Trigger warning: mention of eating disorders and sexual violence.
The relationship between beauty and status is not a modern consideration. Humanity understands that attractive people can captivate and even manipulate those around them to their own benefit. The oldest stories confront this reality. Helen of Troy, the famous beauty, captivated the handsome Paris and ran away with him, causing thousands to go to war in her name. Was the couple not immortalized for their mutual beauty, even above their royal status? Nefertiti, queen of Egypt, historically renowned for her looks, who gained prominence throughout the kingdom, was considered a goddess beside her husband and achieved power that many women were unable to obtain because of her captivating, now legendary appearance.
More recent figures illustrate women’s social need to employ their beauty to reach their goals. Hedy Lamarr, an Austrian-born American actress and inventor, utilized her Hollywood fame and connections to fund and pursue her inventing career. Her invention of a new communication system that used “frequency hopping” amongst radio waves to prevent their interception, leading up to World War II, laid the foundation for wireless communication modes such as WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth. Lamarr’s patent expired before she received any financial compensation for the profound influence of her work and research, but her screen career and subsequent marriages allowed her to live comfortably. The disproportionate appreciation during her life for her appearance over her intelligence exemplifies society’s resolve to reward women for beauty above all else. These examples and many others, old and new, prove women have long identified and been taught that their beauty was a means to obtain their objectives.
Despite women’s continued proof of this long-held understanding, a modern community of men is convinced that they have discovered the relationship between beauty and social “ascension.” “Looksmaxxing” is a term popularized by a subset of the manosphere, an online space where men propagate misogyny, violence against women and self-pity.
Like many terms in this toxic space, “Looksmaxxing” originated in the incel community, a subculture of the manosphere. Incels, or involuntary celibates, are men who claim that they are single and will remain so because they do not meet conventional standards of attractiveness, ultimately blaming women and the continued dissolution of the patriarchy for their loneliness. They refer to the improvement of one’s looks as “ascension,” a framing which encapsulates their outlook — that looking more attractive will improve one’s life in every possible way. These men believe that bettering their looks will contribute to their romantic, social and financial success.
Last year, I wrote an article confronting the frightening messages of the “manosphere.” I am interested in this space’s direct contribution to the misogyny I faced in my life and identified among many of my male peers, both in high school and college.
Today, this dangerous, misogynistic sphere of the internet has become increasingly ridiculous. “Clavicular,” or Braden Peters, a 20-year-old American influencer with over a million followers across platforms, has inspired a new subgenre of the sphere centered around his perpetuation of “looksmaxxing” ideology. This subculture emphasizes external appearance over emotional and intellectual aspects, offering a dim path to a fulfilling life that centers on material success over one’s lasting positive impact on those around them. Though a seemingly silly and unthreatening extension of a violent ideology, looksmaxxing offers unique challenges in its corruption of young men’s values, placing their appearance above their moral actions or connections with others.
Many find the most startling features of this rising value system and subculture concerning because of the extreme lengths participants are willing to go to improve their exterior. While promoting unnecessary plastic surgeries, Clavicular also brags about his excessive use of steroids and testosterone to improve his physique and suggests smashing one’s jaw with a hammer to “chisel” it. Only weeks ago, on April 15, the influencer overdosed from the combination of “looksmaxxing” oriented drugs in his system and was rushed to the hospital. Though this self-mutilation is undoubtedly disturbing, torturing oneself in the pursuit of perfection is not a new habit. Rather, it is only being acknowledged for its horror because it is now extending more widely to men.
Eating disorders, discomfort and taking extreme measures toward beauty have long been pressed upon women. While some still speak out about these harms, there are more who see these measures as typical for women. The measures Clavicular and his followers are willing to take are seen as more alarming because this behavior is less expected among young men. The emphasis on beauty standards our culture holds is not newly realized through Clavicular’s extreme actions, but his outlook reveals a chronic issue within our culture: the widespread disinterest among young men in emotional connection with others, particularly women. The way he and other members of this dangerous internet culture speak about women and their relationship to the opposite sex reveals the deeper issue behind the rise of this extremist community, attesting to its roots in incel culture.
When asked during a Kick stream about his interest in dating and romantic connections in the future, Clavicular responded, “Where’s the ROI (Return on Investment) in that?” This simple answer unveils the outlook that Clavicular, and by extension, his followers, embrace. These young men are not interested in looking more attractive to find a life partner, and that was never Clavicular’s claim. Rather, he speaks about women as objects to be discarded. His growing popularity is increasingly worrying, as his dangerous comments are reaching a wider audience of young men.
This community’s disinterest in relationships that go beyond the surface level leads them to preach harmful and often violent sentiments that ultimately emphasise their disrespect for women’s humanity. In an interview with Adam Friedland on the centrist comedian’s show, Clavicular bragged that women have to see a doctor after being with him intimately, posing the remark as an achievement and a joke. This disturbing claim, dismissed by the host, reveals the harm this community is promoting outside of mutilating their own bodies. Their pursuit of physical “ascension” seems oriented not at gaining access to simple interactions with women, as their incel roots would claim, but at employing their looks to humiliate others.
A symptom of this blatantly sexist mindset is Clavicular’s habit, as seen in his streams and YouTube videos, of approaching women and rating their appearance and then telling them what plastic surgeries they need to be more attractive. This second case of the less violent but still harmful objectification of women and the reduction of the self to physical attributes further displays the harms of this subculture’s worldview.
The deep history of women utilizing their beauty in the pursuit of power displays that this concept is far from new, but it is vital to identify an important distinction. One of these understandings is rooted in survival, while the other is based on greed. Instances of women’s utilization of their looks toward success came from a position of oppression and a lack of other options or opportunities. Additionally, emphasis on their beauty was pressed upon them, rather than chosen. Even in legend, as with the tragically beautiful Helen, women are not participants in decisions around their fate. Any obtainable advantage was understandably grasped at to secure one’s place and safety.
Oppositely, Clavicular and his “looksmaxxing” followers are choosing to emphasize their looks in connection with their identity rather than having this placed on them. Their use of beauty toward social ascension begins from a place of privilege and a misguided view of how relationships are obtained. They are choosing this framing from a position of societal power as the dominant gender in patriarchal structures, claiming victimhood in women’s interactions with them, despite the unimportance of men “mogging” for millennia.
Ultimately, we should be very disturbed by Clavicular and his popularization of this subset of incel culture. Its members’ conception that they found a new cheat code toward success ignores centuries of women’s struggles and successes. The true fear that should be held in the face of their increasing popularity is not for their own broken mental framing and self-inflicted loneliness, but their ultimate disregard of women’s humanity beyond the physical and the violence that perpetuates from this patriarchal mindset.
“Looksmaxxing” and other brain-rot Internet terms may seem ridiculous. But the ultimate result of influencers like Clavicular conditioning young men into an acceptance of this mindset is far more serious. Their supposed discovery of this “philosophy” discounts centuries of examples of women climbing socially due to their looks out of necessity rather than choice. This new subset of men whose sole focus lies in beauty and the physical is contributing to the increasing lack of true emotional connection within our society, specifically between the sexes.