From gym to jawline

By Jillian Sunderland and Jordan Foster

Young men and teenage boys are learning to see their faces and bodies as projects to measure, rank and optimise.

On social media platforms jawlines are dissected, cheekbones compared and “flaws” are catalogued. And widely viewed videos advise on just how best to bulk up, trim down, make over and become more desirable and more masculine. Some will even help rank your face for areas to improve.

This growing practice of ritualised self-scrutiny, and the litany of “solutions” in service of it, is known as “looksmaxxing.”

These “solutions” range from bizarre but mundane ones like “mewing” – the practice of continuously flattening the tongue against the roof of the mouth to define the jawline – to far more dangerous ones like “bone-smashing,” which involves repeatedly tapping facial bones with solid objects like a bottle or even a hammer to force them to sharpen for a defined look.

For scholars who study masculinity and social media, this phenomenon suggests that something about masculinity might require serious critical analysis.

There is a common pattern. As traditional pathways to masculine status such as stable work, home ownership and long-term partnerships are delayed or feel out of reach, the body becomes a locus of control – a site on which to reclaim power and sculpt a new vision of modern manhood.

Appearance becomes one of the few domains where control still feels possible.

While some of these practices that young men and boys have become preoccupied with are innocuous enough, the popularity of looksmaxxing does raise concerns.

Self-described looksmaxxers organise their efforts through intensive ranking systems and pseudo-scientific hierarchies. For instance, online guides encourage users to measure facial symmetry, jaw width and “canthal tilt” – the angle of one’s eyes relative to their cheekbones – as if masculine desirability could be quantified through technical metrics.

Others insist that “nothing can upgrade the face faster than reducing body fat” and provide instructions on how to achieve a “lethal face card” – slang for someone who is exceptionally good-looking.

In recent years, looksmaxxing – initially confined to fringe incel spaces and the broader online “manosphere,” where communities of men debate status through often misogynistic beliefs about women – has been sanitised for public consumption. As the concept entered mainstream digital culture, these pressures increasingly encroach on the lives of young men and boys.

Its organising logic is simple. To reassert power and to reclaim their place as “manly” citizens, meeting specific aesthetic standards through a series of grooming tactics is a necessary strategy.

As many young men push back against gender equality and reframe it as producing male disadvantage, looksmaxxing offers a seductive explanation for exclusion: you are simply aesthetically deficient, and that can be fixed.

For much of the 20th century, masculine status was closely tied to the breadwinner model, through which men’s authority and status flowed from stable employment and the ability to provide for their families. That model has steadily eroded.

In much of the industrial world, stable career ladders have given way to a contract or gig-based economy and less secure employment opportunities. The rise of artificial intelligence has intensified employment anxieties further as young men confront a labour market where entire sectors of white-collar work are unstable.

As the economic and social foundations of traditional masculinity weaken, the cultural scripts linking men to guaranteed partnership, power and authority have become less certain. These shifts are also unfolding alongside changing attitudes toward gender.

According to Ipsos, nearly one-third of Gen Z men globally agree that a wife should obey her husband, suggesting a resurgence of hierarchical views of gender relations among some young men.

In this climate, looksmaxxing reframes structural barriers as individual shortcomings. Young men are told that recognition and status can be reclaimed through straightforward investments in their appearance. Things like sharpening their jaw, building muscle and cultivating the coveted “hunter eyes” – eyes that are deep-set, almond-shaped with minimal upper eyelid exposure and no white visible below the iris, often associated with intensity and confidence.

Social media platforms and relevant industries – including male skin-care companies – profit from young men’s preoccupation with perfection often with little or no mention of the physical, social, emotional or economic consequences that accompany such appearance practices, let alone the structural issues that underscore them.

Male anxiety is being monetised in the form of supplements, fitness coaching and cosmetic interventions, including multi-step skin-care regimens and intensive injections.

In this appearance-oriented environment filled with brand messaging, masculinity becomes a competitive asset to be purchased. Boys and young men have gradually become a highly profitable demographic, with corporations and businesses doubling down on advertisements and product offerings targeted specifically at them.

Jillian Sunderland is PhD candidate in Sociology, University of Toronto and Jordan Foster is Assistant Professor, Sociology, MacEwan University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence