Looksmaxxing is a rising trend in parts of the online manosphere that tells young men their lives will improve if they can make themselves look—or appear to be—more attractive. Framed as a route to higher “sexual market value,” the movement promotes a wide range of tactics, from clothing and grooming tips to extreme dieting, steroid use, and surgical or injurious procedures. It has its own jargon, a market for influencers, and often steep financial and physical costs.
Practices promoted under the looksmaxxing label include “starvemaxxing” (extreme dieting), heavy weightlifting sometimes paired with anabolic steroids, cosmetic surgery, and even harmful or violent-sounding practices such as “bonesmashing” to alter facial bone structure. Some content creators push the promise that transforming or faking attractiveness will bring better jobs, more dates, and greater social power. Cultural touchstones in the scene celebrate becoming a so-called “Chad”—an archetypal alpha male—or tricking others about one’s looks (“chadfishing”), and they valorize “mogging,” the act of visibly dominating other men by appearance.
A prominent example is Clavicular (Braden Peters), a U.S. influencer in his early 20s who streams on platforms like Kick and shares his claimed transformation into an alpha figure. He has said he uses high doses of amphetamines and testosterone—substances he believes may have affected his fertility—and has described breaking his cheekbones to alter his face. Reports suggest substantial income from live streams, and his posts often frame unattractiveness as a source of deep personal suffering that is ‘‘fixed’’ by improved looks.
Looksmaxxing does not exist in a vacuum. It grew out of overlapping corners of the manosphere that include incel subcultures, men’s-rights activism, and other anti-feminist communities. Racist strains also appear: some followers pursue “whitemaxxing” or other efforts to change skin tone or conform to narrow racialized standards of beauty. High-profile figures and events have connected the aesthetic focus with extremist politics; some influencers appear alongside known white supremacists and other controversial personalities. Documentary reporting has traced how ultra-masculine influencers occupy a gray area between subculture and mainstream attention.
The movement’s language has even seeped into institutional messaging. For example, a U.S. Department of Defense post on X used the term “Lethalitymaxxing” alongside imagery of a square-jawed marine, borrowing manosphere terms about a chiseled, hardened appearance. Observers warn that using this vocabulary can help official voices reach corners of the web that mainstream politics previously missed, but it can also normalize a narrow, militarized ideal of manhood.
Researchers and commentators describe looksmaxxing as bait for vulnerable young men. Sociologists studying incel and manosphere communities say the rhetoric taps into wider currents of male anger, anxiety about the future, and feelings of social exclusion. Messaging that links appearance to worth can intensify resentment and push some people toward more extreme ideologies.
Harms are both physical and social. Risky medical procedures, unregulated substance use, and self-inflicted injuries can cause lasting damage. Socially, the movement promotes misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and racism by equating value with a narrow, exclusionary ideal of masculinity; that hostility can translate into real-world aggression and exclusion. What starts as a promise of self-improvement may accelerate anger, alienation, and harm to individuals and communities if left unchecked.
Experts urge caution: countering the harms of looksmaxxing requires addressing the underlying social isolation and economic anxieties that make the message appealing, policing dangerous medical and chemical practices, and challenging the misogynistic and racist ideas that underlie the movement.