Something unsettling… is happening… or evolving.

Everything we do is measurable and shareable.
Our productivity.
Our steps… our sleep… our stress…
Our faces?

The rise of looksmaxxing is being framed as another strange internet trend… but there’s a lot more to it (and most of it is disturbing … and accelerating faster than most people realize).

Young men analyzing jawlines…
Cheekbones… eye angles… body fat percentages.
Trying to “optimize” their appearance like it’s a landing page.
On one level, this sounds harmless… and, frankly, maybe a little needed.
Go to the gym… eat better… dress well…
Take care of yourself.

That’s not new… more like life skills for a workforce that never wants to leave their condo… or parent’s house (and is increasingly learning how to perform life through a screen before actually living it).

Because this didn’t come out of nowhere.
Looksmaxxing has roots in the darker corners of the internet… forums tied to the manosphere… incel communities… spaces where attractiveness is treated less like a preference… and more like a rigid hierarchy.
And now… that thinking has gone mainstream.
At algorithmic internet speed.
And… it pushes toward extremes…
Because the algorithm doesn’t reward healthy… it rewards noticeable

And that’s where looksmaxxing becomes the next layer beyond skincare, haircuts and fashion.

The culture bends towards steroids… implants (jaws and beyond), lengthening surgery (choose a limb or other part)…
experimental supplements.
Even DIY techniques to literally reshape bone (some of which cross the line into self-harm disguised as self-improvement).
This isn’t self-improvement anymore.
It’s self-modification in a world driven by an algorithm that will keep showing you a better version of someone else.

Over… and over… and over again.

Your face becomes a node… a score.
Your attractiveness becomes a KPI.
Your identity becomes something to iterate on.

Like a product.

Remember the old digital adage that if something is free, you are the product?
We’ve spent years talking about how social media impacts girls and body image.
What we’re seeing now is the evolution to the other side of that equation.
Boys are entering the same system… but through a different lens.
And it’s not “be beautiful.”
Be dominant… be desirable… be chosen.
… Or be invisible.
And underneath all of this isn’t vanity.

It’s anxiety.

A generation of young men trying to make sense of shifting social norms… changing expectations… and a world where status feels harder to define.
Look no further than the new documentary on Netflix by Louis Theroux, Inside The Manosphere.
Everything in that documentary now feels like the phase before looksmaxxing… the ideology before the optimization layer.
We’ve gone from content and influence to control… or at least the illusion of it.
If relationships feel unpredictable…
If success feels uncertain…
At least your face feels like something you can optimize (much like buying toilet paper during Covid).

But here’s the problem…

When the internet turns identity into a competition…
It never stays casual.
And when the baseline becomes perfection…
Everyone starts to feel like they’re losing.
Because nobody actually knows what “perfection” is… and the “influencers” espousing the definition will keep moving the goalposts (because their business model depends on it).
So, here’s the question… what happens to a generation of young people (because even though this is a mostly male trend it affects everyone)…

What do we do in a world where we’ve now trained and taught everyone that who they are… is never quite enough… and the work they’re doing is about to be taken by a large language model … and the platforms shaping that belief are the same ones profiting from fixing it?

This is what Trudie Mason and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

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