that this is a systemic problem that harkens back to racialized norms of beauty in the past. These more modern beauty ideals function as social signals, elevating a narrow set of physical traits associated with an \u201celite\u201d group of people who already hold social power, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat tends to mean traits associated with whiteness \u2014 fair skin, straight hair and highly symmetrical features \u2014 but also being cisgender, straight, able-bodied and neurotypical,\u201d Rodgers said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those who match those standards obtain status and influence, she said, while those who do not are shut out of dating markets that come to prize aspects of what looksmaxxers project: symmetry, youthfulness and other traits that denote social status.<\/p>\n

The problem has been exacerbated by the proliferation of dating apps and the dating market becoming \u201cincreasingly hypervisual,\u201d and encouraging people to see themselves through the prism of how they\u2019d like others to see them, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is where you see a lot of young men feeling like they have a lack of control, whether that\u2019s tied to the loneliness epidemic or job precarity,\u201d Blake said. \u201cThere\u2019s certainly a lot going on with these men.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the fact remains that looksmaxxing trends reflect an increase in the pressures on young men to invest in their appearance, Rodgers and Blake say.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s partly because the markets in other genders were saturated, and this is a business that needs new consumers,\u201d Rodgers said. \u201cMen were kind of the last frontier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tanner Stening is an assistant news editor at Northeastern Global News. Email him at t.stening@northeastern.edu. Follow him on X\/Twitter @tstening90<\/a>.<\/p>\n