The Current - Does looksmaxxing set toxic beauty standards for young men?

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Thumb pulling, chin tucking, hair transplants…. and on the less extreme side, skin, hair, and eyebrow care — those are just some examples of looksmaxxing, a viral social media trend for young men to improve their looks. Elijah Forcier is a TikToker with advice on how, and Christian Ylagan is an instructor with the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at Western University, we talk about what these unrealistic beauty standards mean for young men’s self-esteem — and masculinity in 2025.

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It's the perfect Canadian getaway. To quote William Shatner, who got his start in Stratford, every Canadian should make the pilgrimage to Stratford. Start your next adventure at StratfordFestival.ca. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. Let's hop right into the surgery plan. So lower eyelid retraction repair is simply going to pull my lower eyelid up a bit. I'm going to be showing you how to combine

thumb pulling and chin tucking to develop your maxilla, give you the best jaw you can get. Ryan just texted me. He said he's back at the hotel finally after his hair transplant. So everything we just heard is part of a growing trend in men's health. It's called looks maxing. Covers everything from men getting into skincare to more extreme things like chin implants, hair transplants, or even

elongating their femurs. There is growing concern that this trend can push toxic ideologies around masculinity. Elijah Forcer guides young men on their looks maxing journey. He has half a million followers on TikTok and Instagram where he offers styling tips and lifestyle advice. Elijah, good morning. Good morning. How would you define what looks maxing is?

Looks maxing is taking your base level looks and improving little features on your face and your physique and everything and making it better, improving it. How did you get into this? I started off as a barber and then I made this video on hairstyling and then it blew up and I just kept making better and better videos

talking about skincare, eyebrows, hair, literally anything. And then I got a little bit deeper into it with this looks maxing thing, because that was mostly just men's grooming, right? You know, hairstyle is one thing and haircare is one thing. But what are some of the things that you do that would count as looks maxing?

The essentials is obviously skincare routine, eyebrows as well, hair. And then I make sure I'm in a caloric deficit just to make sure my face doesn't look bloated. It makes sure my facial features are always looking great for photos and whatever. But that's mostly it. It's like diet and then those three are essential and then everything else is more like you can get away with not doing it.

Where's the line for you in terms of what you'll do? I mean, we heard in that introduction people getting, you know, chin implants or hair transplants or what have you. So I'm going to keep this on the record right now and the thumb pulling, all those facial exercises where you like try to change your facial symmetry, like that is all a lie. There's no way that works. I'm not gonna- What do you think that's about?

Some guys going and getting chin implants, for example. There's a deeper meaning behind getting all these surgeries and things. And I think it's because the internet has kind of, this looks maxing thing has gone, I think a little bit too far recently, that the expectation of how you should look is just absurd. And that's why people are getting chin implants.

Can you tell me a bit more about that? There's a word that's used in this community to explain how some people got into it. And it's called being blackpilled. What is that? So black pill is not necessarily something you get into, it's the lens that people view life in. It's very black and white.

So if I can put this into perspective, take dating apps like Hinge, for example. It's literally based on eliminating you or the person you're trying to match with on their appearance, on their looks. Say you, this girl, you approach her, within the first five seconds, she will know if you're dating worthy, if you guys would be friends, if you're weird, and she'll be evaluating your looks, how tall you are,

all these things, and she'll just know on the spot. You believe that that's what's happening when you encounter somebody, that they are assessing you in that time? I think that everyone judges everyone naturally, and that's fine. But I'm not very black pill, I'd say. I'd say I kinda wanna create my own pill called gray pill

because I just, I feel so shallow. This is a term that's come out of like incel culture, right? I mean, this belief that men's lack of romantic success has to do with how they are treated by women, how they look and how women assess them. And that's obviously a really toxic area of discussion and action. Are you concerned about the idea of looks maxing being associated with that? Yeah, I think there's a line that you shouldn't

cross with pretty much everything you do. Obviously, yes, the better looking you are, the more attractive you can be to somebody, the chances of them going on a date with you are definitely higher. Like these are just common sense things, but to make your whole life about this little thing is, it's kind of absurd. I think that's kind of why people are getting these crazy surgeries. And no hate to them, obviously.

But I just wish people would kind of appreciate the way they naturally already look. And then this other stuff, like the looks matching stuff is just to enhance that. I mean, one of the concerns that people have, and for years, I mean, there have been, you know, women have been the subject of toxic marketing campaigns and beauty standards. But the belief is that this is creating

that same toxicity for young men, that it's saying that they aren't good enough based on what they are, that they have to do something to be better. What do you say to those concerns? I don't think you have to be better. I think you should always want to be better. Not necessarily with your looks.

