Becoming Alpha... By Looking Fabulous!
On looksmaxxers' strange defiance of masculinity
The internet has turned male beauty into a competition.
Looksmaxxers are on the hunt: not for money, power, or prestige, but for hunter eyes. The end goal is to look like an alpha male. But the behaviour is as stereotypically feminine as one might get.
Once upon a time, men grinded away to build empires. These men, quite differently, are on the grind to look fabulous.
What does this reveal about modern masculinity?
There is a paradox to this phenomenon.
Looksmaxxers compete to be the top dog, but in a remarkably feminine way. Beauty optimization is not stereotypically masculine. Discipline, skill growth, and risk-taking are.
The competition is not about competence. It is about appearance.
Their pecking order might as well be determined by a beauty pageant.
Stereotypically, masculine intrasexual competition is linked to displays of ability and resources. Looksmaxxers seem to have abandoned that entirely. They have taken a mantra that used to primarily constrain women: “you are worth only what you look like”, and adopted it on their own volition.
Apparently, this is how (some) men now compete for dominance.
What gave rise to this peculiar trend?
Young men are typically looking to take their place in the world, which implies garnering status. But in a world defined by social media, good looks are abnormally rewarded. Looksmaxxing, thus, is a shortcut to status through appearance.
It is not just vanity. They are seeking a way to ascend the social ladder.
And we have become so shallow that being handsome is now a legitimate way to achieve just that.
This, in part, explains looksmaxxing. Framing traditional masculinity as obsolete quietly hollows it out. But framing the status-seeking instincts of young men as toxic does not make them disappear.
They will show up elsewhere.
The old paths to masculine achievement have not become entirely unavailable. Men still dominate many high-reward fields. But our cultural climate does appear to take male adolescents in a different direction
The dominant message of social media points them elsewhere.
It reflects the phrase: how you look is how you are. The mirror becomes the only legible scoreboard. Knowing this, it is unsurprising that young men channel their ambition into pure beauty labour.
Video game addicts grind for experience points; looksmaxxers grind for sharper jawlines.
It will keep them from chasing real fulfilment.
The add-on “-maxxing” reveals a competitive drive, but it is harnessed counterproductively into “looks-”. Strangely, this is the direction that (some) masculine ambition is now aimed in. We live in a world where looking the right way is considered a valid form of male status-seeking.
At least to the looksmaxxers themselves, it is a considerable achievement.
They are falling into a trap.
As certain women have known for centuries, endlessly treating your body as a renovation project is not a worthwhile endeavour. Every mirror glance becomes an audit. And because every improvement is temporary, every improvement is insufficient.
Neurotically perfecting your appearance is not self-actualization; it does the opposite.
Looksmaxxing beautifully captures a deep contradiction in modern masculinity.
These young men have masculine drive, but are so clueless about how to channel it that they invest it into a deeply feminine form of competition. As a result, they have become a parody of themselves. Endlessly altering the surface layer to avoid what is happening on the deeper levels.
A significant portion of male adolescents now think the path towards dominance is to become hyper-feminine. To them, beauty equals status.
To reduce a woman to her appearance is a great disservice; to do the same to a man is clownmaxxing.