1 00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,680 S1: There's been a horrifying trend on the social media platform 2 00:00:07,720 --> 00:00:12,240 S1: TikTok lately. It involves boys and men trading stories of 3 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:15,440 S1: breaking their legs in order to gain extra inches, and 4 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:19,479 S1: something called bone smashing, a practice where they hammer their 5 00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:23,280 S1: faces in order to heighten their cheekbones. These are just 6 00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:26,920 S1: a couple of the wild self-improvement measures taken up by 7 00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:32,640 S1: the community, known as looks mixers. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris, 8 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:35,520 S1: and you're listening to the Morning Edition from the Age 9 00:00:35,520 --> 00:00:39,599 S1: and The Sydney Morning Herald today, New Yorker magazine writer 10 00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:43,839 S1: Becca Rothfeld on where this movement came from and why 11 00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:51,120 S1: many of its biggest stars are Australian. It's March the 23rd. Welcome, Becca, 12 00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:52,160 S1: to the podcast. 13 00:00:52,159 --> 00:00:54,000 S2: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited 14 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:54,520 S2: to be here. 15 00:00:54,560 --> 00:00:57,560 S1: Okay, well, first off, I am dying to know why 16 00:00:57,560 --> 00:00:59,600 S1: you wanted to take a deep dive into this trend 17 00:00:59,600 --> 00:01:01,980 S1: for The New Yorker magazine. I mean, you have taken 18 00:01:01,980 --> 00:01:05,259 S1: a very serious look. I was counting at the very serious, 19 00:01:05,260 --> 00:01:08,180 S1: great thinkers in your piece, and you quote, among others, 20 00:01:08,420 --> 00:01:12,620 S1: Gustave Flaubert, the critic, Susan Sontag, Karl Marx. So tell 21 00:01:12,620 --> 00:01:14,500 S1: me why you looked at this so seriously. 22 00:01:14,540 --> 00:01:17,660 S2: I mean, I think part of the explanation is just masochism. 23 00:01:17,700 --> 00:01:21,060 S2: You know, I love an internet wormhole. I love I 24 00:01:21,100 --> 00:01:25,260 S2: almost have, like, a novelistic fascination with weirdos on the internet. Um, 25 00:01:25,260 --> 00:01:28,940 S2: but I also was getting a PhD in philosophy, and 26 00:01:28,940 --> 00:01:30,860 S2: I was going to write a dissertation about what it 27 00:01:30,860 --> 00:01:34,100 S2: means to be a beautiful person. Um, and I almost wish, 28 00:01:34,140 --> 00:01:36,180 S2: you know, that look, smack saying had been a thing 29 00:01:36,180 --> 00:01:39,220 S2: when I was doing my work, preparing to start writing 30 00:01:39,220 --> 00:01:42,500 S2: my dissertation because it's such a good case study in 31 00:01:42,940 --> 00:01:45,140 S2: the ways that this way of thinking about beauty can 32 00:01:45,140 --> 00:01:48,580 S2: go wrong. Um, and so I'm just always fascinated by 33 00:01:48,580 --> 00:01:51,180 S2: people who are sort of putting into practice different theories 34 00:01:51,180 --> 00:01:52,620 S2: of what personal beauty is. 35 00:01:52,780 --> 00:01:55,420 S1: Honestly, it's bananas. But let's start, I guess at the beginning. 36 00:01:55,420 --> 00:01:58,780 S1: So for the uninitiated, tell us what looks maxing is 37 00:01:58,820 --> 00:02:00,270 S1: and I guess where it came from. 38 00:02:00,310 --> 00:02:03,230 S2: Good questions. And for everyone who doesn't know about this yet. 39 00:02:03,270 --> 00:02:05,270 S2: I mean, maybe just turn this off because maybe you 40 00:02:05,270 --> 00:02:08,790 S2: should remain pure and blissfully ignorant. Um, so this is 41 00:02:08,830 --> 00:02:15,750 S2: sort of an evolution of incel ideology. Incel is a 42 00:02:15,750 --> 00:02:20,870 S2: is short for involuntary celibate. It's a misogynistic and racist, 43 00:02:20,910 --> 00:02:25,230 S2: but sort of primarily misogynistic online subculture that developed in 44 00:02:25,270 --> 00:02:28,830 S2: the kind of early and mid aughts in online forums 45 00:02:28,870 --> 00:02:33,230 S2: like Fortune and Reddit. And so the sort of guiding 46 00:02:33,230 --> 00:02:36,910 S2: premise of the incel forums was your your looks and 47 00:02:36,910 --> 00:02:39,910 S2: your biology are destiny. And so if you are a 48 00:02:39,910 --> 00:02:43,470 S2: not a conventionally attractive man, uh, you are consigned to 49 00:02:43,510 --> 00:02:48,389 S2: romantic loneliness forever because women are hypergamous, which means that 50 00:02:48,389 --> 00:02:50,990 S2: women try to date the highest status man available and 51 00:02:50,990 --> 00:02:53,910 S2: they often date above their status. All of this is 52 00:02:53,950 --> 00:02:57,230 S2: sort of pseudoscientific pop evolutionary psychology. I don't mean to 53 00:02:57,230 --> 00:03:00,450 S2: be endorsing this. I'm just explaining. Um, so the the 54 00:03:00,490 --> 00:03:03,450 S2: incels understood themselves as taking the black pill is what 55 00:03:03,450 --> 00:03:05,810 S2: they called it, which is a reference to the movie 56 00:03:05,810 --> 00:03:09,450 S2: The Matrix, in which one character offers another, the blue 57 00:03:09,450 --> 00:03:11,690 S2: pill and the red pill. The blue pill allows them 58 00:03:11,690 --> 00:03:14,049 S2: to keep living happily in a delusion, and the red 59 00:03:14,050 --> 00:03:17,690 S2: pill exposes him to the truth. And so the black 60 00:03:17,690 --> 00:03:22,770 S2: pill is the nihilistic pill. It's people reconciling themselves to, uh, 61 00:03:23,050 --> 00:03:27,130 S2: a tragic fate of kind of loneliness and social ostracization. 62 00:03:27,610 --> 00:03:31,410 S2: So the looks maxar's take this kind of basic description 63 00:03:31,410 --> 00:03:34,410 S2: of the world, this idea that looks are destiny, this 64 00:03:34,450 --> 00:03:37,970 S2: kind of reductive, uh, insulting caricature of women. They take 65 00:03:37,970 --> 00:03:40,690 S2: all of this on board, but they think, no, um, 66 00:03:40,690 --> 00:03:42,850 S2: you can change your looks. It is true that your 67 00:03:42,850 --> 00:03:45,490 S2: looks kind of determine almost everything about your status in 68 00:03:45,490 --> 00:03:48,330 S2: the world, but you can intervene and make yourself hot 69 00:03:48,330 --> 00:03:50,410 S2: and that will change everything about your life. 70 00:03:52,170 --> 00:03:54,050 S3: By the end of this lecture, you're going to have 71 00:03:54,050 --> 00:03:56,530 S3: an insane understanding of how to go about maximizing your 72 00:03:56,530 --> 00:03:59,180 S3: appearance based on what really skinny. 73 00:03:59,180 --> 00:04:01,380 S4: Screenshot this and bulk up if you're fed up, screenshot 74 00:04:01,380 --> 00:04:04,100 S4: this and start cutting. Always remember lean how I. 75 00:04:04,140 --> 00:04:08,420 S5: Fixed my skin, my collagen, my hair, my height, everything. 76 00:04:08,780 --> 00:04:10,220 S5: It's all in my bio if you want to look 77 00:04:10,220 --> 00:04:11,619 S5: at it. I kind of just like to refer back 78 00:04:11,620 --> 00:04:14,740 S5: to the quote like Harry's life. And if you have 79 00:04:14,740 --> 00:04:15,900 S5: no hair, you have no life. 80 00:04:15,940 --> 00:04:17,260 S6: Confusion Confusional. 81 00:04:17,300 --> 00:04:20,500 S5: Scientific looks. Maxing is making a return and I'm here 82 00:04:20,500 --> 00:04:22,180 S5: for it. Have a good one. 83 00:04:26,060 --> 00:04:28,940 S2: It will increase your what they call SMB, which is 84 00:04:28,940 --> 00:04:31,740 S2: sexual market value. It will make you appealing to women 85 00:04:31,740 --> 00:04:34,339 S2: and all kinds of status benefits will accrue to you 86 00:04:34,860 --> 00:04:37,860 S2: if you make yourself hot. And so there's a, there's 87 00:04:37,900 --> 00:04:39,460 S2: a range of different things that you can do to 88 00:04:39,500 --> 00:04:41,820 S2: make yourself hot. And we could talk about that. And 89 00:04:41,820 --> 00:04:43,540 S2: some of the, some of the things that marketers have 90 00:04:43,540 --> 00:04:47,219 S2: done are quite normal and alarming, and some are quite extreme. 91 00:04:47,260 --> 00:04:50,500 S1: Or deranged as, as the magazine had it in the 92 00:04:50,500 --> 00:04:52,539 S1: headline of your piece. So let's talk about some of 93 00:04:52,540 --> 00:04:56,659 S1: the deranged stuff, because it really is extreme, really doesn't 94 00:04:56,660 --> 00:04:58,840 S1: cut it when it comes to what these men are doing. 95 00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:03,440 S2: Yeah. So I guess on the extreme scale, the interventions 96 00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:09,040 S2: range from kind of fanciful but extreme, not scientifically legitimate. 