Looksmaxxing: The "Ascension" Trend That's Selling Young Men a New Kind of Misery

Looksmaxxing started in "manosphere" online communities in the mid-2010s and went mainstream in the 2020s. The premise is straightforward: systematically optimise your physical appearance to maximise social desirability. In practice, that ranges from skincare routines and jawline exercises like "hard mewing"  — applying sustained pressure with the tongue to reshape the jaw — to practices bordering on self-harm, including "bone smashing" — hitting facial bones with an object to sharpen them. No professional input required. No upper limit on how far it goes.

42% of UK men aged 16-24 consider physical appearance vital, according to YouGov. Looksmaxxing did not create that anxiety — but it has built an entire culture around it.

The Psychological Cost of Constant Optimisation

At the core of looksmaxxing is a simple, punishing, and deeply misled equation: better looks equal higher social status. That is not a new idea, but the infrastructure built around it is. Social media communities rank faces, identify "Chad" features, and score appearances against an idealised standard. Leon Festinger's Social Comparison Theory — the observation that people evaluate themselves by comparing with others — was not developed with facial ranking forums in mind, but it describes exactly what happens in them. Someone is always at the bottom of the scale.

This is what happens when an appearance standard is gamified and handed to teenagers with no guardrails.

The rituals themselves create their own loop. Sharpen the jaw, notice the cheekbones, assess the brow. Each improvement reveals the next flaw. According to the Therapy Group of DC, this environment cultivates the exact thought patterns that body dysmorphic disorder thrives on — and for young men already anxious about fitting in, the line between self-improvement and obsession is not clearly marked. Healthline has noted that looksmaxxing attempts to define the "correct" version of masculinity, which means the loop never closes. Someone can always look more masculine. Someone always does.

Eating disorders, chronic body dissatisfaction, and comparison anxiety are documented risks. They are also, for the communities driving this trend, features rather than bugs.

The Black Pill and What Comes After

A sister ideology popularised by incel communities sits underneath much of this: the "black pill," which holds that physical appearance is the primary determinant of life outcomes, and that men who are not genetically advantaged are simply out of luck. Looksmaxxing positions itself as the solution — a way to beat the odds through relentless self-optimisation. The competitive dimension has its own vocabulary: "mogging" describes outperforming another man in physical appearance, and being mogged carries genuine social consequences within these communities.

When the standard cannot be reached through diet and exercise, some go further. El País recently reported that some looksmaxxers are turning to methamphetamines to achieve hollow cheeks. Misuse of peptides, steroids, and amphetamines is framed within these communities not as a risk but as a "logical" next step — the kind of trade-off a serious competitor makes.

This is what happens when an appearance standard is gamified and handed to teenagers with no guardrails. The mirror becomes a daily audit. Appearance becomes a project. And the project, by design, is never finished.

---

Index:MH sets measurable standards for how the beauty and fashion industry affects consumer mental health — including the online cultures that are shaping how young men see themselves. To find out more about our work, visit indexmh.org.