An insight into looksmaxxxing/blackpill "ideology"
A few months ago someone posted an article on the male loneliness epidemic. I had shared my thoughts in the comments on that post. But I think that article and a lot of comments are under the impression that "redpill" content/ideology is still in vogue or relevant in today's world. It still has its followers and influencers for sure, but it's not at the forefront of cultural discussions anymore. To think otherwise is outdated, the redpill era died around 2022/2023 and was replaced by a more incel-derived "blackpill" era.
Thanks to TikTok, what was once relegated to niche internet forums became mainstream. The biggest influencer from this internet phenomenon is Clavicular, who is currently getting articles written about him in press outlets such as The Hollywood Reporter and People.
I am no stranger to talking about looks (side note: I would have taken more time to write that out and discuss broader topics, such as "types," if I had known it would have gotten as much attention as it did). And I have been around looksmaxxxing spaces on the internet since about 2022. I'll try to make this as brief and simple as I can.
What is the blackpill?
The blackpill is a deterministic outlook on life. It states that your genetics determines the quality of your life, and if you were not born with advantageous bone structure and height, then "it was over before it even started." You won't be successful in life, you won't find love, and you will end up a lonely, pathetic person wishing you'd been born looking better.
How does this differ from the redpill?
The redpill has some overlap with the blackpill. Both believe that men are the true victims of society. That feminism has been detrimental, this and that, and the other. The redpill, however, insinuates that you can self-improve. There's almost zero focus on improving looks, and it's almost entirely focused on making money and increasing your status.
A core belief of the redpill is that all women are gold diggers, and in order to get laid, you need to make a ton of money. The blackpill does not entirely dispute this, but it does say that if a woman chooses you for money, she will never actually love you. And that you are paying a lot of money for affection and attention that an attractive man gets for free.
I think that explanation in and of itself should show you the difference between the two.
What's looksmaxxxing? Are looksmaxxxing and the blackpill interchangeable terms?
They are not.
Looksmaxxxing is what guys do to look better, to increase their rankings on the looks scale. So that they can start getting laid (primarily) or start to "mog" (i.e., outshine everyone in a room).
In certain blackpill spaces looksmaxxxing is seen as cope, since, again, your life was determined by genetics and there's nothing you can do to fix this.
You might think looksmaxxxing consists of losing body fat, getting a skin care routine, dressing nicely, hygiene, and cologne. And that is part of it, all of that stuff is considered "softmaxxxing" but there's also "hardmaxxxing" as in surgeries and other more serious treatments such as steroids and peptides (which technically occupy a grey area between soft and hard maxxxing). An example of a popular surgery is double jaw surgery, here's the subreddit for it so you can see examples. If your jaw was not properly developed and you have a recessed chin (or a pushed-in chin), then a double jaw surgery is something you can do that would greatly increase your attractiveness. Although it does carry quite a bit of risk. There are other surgeries that people do on their eyes, their noses, ear pinning, there's a lot.
It is essentially a belief that your best investment is going to be in how you look. It's a bit of a running joke that instead of going to college, you should invest in plastic surgery, and that will do more to make your life better than a degree.
How do they view women? How do they view themselves?
The belief is that women are hypergamous. That they will only want to date up, and it's significantly easier for women to date and get laid, even if they are below average looking. And that even an above average looking man will have trouble since they aren't the holy grail of attractiveness.
Here's a brief explanation of their rating system.
- Sub-5
5 is considered average; sub-5 means below average. Not even that you don't get attention but that you get negative attention from the people around you.
- Low-Tier Normie / Low-Tier Becky
- Mid-Tier Normie / Mid-Tier Becky
- High-Tier Normie / High-Tier Becky
The "normie" categories are all average categories. Ranging from on the low side of average (LTN) to above average (HTN). The High Tier categories are where a lot of attractive actors sit, think romcom leads, the boy/girl next door types.
- Chad/Stacy
Essentially unobtainable beauty. Taylor Hill or Henry Cavill.
Depending on who you're talking to, someone would say that "life starts at HTN" or that life doesn't exist unless you're "Chad." And that if you're anything below that, you might as well not even exist.
How did it get popular?
The first instance most people probably heard of it was likely in 2014 when Elliot Rodger committed a mass shooting at a University. He was a member of a looksmaxxxing forum (the original looksmaxxxing forum, I believe), which led to the site being shut down and thus delaying any chance of its popularity. If you go back and watch and read what Elliot Rodger believed, it makes more sense in today's context now that this thought process has been more normalized.