97 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:10,719 S2: So one thing that they do is this thing called 98 00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:14,240 S2: bone smashing, where they take a bone and they smash 99 00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:18,120 S2: their jaw. They literally hit themselves in an attempt to 100 00:05:18,160 --> 00:05:20,200 S2: get kind of more chiseled jaw lines. 101 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:22,760 S5: And then you're hitting real hard. And what this is 102 00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:26,800 S5: doing is this is creating microfractures. And according to Wolff's law, 103 00:05:26,839 --> 00:05:28,520 S5: the bone is going to grow back stronger. 104 00:05:29,600 --> 00:05:31,919 S2: Another thing that they do is this thing called mewing, 105 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:34,680 S2: which is they hold their tongue against the roof of 106 00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:36,720 S2: their mouth also in an attempt to get a more 107 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:40,440 S2: chiseled jawline. Uh, the word mewing comes from kind of 108 00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:45,440 S2: discredited orthodontist doctor, Doctor Mew, who proposed this method. And 109 00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:50,640 S2: then some of the things are probably effective, but nonetheless deranged. Um, 110 00:05:50,640 --> 00:05:53,760 S2: so Clavicular, who is the influencer that the my piece 111 00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:55,680 S2: kind of centers on and he's kind of the poster 112 00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:59,340 S2: child of the looks movement. He's kind of recently blown up, 113 00:05:59,339 --> 00:06:02,260 S2: and it's really just because he's quite extreme and he 114 00:06:02,260 --> 00:06:05,060 S2: advocates these extreme methods, methods. And so people have a 115 00:06:05,060 --> 00:06:07,540 S2: real fascination with him. His real name is Brandon Peters. 116 00:06:07,540 --> 00:06:10,619 S2: He's 20 and he's been he's been doing really extreme looks, 117 00:06:10,620 --> 00:06:13,820 S2: boxing stuff since like early adolescence. He has said that 118 00:06:13,820 --> 00:06:16,900 S2: he micro-doses methamphetamines to remain lean. 119 00:06:17,140 --> 00:06:23,260 S5: For three days. I spammed a combination of Adderall and 120 00:06:24,380 --> 00:06:29,099 S5: methamphetamine for appetite suppression, and I didn't. I literally went 121 00:06:29,100 --> 00:06:31,940 S5: on a three day fast, um, and stayed awake the 122 00:06:31,940 --> 00:06:37,460 S5: entire time. And I lost £5. So that was kind 123 00:06:37,460 --> 00:06:38,860 S5: of the craziest thing I've done. 124 00:06:39,740 --> 00:06:42,339 S2: And he takes steroids, which is pretty common in the 125 00:06:42,580 --> 00:06:46,140 S2: boxing world. Um, and he's taken so many steroids for 126 00:06:46,140 --> 00:06:50,300 S2: so long that he is avowedly infertile. And he's also 127 00:06:50,300 --> 00:06:52,620 S2: said that he's not really that concerned with longevity. Like, 128 00:06:52,660 --> 00:06:54,740 S2: you know, he doesn't care if he dies earlier as 129 00:06:54,740 --> 00:06:57,190 S2: long as he's as beautiful as he could be during 130 00:06:57,190 --> 00:06:59,790 S2: his life. A lot of them take just kind of ozempic, 131 00:07:00,029 --> 00:07:02,430 S2: which is, you know, that's actually vetted by doctors and 132 00:07:02,470 --> 00:07:05,310 S2: kind of approved. So those are some of the crazier 133 00:07:05,350 --> 00:07:07,550 S2: things that they do. And they consider all kinds of 134 00:07:07,550 --> 00:07:11,310 S2: really dramatic cosmetic surgeries, like the limb lengthening surgery is 135 00:07:11,310 --> 00:07:14,030 S2: kind of the most extreme one, which makes you immobile 136 00:07:14,030 --> 00:07:16,630 S2: for a really long time and is really painful. And 137 00:07:16,630 --> 00:07:18,550 S2: you might have to travel to a different country to 138 00:07:18,550 --> 00:07:20,390 S2: get someone to do it. There's a lot of surgical 139 00:07:20,430 --> 00:07:23,190 S2: tourism and the community. 140 00:07:23,430 --> 00:07:25,710 S1: And so I guess, tell us, what is the goal 141 00:07:25,710 --> 00:07:28,110 S1: for these boys and men of looks maxing? I mean, 142 00:07:28,150 --> 00:07:30,310 S1: is it just being as attractive as they can be 143 00:07:30,510 --> 00:07:33,550 S1: according to these sort of standards? And for what purpose 144 00:07:33,550 --> 00:07:37,350 S1: is it romantic success? Is it job success? Like what 145 00:07:37,350 --> 00:07:38,350 S1: is this all about? 