Each of the past few decades had its own fitness fads: The ‘80s had aerobics. The ‘90s had Tae Bo. The 2000s had CrossFit. The 2010s had Zumba. These, though fads, were all focused on actual physical activity — cardio, strength training and dynamic stretching.
The 2020s, however, seem to have adopted an anti-exercise fad counter to those of decades past, and it’s called looksmaxxing.
Surely you’ve seen it on TikTok — looksmaxxing, bonesmashing, thumbpulling and other seemingly made-up terms reminiscent of magical incantations.
These are just some of the slang terms used to describe a variety of faux-fitness practices under the umbrella of looksmaxxing, which are a series of practices targeted at teenage boys claiming to help the “looksmaxxer” achieve peak physical attractiveness for the purpose of wooing others and flexing online to people they dub “chuds.”
At its most innocent, looksmaxxing masquerades as a fitness dogma aiming to make you the perfect man and help you to gain points on the perceived sexual market value scale, known as the PSL scale, by increasing features of manliness: jaw and cheekbone angularity, facial symmetry, harmony and sexual dimorphism. Sexual dimorphism refers to how feminine your facial features look in relation to your being a man.
At best, the processes involved in altering your PSL score are antithetical to proper growth during the teenage years and counter to appreciating correctly ordered fitness.
For example, bonesmashing, a looksmaxxing exercise, involves hammering blunt objects into the jaw and cheekbones repeatedly over time in an attempt to reshape bone structure, especially if they are still growing and malleable during adolescence. Bonesmashing seeks to increase facial angularity by shaping the bones themselves instead of increasing bone appearance by losing body fat. To repeat, bonesmashing is when you hammer your face into another shape using blunt force trauma. Sit with that, perhaps.
Another practice encouraged in the looksmaxxing dogma is the use of peptides, which are short amino acid chains, often injectable, that allow for the acceleration of the metabolism and regular muscle-protein synthesis processes. Peptides are great for reducing body fat and increasing muscle mass when combined with strength training, but they have a multitude of side effects, particularly affecting cortisol and prolactin hormone production.
The major issue in undergoing bonesmashing and using peptides, aside from physical effects, lies in the way teenage boys are being pushed via looksmaxxing content on TikTok, Instagram and other platforms to seek outward validation.
The anti-scientific dogma of looksmaxxing seeks to encourage focus on physical appearance, not physical fitness, and so its “exercises” run counter to those exercises we would understand to improve the cardiovascular system or to increase muscle mass or anything of the sort.
Despite this, most looksmaxxing content creators like Clavicular who are pushing this agenda have achieved their appearances by putting in real work — that is, strength training, cardio and serious dieting — but peddle the narrative that “you too can look like me” if you just bash your face in with a rock or inject yourself with hormone-altering drugs. What’s more, you must strike while the iron is hot and you’re still young and growing — alter yourself now, before it’s too late.
Even worse, looksmaxxing finds its roots in a misogynistic and red-pill belief system, one that actually asserts that one’s value and destiny in life are determined directly by one’s perceived sexual value and attractiveness.
Looksmaxxing, unlike regular fitness programs, seeks immediate results for the sake of external vanity instead of internal fulfillment. It is based on performative beautification and surface-level physical improvement that intends to satisfy “insufficient” male ego in underdeveloped minds, young men that naturally have not even had a chance to grow into themselves, and prioritizes societal validation over personal satisfaction.
It is targeting impressionable young minds and encouraging the young men of today to prize vanity and sexual “value” above all else, and that is a dangerous ideology to allow our children to absorb.
Riley Sanders is a 19-year-old biology major from Denham Springs, La.
