Social media encourages unrealistic beauty standards for everyone. Yes, this includes men. The idea of the perfect physical appearance is something everybody wants to obtain in today’s society even if it means doing the most outrageous things. Due to this there are multiple forums, communities, and trends on social media that encourage people to obtain maximum physical attractiveness through whatever means necessary.
In the 2020s the term looksmaxxing became popularized on Tiktok and social media groups, mainly used by men. These communities encourage superficial practices to improve appearance. They have also promoted more drastic measures such as jaw surgery.
The idea of looksmaxxing ranges from basic care such as grooming, fitness, and skincare but can go as far as surgeries, breaking bones or doing substances such as steroids to obtain the desired look. The main target audience of this spectacle is men but has reached teenage boys on social media.
The community has very strict beauty and style standards that promote a toxic mindset. Looksmaxxing uses scores that range from one being the lowest and 10 or 100 being perfect, to the rating of different aspects of male appearance, focusing specifically on the jawline, and highlighting masculinity. To be seen as perfect you need a wide sharp jaw, hunter eyes, straight nose, and old money style. There are also terms that define levels of male attractiveness starting from: 0/10 being an incel, 1/10 being subhuman, 2/10 Sub5, 3/10 MTN (Medium to Null), 4/10 LTN (Low tier normie), 5/10 NTN (Normie), 6/10 HTN (high tier normie), 7/10 Chadlite (pretty boy), 8/10 chad, 9/10 gigachad, 10/10 True Adam.
The idea of wanting to look your best and striving to feel and look the greatest you possibly can is an innocent idea, but looksmaxxing is not just about this, its intentions are to categorize only a specific set of traits as attractive. This is what makes it so toxic aside from the other health risking factors.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be the best version of yourself, but adding all the levels and scores and putting your life on the line in order to achieve maximum appeal is what is so bad. Besides, focusing on only your looks may cause some initial attractiveness, but it will not fix what is within you in the long run. Remember, regardless of how you look unless you are beautiful inside the outside will not matter.