146 00:07:38,790 --> 00:07:40,790 S2: So I think that there's what they say it's about. 147 00:07:40,790 --> 00:07:43,110 S2: And then what we can infer it's actually about sort 148 00:07:43,110 --> 00:07:45,710 S2: of on the basis of their revealed preferences. So they 149 00:07:45,710 --> 00:07:48,990 S2: say that this is a rational decision that they're making 150 00:07:48,990 --> 00:07:52,150 S2: because they have observed that people with higher SMV, which 151 00:07:52,150 --> 00:07:56,130 S2: is sexual market value, get all kinds of benefits from society, 152 00:07:56,130 --> 00:07:59,530 S2: their higher status, they get paid more and they have 153 00:07:59,770 --> 00:08:03,330 S2: their choice of women. There's some evidence to substantiate that. 154 00:08:03,330 --> 00:08:05,489 S2: People are sort of biased on the basis of looks 155 00:08:05,490 --> 00:08:07,690 S2: that I did a bit of research about this for 156 00:08:07,690 --> 00:08:10,130 S2: my dissertation that, you know, people who are better looking 157 00:08:10,130 --> 00:08:12,610 S2: are likely to be politicians. Of course, you can be 158 00:08:12,610 --> 00:08:14,530 S2: a politician if you're bad looking. Just look at the 159 00:08:14,530 --> 00:08:18,610 S2: president and the leadership of the United States right now. Um, 160 00:08:18,770 --> 00:08:20,530 S2: but so they also say that they're doing it to 161 00:08:20,570 --> 00:08:23,370 S2: kind of get women or whatever, but they're actually pretty 162 00:08:23,370 --> 00:08:27,530 S2: uninterested and practice in, in sleeping with women. There's a 163 00:08:27,530 --> 00:08:30,570 S2: really interesting, uh, profile of clavicular in the New York 164 00:08:30,570 --> 00:08:34,290 S2: Times where Clavicular tells the reporter that he's kind of 165 00:08:34,330 --> 00:08:36,450 S2: just more interested in knowing that women would sleep with 166 00:08:36,450 --> 00:08:39,770 S2: him and he doesn't actually feel any urge to consummate 167 00:08:39,770 --> 00:08:41,770 S2: any of these relationships. He doesn't really care if he 168 00:08:41,770 --> 00:08:43,290 S2: does sleep with them, as long as he knows that 169 00:08:43,290 --> 00:08:46,570 S2: he can. They're much more interested in upstaging other men, 170 00:08:46,570 --> 00:08:49,490 S2: and their term for this is mocking. Like if it's 171 00:08:49,490 --> 00:08:53,170 S2: a transitive verb, I mog you or someone mog someone else. 172 00:08:53,210 --> 00:08:55,900 S2: So they're much more interested in kind of proving that 173 00:08:55,900 --> 00:08:57,580 S2: they're at the top of the male hierarchy. 174 00:09:02,179 --> 00:09:03,140 S1: After the break. 175 00:09:03,340 --> 00:09:06,140 S2: They view the body in very objectified terms. It's very 176 00:09:06,140 --> 00:09:09,220 S2: detachable from the kind of person behind the body. In 177 00:09:09,220 --> 00:09:11,939 S2: a way their objectification of women has led them to, 178 00:09:11,980 --> 00:09:13,900 S2: in turn, objectify themselves. 179 00:09:17,220 --> 00:09:20,420 S1: What is the relationship here between the the desire for 180 00:09:20,420 --> 00:09:23,500 S1: the ultimate beauty as however they see it, and the 181 00:09:23,540 --> 00:09:26,340 S1: sort of racism and misogyny that we see filter through 182 00:09:26,340 --> 00:09:28,940 S1: this network in the sort of things they say. What 183 00:09:28,940 --> 00:09:30,100 S1: is the connection there? 184 00:09:30,340 --> 00:09:31,060 S7: That's an interesting. 185 00:09:31,059 --> 00:09:33,740 S2: Question. I mean, I think that part of it is 186 00:09:33,740 --> 00:09:36,500 S2: that they some of the beauty standards that they espouse 187 00:09:36,540 --> 00:09:40,260 S2: are probably easier for white people to satisfy. Um, I 188 00:09:40,300 --> 00:09:42,020 S2: haven't looked too far into this. You know, they have 189 00:09:42,020 --> 00:09:46,740 S2: all these pseudoscientific terms like midface ratio and cancel tilt 190 00:09:46,740 --> 00:09:49,339 S2: and all this stuff, but I assume that they're sort 191 00:09:49,340 --> 00:09:52,900 S2: of like a presumption in favour of white like styles 192 00:09:52,900 --> 00:09:56,160 S2: and ways of looking. They casually use racial slurs in 193 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:58,600 S2: their forums all the time and stuff, and that's obviously bad. 194 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:00,880 S2: And their misogyny is obviously bad too. And I do 195 00:10:00,880 --> 00:10:04,400 S2: think that their sort of objectification of women, well, they 196 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:07,680 S2: view the body in very objectified terms as very detachable 197 00:10:07,679 --> 00:10:09,839 S2: from the kind of person behind the body and like 198 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:12,280 S2: the agency behind the body. And so I think that 199 00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:15,439 S2: in a way, their objectification of women has led them to, 200 00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:19,839 S2: in turn, objectify themselves. And they have this very kind 201 00:10:19,840 --> 00:10:23,400 S2: of rote physicalist understanding of what personal beauty is that 202 00:10:23,400 --> 00:10:28,040 S2: I think derives from their very misogynistic, very objectifying assessments 203 00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:29,959 S2: of women. Also, there's just the fact that they're not 204 00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:32,480 S2: thinking about the fact that maybe their sexual market value 205 00:10:32,480 --> 00:10:35,840 S2: is low because they're terrible people and they're spending literally 206 00:10:35,840 --> 00:10:38,000 S2: all of their time thinking about like peptides and like 207 00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:40,120 S2: your mid-face ratio, like they're not able to have a 208 00:10:40,120 --> 00:10:41,360 S2: conversation on a date. 209 00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:43,360 S1: But, but besides that. 210 00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:43,720 S7: Yes. 211 00:10:43,760 --> 00:10:47,800 S1: They're perfect. Yes. Yeah. And this might be too, you know, 212 00:10:47,880 --> 00:10:50,160 S1: long about a draw, but is there something culty about 213 00:10:50,160 --> 00:10:52,599 S1: this movement? Like I'm even thinking of some of the terminology. 214 00:10:52,640 --> 00:10:55,059 S1: I mean, they've got their own lexicon. You've written, you know, 215 00:10:55,059 --> 00:10:57,219 S1: in this world, a man who becomes beautiful is said 216 00:10:57,220 --> 00:11:00,740 S1: to have ascended. I mean, that sounds a bit culty 217 00:11:00,740 --> 00:11:03,020 S1: or a bit, you know, like something like going clear 218 00:11:03,020 --> 00:11:05,940 S1: in Scientology. Like, is there a culty element to this 219 00:11:05,940 --> 00:11:08,540 S1: or no. Is that just to the outsider like me? 220 00:11:08,580 --> 00:11:10,340 S7: I think there definitely is. 221 00:11:10,380 --> 00:11:12,820 S2: But I think that like, no more so necessarily than 222 00:11:12,820 --> 00:11:15,940 S2: any other kind of like niche online community. Um, and 223 00:11:15,940 --> 00:11:18,300 S2: I do think it's kind of threatening to breach containment, 224 00:11:18,300 --> 00:11:20,340 S2: although I'm not sure to what extent people are taking 225 00:11:20,340 --> 00:11:22,980 S2: it seriously. I think that people just kind of, uh, 226 00:11:23,100 --> 00:11:27,700 S2: find it a fun artifact to olgal. Um, but I 227 00:11:27,700 --> 00:11:29,820 S2: definitely do think that like in some of the more 228 00:11:29,820 --> 00:11:32,780 S2: extreme looks, maxar's, there is an element of the same 229 00:11:32,780 --> 00:11:34,740 S2: kind of like mental illness that you would see in 230 00:11:34,740 --> 00:11:38,460 S2: a cult. Um, people just kind of perennially doing surgeries, 231 00:11:38,500 --> 00:11:42,740 S2: like unable to, to stop. There's a compulsive element for 232 00:11:42,740 --> 00:11:45,140 S2: sure to some of the more extreme looks. Maxar's. 233 00:11:45,660 --> 00:11:47,860 S1: And ultimately I wanted to ask you, I mean, what 234 00:11:47,860 --> 00:11:50,819 S1: damage do you think is doing and to whom? 235 00:11:51,300 --> 00:11:53,270 S2: I mean, I think that it's doing damage. I mean, 236 00:11:53,309 --> 00:11:56,190 S2: the the primary demographic to who it's doing damage is these, 237 00:11:56,230 --> 00:11:58,670 S2: these men who are sort of destroying their bodies. But 238 00:11:58,670 --> 00:12:02,350 S2: maybe more importantly, or at least in addition, destroying their 239 00:12:02,390 --> 00:12:05,390 S2: kind of sensibility, like destroying their ability to have a 240 00:12:05,390 --> 00:12:09,870 S2: more artistic and fluid relationship to beauty. I think that 241 00:12:09,870 --> 00:12:13,230 S2: they're obviously doing damage to, to people of color and 242 00:12:13,230 --> 00:12:16,310 S2: to women whom they casually insult all the time. But 243 00:12:16,309 --> 00:12:20,350 S2: I kind of think that they represent a tendency to 244 00:12:20,390 --> 00:12:23,950 S2: try to gamify everything, to optimize everything. I mean, we 245 00:12:23,950 --> 00:12:26,630 S2: haven't talked about the term itself looks maxing, which is 246 00:12:26,630 --> 00:12:30,870 S2: short for maximizing like looks maximizing. And so it really 247 00:12:30,870 --> 00:12:36,110 S2: represents like a very scientific, extractive, acquisitive approach to beauty 248 00:12:36,110 --> 00:12:38,350 S2: in particular and kind of life in general that I 249 00:12:38,350 --> 00:12:39,910 S2: think is quite deadening. 