Are young men competing to be the next extreme beauty queen?
Getty Images/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Getty Images/Getty Images
Who gets to be “hot” in America? And, at what cost?
Some young men are pushing beauty boundaries with guidance from an online trend that’s been making headlines: looksmaxxing. Looksmaxxing celebrates intense fitness & skincare routines, extreme body modification, and notably Eurocentric features as the holy grail of modern beauty, but who gets locked out of looksmaxxing when “Chad” is the gold standard? And how painful is it to pursue perfection that’s skin deep?
Brittany is joined by Jason Parham, senior writer at WIRED covering internet culture, online dating, and the future of sex.
Interested in more conversations about body politics and beauty standards? Check out these episodes:
MAGA has a DEI policy. Just ask Nicki Minaj.
The privilege of being “skinny”
Support Public Media. Join NPR Plus.
Follow Brittany on Instagram: @bmluse
For handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR’s Pod Club newsletter at npr.org/podclub.
This episode was produced by Corey Antonio Rose. It was edited by Neena Pathak. We had engineering support from Damian Herring. Our Supervising Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
