Inside the world of "Looksmaxxing" - The Sunday Story
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 15 March 2026
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the shadowy corners of incel forums, a new obsession was quietly emerging. To succeed, financially, socially and sexually, you need to level up your face and frame. Enter “Looksmaxxing”, the idea that how you look can be engineered to perfection to maximise your full aesthetic potential. It's a TikTok-fuelled culture of mogging, "bone-smashing", and glow-ups - and a way for young men to measure beauty, status, and self-worth. How far will some go to “max” their looks? Is it vanity, or a survival strategy in a hyper-visual world? And what does it reveal about the state of men’s mental health today?
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Host: Rosie Wright
Guest: Jack Burke, times contributor.
Producer: Dave Creasey
Read more: Looksmaxxing: the worrying new extreme teenage trend
Image: Getty Images
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story on Sunday. |
| 0:05.6 | I'm Rosie Wright. |
| 0:10.6 | It's 6am. |
| 0:18.7 | He wakes up before his alarm because cortisol peaks between 6 and 8. |
| 0:23.6 | Or so the forums tell him. He sits up immediately and checks his side profile first. |
| 0:29.9 | Chin projection acceptable. Und eye-hollowing, moderate. Mouth tape still on, good lip seal overnight. |
| 0:37.1 | It's a trend growing among young men. |
| 0:40.7 | He peels it off, stands and turns sideways in the wardrobe mirror. |
| 0:44.3 | He pulls his t-shirt tight against his torso, |
| 0:46.9 | down 0.4% body fat since last week, |
| 0:49.9 | thanks the retitutriide injections, |
| 0:51.9 | veins faintly visible along the lower abdomen. |
| 0:54.7 | Acceptable. |
| 0:55.9 | The idea that how you look can be engineered, crafted to perfection, to maximise your full aesthetic potential. |
| 1:04.9 | He takes his supplements, zinc, B12, collagen. |
| 1:08.0 | He places an ice compress along the infraorborbitales for under-eye bags, |
| 1:11.8 | 10 minutes of red light therapy while scrolling TikTok. |
| 1:14.9 | Sharing your progress as you go along while other young men rate your face and body. |
| 1:20.5 | Even sharing tips on how to ascend your looks even higher. |
| 1:24.8 | He posted progress photo to a private forum. |
| 1:27.5 | Down to 11%. |
| 1:28.5 | Hollow's still mid. |
... |
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