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I think there's still something really ugly on the inside that people are really working with or trying to confront,

oh, maybe I'll just put on a good face and I won't have to deal with it. Maybe, you know,

it'll get me all these other things. Like anyone else, I like to look good. I pay to makeup

artist to teach me how to blend my concealer. I apply my skincare in a specific order and only

one person on the face of this earth is allowed to cut my hair.

I can be particular about my appearance in some ways, but there are a few lines I just won't cross.

Like, say, breaking my own jaw to get a desired chin shape or taking illegal substances to hollow out my cheeks.

That's a little much for me. But those

severe tactics are not too much for some people who are dead set on looks maxing. By a broad

definition, looks maxing is the practice of doing everything in your power to achieve a very

specific definition of peak physical attractiveness. And that can include things a lot of people might do, like clearing up acne or getting a flattering

haircut. But on the more extreme end of the looks maxing spectrum, you'll see folks, especially

young men, getting cosmetic procedures or undertaking their own, oftentimes unregulated body modification practices to achieve

a narrow set of facial or bodily proportions. A guy named clavicular, perhaps the most famous

looks maxing influencer, recently walked a show in New York Fashion Week, and had lengthy articles

written about him in the New York Times and GQ.

But as looksmaxing is hitting the masses, I'm interested in the deeper questions lurking behind the golden ratio that so many looksmaxers would do anything to achieve.

To do that, I'm joined by Jason Parham.

Last fall, he reported a piece about looksmaxing among young men of color and the ways that racism and bigotry shaped their experiences in the looks maxing community.

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