'Your face looks grotesque': How looksmaxxing can harm young men and boys

Most of us likely have days when we feel we're not looking our best.

Maybe our hair's a little wonky, or we look more tired than usual. Or perhaps there's a feature of our physical appearance that we've never quite made peace with. 

But for some young men who participate in an online community called "looksmaxxing," those self-critiques can become excessive. And the criticism they receive from other members — and their suggested remedies, which can include self-injury and surgery — are even more extreme.

Looksmaxxing is, on the surface, about trying to look your best in order to attract a partner. But a new study from Dalhousie University says while the community is framed as self-help, it can be harmful to participants.

"It is really caustic to the self-esteem of men and boys," says Michael Halpin, a professor of sociology at Dalhousie and the lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Sociology of Health and Wellness in February. 

"They're … saying terrible things.… 'Your body is disgusting.' 'No one will ever love you.' 'You'll never get a job.' 'You're going to be a failure unless you do some serious looksmaxxing practices.'"

While there are several sites devoted to looksmaxxing, Halpin's study examined the most popular message board by analyzing more than 8,000 comments on two of its main discussion boards in 2023. CBC News is not naming the site in order to limit participation from people who may be harmed by engaging with it.

The site has about 60,000 English-speaking members all over the world, and receives six million unique visitors per month. Halpin says all of the participants were men, mostly identifying as heterosexual, from various ethnicities, and ranging in age from 14 to their mid-20s.

Ferocious feedback

Participants post photos of themselves and ask for feedback to improve their looks. Other members evaluate their height, weight, musculature, hair, skin, as well as more minute details such as how pronounced the jaw is, the size of the forehead, the hairline, the positioning of the ears, whether the eyelids tilt up or down, and the ratio of the upper lip to the chin.

Members then rate the user, with men who are 10/10 deemed "Chads," those just below them "Brads," those who are around 5/10 "normies," and those who are 3/10 or lower "subhuman" or "ogres."

Then come the suggested solutions. Skincare routines, exercise, dieting, eyebrow plucking, wardrobe improvement and hairstyles are less invasive or expensive techniques sometimes called "softmaxxing."

Other techniques are more intrusive and pricey: Botox, drugs such as hormones and steroids, surgeries on the jaw, eyelid, nose, brow ridge and teeth. Some suggest leg-lengthening surgery, a procedure in which the bones are broken in the lower leg and the gap is slowly extended so bone will fill it, resulting in a height increase after healing.

"Bonesmashing" is another looksmaxxing technique recommended by users, which involves intentionally hitting bones — usually in the face, sometimes with a hammer — in order to create small injuries in the hope that the bone will grow back stronger and more pronounced.

One of the most commonly suggested interventions is mewing, a technique to ostensibly make the jawline more masculine by pressing the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. Chewing specialized hard gums is also recommended by users for the same purpose.

If it all sounds too far-fetched to be real, Halpin says he doesn't doubt the veracity of the posts, which often come with regular updates on progress and photos of the results.

Mewing is one technique that has broken out of looksmaxxing sites onto more popular platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

On the campus of Dalhousie University, CBC News spoke with several male students, many of whom knew about mewing and some of whom knew about looksmaxxing.

William O'Callaghan, an 18-year-old who has just finished his first year at Dal, said he has heard of mewing through TikTok and Instagram. "I feel like some people take it seriously, but [for] most people it's a joke," he says.

Eighteen-year-old Griffin Cassidy works at summer camps and says he hears kids as young as eight or nine using lingo associated with looksmaxxing, such as mewing.

"Sometimes I don't even know if they know what they mean or if they just see them on TikTok and say them or they just joke around with each other."

Tobi Evborokhai, 18, says he has dropped into looksmaxxing forums, just because he finds it funny. "I think it's kind of corny," he says. "At the end of the day, I feel like it's never that serious and people are trying a little too hard."

Second-year student Dexter Firth says he thinks it's "kind of sad" especially for younger kids to be so concerned about their appearance.

"It's not good for mental health to be so concerned with that," Firth says. "I think most people who really take it to heart probably don't have the healthiest social lives and that's why they think this will make their lives better."

Halpin says the looksmaxxing community can cause harm in several ways, firstly by creating body image issues in men and boys.

"They're finding flaws that I think people outside of that community wouldn't really find," he says. "So, they're teaching people how to look at their bodies in a really critical, negative way."

The solutions members suggest to remedy perceived physical shortcomings can also be risky and cause harm, Halpin says.

But most disturbing, Halpin says, is the regular encouragement participants give each other to die by suicide.

"We saw numerous men being told that they're beyond help, beyond saving," Halpin says. "It's like, your appearance is set, nothing you can do will help you and you should complete suicide because looks are all that matter and you're going to have a terrible life because you're an ugly man."

Halpin says although he did not find any women participating in the forums, the looksmaxxing community is also harmful to women because it promotes misogynistic attitudes. For example, women are viewed as both objects to be obtained, but also as animals who are driven by biology and only care about having the most physically attractive partners.

The online looksmaxxing forum is also a gateway to other harmful communities, including white nationalist, incel, men's rights and male separatist communities that are part of the manosphere, Halpin says.

Biceps and six-packs

Morris Green has been working with young men and boys in Nova Scotia schools through his program GuysWork for the past 13 years. The program, which is offered to male students in grades 6 to 9, brings guys together to talk about the pressures they face and how traditional masculinity norms can affect their health.

Green says the hypersexualization that women have felt for decades has been hitting guys acutely in recent years, with social media messages that push the physical ideals of being tall and muscular.

"I happened to be at a hotel gym just last week and the manager of the gym said this place is packed with teenage guys from like 4 until 6 in the afternoon, but no one's doing any cardio," says Green. "They're all doing weight training."

Green says in the guys groups, he and other facilitators try to help young men think of their identity in a broader and healthier way, including their character and personality traits, not just their physical appearance.

"What really makes a person a great human being has very little to do with their, you know, the size of their biceps and their six-pack, but their integrity, their loyalty, their ability to care and support not only their other guy friends, but their peers of all genders."

Green said some of the young men he's spoken with view the looksmaxxing community as fringe or overhyped. Others have noted that people seeking costly interventions for their appearance likely have a degree of privilege, and that many guys are grappling with bigger issues than body image, such as food and housing security and concerns about income, school and work. 

What parents can do

Parents can play a significant role in preventing their children from falling into harmful online spaces such as the looksmaxxing community, says Paul Davis, a social media and online safety educator.

He says in the 14 years he has been addressing parents, his presentations have changed weekly, but he consistently gives them these four pieces of advice:

• Do not allow kids to use social media until they are 13 years old, and only then with proper education.
• Do not allow kids to use phones, tablets, computers, or smart TVs in their bedroom, because "there is where the worst choices are made."
• Read your kids' online communications — and understand their lingo and emojis.
• Develop a relationship with your kids. Davis says, "I want you to tell your child the following: 'You can come to me for anything. I may be angry, I may be disappointed, I may be upset.… But I love you and I will always be there for you.'" Tell them this repeatedly to keep the door of communication open.

Like Green, Davis says instilling confidence in children is key to building up a healthy perspective that will protect against harmful messages online.

"I think they need to bring reality into the conversation, which is, you need to be happy with who you are, and we accept you for who you are, and someone out there will accept you for who you are," Davis says.