The Absolutely Insane, Billion-Dollar Industry Of Male Insecurity

Have you noticed how many men have been hitting the gym to try a little more muscular? It’s not necessarily about men’s health. It’s more about the aesthetic rather than actual health.

More and more men seem to be falling into a weird trap — one that was actually only seen among a very specific niche of male models that exploded into mainstream views: bigorexia. Bigorexia is an old-school term about men who become so obsessed with getting muscular, bigger, and “manlier” that they go through extreme lengths to do so.

It’s also starting to get paired with extreme body dysmorphia, self-loathing, and insanely high standards on everything from facial features to the way they have to walk. And that term? It’s all starting to go under the umbrella of looksmaxxing.

Most people tend to think about looksmaxing as a movement. It’s not. In a low-key, multi-million if not multi-billion-dollar industry.

Think about it. The perfume, hair, makeup, weight loss, and beauty industries were traditionally female areas. Most of these are billion-dollar industries on their own — and what do they all have in common?

These industries often prey on women’s insecurities.

Think about how many fashion magazines tend to talk about how you need to “look hot” with the latest beauty trends. I remember the whole “Yoga Butt” thing getting kicked off as a way to sell Lululemon pants to women alongside yoga classes. I’m pretty sure it was even in a magazine.

As a young teen girl, I read those teen magazines religiously because I wanted to learn what I had to do to look beautiful and therefore be lovable. Reality: I was beautiful already and didn’t need the exact items in the magazines to show it. (Yes, I bought every single thing the magazine mentioned.)

We were given this belief that the only way to be loved or find a guy was to be pretty. It was the axe over every girl’s neck.

Here’s the thing, though: they had legitimate products to sell that had to go through the FDA. The beauty treatments were not done by a loon. They were created and performed on people by licensed professionals.

There were GUARDRAILS.

This is different.

The Red Pill movement helped pave the way into this issue. They kept telling men that white men are the best, that Black men are an animalistic group that will harm/devalue all women around them, and that Asian men can’t look attractive because they’re “too feminine.” (I have thoughts on this.)

Looksmaxxers basically tell men that top-quality women won’t want you unless you fit these very insane, very strict, very specific standards that they put out.

How crazy? They will literally take measurements of the person’s eyelid tilt to determine whether you look like a masculine “predator” who women are supposed to adore or whether you look like a feminine “prey” man who women are supposed to detest.

The standards never stop. They need thick hair. More chiseled jaws. Higher cheekbones. Pointy noses. Pouty lips. They keep touting the “Chad” look as the go-to to impress women. It wasn’t working. They needed to make it bigger. Gymming was not enough.

The more they talk about how great being a Chad is, the worse male viewers feel about themselves. The more hopeless those viewers feel about their love lives or status, the more desperate they get to do anything to fit that aesthetic…even when there are millions who are clearly struggling in other parts of life.

It turns into a wheel of self-loathing — one that is being spun by a select few who are either very sick or see too many dollar signs for they ignore.

Let me give you another example of a “Chad” that most people would agree is an icon in the scene.

This is Clavicular, widely considered to be the looksmaxxing icon of the movement. He literally lives off showing people how they can look like him, often through medically untested, high-risk, or downright dangerous methods.

Well, there’s a real emphasis on toxicity here. I’ve already gone on about how much insecurity has poisoned the male mind. I don’t need to address that anymore.

The toxicity that I’m talking about is permanently destroying men, disfiguring bodies, and potentially annihilating their ability to live normal, healthy lives. The shit they are doing would NEVER be passed by an ethical licensing board.

Let’s look at some of the most insane culprits.

Behold, this is synthol, which creates “fake muscles through oils and numbing agents.” More specifically, it’s a mix of 85 percent oil (like paraffin or MCT oil), 7.5 percent lidocaine for pain relief, and 7.5 percent benzyl alcohol to preserve it.

