Looksmaxxing and incel culture have produced some truly unhinged ideas over the years — but hitting yourself in the face with a hammer to get dates might be the one that finally broke me. There are grown men doing this. On purpose. With an actual hammer. And they have hundreds of thousands of followers cheering them on.

I’ll let that sink in for a second.

Welcome to the world of looksmaxxing — the incel community’s full-send obsession with optimizing your physical appearance at all costs. And I mean ALL costs. We’re talking steroids at 14, crystal meth to hollow your cheeks, and a daily hammer session to your jaw because apparently that’s a thing people do now.

I’m Justin Barone. I’m 44 years old, I’m 260 lbs, and I used to be fit back in my 30s when I was about 185. Somewhere between Doritos and laziness I became what these kids would probably classify as some kind of ogre. But you know what? I still figured out that personality is the move. These kids apparently haven’t gotten that memo yet.

Let’s get into it.

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What Is Looksmaxxing and Incel Culture?

Looksmaxxing is the practice of maximizing your physical attractiveness — and it started in incel culture. Incel, if you don’t know, stands for involuntarily celibate. These are dudes who can’t get a date and have decided that the reason is entirely their bone structure.

Looksmaxxing and incel culture are more connected than most people realize — the whole movement was born on incel message boards before it jumped to TikTok.

The movement got a massive boost from a 19-year-old content creator named Clavicular — and yes, that’s his actual name, or at least his online name. Braden. His name is Braden. I don’t know what we expected.

At 14 years old this kid started taking testosterone, using steroids, and by his own admission on camera — meth. Why meth? Because he thought it was basically just street Adderall. One derivative away, he says. He also took a hammer to his face every single day.

Not to bits and pieces. Just until it got red and puffy. Because he believed it would create micro fractures in his jaw that would heal into a sharper, more square jawline.

You know what else gives you a sharper jawline? Puberty. Which he was going through at the time. But he couldn’t wait.

This guy is now 19, has hundreds of thousands of followers, and allegedly earns over $100,000 a month teaching other young men how to do what he did. And somehow we as a society have decided this is acceptable.

I take partial blame. Not personally. But as a generation? Yeah. We dropped the ball.

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Where Did We Go Wrong?

The looksmaxxing community and incel culture didn’t create these insecurities in young men — but it weaponized them.

When I was a teenager and I wasn’t getting invited to parties — and I wasn’t always, I was a chunky kid with a belly from eating too many Doritos — I didn’t smash my face with a hammer. Instead I went outside. Mingling with actual humans and correcting my personality in real time through real interaction was how you figured things out back then.

These kids don’t have to do that anymore. They can find a corner of the internet that validates whatever insane thing they’re thinking, and that corner will attach itself to them and grow. Before you know it you’ve got a 19-year-old doing meth for his skincare routine and an audience of young boys watching him do it.

I asked my kids about looksmaxxing. You know what they did? They rolled their eyes. Both of them. “Can you believe it, dad?” No. No I cannot. But I went deep on this one so you don’t have to.

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The Weed Facts: Does Cannabis Actually Affect How You Look?

Since we’re talking about looks this week I figured we’d pivot to something actually relevant — what does weed do to your skin? Because if you’re going to take a hammer to your face you should probably know what your edibles are doing to your collagen first.

This segment’s facts come from Cosmopolitan, who spoke with dermatologist Dr. Karan Lal, MD. Here’s the breakdown:

Factor	What Cannabis Does	The Verdict
Testosterone & Acne	THC may slightly increase testosterone, which spikes oil production	Could cause breakouts in some people
Appetite & Glycemic Index	Munchies + carbs = higher glycemic index	Associated with increased acne
Anti-inflammatory Effects	THC is anti-inflammatory, may calm inflammatory pimples	Could actually help some skin issues
Stress & Cortisol	Weed can reduce anxiety, lowering cortisol	Less stress = less oil = less acne
Skin Picking	THC may reduce itch and irritation	Could help chronic skin pickers relax
Edibles & Sugar	Gummies contain sugar that causes glycation — stiffening collagen and elastin	Could contribute to sagging and wrinkles
Smoking & Skin	Smoke sits on your skin and can irritate it	External irritant regardless of strain
Dirty Equipment	Unwashed pipes and bongs spread bacteria	Can cause acne around your mouth

The honest takeaway? It’s not really the weed. It’s what you put in your body and how you take care of yourself. Clean your bong. Watch the sugar in your gummies. Manage your stress. That’s basically your cannabis skincare routine right there.

Oh, and I’ll say this — I’ve been smoking pretty regularly for years and I still get the occasional pimple along my hat line. I think it has more to do with cleaning your skin than anything else.

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Dude For Real: The Looksmaxxing Terminology You Need to Know

This stuff comes straight from the looksmaxxing community and I genuinely couldn’t believe some of these are real terms that people use with a straight face. This week’s Dude For Real comes from Buzzfeed’s looksmaxxing explainer and dude — for real.

Term	What It Means
Mogging	Displaying physical superiority over someone nearby
Softmaxxing	Improving looks through skincare, diet, exercise, grooming
Hardmaxxing	Extreme methods — surgery, steroids, bone smashing
Bone Smashing	Hitting your face with a hammer to create micro fractures that reshape your jaw
Ascending	Significantly improving your physical attractiveness. The looksmaxxing version of a glow up
Mewing	Resting your tongue on the roof of your mouth to sharpen your jawline
The PSL Scale	A scoring system for facial attractiveness based on harmony, symmetry, and sexual dimorphism
Chad / Stacey	Highly attractive man or woman. Top of the PSL scale
Subhuman	The lowest PSL score. The most unattractive. Literally called subhuman
Sub 5	Anyone ranking below a 5 on the PSL scale — considered unattractive
Lookism	The belief that your value and place in the world are determined entirely by your looks
Gesture Maxxing	Using humor to attract women rather than appearance
Femoid / Foid	A dehumanizing term for women. Short for female humanoid
Hunter Eyes	Almond-shaped, deep-set eyes with low brows — considered highly attractive

The system literally calls people subhuman based on their face. That’s not self improvement. That’s a cult with better lighting.

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Looksmaxxing, Incel Culture and Why Personality Is the Real Move

If you’re not getting invited to parties — and I say this with love — it’s probably not your jawline. It’s probably your personality.

You can change everything about how you look. Get the surgery. Smash your face. Chew the gum. But when the mask comes off — and it always does — if your personality is garbage, people are going to figure that out. As a result they’re going to walk away every single time.

I’ve seen the ugliest people with the most friends because most people genuinely do not care what you look like. Instead they care whether you’re fun to be around, whether you make them laugh, and whether you’re loyal. That’s it. That’s the whole list.

Be that person. That’s the move. Not the hammer.

That’s the real problem with looksmaxxing and incel culture — it sells young men the idea that their value is their face, and there’s nothing they can do about it except suffer or smash.

As for Clavicular — I watched a bunch of his content researching this episode. He’s shallow, uninformed, and has a massive platform teaching young boys that their value is their face. That’s a failure. And it’s on us as the older generation to push back on that wherever we can.

If your kid is watching this stuff, talk to them. Ask questions and be present. Because we can’t leave them to figure this out on the internet.

Use a hammer if you want.

Those are my thoughts off the stem.

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🎙 Listen to the Full Episode

This week’s full seshisode — Looks Maxxing: Guys Who Smash Their Face With Hammers to Get Dates — is live now.

We go deeper on Clavicular, the full Dude For Real terminology breakdown, and the complete weed facts science on cannabis and your skin.

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Contact Thoughts Off The Stem

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