Category: Men
‘Looksmaxxing’ and the war on male self-improvement
If you’ve been anywhere near social media lately, you have probably heard of the latest oddly named lifestyle: looksmaxxing.
It’s laughed at, pathologized, and treated as a digital disease. It is filed under narcissism, extremism, or maladaptation — anything that avoids taking it seriously.
What really offends critics isn’t the vanity but the accountability. Looksmaxxing puts the burden back on the individual in a culture addicted to external blame.
But what is it?
Checklist for Chads
At its most basic, looksmaxxing refers to a loose online movement encouraging men to improve their physical appearance through deliberate, practical self-improvement rather than passive acceptance. In practice, this usually means mundane, unglamorous changes: losing excess weight, lifting weights consistently, grooming properly, dressing with intention, fixing posture, and presenting oneself as a capable human being. It is not a philosophy so much as a checklist.
There are, inevitably, outliers — internet backwaters where bone-breaking routines are discussed without irony, extreme facial surgeries are contemplated, and pseudoscientific measurements of skull angles are treated as destiny.
These exist, and they’re easy to mock. But they don’t represent the broader phenomenon. They emerge at the margins, where men believe, rightly or wrongly, that they have exhausted ordinary options. The typical looksmaxxing example is far less exotic. A sedentary man quits junk food, joins a gym, gets a proper haircut, replaces stained hoodies with fitted clothes, and steps out of his mom’s basement.
Scarcity mindset
Looksmaxxing is a response to scarcity: romantic scarcity, social scarcity, economic scarcity. Young men are told relentlessly that confidence matters, that personality wins, that being “yourself” is enough.
Then reality arrives, usually with a swift kick to the nether regions. Faces, frames, height, grooming, fitness, posture — these things open doors long before a sentence is spoken. They decide who gets seen, who gets listened to, who gets to move on to the next round. The lie isn’t that personality matters, but that it matters first.
Critics default to dismissal because it requires no engagement. It costs nothing to tell a struggling man that he should simply “be kind” or “work on his inner self.” It costs nothing to shame him for caring about how he looks, while a culture sells beauty as destiny and desire as status.
The same people who insist looks don’t matter meticulously curate their appearance through filters, lighting, angles, brands, and cosmetic interventions. They publicly reject the rules while privately enforcing them. Everyone else pays for the pretense, most notably the average American man.
And the term average couldn’t be more apt. Overweight. Sedentary. Winded by a flight of stairs, pausing halfway like he’s summiting Everest. He is the product of abundance without discipline, comfort without consequence, a culture of convenience, couches, and calories. And he is told, endlessly, that his problems are emotional rather than physical.
Law of attraction
Looksmaxxing begins where denial ends. It says the body matters; the face matters; presentation matters. It refuses to treat biology as a slur. It doesn’t ask permission to acknowledge that attraction is selective, visual, and often cruel.
In a dating environment dominated by apps, where most singles are judged in a fraction of a second, this isn’t ideology but reality. That honesty unsettles people who have built careers telling men soothing stories about how the world ought to work rather than how it does.
As noted above, looksmaxxing can become obsessive. That pattern is familiar in any movement shaped by exclusion. But remove the extremes, and what remains is entirely reasonable. Lift weights. Lose the gut. Fix posture. Groom properly. Dress like you respect yourself. Sleep. Eat like an adult. Stop looking like you lost a bet with your mirror. None of this is radical. None of it is hateful. It is common sense.
Man up
What really offends critics isn’t the vanity but the accountability. Looksmaxxing puts the burden back on the individual in a culture addicted to external blame. It tells men that improvement is possible, but optional excuses are not. That message is intolerable to systems that profit from passivity. It is far easier to medicalize male dissatisfaction than to admit that a doughy, slumped, self-neglecting body will be judged accordingly.
There is also a class element no one wants to touch. Good looks are increasingly a luxury good: time to train; money for decent food; knowledge of grooming, style, and fitness. These are not evenly distributed. Telling men that looks don’t matter is a convenient way to ignore how much effort the winners quietly invest. Looksmaxxing is, in part, a grassroots attempt to close that gap — crude at times, desperate at others. But earnest.
There is also an undeniable element of misandry at play. When women improve their appearance, it is framed as empowerment, self-care, or self-expression. When men do the same — deliberately, analytically, and without apology — it is framed as an illness requiring immediate intervention. Looksmaxxing, a movement dominated by men, is treated as evidence of a psychological defect. The behavior is identical; the judgment is not. The double standard is structural.
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What about both?
And most straight women, if they are honest, aren’t confused about what they find attractive. Who doesn’t want a good-looking man? Who doesn’t respond positively to a strong frame, a defined jawline, a body that signals health and self-command?
This doesn’t negate the need for depth. No one wants a handsome face paired with the emotional range of a vacuum cleaner. But the inverse is no more appealing. Emotional intelligence struggles to shine when it is housed in a body that signals neglect. The idea that a man must choose between substance and appearance is false. It is entirely possible — indeed reasonable — to demand both.