250 00:12:39,910 --> 00:12:41,710 S1: And I've seen some analysis. I know I read a 251 00:12:41,710 --> 00:12:44,390 S1: piece in The Atlantic where they're sort of saying, well, 252 00:12:44,390 --> 00:12:48,110 S1: this looks maxing trend. It's actually something that's it's sort 253 00:12:48,110 --> 00:12:51,970 S1: of revealing this moral crisis that's confronting young men today. 254 00:12:52,010 --> 00:12:53,810 S1: Do you think that this is what it reveals as well? 255 00:12:53,809 --> 00:12:56,809 S1: And if so, what exactly is this moral crisis? 256 00:12:57,210 --> 00:12:59,250 S2: I'm not sure that I would go that far, because 257 00:12:59,250 --> 00:13:01,530 S2: I think that I mean, it's hard to get data 258 00:13:01,890 --> 00:13:04,890 S2: on how many what percentage of like men of a 259 00:13:04,890 --> 00:13:08,450 S2: certain age are vaxxers, but, you know, a vanishingly small percentage. 260 00:13:08,610 --> 00:13:10,650 S2: Like I'm not, I'm not sure that looks maxing is 261 00:13:10,650 --> 00:13:13,969 S2: any worse or reveals anything more than kind of these 262 00:13:13,970 --> 00:13:17,130 S2: earlier trends did like pick up artists, but I think 263 00:13:17,130 --> 00:13:21,209 S2: that regarding looks versus kind of representative of like, of 264 00:13:21,250 --> 00:13:24,530 S2: young men in America or globally is a mistake. And 265 00:13:24,530 --> 00:13:26,770 S2: some of the big looks, Max was Australian, by the way. 266 00:13:28,050 --> 00:13:30,329 S1: I noticed that. Tell me what you make of that. 267 00:13:30,370 --> 00:13:32,770 S1: I've seen them. I've seen them with their videos about 268 00:13:32,770 --> 00:13:36,170 S1: mewing and, you know, chiseling their their jaws and whatnot. 269 00:13:36,410 --> 00:13:39,449 S1: Why why are so many of them Australian? Becca, tell us, 270 00:13:40,090 --> 00:13:42,450 S1: what are we doing wrong or right? I don't know. 271 00:13:42,490 --> 00:13:45,410 S2: I don't know, I don't really know. Um, I mean, 272 00:13:45,410 --> 00:13:47,770 S2: maybe it's just because like, people in Australia are hotter 273 00:13:47,770 --> 00:13:51,580 S2: because it's nice outside. So the competition is harder. You know, 274 00:13:51,620 --> 00:13:54,300 S2: people in America are very pale on the East Coast 275 00:13:54,300 --> 00:13:56,339 S2: after being inside for so many months. 276 00:13:57,020 --> 00:13:59,739 S1: That's very funny. Well, it's interesting you mentioned the Australian 277 00:13:59,740 --> 00:14:01,860 S1: element to it, because I wanted to ask you, is 278 00:14:01,860 --> 00:14:04,580 S1: there much of a worry in the United States about 279 00:14:04,580 --> 00:14:07,300 S1: the physical dangers of looks? Because I know here we 280 00:14:07,300 --> 00:14:12,380 S1: had one endocrinologist at the University of Melbourne, doctor Rahul Barman. Right. 281 00:14:12,700 --> 00:14:16,700 S1: He said of one fat blasting drug called DNP. It's 282 00:14:16,700 --> 00:14:18,980 S1: a cautionary tale because it will cause a person to 283 00:14:18,980 --> 00:14:21,700 S1: lose weight, but it can also be incredibly toxic and 284 00:14:21,700 --> 00:14:24,980 S1: someone can die from lethal hypothermia from taking it, and 285 00:14:25,020 --> 00:14:28,660 S1: that due to peptides, cellular promoting properties, there's always a 286 00:14:28,660 --> 00:14:31,580 S1: concern that it can lead to cancer. And I was like, damn, 287 00:14:31,820 --> 00:14:34,020 S1: is that discussion happening in the United States as well? 288 00:14:34,020 --> 00:14:36,900 S1: Are people concerned about the boys? Because some of them, 289 00:14:36,900 --> 00:14:39,020 S1: some of the people doing it, they're quite young, right? 