But when it comes to your looks, I kind of have a rule of thumb, what I tell everyone in my audience. It It's like you got what you got and Whatever you can I give them like a step-by-step like what you can do to enhance your looks because a lot of guys are kind of you know, it's easy to get insecure in this world sometimes and Whatever that result is is your 10 out of 10 anything after that Don't worry about it. You know, I guarantee if you're well groomed, you're somewhat successful, you got your life together,

you got a little bit of a personality, you'll do just as fine as the 10 out of 10, you know, whatever quote unquote looks, Max, or whatever he does. Because it's just unrealistic standards, and it doesn't matter. whatever quote unquote looks max or whatever he does because Just unrealistic standards and it doesn't matter What do you hear back from the people who follow you and I don't know how old the people are like What's the range of men that are 18 to 24? And so what do you hear is 18 to 24 year old guys that are that are following you? I mean some of the comments that get to me are like the ones that are like facial asymmetry

How can I get taller because there's a deeper concern if they have to have these perfect things and it's those things you can't change with those surgery and Those those clips you played in the beginning of this show where I was talking about thumb pulling and all this Those guys online are pretty much saying hey, man If you rub your fingers on your face like eight times a day, 30 reps, then your nose will become straight or your cheeks will become hollow. It doesn't work. But it's just sad that my audience is asking for that even though that's, and then these

other guys are promoting it, it doesn't work. Do you worry that you're contributing to that and what you're doing? No, not at all everything I do is backed up and I keep it that way and I kind of think that's why I am my own thing you know, there's there's a bunch of other creators that do what I do, but If you look at my page and then scroll down their page it's quite different. But it says something that as you said in the comments there are young guys who are thinking that they need to do those other things to try and look good.

Yes, they do and that's because there's like I said before there's an unrealistic standard that guys have to look like and it's just not true and I don't know how we got to this point probably from AI Photoshop just like also just very good-looking people making TikToks. It's hard to appreciate yourself when there's those type of people around you and your social media is influencing you to look this way. Elijah, it's good to talk to you about this. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. No problem.

Elijah Forsier is a content creator on TikTok and Instagram. He might have firm lines for what he would accept under the knife, but more and more men are seeking a little nip and tuck. Between 2019 and 2022, the number of men who received some kind of cosmetic procedure tripled. Dr. Corey Turgison is a plastic surgeon who works at Sovereign Mail in downtown Toronto. He is skeptical of looks maxing as a trend, but he has seen the rise in interest first hand in everything from hair transplants to penis enlargement. The current's Armin Aghbali stopped by the clinic to hear how an assessment would go. Over the years, I've watched my hair fade away. Every shower, more of it, ends up on the bathroom floor.

I'm turning 33 this year, and I've wondered, would getting a hair transplant make me look like I did in my 20s when I had thick black hair? you just have a massive dedensification. And you're much, much more easy to be able to correct with that, all right? So we can do that. And then, while he had me, he showed me another kind of procedure. I can also turn somebody that looks like this, make growers not showers.

Can you describe what you're showing me? So we're just looking at a male anatomy right now from different angles, and this is before our big shot. The exact part of the male anatomy Dr. Torgeson is referring to is likely the one you're thinking of. And, in fact, this is one of sovereign males most popular procedures.

After our big shot. Oh wow. Describe how different it is from the anatomy. So we have inches of length in girth. The nuance is that there's a balance between the shaft and the tip. It looks natural and it's notable. At least for now these enhancements are not for me. But that isn't stopping other men from seeking them out. We want to be able to feel like we have control over our bodies and our health more than before. I think the level of trust in medicine is lower, in politics is lower, in religion is lower.

We're seeing all our pillars and our structures sort of crumble and so existentially I think when you're in control of who you are and your body at a bare minimum becomes really, really, really important. That's Dr. Corey Turkerson speaking with The Current's Arman Aghbali. We're all looking for great places to visit in Canada. One of my favorites is the Stratford Festival. The theater is truly of the highest caliber and there's so much selection. They have 11 large-scale shows on stage and trust me, whatever is on manure there will be exceptional. People always think Shakespeare when they think of

Stratford, but it's so much more. Broadway musicals, family shows, classic comedy and drama. Whether it's Robert LaPage's Macbeth or Donna Fior's Annie, you will be blown away. It's the perfect Canadian getaway. To quote William Shatner, who got his start in Stratford, every Canadian should make the pilgrimage to Stratford. Start your next adventure at StratfordFestival.ca. Starting a daily news habit is way easier than I thought it would be. I just listen to World Report every morning. It's only 10 minutes long, and somehow it tells me everything I need to know. Tariffs, war in Ukraine, what's happening in Gaza, it's all there.

