Charlotte Shields-Rossi | a&e editor

In the 10th-century, Chinese women would bind their feet — breaking their bones into a smaller and more desirable shape. During the Victorian Era, European women would deform their ribs and misalign their spines with corsets to achieve a smaller waist. Justifying pain in order to achieve beauty has been around for thousands of years, but the methods have evolved.

In recent years a new masochistic form of self-improvement has taken rise with “looksmaxxing,” — an internet trend, among mostly young men, who take extreme measures to maximize their physical attraction.

The community, chock-full of toxic-masculinity, is obsessed with maximizing their testosterone, naturally or not.

“#Testorseronemaxxing,” “#tmaxxing,” “#lowT” — under these tags, influencers teach you how to increase testosterone through natural means like dieting or through unnatural ways like taking steroids. They also obsess over keeping your cortisol (stress hormone) levels low believing it will affect the health of the skin and connective tissue.

They are obsessed with assenting to become the “true Adam,” the most attractive human possible, one level below is a “Chad,” while the ugliest possible person is “sub-human (or incel).”

Looksmaxxers measure this by uploading a photo of themselves into a software that “evaluates beauty scientifically” by measuring their PSL score (proportion, size, lineation).

Braden Peters, screen name “Clavicular” is one of the most popular looksmaxxers on the internet. The controversial figure is known for his racist and misogynist views, his extreme “looksmaxxing” techniques and hitting a man with his Tesla Cybertruck.

Peters subscribes to the “#bone smashing” technique, which involves hitting your face with a hammer, until his mother took away his hammer, then he began using other blunt objects.

Bone smashing sounds extreme, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

In an interview with podcaster Jack Neel, he admitted to taking testosterone and even smoking crystal meth as a stimulant to cut weight or as he calls it “lean max.”

“It is very likely that some of my lifespan will be diminished with the things that I’m doing,” Peters admitted in a YouTube interview with Neel.

Peters also admitted to being “temporarily” infertile after his body stopped producing natural testosterone due to the number of steroids he is taking. Peters and looksmaxxers like him are potentially ruining their future, playing with a meth addiction and negatively affecting their mental health.

The “looksmaxxing” community mostly consists of young men and has eerie similarities to its predecessor the “pro-ana” (i.e. anorexia) community, which gained popularity in the early 2000s on Tumblr.

This community, mostly consisting of young women, would share tips on how to lose weight fast, thinspo (photos of women with “dream bodies”), fatspo (photos of women with “nightmare bodies”) and “motivational” quotes such as “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” All in an effort to romanticize the dark side of malnutrition.

They would post about losing their menstrual cycle with pride and take pictures of their collarbones to show how skinny they were.

It seems like since the beginning of the internet subgroups have been created to achieve beauty, while trading comfortability. Both groups have their own lexicon (thinspo, leanmaxxing, bone smashing etc.) Looksmaxxers and the pro-ana community both use people they deem unattractive as motivation (fatspo and sub-human).

“I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don’t want to die. I want to eat like a normal person eats, but I need to see my bones or I will hate myself even more and I might cut my heart out or take every pill that was ever made,” wrote Laurie Halse Anderson in her book “Wintergirls” in which the main character has an eating disorder.

Maximizing and trying to perfect every aspect of your physical appearance is not healthy. It is okay to enjoy a sweet treat and a rest day.

These groups might seem crazy, and may be experiencing mental illness, suffering from both eating disorders and body dysmorphia. Looksmaxxers are so willing to inflict physical pain upon themselves, while the pro-ana community is willingly depriving themselves of the necessary sustenance they need to survive.

It can be easy to tell these people to stop hurting themselves but taking extreme measures to fix your physical appearance is an addiction that stems from insecurity and self-hatred. And no matter how many hours they spend bone smashing or starving themselves, they will never get their “fix.”

Yes, looksmaxxing is pretty stupid, but the people that subscribe to these dangerous techniques clearly need help. I can’t help but feel a little bit of sympathy toward them above all else.

Charlotte Shields-Rossi can be reached at shieldsrossic@duq.edu