During the last few months, a trend has circulated on the TikTok platform that encourages teenage boys to achieve a new physical version of themselves. It is known as looksmaxxing and has already accumulated more than 3 billion views on the social network. Young teenagers who do not feel at ease with their appearance try to change it with practices such as mewing, which consists of "training the jaw" to enlarge it, and bones smashing, which encourages shaping the bones of the jaw. face based on hammer blows. The goal? Achieve a "more masculine" look. Practices that, according to experts, can cause serious and irreversible injuries.
This viral trend tells young people how to massage their faces. The concept comes from the slang of video games, in which characters have different abilities: attack, defense, speed... which can be improved and leveled up. When a skill reaches its maximum level, it is said to be maxed.
Media such as CNN and The New York Times have linked this term to incel forums. Incel is the acronym for involuntary celibate: heterosexual men who say they are unable to have sexual relations with women and blame them for it. This movement of frustrated men has created its own jargon, and that's where looksmaxxing comes in. But this trend has left the incel circles and reached TikTok, where many users (mostly teenage boys) share videos daily explaining the practices they carry out and show the change they have achieved in their faces after starting to practice them . These teenagers submit to a public survey in which other users comment on their physique and indicate the aspects "to improve" in the comments. The videos of this trend add up to thousands, although teenagers often get there without looking for them.
Knowing the landscape from which this trend arises helps to understand its goal: men want to retouch their physique to achieve a Chad appearance and thus achieve sexual relations with Stacys. The looksmaxxing craze is brewing in internet forums, where you can read entries like: "Sexmaxing: How to become a sex god and get girls addicted to you". In these anonymous chats, incels give each other advice on maxing out their physiques.
The looksmaxxing trend has two sides: softmaxxing, which includes tips such as changing the style of clothing or hairstyle, using skin products and doing physical training to improve appearance, and hardmaxxing, which involves more invasive techniques , such as the consumption of steroids and aesthetic operations such as jaw filling, chin augmentation, rhinoplasty, penis enlargement... Some users even suggest drastic bone restructuring surgeries. These surgeries are the focus of various debates and discussion groups on internet forums. In TikTok, some of the most well-known practices are: mewing, gua sha, eyepulling, skincare or, the most extreme, bones smashing.
After the viralization of all these practices on TikTok platforms, some dentists, doctors and aesthetic professionals have published videos explaining their dangers. They mainly criticize mewing and bone smashing: practices that can have serious consequences. Many of the videos practicing bone smashing have been deleted by the users themselves after many professionals began to strongly criticize this practice. Plastic surgeon Prem Tripathi put it this way in a video on TikTok: “I never thought I'd have to say this: Please don't break the bones in your face on purpose. Breaking the bones in your face won't give you a scarred jaw."
Doctor Mercè Quintillà, an expert in aesthetic medicine and antiaging, says that it is "a dangerous practice that can cause very serious injuries to bones, nerves and blood vessels". "If these guys really have any aesthetic concerns, they should go to expert surgeons," he concludes. Dr. Tripathi warns against mewing: "Don't use the chewing molds that claim they will leave you with a more marked jaw, because what you will achieve is destroying the jaw joint." The dentist Simón Pardiñas adds to this criticism: "There is no scientific evidence to support the results of mewing".
"The fact that a man wants to mark this mandibular, cheekbone or frontal definition is perhaps associated with virility: they see it as a sign of masculinity", says Patricia Barba, psychologist and psychotherapist specializing in self-esteem and body image. But "it really has nothing to do with that, but with the ideal of beauty or the ideal of man that these people have built". In today's digital age, social networks play an important role in influencing perceptions of beauty and self-esteem. Unrealistic patterns associated with happiness are created. In this sense, looksmaxxing takes root among teenagers. According to Barba, massaging your face "shows low self-esteem, because no one injures himself consciously and voluntarily for an aesthetic purpose".
A report by the Spanish Society of Reconstructive and Aesthetic Plastic Surgery reveals that, between 2014 and 2021, cosmetic surgery interventions in Spain increased by 215%, with a rise of three points in men.