290 00:14:39,220 --> 00:14:41,420 S2: They are quite young. I mean, I don't think so 291 00:14:41,420 --> 00:14:44,420 S2: because I don't think that enough people are sort of 292 00:14:44,460 --> 00:14:47,460 S2: doing this seriously for it to merit that kind of intervention, 293 00:14:47,460 --> 00:14:49,180 S2: or if that is true, like that has yet to 294 00:14:49,180 --> 00:14:52,960 S2: be discovered. But I will say that there's peptides in 295 00:14:52,960 --> 00:14:55,880 S2: particular are not just being used by people in the 296 00:14:56,160 --> 00:14:58,760 S2: vaccine community. There are there are like scientifically kind of 297 00:14:58,800 --> 00:15:03,480 S2: vetted peptides like ozempic. Um, but there's a, there's a 298 00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:06,760 S2: big craze just sort of among like beauty bloggers even 299 00:15:06,800 --> 00:15:09,320 S2: and among women because there's not, there's not a ton 300 00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:14,040 S2: of like discussion between the, the incel adjacent community and 301 00:15:14,080 --> 00:15:17,360 S2: kind of female beauty bloggers who have long been pushing 302 00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:20,440 S2: sort of more reasonable things, like using retinoids on your skin, 303 00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:24,240 S2: using serums, maybe doing other like more minor interventions. But 304 00:15:24,240 --> 00:15:27,280 S2: now that there's just a huge general peptides craze that 305 00:15:27,280 --> 00:15:29,760 S2: is a health concern and it's even being promoted, a 306 00:15:29,760 --> 00:15:32,640 S2: lot of the kind of make America healthy again kind 307 00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:35,760 S2: of people in America, like people who are followers of 308 00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:38,920 S2: RFK Jr or people who are vaccine skeptics, a lot 309 00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:41,440 S2: of those people are quite into peptides and kind of 310 00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:45,080 S2: believe that the FDA has declined to investigate peptides for 311 00:15:45,080 --> 00:15:48,280 S2: conspiratorial reasons. And so those people are just injecting stuff 312 00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:50,860 S2: into their bodies from China with kind of no idea 313 00:15:50,860 --> 00:15:53,700 S2: what it is. And so there are health concerns about that. 314 00:15:53,740 --> 00:15:56,140 S1: Yeah. Well, I think it's exploded here to a certain 315 00:15:56,140 --> 00:15:58,380 S1: degree as well. I think there's one sort of peptide 316 00:15:58,420 --> 00:16:01,860 S1: cluster of ingredients. It's called the Wolverine stack. It's a 317 00:16:01,860 --> 00:16:06,740 S1: combination of peptides used experimentally for rapid tissue regeneration and 318 00:16:06,740 --> 00:16:11,300 S1: injury recovery, mimicking the Marvel character Wolverine's healing abilities. I mean, 319 00:16:11,340 --> 00:16:13,740 S1: that does not sound necessarily kosher. 320 00:16:13,780 --> 00:16:16,140 S2: That does not sound good. Yeah. I mean, one of 321 00:16:16,140 --> 00:16:17,900 S2: the people in the New York magazine piece is kind 322 00:16:17,940 --> 00:16:19,620 S2: of like, yeah, I just inject them and every now 323 00:16:19,620 --> 00:16:21,260 S2: and then I kind of have like a heart murmur 324 00:16:21,260 --> 00:16:22,860 S2: and I'm like, uh, oh, like, am I going to 325 00:16:22,860 --> 00:16:25,900 S2: kill myself? Because people on the, on the subreddit, um, 326 00:16:25,900 --> 00:16:28,260 S2: are recommending this peptide cocktail. And then she's like, no, 327 00:16:28,260 --> 00:16:32,380 S2: it's fine. So I think that there's definitely concerns about that. Um, 328 00:16:32,420 --> 00:16:35,180 S2: but not as much about like smoking specifically because, you know, 329 00:16:35,180 --> 00:16:36,700 S2: if I had to guess like the number of people 330 00:16:36,700 --> 00:16:39,900 S2: who have actually been smashed in America is like probably five. 331 00:16:41,260 --> 00:16:43,980 S1: Right? Okay. So there's lots of videos online, but it's, yeah, 332 00:16:44,020 --> 00:16:46,180 S1: it's probably making us feel like more people are doing 333 00:16:46,180 --> 00:16:48,220 S1: it than are actually doing it. And I guess, Becca, 334 00:16:48,230 --> 00:16:50,830 S1: just to wrap up, I wanted to ask you about 335 00:16:50,830 --> 00:16:54,150 S1: what this looks maxing amongst men might be doing to 336 00:16:54,190 --> 00:16:57,990 S1: their relationships, their romantic relationships with, regardless of, you know, 337 00:16:58,030 --> 00:17:00,590 S1: who they're wanting to date or not wanting to date. 338 00:17:00,870 --> 00:17:03,670 S1: Because there was that line in your piece about Clavicular 339 00:17:03,950 --> 00:17:05,949 S1: you wrote, watching him, I could not shake the feeling 340 00:17:05,950 --> 00:17:08,070 S1: that he has a smooth mound where