Looksmaxxing Is Turning Mens Insecurities Into A Dangerous Business

Have you noticed how many men are hitting the gym because they believe they need to look bigger, stronger, and more masculine?

It’s not always about health. Increasingly, it’s about achieving a very specific aesthetic.

More men seem to be falling into a trap once associated primarily with bodybuilders and male models: bigorexia. The clinical term is muscle dysmorphia, a form of body dysmorphic disorder in which someone becomes convinced that his body is too small or insufficiently muscular, even when other people don’t see him that way.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, the condition can contribute to excessive exercise, restrictive diets, and the use of supplements or anabolic steroids.

Now those insecurities are being absorbed into something even larger.

It’s called looksmaxxing.

Men Are Finally Feeling The Pressure Women Know Too Well

Looksmaxxing is often described as an online movement. It is more accurate to call it an ecosystem.

Money flows through coaching programs, supplements, skin treatments, chewing products, cosmetic procedures, steroids, gray-market peptides, and endless social-media content promising men that they can rebuild themselves.

Women have faced this pressure for decades.

Perfume, hair, makeup, weight-loss, fashion, and beauty companies have made fortunes convincing women that the body they already have requires constant correction.

As a teenage girl, I read beauty magazines religiously because I wanted to learn what I had to do to become beautiful and, therefore, lovable. I bought just about everything those magazines told me I needed.

The reality was that I was already beautiful. I didn’t need their products to prove it.

Girls were taught that beauty was the price of admission to love. It was an ax hanging over our necks.

Now many men are hearing their own version of that message.

You are not muscular enough. Your jaw is too soft. Your hair is too thin. Your cheekbones are wrong. You are not tall enough. Women will reject you unless you repair all of it.

The standards never end because an insecure customer is a returning customer.

This Industry Has Fewer Guardrails

The traditional beauty industry is hardly innocent, but at least some guardrails exist. Licensed medical professionals perform legitimate cosmetic procedures, and manufacturers and practitioners remain subject to consumer-protection, health, and licensing laws.

However, cosmetics are not generally reviewed and approved by the FDA before sale, with limited exceptions such as certain color additives. So even the traditional beauty business has fewer protections than many consumers assume.

The darker corners of looksmaxxing go much further.

The movement grew partly from incel and “manosphere” communities where loneliness, misogyny, racial hierarchies, and rigid ideas about masculinity already flourished.

Looksmaxxing influencers tell vulnerable men that desirable women will never want them unless they meet absurdly specific physical standards. Some online communities measure everything from jaw width to eyelid tilt to determine whether a man looks like a dominant “predator” or a supposedly inferior “prey.”

They promote the “Chad” or “Gigachad” ideal: thick hair, hollow cheeks, a wide jaw, a muscular body, perfect skin, and sufficient height.

When ordinary exercise and grooming cannot produce that genetically improbable body, the recommendations become more extreme.

The Influencers Selling The Fantasy

One prominent figure in the looksmaxxing world is the streamer known as Clavicular.

He has built an audience around extreme appearance modification and controversial behavior. In April 2026, he lost consciousness during a livestream and was hospitalized. The incident was widely described at first as a suspected overdose.

Clavicular later disputed that description, saying he fainted after drinking alcohol without eating. He has separately acknowledged that he had been overusing stimulants, according to later reporting about his hospitalization.

A 2026 lawsuit covered by CBS Miami also accused him of injecting a teenage influencer during a livestream. Those claims are allegations contained in a civil lawsuit and should not be treated as proven facts.

The point is not that one influencer represents every man interested in improving his appearance.

The point is that young viewers may watch creators experiment with drugs and dangerous procedures, then mistake attention for expertise.

Synthol Creates The Appearance Of Muscle

Synthol is a site-enhancement oil injected directly into muscles to make them look larger without building additional strength.

A commonly described formula contains mostly oil, with smaller amounts of lidocaine and benzyl alcohol. The enlarged appearance can be dramatic, but it is not the same as developing real muscle.

Medical literature has documented complications from site-enhancement oils, including infections, chronic inflammation, tissue damage, fibrosis, disfigurement, and serious systemic problems. Published case reports have also described lung complications and severe disturbances in calcium levels following injections.

The oil can remain in the tissue for years. Correcting the damage may require surgery.

That is an extraordinary physical risk for an appearance that may not even look natural.

Steroids Remain A Serious Problem

Anabolic steroids can increase muscle mass, which is exactly why they continue to circulate through gyms and online communities.

But nonmedical steroid use carries real risks.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse warns that anabolic steroids can cause severe and sometimes irreversible damage. Possible consequences include cardiovascular problems, liver or kidney damage, hormonal disruption, infertility, testicular shrinkage, severe acne, hair loss, mood changes, and psychiatric effects.

The internet has made acquiring different forms of “gear” easier while making it harder to know what is actually inside them.

A bottle purchased from an underground seller does not come with reliable manufacturing standards, honest labeling, or a medical professional monitoring what it is doing to your body.

That should frighten anyone more than an imperfect jawline.

I Nearly Tried Clenbuterol

When I was a runway model, I briefly considered using clenbuterol to lose weight.

