In Depth

Looksmaxxing: An online subculture that hurts us all

Looksmaxxing is an online trend that damages the young men who take part in it—and the women they seek to dominate.

It reflects sexism and the TikTok “hustle culture” under neoliberalism that  says individuals are succesful when they’re enterprising, resilient and robust.

Looksmaxxing began in the “incel” mysoginist message boards in the 2010s. It was based on the idea of a fixed social hierarchy of appearance.

Those with sculpted jaws, sharp muscles and “positive canthal tilts”, eyes which tilt upwards, are at the top—as long as they are white.

Alpha males win success in the job market and get sex.

But if your face doesn’t fit, online spaces are full of other men telling you to change it or no woman will want you.

Looksmaxxers promise their tens of thousands of insecure, lonely and disaffected followers that a sharper jaw will transform their lives.

Journalist Faith Leslie argues, “What is especially distinct about the case of looksmaxxing is not that its main target is young boys.

“In fact, this trend may have a direct effect on youth regardless of gender.

“Rather, concerns arise from the fact that it originates from such a problematic part of the internet.”

Looksmaxxing is associated with “black pill” ideology on incel forums. It asserts that women choose sexual partners exclusively by physical qualities such as height and bone structure.

Women are animalistic and are driven to choose alpha ­partners, it says. So poor old betas have to raise their “sexual market value” to compete for women.

Researcher Angus Lindsey writes, “Incel groups are ­predominantly comprised of socially alienated men who describe themselves as being unable to find women who are willing to engage in romantic relationships with them.

“Incels’ understanding of the world invokes the idea that women seek to maximise the social, economic and genetic potential of their offspring by choosing ‘high-status’ men.”

But women are not just ­animals—they are also sly and manipulative and want to trick men into caring for them.

This is all made worse by feminism which has empowered women and allowed them to freely choose their sexual partners.

So incels demand a return to a time when women were the property of their fathers and husbands and had no rights or autonomy—and every man got a woman.

This may seem ludicrous, but remember what happened last October.

US secretary of state for war Pete Hegseth endorsed a pastor who wants to repeal the 19th amendment—this gave women the right to vote.

The second solution is to transform your face and body so you can be an alpha and all the girls will fall at your feet.

Historically, it is women who have been forced to disfigure and starve their bodies to conform to impossible standards of beauty shaped by class, racism and colonialism.

But physical stereotypes of beauty are nothing new. Not every man in Renaissance Italy looked like Michelangelo’s David.

At the court of King James I, young men competed for the attention by displaying their long flowing hair—and slender athletic legs were greatly admired.

Gendered stereotypes developed during the Victorian age in the 19th century focused on men who were fit to fight for queen and country. This ideal of the macho, muscular male body has persisted into today’s online culture.

Looksmaxxing represents an intensification of the idea that only appearance matters and that women are to blame for this brutal sexual marketplace.

Media commentators are bemused that young men choose to harm themselves on the advice of TikTok influencers.

But they have little to say about the society that encourages boys, and even more girls, into a hyperfocus on their appearance.

The ideas used to justify neoliberalism provide fertile ground for the emergence of looksmaxxing.

In The Birth of Biopolitics, theorist Michel Foucault discussed the emergence of a new type of individual—“the neoliberal self”.

He said this was an evolution from “economic man”, associated with Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations and an early supporter of free market capitalism. According to supporters of the system, the self-interested “economic man” acts to maximise their well-being through buy and selling on the market.

But now, Foucault argued, we had the competitive individual of neoliberal capitalism.

People have become “entrepreneurs of themselves”, ­destined to constantly “improve their human capital”.

Foucault and some Marxists overemphasised the grip of neoliberal ideas on the minds of working class people.

If they were totally dominant, there would be very little possibility for mass movements or workers taking action. And the ruling class has to renew ideas of individualism in response to collective challenges to their system.

But neoliberalism has become the “common sense way” many of us interpret, live in and understand the world.

As author Jane Hardy argues, “Competition invades every nook and cranny of daily life, from league tables in schools and universities to television shows in which cooking and dating become contests with only one winner.

“In the workplace, managerial devices such as performance-related pay place workers in competition with one another.

“The language of entrepreneurialism, creativity and choice is continually deployed to bolster a reworked image of the individual and to hold that individual responsible for their successes and failures in the labour market and life in general.”

Every human attribute and ability becomes less a source of joy and more a commodity to be monetised as a side hustle.

Capitalism can only exist by turning our ability to work into a commodity.

As the system ages, it increasingly encroaches into every aspect of our lives, turning every feeling, emotion and hope into something that can be bought, sold and solved with an app and a new product.

Ten or twenty years ago, the buzzword of self-development involved learning new skills, staying fit and developing resilience.

Today, many young people find the paths their parents took towards a job, a home and some security are closed.

So self-development gives way to the idea of “marketing yourself” and “creating a brand”.

Turning your experiences into social media content, ­positioning yourself as an influencer, selling your talents, your sexuality, yourself.

This feeds off a wellness culture which promotes many commodities—but doesn’t promote much wellness.

Far right goons like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate pose as “self‑help” gurus who show an easy route to riches, big cars and women.

Wellness can encourage eating well—at a cost—and exercising—in pricy gyms—but it also means popping supplements, injecting steroids and substituting apps for human interactions.

 And the far right have hijacked wellness practices.

In his book Fascist Yoga, Stewart Home traces how yoga intersects with the pursuit of physical perfection and white supremacy and anti-vax conspiracy theories. 

More fundamentally, human beings are alienated and this creates the conditions in which we see others as mere instruments in the pursuit of our own self-interest.

The thing that makes us distinct from animals is our capacity to work together to produce what we need to live.

But the drive to accumulate ever greater profits means that potential can never be realised within capitalism.

Workers are alienated from the things they produce, which are owned and distributed by the bosses. Workers build houses in which they will never live and produce clothes they cannot afford to wear. We have no control over how our work is organised or how it affects us physically and mentally.

Capitalist society creates competition between workers. We are encouraged to see other people as competitors and as a threat to our security.

Finally, we are alienated from our capacity to work and plan collectively to meet our needs and those of the natural world.

Alienation pervades every aspect of society and our lives. And it intersects with deeply entrenched misogyny which clusters around the idea that women must serve men.

The far right twist on this sexism is the accusation that women now dominate and humiliate men.

Looksmaxxing creates pipelines from wellness to misogyny and the far right. Its followers should be encouraged to stop literally beating themselves up and try treating women as equals.

But looksmaxxing is just one symptom of a sick system.

Many young people reject the ideas that flow from a system of profit-maxxing—and want resistance-maxxing to overthrow it instead.