And there are other stories I care about like the climate crisis or the cost of living. I get up to speed and then I get on with my day. If you're also looking for a fast and easy way to stay informed, I recommend World Report from CBC News. Follow wherever you get your podcasts. Christian Ilagin is an instructor with the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at Western University in London, Ontario. He's in our London studio.

Christian, good morning to you. Good morning. What do you make of this? As you understand it, why are young men being drawn to things like looks maxing? Not just, you know, skincare, but as we just heard, penis enlargements, people talking about how can I get taller, what's going on there?

Yeah, no, I think it really has something to do with the turn towards where men have started to kind of see this notion notion of like value, right? And how that's reproduced in a lot of like discourses and narratives around like masculinity. So if we think about for example how historically men might have found, you know, like this sense of worth from a sense of like financial capital for example, being providers and breadwinners. In the current sort of like context that we have, which is, you know, like where that's less the case,

men have started to turn towards, you know, what we call this body work, right? Really training, fixing their bodies. And that's kind of like where a lot of like notions of masculinity in manhood are being derived from in the present. Dr. Torgeson talked about this idea of control. Does that speak to that? Absolutely, right? Like so, you know, in a situation where, you know, you don't have control, you don't have access to like traditional forms of like, of worth or value or capital, like money,

for example, like jobs, high paying jobs or CEO positions, like these sort of things, men are starting to kind of like turn that work towards their bodies, which is something that they can control, right? So it does come from a sense of controlling what they can. But there's a spectrum, right? I mean, skin care and taking care of your hair and what have you is different than injecting testosterone or getting chin implants. Absolutely, right?

And I think we can think of that spectrum as like, you know, sort of innocuous on one side and then very extreme on the other, right? The idea of skincare or hygiene, you know, these are things that in many ways we are all supposed to be doing, taking care of our bodies in that sense, right? But I think where it's sort of like really veers into that troubling category or territory is when it becomes the point where men begin to see their sense of identity or their sense of masculinity only tied to the score that they get, if they're a 10 or not.

So I think that's really where then it becomes really murky. I mean, there's a lot of money to be made here. I want to get to the ideology behind this, but there's a lot of money to be made here as well. You have influencers who are selling not just whatever supplement they're using, but also their own secret, right? This is how you can get taller. This is how you can get from a six to an eight or a nine. Absolutely.

And, you know, like, obviously, there is that sense of consumption that's sort of wrapped up in all of this. And what's really interesting, you know, in the 90s, for example, or early 2000s, we have this phenomenon of the metrosexual, right, which is, you know, like David Beckham, for example, is the conventional sort of example of that, idea of a man who is consuming things like skin care or nicer clothes. Taking care of himself in a way that is visible and performative in some ways. Yes, absolutely.

And now actually the person who introduced that term, a metrosexual, Mark Simpson, he said that the new version of that man is actually now called the spornosexual. So someone whose masculinity or manhood is tied up in the intersection of like being an athlete and a porn star, right? So the idea that the body is really like where you kind of derive your value, your erotic or your sexual capital makes you really attractive and valuable in the eyes of like these men, right? This word looks maxing comes out of, well, it's attached to in some ways, and we raised this with Elijah, this idea of blackpilling. What is that?

Yeah, so with blackpilling, so it really comes from discourses in the manosphere, right? And blackpilling is the sense that things are too far gone, you can't change things. So there's a very sort of like lost cause, nihilistic sort of sense to that. And so looks maxing, I think, really comes into that when men sort of get the sense that they're at their wit's end of how they can shore up their desirability. And so they resort to more and more extreme forms of procedures or practices in order to really chase that sense that there are 10 or whatnot. That idea that Elijah was talking about that you're always being judged, that you're immediately being judged in some ways. Yes, absolutely. And I think this is really interesting because, you know, for the longest time women have been on the receiving end of that, you know, for decades or centuries. And now,

that's being turned towards men, right? And this idea, like I think in the Manosphere, for example, or in those spaces where we might think of like as toxic, toxically masculine, looks maxing really sort of takes on that extreme form where, you know, you put up a picture of yourself to be judged. And then there's a lot of narratives from other men who are looking at you and saying, hey, you're terrible, you're a two or whatnot, and then suggesting that you

