A well-known youth activist has cautioned that the online subculture of “looksmaxxing” has completely “infiltrated” Irish schools.
Additionally, a prominent child psychotherapist claims that the trend is creating eating problems, melancholy, and acute anxiety among teenage guys.
The term “looksmaxxing” describes boys and men who, under the influence of social media influencers, try to enhance characteristics associated with masculinity in order to increase their physical attractiveness.
Techniques include “bone smashing,” in which young men repeatedly strike their own faces with a hard object in an attempt to improve the cheekbones or jawline, as well as intense exercise regimens and the usage of steroids.
The “manosphere,” an online community that supports conventional masculinity and typically has anti-feminist and misogynistic roots, is thought to be the source of looksmaxxing.
“I would say Irish schools have been infiltrated in an absolute way by the idea of looksmaxxing and trends around it,” Eoghan Cleary, a youth worker and secondary school teacher who speaks to students nationwide on behalf of the Sexual Exploitation Research and Policy Institute, told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
Online influencer “Clavicular” is arguably the most well-known “Looksmaxxer” of them all; you can learn more about him in this post.
He claimed that bone crushing is one of the two techniques that “come up the most” and that he has been hearing the phrase from pupils for a few years.
Although no student has acknowledged trying it on themselves, he claimed that they “certainly all know what it is and would all talk about it very fluently.”
Tens of thousands of videos on TikTok and other social media sites instruct children on how to strike themselves in the face with extremely hard objects, such as garden shed tools.
“especially along the jawline or on your cheekbones, with the false belief that it will increase bone growth in your face and give you the prominent cheekbones and jawline they’re being told they have to have in order to be a successful man in the world.”
“Mewing,” an unproven kind of oral posture training that purports to improve jaw and facial shape, is another prevalent unsettling fad.
“You think you catch them chewing gum in class, but they say, ‘It’s not chewing gum, it’s my mewing device,” Mr. Cleary remarked.
“With the false belief that it will give them that prominent jawline, they put a piece of extremely stiff rubber between their teeth at the back of their mouth and chew it up and down.”
Other words include “winter arcing” and “shadowmaxxing,” which deal with looking excellent in specific lighting situations and from specific angles.
“It’s the idea that you hide away for the winter and work out, starve yourself for as long as you can, and then when summer arrives, you whip off your top and you suddenly have this body of a thirty-year-old bodybuilder on a fifteen-year-old boy,” Mr. Cleary clarified.
“They are informed that they can accomplish this, but naturally they cannot.”
Although looksmaxxing influencers sometimes target younger students, including those still in primary school, the teacher and youth worker primarily speaks to 15 and 16-year-olds.
Hardmaxxing: An extreme subgroup of “looksmaxxing” that includes controversial methods including bone crushing, injections (steroids, fillers), and operations (rhinoplasty, jaw implants) in addition to lifestyle modifications.
Ascending: When a previous “incel” enhances their beauty through looksmaxxing.
Bone smashing is the dangerous practice of striking the face with a hammer in an attempt to get more chiselled features.
Mewing is the posturing of the tongue, often with the use of tools, to enhance facial structure and jawline definition. According to orthodontists, it is ineffective.
Chad: An attractive, strong man who is thought to have slept with numerous women. Stacy is the female equivalent.
Foid/Femoid: A disparaging slur used to describe women.
Jestermaxxing: Trying to be gorgeous by having fun instead of worrying about how you look.
To outdo another man in terms of physical appearance is known as “mogging.”
“The only way they can get the definition they’re looking for is just to starve themselves because they haven’t fully grown,” he stated. Therefore, their muscles are visible because to emaciation.
Essentially, young guys are being taught that their appearance is what matters most and that they must look a certain way.
We were only beginning to recognise the damage that this was causing to our young ladies, including eating disorders, anxiety, sadness, and thoughts of suicide.
“But now we’re seeing an increase in all of those things in young men as well, because what’s their value if they can’t live up to these completely unachievable expectations that they’re told they need to be a successful man in the world?”
There are “soft” and “hard” aspects of looksmaxxing, according to Stuart Wilson, founder of Zestlife Therapeutic Services and a child and adolescent psychotherapist.
The more benign side promotes healthy eating, restful sleep, and physical activity.
“What we are seeing more so in the ‘hardmaxxing’ aspect is extreme eating, watching what you eat, a rise in areas of anxiety around intake of food, weighing of food, watching of food, disordered eating, protein promotion, and creatine supplements,” he told the MoS.
He claimed that there is a “thin line” separating healthy gym attendance from the “extremities” that many teenagers pursue.
We need to be aware of that since vulnerability might result in anxiety and sadness due to the constant feeling that “I’m never enough.” If you feel inadequate, you [turn to] something outside of yourself where others are complimenting your appearance.
In contrast, in the field of psychology, we always strive to support a young person’s character rather than their appearance or performance.
Mr Wilson cited the pandemic’s increased screen time and social isolation as the main causes of looksmaxxing problems, as well as a number of other negative social media-related tendencies that he frequently deals with in his practice.
Stuart Wilson, shown here with Olympic boxing legend Katie Taylor, cited the pandemic’s effects on social isolation and screen usage as the main causes of looksmaxxing problems.
According to Mr. Cleary, influencers are aware that the “more insecure you can make a young person about their physical appearance, the more engagement you’re going to get from them, the longer they’re going to listen to you, and the more money you’re going to be able to make from them.” This is similar to how the beauty industry has targeted insecurities for decades.