his genitals are 341 00:17:08,070 --> 00:17:10,389 S1: supposed to be, as if he were a giant Ken doll. 342 00:17:10,430 --> 00:17:12,909 S1: You said he almost had an anti erotic quality, I 343 00:17:12,910 --> 00:17:14,750 S1: guess because he had done so much to his body. 344 00:17:14,790 --> 00:17:17,630 S1: It was almost like a plastic feeling, I guess that 345 00:17:17,630 --> 00:17:20,190 S1: you felt like that came off him. So what's this 346 00:17:20,190 --> 00:17:22,710 S1: doing to the relationships do you think? Is it having 347 00:17:22,710 --> 00:17:25,510 S1: any particular impact, perhaps a negative one? 348 00:17:25,910 --> 00:17:28,510 S2: I mean, definitely like, I mean, I think that as 349 00:17:28,510 --> 00:17:30,350 S2: I sort of tried to gesture out in the piece, 350 00:17:30,390 --> 00:17:34,630 S2: sort of erotic charisma is often at odds with kind 351 00:17:34,630 --> 00:17:37,230 S2: of technical perfection, like the degree to which all of 352 00:17:37,230 --> 00:17:40,830 S2: the looks maxar's are calculated about their appearance and try 353 00:17:40,869 --> 00:17:43,990 S2: to sort of gamify everything. It's really anathema to the 354 00:17:44,310 --> 00:17:47,730 S2: to spontaneity and the aesthetic creativity that I actually think 355 00:17:47,770 --> 00:17:50,370 S2: goes into the production of erotic charisma. I talk about 356 00:17:50,369 --> 00:17:54,290 S2: the French concept of Joli led, which means literally pretty ugly. 357 00:17:54,330 --> 00:17:56,169 S2: And it's like it's the French term for people who 358 00:17:56,170 --> 00:17:59,530 S2: are kind of technically imperfect, but nonetheless, they have a 359 00:17:59,530 --> 00:18:02,010 S2: lot of erotic appeal and charisma, and they often become 360 00:18:02,050 --> 00:18:04,889 S2: like sex icons. Like you think of people with gaps 361 00:18:04,890 --> 00:18:07,129 S2: in their teeth. And people love that because that's like 362 00:18:07,170 --> 00:18:11,010 S2: a kind of sexy imperfection. And because the end game 363 00:18:11,010 --> 00:18:14,330 S2: is to just eliminate imperfection of any kind. The kind 364 00:18:14,330 --> 00:18:16,250 S2: of end goal is one and just, you know, a 365 00:18:16,290 --> 00:18:19,570 S2: world in which everyone looks the same. Like there's no, um, 366 00:18:19,609 --> 00:18:22,290 S2: there's none of the individuality that I think goes into 367 00:18:22,330 --> 00:18:25,530 S2: kind of eroticism. So I think it's not, it's not great. 368 00:18:25,970 --> 00:18:29,090 S1: That's right. The unexplained attractiveness in your piece, you point 369 00:18:29,090 --> 00:18:33,169 S1: to people like Charlotte Gainsbourg and Barbra Streisand, who I 370 00:18:33,170 --> 00:18:35,450 S1: think there's some amazing quote in your piece about which 371 00:18:35,450 --> 00:18:37,290 S1: which actor is it said that? Well, I didn't think 372 00:18:37,290 --> 00:18:38,810 S1: she was pretty, but then I spent a few days 373 00:18:38,810 --> 00:18:41,410 S1: with her and I couldn't stop lusting after her. Was 374 00:18:41,410 --> 00:18:42,490 S1: that Omar Sharif? Maybe. 375 00:18:42,530 --> 00:18:45,530 S2: Yes, yes. Uh, who was a co-star in a movie? 376 00:18:45,530 --> 00:18:48,379 S2: And they did have an affair, famously. Um, so her 377 00:18:48,380 --> 00:18:50,220 S2: easily led charisma worked on him. 378 00:18:51,500 --> 00:18:54,060 S1: There you go. Only the French could have a saying 379 00:18:54,060 --> 00:18:57,020 S1: that's beautiful. Ugly. Which is meant to be a compliment. 380 00:18:57,060 --> 00:18:57,659 S2: Yes. 381 00:19:01,220 --> 00:19:04,140 S1: Well, Becca, it's absolutely fascinating. Never did I, you know, 382 00:19:04,180 --> 00:19:08,300 S1: think that there'd be a trend that involved this deranged stuff, like, 383 00:19:08,340 --> 00:19:11,060 S1: you know, smoking crystal meth to stay thin in a 384 00:19:11,060 --> 00:19:14,580 S1: piece that combines the wisdom of Karl Marx and Gustave Flaubert. 385 00:19:14,619 --> 00:19:16,180 S1: So thanks, Becca. 386 00:19:16,180 --> 00:19:18,020 S2: Thanks so much. Thanks for reading. 387 00:19:24,460 --> 00:19:27,619 S1: Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by Kai 388 00:19:27,660 --> 00:19:31,379 S1: Wang and Josh towers. Our executive producer is Tami Mills, 389 00:19:31,540 --> 00:19:35,660 S1: and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. 390 00:19:36,020 --> 00:19:38,900 S1: If you like our show, follow The Morning Edition and 391 00:19:38,900 --> 00:19:42,180 S1: leave a review for us on Apple or Spotify. Thanks 392 00:19:42,180 --> 00:19:42,980 S1: for listening.