But Marvin’s confident it’s helping him achieve the appearance he desires – a hollow-cheeked, chiselled profile with sharp, pointed eyes and strong jawline. Getting that look, he explains, is when a man “peaks” – he says he’s gone from “unsatisfied carpenter working nine to five” to an “online entrepreneur”.
Welcome to the online world of “looksmaxxing”, where a growing number of young men are going to great lengths to get what they see as the perfect face and body, and therefore the perfect life.
Men are now carrying out a range of daily tasks – from workouts in the gym and a good skincare routine (known as softmaxxing), to taking growth hormones and unregulated peptides.
At the other end of the spectrum (known as hardmaxxing), they “bone-smash” or have jaw surgery to “ascend” and reach a Neanderthal-like appearance.
If you don’t fit this aesthetic and you’re not at least working to change the way you look then you’re at risk of falling into the “sub three” category, as Marvin puts it, and becoming “not a very good-looking human”.
He uses a face analysis app, which assesses pictures of him to check which kind of areas he might want to work on. Such apps have thousands of reviews on app stores.
For some men, looksmaxxing has given them a rulebook on what makes a “successful male”, and crucially, how to become one. One of the biggest influencers is Braden Peters, AKA Clavicular, a sharp-jawed 20-year-old known in looksmaxxing terms as “giga chad”; 10/10.
In his own vernacular, he “mogs” everyone he meets – he is so at the top of his game that he outshines everyone in his presence.
Clavicular attributes his looks to, among other things, taking testosterone from the age of 14 and smashing his jawbone with a hammer to supposedly reshape his lower face – neither of which is recommended by health professionals.
His content, and that of similar influencers, has brought looksmaxxing out of niche underground subcultures and made it more mainstream.
But some who have been studying the manosphere – an ultra-masculine subculture that made headlines again this week as the focus of a new Louis Theroux documentary – believe looksmaxxing is a gateway to a more sinister world.
It’s a word that was initially found in online forums for incels – young men who describe themselves as “involuntary celibate” – often full of misogynistic rhetoric claiming women are to blame for a man’s lack of sexual encounters.