An online trend called “looksmaxxing” is gaining traction among young men—but at what cost?
In this episode, Stephen Bauman reflects on the rise of performative beauty culture and makes the case for something deeper: a daily commitment to “soulmaxxing,” and reclaiming what truly makes us human.
Transcript:I recently learned about an emerging online community called looksmaxxing, and its emergent 20-year-old star who goes by the name, Clavicular. Looksmaxxers believe that male attractiveness is the key to worldly achievement, and every step toward increasing their beauty to be virtuous. But as the New York Times reports, it’s a certain kind of beauty, as identified by Clavicular, akin to actor Matt Bomer: lantern-jawed, symmetrical and white. That’s the ideal. Again, according to the Times, Clavicular has well over a million followers on Tik Tok and Kick, rakes in $100,000 a month and often spends 8 hours a day live streaming.
This strikes me as the inevitable apotheosis of where social media has been headed for a long while...the extreme end goal of the narcissistic performative presence stripped to its barest essence, exalted as the only essential human value. Checking out a couple of interviews, what’s revealed is a sad and empty human vessel jacked up on arrogant self-regard. Its breath-taking, really, and wouldn’t require a lot of analysis except for how looksmaxxing has evidently captured the attention of many susceptible young men who’ve lost connection with meaningful human community. On the surface it’s not overtly political or ideological, but seriously devoid of any engagement with things that really matter. A hollowing out of what it means to be a human fully alive.
I don’t need to go on and on with this, but Monday morning I did wind up in a conversation about it with my 30-something trainer at my local gym. Catching my breath while moving from squats to bench press, I asked Teddy if he had heard of Clavicular... He said that he had just been talking about him and the whole looksmaxxing phenomenon with a friend, who thought that what Clavicular could really use was some soulmaxxing. They had a good laugh about that, but it struck me they had landed on something important. They meant it for fun, but they nailed it perfectly.
I’m thinking soulmaxxing is exactly what we could use more of these days--serious engaged commitment to honoring the higher values of our humanity. The cultural rot has seeped far and wide beyond the boundaries of its more extreme examples. We’ve all been touched and tempted by the downward tug of our lessor natures. In our current environment it takes focused attention not to succumb and then to actively choose a better way. With eyes wide open we discover these opportunities arrive every single day. A daily opportunity for soulmaxxing...