In 2023, TikTok started promoting this content. Primarily from "edits" here's an example and coinciding with that were also the rise of a few influencers. All leading up to Clavicular, and how dominant he is on social media (thanks in part to funding from Peter Thiel). He was a kid posting on looksmaxxxing forums, was a micro celebrity in the niche, became a slightly bigger internet celebrity on TikTok before streamers started bringing him on leading to his insane fame.
Conclusion
Going back to the initial tildes post that I linked to. That whole thing was essentially saying, if you're just a good person, then someone will want to date you or fall in love with you or want to have sex with you or whatever. And I think part of the reason why looksmaxxxing stuff has taken off is that it feels more honest. It's not coddling you, and if you do improve your looks, you're going to see better results in dating than if you read feminist literature or something. So the takeaway ends up being that one of these places was telling me the truth.
Like, on a broader scale, it's a response to the body positivity stuff from the 2010s. When everyone was being told that it's okay if you're obese, it's healthy, it's beautiful. And there was just kind of a sense of performance to all of it.
The effort to change what people are attracted to, or to shame people for not being attracted to a certain thing. Has it gone too far? Probably, but I think that's why it took off initially and why it grew so quickly.
I obviously have my own personal experience about this, and so I very obviously know that it's not just what's inside that counts. Normal everyday people will make assumptions about you based on the way that you look. And I don't think it's a morally wrong thing to acknowledge that it happens, nor do I think it's a morally righteous thing to pretend like it doesn't.
I'm a woman and I've long been married. However I want to make one comment.
I have a firmly held belief that the modern dating apps lead to a lot more filtering based on looks. Men (and women) are being rejected before the potential partner has a chance to see them be funny or kind or notice that they smell good to them. (pheromones). Back in the day, people would meet in person at dance clubs or churches or other venues. Also social networks played a big role in who got introduced.
Yeah. There's some stats out there that get brought up a lot. One is that women generally judge harsher on dating apps, so someone that they would find attractive IRL will often get a left swipe on Tinder. And another one is like, the top 10% of male profiles get 90% of right swipes from women. Where as men are more likely to swipe right on everyone to just get a match (which funnily enough will get you punished on apps and will get your account de-prioritized).
Even as someone that I think is objectively above average, I don't actually do that well on dating apps in my city. I have to go to different cities to do better (weirdly enough I do better in cities where people are considered better looking generally). Obviously I'm a boy-next-door type of attractive as opposed to model gorgeous, but that shows if you're really not at the top it's kind of a harder battle.
There was a comment somewhere on one of the lookmaxxing posts on Reddit that was essentially, men are just speedrunning women's beauty standards. Which, while pithy, seems true to an extent. The looksmaxxers are going too far, and are stupid, but it's also not wrong that it's simply true that people will treat you better, platonically, romantically, and in every other social interaction if you look more conventionally attractive. It maybe shouldn't be that way, but it is that way.
It seems inevitable for men to eventually be in the same place women are, aesthetic judgement-wise, as the wage gap closed. It do be what it do be.
I wonder if makeup will be standard for men in another decade or so. Skincare already seems to be going that way. You can kinda see it in haircuts even; the stereotypical gen z boys haircut is the broccoli hair, which involves getting a perm. That's like a hour long procedure at a hair salon that usually cost over $100. Far cry from the $12 box cut at great clips.
Hey if men want to join on skin care and sun scnreen and beauty sleep, and take an interest in their pores and eyebrows and nose hairs and accessories, that's good and wholesome in my books.
I'm glad it's gaining some more traction, personally. I wonder how many more men would join in if they knew how much more physically comfortable it is having clean, moisturized skin.
Actually Clavicular, the influencer I mentioned, wears makeup. One of his tips was to use mascara on your eyebrows to get them to have a more defined look. He also wears lifts in his shoes.
But women are also experiencing their own backlash to the body positivity movement. Which is why figures like Liv Schmidt became popular. And there’s now a renewed interest in Victoria Secret angels.
I use a combination of two Wet n Wild tinted hydrator, mascara in eyebrows, etc — have been forever. I’m tall and skinny so I don’t mess with lifts, however.
I modeled in the late 90s (runway, terrible mall shit mostly) — but that got me into some very basic things that can just make someone look better without any real effort.
Ultimately, being in relative good shape with clothing that suits your body is equally important and shouldn’t be put on the back burner at all.
It’s amazing how much of an impact the jaw surgery has. Good for them. :)
Edit: why can’t we put ‘Exceptional’ on a post? Great write up! I also curl my lashes.
