As featured in The Established

What is looksmaxxing and why are young men betting on face value?

Physical appearance has long been a social currency for women, and now, that's applicable to men too. Looksmaxxing is becoming less about self-improvement and more about participating in an unrealistic aesthetic culture.

By Ria Bhatia  ·  The Established  ·  May 25, 2026

New York-based scientist and dermatologist Dr. Macrene Alexiades has observed an increase in men who have been consuming looksmaxxing-styled content online, sometimes since adolescence.

"Earlier, treatments that were in the domain of men in their forties and fifties are now being sought by men (alongside women) in their early-to-mid twenties."

"What strikes me clinically is that they often describe with a very specific, almost algorithmic vocabulary: 'jawline definition', 'hunter eyes', or 'facial harmony'," she adds. "These are not terms they learned from a physician. They absorbed them from influencers and forums. That alone tells me how deeply the looksmaxxing pipeline has penetrated male self-perception."

Alexiades is direct about the danger of the online community.

"The community as it exists online has drifted far beyond that margin into territory that is medically harmful, psychologically destabilising, and philosophically corrosive. That is not empowerment. That is a new kind of trap. No procedure in the world can fix the belief that you are not enough."

On how the filter economy reshapes what patients ask for:

"Social media, and particularly the filter economy on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, has created a phenomenon I refer to clinically as 'Snapchat dysmorphia'. Women request procedures — such as lip filler, buccal fat removal, fox eye procedures, rhinoplasty, and aggressive skin resurfacing — to make themselves look like their filtered selves. That is a categorically new and deeply concerning presentation that did not exist, say, fifteen years ago."

"Men in the looksmaxxing space are more likely to pursue structural interventions while women's extreme looksmaxxing more often intersect with eating disorders and other serious comorbidities in a way that requires coordinated care far beyond dermatology. What unites both groups, however, is the psychological substrate: a profound disconnection between how they look and how they believe they should look, driven not by a mirror but by a screen."

On the specific procedures circulating online:

"Bone-smashing is dangerous and has no scientific basis whatsoever. Mewing is wildly overhyped; there is no robust clinical evidence it meaningfully reshapes adult craniofacial structure. Anabolic steroids in young men are a serious concern — they cause premature closure of growth plates, suppress endogenous testosterone production, carry cardiovascular risk, and have well-documented psychiatric effects, including aggression and depression. And, operating on an 18-year-old's face before full skeletal maturity is a decision that requires extraordinary clinical justification — not a Reddit thread."

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