By Nupur Apte
“Bonesmashing”, “Frame mogging”, and “ascending to your highest potential” are common terms used in a recent trend known as “Looksmaxxing”. Though the effects of this are often not seen in everyday life, male influencers with massive followings promote incredibly harmful and dangerous methods to “max out their potential” to their mostly young and impressionable fans. One popular Looksmaxxer, known as Clavicular or “Clav” for short, started his journey at 14 by means of mail-order testosterone, though his obsession only took off from there. After his brief use of testosterone, he claims to have used crystal meth to maintain his lean physique, as well as smashing his cheekbones with a hammer to get a sharper face shape, a process more commonly known as bone smashing. Another influencer, nicknamed the Erda Enjoyer (a meme specific nickname used on social media rankings, in this case the rankings of how a person achieves their “full *chad potential”) shows his dedication by cutting the sides of his lips, all for the goal of having a wider smile.
Though these events seem infrequent and scarce whilst isolated, put together they show a much more frightening pattern. Within humans, primarily adolescents and young adults, the age-old insecurity over one’s looks and the social isolation that can follow are extremely prevalent, and become a main cause of stress within youth. The Looksmaxxing movement absolves this stress by preying on young people who have this fear. Its focus on bettering the male appearance makes it all the more popular, as many men do not use cosmetics, viewing it as emasculating and inherently “feminine”. This leads many to seek more masculine (dangerous) routes for facial enhancements, including drugs and physical harm. Thus, Looksmaxxing becomes more dangerous as influencers spread it, and as more young boys and men fall into the trap of the masculine approach to self acceptance.
Overall, the issue of Looksmaxxing is not new. It has been seen and felt by many women throughout millennia, its only difference being the name that was attached. This male variant of pressure to look good is also not new, but it has gained popularity and exposure through social media and the creators that promote it. Looksmaxxing is relatively unknown to most who are offline, and to the ones that have seen it online, it is seen as a joke. However, the trivializing of this issue begs the question: when will society’s need for beautiful faces be enough?
*A stereotypically confident, successful, attractive alpha male