do all these extreme things or even unaliving yourself. What is most troubling to you about this? I mean, there are connections, and it's not that everybody who's involved in LooksMaxing is basing those connections, or basing their activities on those connections, but there are connections within cell culture, for example, and the extreme behavior that can come out of that culture. Yeah, and I think really it's coming out of this sense

of like quantifying your sense of self, right? Sort of tying your self-worth to, you know, whatever number you are on that scale. And then really what's driving a lot of deluxe-maxing behaviors is trying to achieve a certain degree of sexual desirability to get the women that they feel entitled to, for example, or the attention from those women. So I think that really has like very visible overlaps with like the insular culture for sure. What does the growth of this tell you about masculinity in 2025? Yeah, I think it really has something to do with how men are looking for a sense of, you know, self or

identity in a way that's affirming. Obviously, when you listen to a lot of like discourses in like the Manosphere or podcasts or that sort of thing, what's really the undercurrent of that is the sort of aspirational sense of sense of masculinity. That you can be something more, like what our previous guest was talking about, that you can improve, optimize. A lot of this sense of masculinity is tied in the quantification of your manhood and your sense of worth, right? And so I think that's kind of really what's driving a lot of this. What's wrong with that? I mean, we've talked on this program before about a void that has been created, some people believe, in terms of how we think of masculinity.

That when you apply the word toxic, it kind of makes all masculinity seem toxic. And in that conversation, then you open up a space for other people to come in and say, actually, this is how you be a man in 2025. What concerns you about that? I think it's really troubling to kind of think about... So first of all, I don't think that all masculinity is toxic. I think just to be clear on that. Where it does become problematic is when we wrap up this sense of self and identity, and specifically a masculine identity, in terms of what those narratives of, essentially, you might think of as the economic side of that or the sexual side of that, which are often really what's driving

a lot of the aspirational sense of masculinity we see in these spaces. And I think that's troubling, right? Because ultimately, where's the end? If we think of masculinity or looks maxing as optimizing, optimizing, optimizing, right? Where's the end of that? And I think really to the point of your previous guest, you know, like the idea of like, that's your 10 out of 10, I think that's really interesting, right?

Because that's not necessarily a narrative that you get from like social media or influencers or even like podcasts. But those are persuasive narratives, right? Whether it's on social media or on podcasts or from the people that... I mean, the influences that you believe. You could listen to this and you could wonder whether young men are okay. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

How would you answer that? I think, like I said, it's really, they are looking for something to really make sense of this, we could call it a void or a gap, right? Like the discrepancy between being told that you can be all of these things, you can be the CEO, you can be the most desirable man on the planet, and then the reality of that, where you can't get the job that you want or a high paying job to provide for your family, maybe you don't get the kind of women that you would like to date. So there's a gap between that.

And I think that's being filled with a lot of these narratives of like, you can be better, you can do more. And I think we have to be critical of that, you know, especially men, right? Like who's selling you that message, right? Are they also selling you like supplements, you know, on the side or a fitness regimen, right? So what's really kind of like at the base of that, I think is really something that we should be questioning. For young men who might be listening to this, or for the parents of young boys and young men who are exposed to this, it's everywhere, this type of content, right?

It's on social media, it's on the podcasts that they might be listening to. What would you tell them about what to keep in mind? I would say that social media is not reality. In many ways, it is crafted by many motivations and agendas. We should not be taking, or we should at least be talking about how that is ultimately a version of an image that is being sold to us. Being really critical of that is really important.

Yeah, having those conversations. If men are looking to these more and more extreme practices, because they're looking for something aspirational, right? Does that mean that they're not seeing that in their own lives? And if that's the case, why is that? Who can they turn to? How can we have those conversations with young boys and young men, right? So that they don't necessarily have to turn to these like, fifth-floor answers. And of course, you know, some people are good, they talk about like good things on social media, right?

But like, again, if they're not seeing that in their own lives, right, why is that? And where can that gap be filled? You can imagine a lot of people hearing this, parents particularly being alarmed by what they're hearing. It is, right. Kind of freaked out, do you know what I mean? Yes, absolutely, right.

I mean, like, just thinking about those extreme procedures, breaking your bones or going through all sorts of surgeries. Or just believing that you're not good enough. Absolutely, right. And I think that's a really powerful message to be able to convey to young boys and men, right, who are kind of told from a very young age that you can be everything that you want to be, right, but the reality of that is it's

not really the case, right? And so, to be told that they are enough, right, that they are good the way that they are, I think that's a really powerful message. Christian, good to speak with you. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Christian Elagin is an instructor with the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women Studies at Western University. He is also an EDI education coordinator. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.