Looksmaxxing doesn’t promise eternal happiness, but it does promise leverage — a chance to be seen before being dismissed. A chance to compete rather than be invisible. For the overweight man incapable of doing a single pull-up, it offers something rare: a clear target and a measurable path.
Looksmaxxing exists because the social contract broke first. When institutions stopped offering stable work, when dating turned into a market, when community receded and screens advanced, men adapted.
Mock looksmaxxing if you want. Call it vain. Call it sad. But don’t call it irrational. It isn’t the sickness but the symptom. And until we are willing to tell the truth about attraction, status, and the price of neglect, young men will keep gravitating toward the only strategy that abandons pretense.
Hard times create strong men — at any age
I know this guy, Richard. He’s friends with a couple of different friends of mine. He’s in his late 40s. He’s had a successful microbrewery business going for many years.
Last year, I heard that his business was in trouble. And then, more recently, his wife filed for divorce. He is apparently having problems seeing his kids.
Maybe this is our new male initiation ritual. Getting crushed by family court. Losing your business to far-left politics. Being abandoned in your moment of need.
I saw him recently at a large gathering. He was in pretty bad shape. He was getting screwed at family court. He was blaming Trump for his business problems.
His blaming Trump was no surprise. Many otherwise intelligent people do that automatically here in Portland. Everything is Trump’s fault. I don’t really hold it against them. The propaganda is so thick here. And if you own a public-facing business, you probably have to go with the flow.
More likely, the true cause of his business problems is the economics of Portland. Taxes are up. Insurance is skyrocketing. Homeless people have invaded your neighborhood. Drug addicts are lighting your dumpster on fire.
Hitting bottom
So I was at this event, and I ended up in a small group with Richard and a couple of other guys. I could see that he was upset. He looked terrible.
I could relate to his situation. I had gone through a similar compound disaster when my father died, right in the middle of my own divorce.
So I had felt that pain. But I didn’t have kids. Which probably makes Richard’s situation much worse.
Eventually, the other guys wandered off, and I found myself giving Richard a little pep talk. I told him what happened to me and explained how at the time, I tried to think of it as a test.
I thought to myself: How often in life will I have to face two life-changing crises, coming from two different directions, at the same time?
I tried to think of my situation as a challenge, a rare opportunity to test my mettle, as I faced a mountain of emotional stressors and practical problems.
I couldn’t tell if he was buying it. And I didn’t know him that well. So I left it at that.
The soft life
But in the days after, I thought more about Richard’s situation.
He was a solidly upper-middle-class guy. His parents were well off. He went to a good college. He was a successful businessman and a respected member of the local microbrew scene. His brewery had prospered for years, before Portland took its current downturn.
He had really had an easy time of it, all things considered. So really, my idea that this was a “rare opportunity” was not far off. His current problems were easily the worst thing that ever happened to him. And they were all happening at once!
This also might have been a good time to try to red-pill him on local politics. Bro, Trump isn’t the reason you can’t run a business in Portland. But he wasn’t going to change on that.
But the “test” thing. That was still a valid point. Richard had never been hit this hard. And like a lot of men, he wasn’t ready for it. He had lived a relatively soft life.
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Into the wilderness
People have been saying for years that part of the problem with American men is they don’t have any form of initiation ritual.
There’s no rigorous coming-of-age process. We have no “rites of passage.”
You can live your whole life and never have to endure any true hardship or serious deprivation.
Other cultures make a point of creating those “rites of passage.” Growing up in the West, I heard about young Native American men going on “vision quests.” They ventured into the wilderness by themselves, with no food and no protection from the elements or predatory animals.
In this way, they proved themselves worthy of their people, both physically and mentally. They were pushed to the limits of their endurance.
This was not only a physical ordeal, but a chance for spiritual growth as well. Becoming a man was not just about strength and skill; it was about humility and understanding your responsibilities within your tribe.
Once you had experienced the difficulties of fending for yourself, you would forever appreciate the security of life within a stable and healthy community.
The new vision quest
I thought about Richard’s predicament, which is now fairly common in America. What was happening to him was happening to men all the time.
Maybe this is our new male initiation ritual. Getting crushed by family court. Losing your business to far-left politics. Being abandoned in your moment of need by your own social class, because they’re progressive Democrats as well.
That’s how I would think of it if I were him. What else are you going to do? Cry to your lawyer? Complain about Trump? Whine to your Kamala-voting buddies?
Or are you going to grieve your losses, accept your situation, and then respond with a new resolve, a new clarity of mind, and perhaps a stiffer spine?
I mean, I feel for the guy. He’s going through hell. But these kinds of men have got to stop crying and focus on what is really going on around them.
Think of your present difficulties as the rite of passage you should have experienced when you were 14. Think of them as your overdue vision quest. You’re in the wilderness now. You have only yourself to depend on.
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