Looksmaxxing: What Every Parent of a Son Needs to Know Right Now

The Trend Targeting Your Son's Self-Image

If you've ever scrolled through a teenage boy's social media feed, you may have noticed content that goes far beyond sports highlights and gaming clips. Buried among the familiar posts is something more alarming — a growing movement known as looksmaxxing, a trend that urges boys and young men to pursue radical physical transformation at almost any cost.

While many adolescents naturally develop an interest in fitness and personal grooming, looksmaxxing takes that impulse to dangerous extremes, encouraging everything from aggressive supplement use and steroid cycles to elective cosmetic surgery — and in some disturbing cases, physically striking one's own face with a hard object.

What Exactly Is Looksmaxxing?

At its core, looksmaxxing is the obsessive pursuit of physical perfection, rooted in the belief that a man's worth — his romantic prospects, career success, and overall happiness — is determined almost entirely by how he looks.

The concept didn't emerge in a vacuum. It traces its origins directly to the incel community, short for "involuntary celibate," a deeply misogynistic online subculture that holds appearance as the singular gateway to a fulfilling life. Once confined to the darker corners of the internet, looksmaxxing has steadily migrated into mainstream platforms, where it now reaches millions of impressionable young viewers.

Dr. Gene Beresin, Executive Director of the Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital and a child psychiatrist with over four decades of experience, says he has never encountered anything quite like it.

"There's almost no focus on anything other than one's appearance in terms of your value as a human being," Beresin says.

The Dangerous Practices Hiding in Plain Sight

Looksmaxxing content spans a wide spectrum. On the milder end, followers might share skincare routines or workout programs. But the more extreme corners of this movement promote genuinely harmful behaviors, including:

• Steroid use among minors seeking rapid muscle gains
• Elective jaw surgery to sculpt a more angular facial structure
• "Bonesmashing" — the practice of repeatedly striking the face with a hard object under the false belief that small fractures will remodel bone structure and sharpen the jawline
• Dangerous drug use to accelerate physical results

One of the movement's most prominent and controversial figures is a streamer known as Clavicular, whose real name is Braden Peters. The 20-year-old has openly promoted bonesmashing and admitted to using crystal meth and steroids to achieve his appearance. His influence came into sharp focus recently when he collapsed during a live broadcast and was hospitalized in Miami — an event he later cited as his motivation to stop using drugs.

A Troubling Link to White Supremacy

Beyond the physical dangers, Beresin highlights another deeply concerning dimension of extreme looksmaxxing: its embedded ties to white supremacist ideology.

European beauty standards sit at the heart of incel culture and the looksmaxxing movement. Adherents operate on a hierarchical rating system that ranks men from "subhuman" at the bottom, through the average "normie," up to the idealized "Chad" — a tall, square-jawed, white alpha male whose looks supposedly guarantee him dominance in both his romantic and professional life.

This framework is built on eugenicist thinking, attributing physical shortcomings to genetic inferiority. Proponents argue that looksmaxxing is the path out of this perceived genetic deficit — a deeply harmful and discriminatory ideology dressed up as self-improvement advice.

Warning Signs Parents Should Watch For

Given how rapidly this trend is spreading, Beresin says parents need to stay alert to behavioral changes in their sons. Key warning signs include:

• Frequent complaints about not being attractive enough
• Constant comparisons of their appearance to others, particularly online figures
• Noticeable changes in eating habits or extreme dietary restrictions
• Requests for cosmetic procedures to correct perceived flaws
• Excessive time spent consuming appearance-focused content online

Beresin notes that he has observed a significant uptick in male adolescents exhibiting troubling behaviors around their looks — behaviors that can escalate into serious conditions such as eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

"Young adolescents are extraordinarily vulnerable," he warns.

How to Talk to Your Son About Body Image

The good news is that early, open conversations can make a meaningful difference. Beresin recommends that parents begin discussing appearance and self-esteem with their children as early as the preschool years, building a foundation of trust long before these online pressures take hold.

"The more we have conversations about how you're feeling, how you're looking — engaging, listening, validating them, being nonjudgmental, noncritical — it becomes a fabric of the relationship," he explains. "So if you haven't started, there's no better time than the present."

Breaking Through the Silence

Of course, getting boys to open up isn't always straightforward. Valerie Adams-Bass, an assistant professor of childhood studies at Rutgers University whose research centers on identity, body image, and media use among adolescents — with a particular focus on the mental health of Black youth — points out that deeply ingrained social norms still make emotional expression difficult for many boys.

Understanding this barrier is the first step toward breaking it. Approaching your son with genuine curiosity rather than criticism, and making body image a regular topic rather than a one-time conversation, creates the kind of environment where he feels safe enough to share what he's actually encountering online.

The Bottom Line

Looksmaxxing represents one of the most complex and troubling intersections of social media culture, mental health, and toxic ideology that parents face today. Staying informed, maintaining open dialogue, and seeking professional support when needed are the most powerful tools available to families navigating this landscape.