Looksmaxxing – a term that originally appeared in incel online communities – has gone viral on social media, especially among teenagers. The idea is simple: you can maximize your attractiveness by altering your physical appearance.
Some advice is related to personal care or sports, but extreme methods also circulate in the same communities – from aesthetic interventions to dangerous practices such as hitting the jaw to change its shape. Behind this advice, however, is an online culture that turns physical appearance into a constant evaluation system and creates ever-increasing pressure on teenagers. The influencers who promote this trend claim that puberty is the ideal period when boys can decisively “model” their appearance.
This very message is an alarm signal, experts say, because at this stage the body is still in formation.
Searching the term looksmaxxing on TikTok reveals tons of videos of young men explaining, step-by-step, how their looks could be “improved”. The videos promise quick transformations and list methods that would help achieve a more pronounced jawline, a more symmetrical face, or a body deemed more attractive.
Psychologists say the phenomenon is not entirely new. Appearance pressure has existed for years among girls and young women, where beauty standards promoted on social media have been associated with body image issues and constant comparison. What is changing now is that the same mechanisms are increasingly affecting boys as well.
From jaw-dropping tricks to extreme methods: how the looksmaxxing culture works
Some of the advice is relatively mundane: training to increase muscle mass, decrease body fat percentage, change your haircut, skin care or choose clothes that highlight certain features. In these communities, such strategies are sometimes called “softmaxxing”.
At the same time, techniques presented as “face tricks” are also circulating. One of the most popular is “mewing”, which involves keeping the tongue stuck to the roof of the mouth, with the idea that this could change the shape of the jaw. Other videos recommend exercising your facial muscles, using facial rollers, bandaging your face while you sleep, or changing your body posture to make your jaw appear more defined.
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