It’s natural for people to want to improve themselves in some way or achieve a “glow-up.” There are many ways to take care of yourself healthily, such as working out, eating healthy, getting enough sleep, creating a skin-care routine, and more. However, it seems as though social media has begun to change normal self-improvement into something extreme and harmful, turning healthy glow-up tools into a harmful obsession with looks. As I’ve been scrolling through TikTok and Instagram recently, I’ve been finding many videos about looksmaxxing. I first heard about the term “looksmaxxing” a few years ago, and I would see videos about mewing: a tongue exercise to change jawline structure over time, and other simple ways to improve looks. I didn’t think much of it at the time, since it just seemed like it was a strange but healthy way for men to try to improve their looks.Â
For the past month, I’ve been seeing more videos related to looksmaxxing and influencers in the looksmaxxing community, like Clavicular. But what exactly is looksmaxxing? It’s a term to describe the process of trying to improve your physical appearance to the highest level possible, or “maximize your looks.” There are healthy ways to looksmaxx, called “soft” looksmaxxing, like using fitness, hygiene, and skincare, and more unhealthy or controversial ways, called “hard” looksmaxxing, like getting plastic surgery and using techniques like “bone-smashing.”Â
One type of video that stood out to me was face ratings, in which people rate facial features like symmetry, eye shape, and jawline using terms like “canthal tilt.” They use a scale that ranks people’s looks from 1 to 10. This scale seems to quantify people’s entire worth based on their appearance and follows strict, narrow guidelines to assess attractiveness. I’ve also seen videos about Clavicular taking steroids to improve his looks, gaining many followers by focusing his entire persona around looksmaxxing, even though he uses harmful techniques to improve himself. Social media seems to have amplified the effect of looksmaxxing, promoting dangerous techniques and rating people based on appearance.
So, while looksmaxxing isn’t inherently harmful, since it can encourage self-care and improve confidence, its downside is that it often revolves around unrealistic beauty standards, can turn appearance into a numerical score, and can cause comparison, insecurity, and an obsession with looks. There’s a thin line between self-improvement and harmful self-obsession; has looksmaxxing crossed the line?Â
Although looksmaxxing can be helpful, social media has fostered a culture of constant comparison and rating, leading people to feel they always need to look better, and influencers like Clavicular only teach people to improve their looks in dangerous ways to feel good about themselves. Looksmaxxing and self-improvement can be healthy and natural, but it depends on how far you’re willing to go to improve yourself, and at what cost. If you have to constantly evaluate your looks as well as others, feel pressured to optimize your looks, and you base your entire self-worth on appearance, you are harming yourself more than you are improving yourself.
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