- First national study into the “looksmaxxing” phenomenon reveals a rampant online ecosystem of influencers, masculinity coaches, and wellness brands that monetises anxiety, insecurity, and isolation, while sowing intolerance, bigotry, and misogyny.
- The report reveals how content can escalate from skincare and gym routines to extreme methods of appearance-changing such as bone-smashing, “starvemaxxing”, steroid cycles, and unregulated peptide injections.
- It warns looksmaxxing can act as a gateway into a wider network of online masculinity content that centres dominance, hierarchy, and contempt for women, and normalises misogynistic terms like “foids,” and “sexual market value”.
- Report calls for action to protect boys from harmful ‘looksmaxxing’ content by boosting online harms laws; introducing planned social media ban for under-16s; greater support for schools; stronger oversight of the peptide and supplement market, and a crackdown on unregulated products marketed to young people.
