What on earth is looksmaxxing? Looksmaxxing is defined as a practice, typically among young men online, to enhance their physical appearance. Although looksmaxxing is new terminology, it’s been around forever. For centuries, women have gone through all kinds of practices to elevate their appearance. Beauty standards have persistently been pushed onto women. These standards date back to around 25,000 years ago, starting with a Venus figurine, portraying the ideal female body as a pear shape, and emphasizing fertility in a woman as attractive.
Now that beauty standards have fallen onto a different community, men have started brand new categories of practices. Intensity ranges within these practices. For example, “softmaxxing” involves small enhancements that are affordable and increase one’s beauty. Softmaxxing can include simple routines such as clearing up acne, going to the gym, or getting a new haircut. A more intense side of looksmaxxing includes “hardmaxxing,” which utilizes extreme measures, including implants, limb lengthening surgeries, intentionally starving oneself, and abusing anabolic steroids. There is even something known as bonesmashing, smashing one’s bones with an object, likely a hammer, to create a “chiseled effect.”
The practice has deep roots in a viral trend from 2023 known as “mewing,” a technique involving holding the tongue against the roof of the mouth to improve facial structure by strengthening jaw muscles. It was considered one of the biggest beauty trends of 2023. Looksmaxxing transformed from a niche practice into a widespread TikTok trend during 2022-2023. Since then, the community has continued to grow, including growth in looksmaxxing influencers who have used the practice to make money. While some of the community’s methods for simply “glowing up” are safe and a great form of self-care, the hardcore ones are excessive.
Bonesmashing, abusing substances, and getting surgeries are absurd. Caring about your looks is more than okay, and wanting to feel good in your own body is normal. If it comes down to using a hammer to smash your bones to “look good.” It’s outright pathetic. As a society, we’ve allowed looks to control far too much. Trends like these can be harmful to youth. Believing that abusing illegal substances makes you look better is heinous. If you get unnecessary medical procedures to appear more attractive, you are no longer living in your own skin. Your body isn’t even done maturing until you’re 18 or 20. These preposterous protocols have short-term results but negative long-term effects. Don’t let silly trends influence you into extreme measures to feel confident. There’s so much more to life while you’re young; don’t waste your youth away wishing to be someone you’re not.
