What Is “Looksmaxxing”? The Dangerous Trend Affecting Teen Boys, Explained
Puberty forces every kid to think more about their hygiene and appearance, and to an extent, it’s healthy. It’s natural to want to look your best so you feel your best, and hey, we all need to learn to clean and care for our bodies. But of course, we all know how it feels to be a self-conscious teen staring down another acne breakout in the mirror, or catching a whiff of developing B.O. halfway through the day. With social media thrown in the mix, well, of course teens can become obsessed with their appearance to an almost crippling degree. And there’s a trend circulating that parents of teen boys in particular should be wary of: looksmaxxing.
What is looksmaxxing?
The term looksmaxxing (and the trend of doing it) has been circulating online for years now. It refers to the practice of maximizing one’s appearance to be as scientifically, objectively attractive as possible. Looksmaxxing originated within incel forums, where users believe physical attractiveness equates to having relationships with women, making more money, and generally being successful in life. The better looking you are, the easier all of that comes, the thinking goes. Certain features are attributed points that add up to an attractiveness score. For example, a man might earn points for having a strong jawline and so-called “hunter eyes” (eyes that tilt up slightly at the outer corners), but lose points for low muscle mass.
Looksmaxxing found a new and more widespread audience on TikTok in 2020. It spawned looksmaxxing influencers (see: Clavicular) who gave teens the DL on how they got hotter, and now flaunt the status their hard-won attractiveness has afforded them. The trend has now gained enough traction among teens that in February, Medscape published an article explaining the phenomenon to family physicians and clarifying their role in spotting and stopping looksmaxxing practices in their teen patients.
Why? Well, because there’s “softmaxxing,” which involves things like moisturizing, getting professional haircuts, and working out. And then there’s “hardmaxxing,” which refers to more invasive, irreversible options to change appearance — injections, cosmetic surgeries, and more recently, something called “bonesmashing.”
Bonesmashing was invented by looksmaxxers, and it’s exactly what it sounds like — repeatedly tapping the cheekbones, chin, and jaw bones with a hammer or massage gun. The goal is to lightly damage the bones and prompt them to heal thicker, thereby creating more prominent bone structure. As GQ reported, this process is not based on any proven science, but the number of boys hitting themselves in the face with hammers is “not zero.” “There are YouTube tutorials, Instagram users tracking their progress, and forum posters claiming that bonesmashing ascended their eye area ‘from SUB 5 to HTN’ on the PSL scale, the looksmaxxing rating system,” GQ found.
What should parents know about looksmaxxing?
Deep breath: You don’t have to understand the looksmaxxing terminology and point system to recognize if your kid has an unhealthy relationship with their appearance. You also don’t have to wait to find a hammer on the bathroom counter to have a conversation about it. If your son is on social media, he is statistically more likely to be dissatisfied with his physical appearance, restrict his eating, and engage in risky behaviors to change how he looks. Anytime is a good time to broach the subject of looksmaxxing.
You can start by asking open-ended questions about what kind of videos he’s been watching and enjoying lately, or what he and his friends have been hearing at school about weight, like whether he knows anyone trying to change theirs, doctors say. This will help you get a sense of what he knows and his honest thoughts about it.
Tech experts say to ground the conversation in your family’s values. If you value healthy masculinity and healthy relationships with food and exercise, discuss good examples of those things and why it may be time to limit (or revoke) access to apps that don’t align with your fam values-wise anymore.
This is a great opportunity to build in some media literacy lessons, too. Talk about what looksmaxxing influencers might not show, like the potential bruising and nerve damage from bonesmashing, or the eating disorders formed by restrictive dieting and exercising habits. Would they ever make a video about the women who still turn them down or the brand deals they don’t get? What might they gain from hiding those things so people keep watching their videos? Where can you find credentialed doctors talking about looksmaxxing, and what do they say and stand to gain by comparison?
Most teen boys are not going to fall so deep down the rabbit hole that they’re ordering black market steroids online, sure. But even so-called healthy diet and exercise can become problematic if it occupies all of your child’s mental real estate, and the toxic masculinity underpinning looksmaxxing is scary all on its own. The more you talk about social media literacy with your kids, the better your family will be for it.
source https://www.scarymommy.com/parenting/looksmaxxing-teen-boys-dangerous-trend
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