I'm glad you included explanations, as I've stopped keeping up current slang for just about anything. Reading things like this make me glad I'm married and not trying to date anymore.
I met my wife using Tinder when Tinder was still a fairly new dating app, this was in the mid 2010s. I felt like when I was using it I would get an okay amount of matches, and I'm a fairly average looking/average height guy, but I was also in a college town where there is more of a concentration of similarly aged single people. From what I've heard from my single guy friends who are now leaving their 20s or already in their early 30s is that most of them don't try using dating apps anymore as they're not worth their time/demotivating to use. A couple of them will open Tinder once a week and spend a few minutes swiping, but they don't really expect anything out of it.
In response to your conclusion instead of quoting your entire thing.
I remember seeing the modern iteration of the body positivity/healthy at any size happen around the time I was in college, again mid 2010s. Focusing on a guy perspective from that time period since that was the majority of my social circle, none of the guys that I knew bought in to it for themselves, and they would view being out of shape as a detriment to their chances for dating. That's not to say that it eliminated their chances like these black pill people would think of, I even met my future wife while I weighed a decent amount more than I personally wanted to, but that being in better physical shape would in most cases make them more attractive. For a lot of the guys I knew who met their girlfriends while being out of shape, they often met their girlfriend through a social event (something on campus, a philanthropy event, a party, etc.) compared to using dating apps. This definitely echoed what @boxer_dogs_dance mentioned of the ability to meet someone in person and having the chance to "judge" them based on other qualities besides looks.
I don't remember anyone falling down the "red pill" movement in regard to viewing women and success like that at that time, and among the guys I knew it felt more along the lines of focusing on self-improvement which would in term make you more attractive to a potential partner as a bonus. Lots of guys going to the gym together/studying together and treating each other as accountability buddies to make sure they were putting in the effort even when they didn't feel like it. Being a member of a fraternity may explain some of that mindset, though I did see similar outlooks in my friends who were not members.
Edit:
I did hear of one guy who was in my fraternity who years later got one of those surgeries to increase his height from being average to over 6ft. I heard this from guys who are closer to him since he was a few years older than me and I hadn't talked to him in ~7 years. Was a bit surprising as he never seemed insecure about his height or looks, and he didn't tell anyone that he was planning on doing it, or after he had done it and just showed up at an event a lot taller with the guys there obviously asking him what happened.
I knew of Elliot Rodger's name from the Hapas subreddit, which, years ago was an extremely negative space where half Asians living in non Asian places share negative experiences, blaming largely "Asian female white male" relationships. In their world view, high value white men hoard all the white women, so low value white men choose Asian women because they're disgustingly racist and want easily dominated women, and Asian women choose white men because of internalized self hatred. Which means no women choose Asian men. Their world view makes sense in their very small narrow locales of racist small town America, but don't make any sense to me because I live in an Asian majority society. And that's how I feel about all these men stuck in blackpill world: leave this dry well and go find the ocean.
I see some parallels in attitude to the red pill and black pill crowds: the ideology feels honest. But one can fall off the left side of the horse as easily as the right. It's a lie that no women care about look. But it's also a lie that all women care about is looks. It's very simple ---> grab a shojo manga or romance novel or watch a Bridget Jones: the heroine is choosing between two or more handsome and/or rich and/or powerful men. Sometimes they're not rich, sometimes they're not powerful, and sometimes they don't even have faces or are a small fuzzy mascot animal or is a pen pal or an evil overlord or whatever. The only constant is that they spend time with her and treat her special. The careful observer will also see that in recent years, they treat her well: the bad boy eye candy is ditched for the golden one.
Looks won't get you love.
Conventionally attractive men for sure have it easier when it comes to people giving them the social benefit, or in dating. Yes absolutely. But so too are the rich. If red pills are sad because in the end the women only love their money, then despair as well, black pills, because you'll become old and wrinkly and less handsome than the next younger man soon. At least the money appreciates.
Trying to look better is good. Trying to live healthy is good. Trying to be financially independent is good. But good heavens, boys, become interesting people, and make friends with interesting people too. There are so many attractive women who have a value system that's vastly different from the small locale you're algorithmically stuck in. Peter Thiel and Zuck et al are only interested in keeping you miserable. Go outside. Go take a cooking class. Learn to sew. Volunteer and as those grannies to introduce you. Stack chairs at the Church. Go cosplay at a con.
Also, some of us have face blindness lol.