“Various industries have exploited this aspect of teenage girls’ lives for years, but in the last couple of years, we’ve seen it move into targeting teenage boys with the same thing—to make them as insecure as possible,” he stated.
Companies that sell quack products like “mewing gum,” influencers who are compensated to promote the products and receive rewards from social media behemoths for driving traffic to their websites, and the social media behemoths themselves, who profit from higher advertising revenue from increased engagement, are the ones who profit from looksmaxxing.
According to Mr. Cleary, “the only reason [children] are allowed to become victims of this is that we have no regulation whatsoever on social media companies and what they’re allowed to feed into our kids’ lives.”
According to the most current study conducted by CyberSafeKids, an Irish charity that advocates for children’s online safety, 77% of kids between the ages of eight and twelve are permitted to have an internet-connected gadget in their bedrooms at night.
Mr. Cleary compares it to allowing a stranger to spend the entire evening conversing with your kids in your house.
He claimed that Louis Theroux’s most recent Netflix documentary on the manosphere revealed that the majority of influential people merely promote for interaction and financial gain and don’t genuinely believe what they advocate.
Additionally, he cautioned that the manosphere is now “the mainstream world we’re currently living in” rather than “some dark corner of the internet.”
Bone crushing is one of the two techniques that “come up the most,” according to teacher Eoghan Cleary, who has been hearing the word “looksmaxxing” from pupils for a few years.
These are popular concepts that we used to see coming from groups of 13 and 14-year-old guys in their first and second years. However, I’ve heard that they’re starting in the fifth and sixth grades now that I’m talking about elementary schools.
Social media algorithms are designed to highlight content that keeps users interested.
“Both those which sought out manosphere content and those which sought out gender-normative male-interest content, were fed toxic content within the first 23 minutes of the experiment, and manosphere content within the first 26 minutes,” according to a 2024 study conducted at Dublin City University that created fictitious accounts posing as teenage boys.
“Up until now, the only people who had access to young people during that vulnerable period were their parents, friends, and educators,” Mr. Cleary stated.
However, we have provided our young people with compulsive access to the entire online corporate world during this sensitive time in their lives.
Therefore, we are giving every young person on the planet access to an addictive commodity at a time when they are most vulnerable to exploitation, most uncertain about who they are, and most in need of a sense of identity and belonging.
The fact that there is no regulation in place is the ultimate result of all of this. Therefore, every profit-making industry on the earth is free to exploit our children in whatever way they see fit.
Alex Cooney, CEO of CyberSafeKids, added that malicious algorithms target kids for financial gain.
“We are aware that children are being profiled based on their age and gender, and due to the way the engagement-based model operates, they are being exposed to specific kinds of content,” he stated.
Additionally, it frequently has to do with masculinity and manosphere-related issues for boys. When it’s that overpowering, it’s really hard for your offline friends and family to resist.
Additionally, it is an artificial amplification of harmful concepts. It is not an accurate representation of reality. It is a component of the design architecture and focuses on engagement, which naturally leads to financial gain.
Clavicular, the most well-known “looksmaxxing” influencer on the internet, has had a hectic few months.
It was revealed on Friday that a Miami-based teen influencer is suing the 20-year-old, whose real name is Braden Peters, for fraud and violence.
He appeared to overdose while live streaming to hundreds of thousands of fans two weeks ago.
Before the feed was abruptly turned off, the New Jersey native was sitting in a nightclub with other influencers when his head rolled back.
He was carried out of the venue on camera by members of the public.
“I ain’t going to be doing any more substances for a little while, hopefully forever,” the controversial influencer later assured fans.
“All of the drugs are just coping mechanisms used to feel neurotypical in public, but clearly that isn’t a real solution.”
Reputable Beverly Hills physician Carlo Hondardo posted on Instagram that he is “not a big fan” of Calvicular’s self-treatment and that it has made the influencer “look older.” Instagram.com/drhonrado is the photo collage.
A few days prior, he gained notoriety after leaving a 60 Minutes Australia interview after being asked about his friendship with Andrew Tate, one of the most infamous members of the “manosphere” who is facing severe criminal charges in Romania, including rape and people trafficking.
Peters and his girlfriend were detained in Florida in March for allegedly attacking a 19-year-old woman violently.
He was featured in the New York Times and controversially hired to model at New York Fashion Week in February.
He seemed to run over a civilian in his Tesla Cybertruck while livestreaming in December.
Prior to being well-known, Peters was well-known in the manosphere for his rigorous body-optimization regimen.
The influencer, who is still under the legal drinking age in the US, claims that at the age of 14, he started injecting himself with testosterone.
He feels that his frequent usage of steroids has rendered him infertile.
He has also used crystal meth to stifle his hunger and a hammer to “bone smash” his face.
Peters professes to be apolitical despite his affiliation with individuals such as Tate and white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
He has stated that he would prefer Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom to JD Vance for the US presidency because the latter is less handsome and, in his own words, “subhuman,” with a “recessed side profile.”
Actress Sydney Sweeney has also come under fire from him, who describes her as “malformed” with “eyes of doom” and a “recessed upper maxilla.”
Gym Memes, also known as milky_hohas, is another contentious TikTok influencer in the Looksmaxxphere.
He recently shared a brief video of himself beating his own face with the remark, “Me doin my ONLY skin route.”
A recent TikTok post by Gym Meme featured a brief video of him pounding his own face with the comment, “Me doin my ONLY skin route.”
“In theory the bones grow stronger and bigger if they are broken, I can confirm my right elbow is thicker after breaking it,” the inventor said in response to a follower’s question on the practice’s effectiveness in the comments area.
The objective is to create several tiny fractures in the skull.
