MMA analyst Luke Thomas recently dedicated a segment of his show to dissecting the “looksmaxing” phenomenon, and he held nothing back.
Thomas opened by crediting someone on Twitter for comparing the looksmaxing trend to real-life Zoolander.
He said: “I saw someone on Twitter basically be like this whole Clavicular thing is just real life Zoolander. It’s just absolutely vapid creatures obsessed with appearance and the acceptance of that, or I should say the use of that appearance for social status or social conflict even, as like their primary form of their identity and frankly the point of their being is so toxic, so vacuous, so terrible,” he said.
His central critique focused on what he sees as a contradiction: straight men attempting to impress other men. “If you’re a straight guy, what is the point of trying to look good for other dudes? I really don’t understand that,” Thomas stated.
He acknowledged that men who work out do receive compliments from other guys, noting from his own experience in his early twenties. But he drew a sharp line between casual gym culture and the extreme measures of looksmaxing.
“Smashing your bones and getting surgery and then you’re in your 20s and you’re on some kind of pharma grade whatever to change your appearance,” Thomas said, highlighting the lengths some young men go to. “It’s not for any kind of end related to your s*xual orientation. It’s merely designed for like it’s like figh ting but the only figh ting you’re doing is face offs.”
Thomas found the entire phenomenon perplexing precisely because it seems disconnected from any meaningful goal. “It doesn’t lead to the attraction of a female partner in any kind of way. It’s just all about guys trying to do something to other guys for the approval of other guys and then they’re ostensibly they’re heteros exual. It’s very strange.”
At 46, Thomas admitted he’s perhaps not the target demographic for understanding youth trends, but he couldn’t shake his assessment. “It just seems like a very very empty life,” he said. “This seems like a very specific kind of that. That is a weird kind of peacocking dance that ostensibly straight guys do against one another for the approval of other guys.”
The terminology used in looksmaxxing communities particularly bothered Thomas. “The language that they use about this maxed and spiked cortisol and FODs, whatever that is, these are the language of losers,” he said bluntly. “It’s the language of people who like no one talks like that who has a normal healthy amount of in real life interpersonal relationships.”
Thomas connected the phenomenon to social isolation. “This is all a language of people distant from meaningful social bonds. And so they have this weird interaction with one another both from a parasocial relationship online as well as in person… It’s very strange. I don’t quite get it.”
