Looksmaxxing, studymaxxing, sleepmaxxing. Self-optimisation culture is getting out of hand. 2026 could be the year of slowing down and loving yourself, but it’s made hard in today’s perfection-obsessed society. But is it really that deep?
In some ways, no it’s really not: ‘studymaxxing’ or ‘watermaxxing’ are just tongue-in-cheek ways of encouraging ourselves to more frequently pursue healthy habits — it’s fun and beneficial. However, its origins can be traced back to the male incel communities using the term ‘looksmaxxing’ on internet forums in the 2010s. Recently it has become prevalent on TikTok as a way of aesthetic maximisation and optimisation — but its message is not necessarily positive. As opposed to the idea of appreciating and highlighting your natural features, this process has been weaponised by the Manosphere to rank and disparage how people look. This ranking system differs in its criteria for men and women, but is as follows: for men, it ranges from ‘sub-human’ to ‘Chad’; while women can fall between ‘Becky’ on the low end, all the way to ‘Stacey’ if they are deemed attractive enough. The assessment criteria is chiefly concerned with symmetry, angularity, harmony, and dimorphism. Termed the PSL Scale, named after three misogynistic forums where supposedly scorned men would denigrate women, while also encouraging each other to become more conventionally attractive — but this quickly turned into the competitive internet landscape we see today.
Having now become more mainstream, the idea of maximising your appearance following this rubric is almost laughable to me — it’s nothing new. I would argue that women have been doing these same exact things for years—millenia! Think of shaping your brows for symmetry, dieting for more angularity, getting your colour season analysed for harmony, and dressing and doing makeup to distinguish yourself from the opposite gender. These ‘looksmaxxers’ have repackaged makeovers and skincare to coddle their fragile masculinities, in the same vein that companies name their men’s bodywashes things like ‘steel courage’ or ‘power fresh’.
On 18 January, the podcast Call Her Daddy released an episode called “The Wellness Industry Is A Scam”, wherein host Alex Cooper discussed the negative connotations of optimisation culture brought on by things like the ‘Maxxing’ phenomenon. To summarise her thorough discussion: there has been a rapid increase in the perceived need for perfection and optimisation in every aspect of our lives. This is also exacerbated due to the cut-throat emphasis on our ‘worth’ in this Post-Capitalist society — we are forever being told to make ourselves better, to improve our value. The unconscious messaging here ends up being more like self-condemnation since we are always being sold fixes to invented issues, and above all, we are being sold false ideals by influencers who have seemingly ‘maxxed’ everything.
This all brings into question: can there be a middle ground?
Self-improvement is not necessarily a bad thing, that is not my argument. However, obsessing over making yourself perfect is unhealthy, and frankly that is impossible. Whatever the looksmaxxers will tell you as they assign you a misguided ranking to be ‘fixed’ by something they will ultimately sell you.
Photo by Cosmin Ursea on Unsplash