“Looksmaxxing” is a 21st-century internet term referring to the process of maximizing one’s own physical attractiveness. When you walk through the high school, you don’t really hear people having conversations about how they look. It’s something that comes up briefly in passing. Someone will make a comment or a quick joke about it while they are moving between classes. They might mention a jawline, say that another kid got “mogged.” Then the conversation just ends. People move on.
The kind of talk surrounding people’s appearances continues to come up. You hear it from people in different places, and it’s almost always the same. Most people aren’t coming up with these ideas on their own – they’re getting them from people who have turned how you look into something that can be analyzed and ranked: looksmaxxing.
One of the visible examples of this is an influencer named Braden Eric Peters, better known as Clavicular. He treats appearance like a system. His videos are not just advice, but rather, they break down faces and bodies into categories, measurements and attractiveness. The message is not really about feeling good about yourself or improving. It is about understanding where you stand compared to people. He even says it directly: “I don’t care about getting girls, I don’t care about being happy, the goal is to mog.”
This way of thinking shows up without people even realizing it. It’s not like students at the high school are directly quoting people, but conversations between students almost automatically shift into comparing and analyzing each other’s appearance with every little ratio and “canthal tilt” (which way your eyes point).
It happens quickly and without much thought. It shows that people think looks are something to evaluate
Looxmaxxing spaces often rely on scoring systems and strict standards, where people are judged based on things like jawline, symmetry or body composition. When looks are talked about this way, it becomes easier to see yourself and others in the same way.
What makes it more concerning is how far some of these practices go. Some parts of this culture promote unsafe practices. One example is bone-smashing, where people hit their facial bones like their maxilla and mandible to try to change their structure and add bone mass. Doctors have made it clear that this does not work and can cause harm, including broken bones, nerve damage and long-term pain. It is based on a misunderstanding of how bones grow and heal. It comes from the more extreme parts of online forums.
Other trends are not as violent, but this one tests how far people are willing to go. Some people try things like copper peptides such as GHK-Cu for skin or investigational weight-loss drugs like retatrutide, which is still being studied. These are often talked about in spaces as casual self-improvement even though they come from medical contexts and are not meant to be used that way.
To be fair, not all of it is bad. There is a push toward self-improvement. More people are working out, paying attention to hygiene and putting effort into how they present themselves. Those are changes that have always been part of growing up.
The difference is how far it goes. When improvement becomes tied to comparison, it stops being healthy. By focusing on how you feel about yourself, the focus shifts to how you measure up against other people. That change is subtle. It has an impact, especially in a school environment where the opinions of peers carry weight.
At that point, it is not really about looking anymore. It is about where you stand in the looksmaxxing world. It is about how you compare to people in the looksmaxxing community. Looksmaxxing is not just about looking good; it is about being better than others in the looksmaxxing space.