That is how severe my own body dysmorphia had become.

Clenbuterol is not an anabolic steroid, as it is sometimes called online. It is a powerful beta-2 agonist and bronchodilator. It is not approved by the FDA for human use in the United States, although it has veterinary applications and limited medical use in some other countries.

People misuse it because it can raise body temperature, increase metabolism, and contribute to weight loss.

It can also cause rapid heart rate, abnormal heart rhythms, tremors, low potassium, chest pain, seizures, and potentially fatal cardiac complications.

I thought about taking it because I desperately wanted to be thinner.

Then I declined.

That decision may have protected far more than my modeling career.

Gray-Market Peptides

Peptides are the newest darlings of the online beauty and performance world.

Some peptide-based medications are legitimate, FDA-approved treatments for specific medical conditions. Others are being studied and may eventually prove valuable.

That is not what concerns me.

I am talking about the injectable products sold online under labels such as “research use only” or “not for human consumption,” while influencers openly discuss injecting them for muscle growth, fat loss, tanning, healing, or anti-aging.

In 2026, the FDA warned a seller that several peptide products offered online were unapproved new drugs. The agency emphasized that injectable products are especially concerning because they bypass some of the body’s defenses against toxins and microorganisms.

With a gray-market product, you may not know who manufactured it, whether it is sterile, whether the label is accurate, or whether the substance has been proven safe and effective.

You could be injecting something produced in a legitimate laboratory.

You could also be injecting mystery powder mixed by some guy in his kitchen.

Mewing And Industrial-Strength Gum

Mewing involves holding the tongue in a particular position against the roof of the mouth in hopes of reshaping the jawline.

It sounds harmless compared with steroids and injections. However, the American Association of Orthodontists says there is no scientific evidence that mewing can dramatically reshape an adult jaw. Chronic pressure or improper technique may contribute to tooth movement, bite problems, jaw discomfort, and speech difficulties.

Then someone realized there was money to be made selling men extra-hard chewing gum that supposedly exercises the jaw.

Chewing gum is unlikely to transform someone into Gigachad. Excessive chewing can, however, aggravate the jaw joints and surrounding muscles.

At $21 a package, at least your wallet may lose weight.

Face-Smashing

Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like.

“Bone smashing” or face-smashing involves repeatedly striking facial bones with a hammer or another hard object. Online promoters claim controlled damage will cause the bones to heal into a more masculine shape.

There is no credible medical basis for performing blunt-force facial remodeling at home.

You cannot control how a fractured bone heals by repeatedly hitting yourself in the face. You can damage teeth, nerves, eyes, joints, and soft tissue. You can cause asymmetry, infection, permanent disfigurement, or injuries requiring reconstructive surgery.

If your beauty routine can reasonably end in a trauma center, it is not self-improvement.

Extreme Surgery To Become Taller

Cosmetic height surgery exists, but it is nothing like getting a haircut.

A surgeon cuts the leg bones and gradually separates them using implanted devices so new bone forms in the gap. Muscles, nerves, tendons, and skin must adapt while the bones lengthen.

At the Hospital for Special Surgery, stature lengthening currently costs approximately $125,000 for the femurs or $135,000 for the tibias. The process can take six months, with implanted rods commonly removed about a year after the original operation.

Even when performed by experienced orthopedic surgeons, possible complications include joint stiffness, muscle or nerve damage, infection, bone-healing problems, and broken hardware. Patients require extensive stretching, follow-up care, and rehabilitation.

This is a legitimate medical procedure that can be life-changing for people with limb differences and certain medical conditions. It should not be casually promoted to insecure young men as the price of becoming dateable.

Men Are Being Hunted Through Their Insecurities

Some teenage boys and young men experimenting with steroids, injections, or self-inflicted injuries do not need another influencer measuring their eyelid tilt.

They need accurate medical information, supportive friends, and mental-health care that takes male body dysmorphia seriously.

Men, you do not have to become a perfect Ken doll to deserve affection.

You also should not take dating advice from influencers who refuse to listen to women. If your stated goal is to attract women, it might help to consider what actual women say they value rather than treating male approval of your jawline as scientific evidence.

The people profiting from this movement have no incentive to declare you finished.

If one product worked permanently, you might stop watching and buying. It is more profitable to convince you that fixing your jaw has exposed a problem with your hair, height, skin, muscles, or eyes.

The dissatisfaction has to continue because the dissatisfaction is the business.

Men are being targeted in a marketplace where some products have no approval, some procedures have no evidence, and some influencers have no qualifications beyond a camera and an audience.

Do not let them drain your wallet or permanently alter your body.

Report content promoting self-harm. Warn your friends. Ask the men in your life whether they are okay and why they believe changing their faces will finally make them lovable.

They may not need a new jaw.

They may need someone to remind them that they were human enough all along.

This article was written by Ossiana Tepenfert and published on Medium. It is republished on Sayzio.com with her permission. Minor edits were made for clarity, formatting, and updated sourcing.

This article provides general information and is not medical advice. Anyone considering medication, supplements, injectable substances, or cosmetic procedures should consult an appropriately licensed healthcare professional.