Stephen Imeh needed to make historical past. He’d by no means actually dreamt of being an influencer, however in April he observed a possibility to interrupt by.
There have been nearly no looksmaxxers—individuals who spend huge quantities of effort to glow up—who regarded like him, and he needed to vary that. So he made a plan. Imeh posted a exercise video on TikTok, with plans for extra, and up to date his bio to “FIRST BLACK LOOKSMAXXER.”
However as quickly because the 20-year-old Houston-based school scholar posted the video, he was bombarded by racist feedback. “I don’t assume even an hour glided by and I used to be getting feedback like, you’re a monkey, you’re an n-word arduous r,” he says. One other remark advised Imeh “simply be white,” or “jbw” because it’s identified in incel circles. None of it made sense to him. “I used to be like, wait, what?”
It wasn’t Imeh’s first encounter with looksmaxxing, the net motion most outstanding amongst younger males that emerged from incel tradition and took off on TikTok in 2023, which promotes maximizing your bodily attractiveness. In 2022, Imeh was a junior at a predominantly white highschool in Texas that solely had “three different Black youngsters,” and he wasn’t becoming in. He determined to seek for self-improvement ideas on-line. “I googled ‘The best way to look higher’ and the primary factor was looksmaxxing,” he says. Ideas included a tongue train known as mewing, understanding, more healthy consuming habits, even cosmetic surgery. Imeh solely lasted two weeks earlier than he known as it quits. “It was kinda cringe.” However as a result of it occurred the 12 months earlier than looksmaxxing blew up on TikTok, he says, “I didn’t inform anybody about it.”
Within the three years since that have, looksmaxxing has change into extra in style than ever, and Imeh, at present finding out to be a speech therapist, needed to present it one other shot. Possibly he could possibly be the face of a Black looksmaxxers development, he reasoned. However he felt the ecosystem had change into much more poisonous in his absence. “The neighborhood earlier than, it wasn’t as dangerous. Nevertheless it spawned a brand new wave of individuals.”
The ordeal in April was a wake-up name. Right this moment, Imeh posts anti-looksmaxxing content material to his 36,000 followers. “I’m clearly not included on this neighborhood, so why would I maintain attempting to contribute?” His movies poke enjoyable on the motion’s flaws and foolish standing markers, like with the ability to “mog” somebody, which implies you’re the higher wanting individual in a side-by-side comparability. (That is his fifth TikTok account after being reported by members of SkinnyTok for additionally calling out pro-eating dysfunction content material.) “It’s really easy to rage-bait” looksmaxxers, he says. “I would put up, ‘That is what I do to get my pores and skin clear,’ then somebody will remark ‘Oh, you may by no means get your pores and skin clear since you’re a Black slur, slur, slur,” he says over FaceTime, repeating the phrase half a dozen instances.
Looksmaxxing, which originated in on-line boards like 4chan a decade in the past, suggests {that a} man’s success in life is instantly tied to how good he appears. The aim of the motion is to extend your total “sexual market worth,” and the extra Eurocentric options you’ve got, the upper you’re on the “bodily sexual appears” scale. On message boards, looksmaxxers use codes to price different males on their journey. Younger males discuss with the method as “ascending,” the place they work to realize a chiseled jawline, glass-smooth pores and skin, and “hunter eyes” (almond-like contour, deep-set place, low set eyebrows). Those that have earned “Chad” standing are thought of among the many most fascinating of the pack. Most of the motion’s goals align with the wave of manosphere ideology that’s reanimating American society underneath the Trump administration, the place hypermasculinity has change into each a efficiency and a weapon of oppression.