Despite this, synthol can kill you with oil embolisms, broken muscles, infections, cysts, and, well, muscle fibrosis. If it enters your bloodstream, you’re also basically fucked. Synthol is banned by bodybuilding groups for good reason. It’s killed people before.

The Price:

Because it’s a “supplement” and can be sold for “non-injecting purposes,” it’s still legal to be sold stateside despite doctors begging people not to take it. It’s about $100 a bottle. So, uh, go on. Have fun with that. Until it kills you.

I don’t think I need to introduce this too heavily. We already know that steroids are bad. We also know there’s a wide range of them, which include anabolic steroids. However, there are so many more types of “gear” that are floating around the net that you might be surprised.

One I almost went on when I was a runway model was Clenbuterol — a horse lung steroid that would literally allow you to just sweat, eat, and lose weight. Problem? It can cook you alive and kill you mid-sesh if you take too much. I thought for a minute because I was that body dysmorphic, then declined.

Steroid abuse is becoming an increasingly bad issue among gym-going men, particularly looksmaxxing men. Clavicular has openly admitted to using anabolic steroids… which, in turn, made him need Cialis (the dick pill) and a hair growth pill.

To be fair, Clav is also using crystal meth to keep his slender frame. So, he’s gonna need the hair growth pill and Cialis either way. Yet, I digress. It’s not a good look.

Because anabolic steroids remove those hormones that regulate your body. Oh, and they also tend to speed up the aging process, cause acne, and change your face shape. While current “on-book” use of anabolic steroid abuse clocks in at 2.8 percent, the real abuse is likely far, far higher.

Just because it isn’t always crazy bad doesn’t mean that the abuse isn’t there. Take a look at my recent drug issue: kratom. I was abusing it so badly that it didn’t actually make anyone notice until I was literally so deep in it that I was dying.

Even then, people didn’t take me seriously until they hear a doctor in rehab say, “You’re gonna die if you keep this up another month.” I’m two weeks clean. So yeah, I believe the abuse rates are far higher.

Price:

Here’s the tricky thing about steroid pricing: they’re often black market-made. So I asked Google’s AI because the span of black market ‘roids can be so crazy variable. I’ve heard of some men spending $300 to $1000 a month on their underground roids, but I didn’t know if that was normal.

This is the new beauty industry darling, and I kind of understand why. Some have promising research in anti-aging and some are actually clinically proven to help with serious ailments. So, I’m not against all peptides.

I am against all the crazy “grey-market, research purposes only” use I’m seeing getting touted by looksmaxxers. There are three reasons I can’t start theses things:

1. Injectable peptides are not FDA-approved, nor are they approved by other countries right now. You can’t guarantee their safety.

2. You don’t know who’s making them or how they’re made. You don’t know if it’s in a lab or some guy’s trap house!

3. You don’t even know if it’s effective. So you might as well be flushing money down the toilet.

The effects are not as dire as others on this list, but yeah.

Price:

Per Google, “The cost of peptides typically ranges from $150 to $800 per month for therapeutic protocols, though prices can drop as low as $20 per vial or soar past $1,000 per month depending entirely on how they are sourced and what they are used for. [1, 2]”

Yeah, that’s pricey!

Let’s talk about some of the other weird stuff that looksmaxxing has started to do.

Mewling

You might have heard of mewling (which is doing throat exercises to increase your jawline, right?) Sure. Not that bad. This might just make you look a little stupid or change a little bit of frame, maybe.

Oh wait, they had a guy (who was under attack for misinformation by real dentists) sell extra-hard chewing gum for $21 a pack. (I guess they skipped the whole thing about that Rainbow Stripe gum that hardened into bricks.) The issue here, of course, is that it likely won’t work the right muscles. It also may not even work at all.)

Face-Smashing

Now there’s also face-smashing, which involves “careful, targeted, repeated microfractures” to the face using a hammer or other blunt object. I don’t have to explain this too much, but literally?

Yeah, not done by professionals and there’s no way to really control how your body reacts to the damage.

Extreme Body Surgeries

Chin extensions are common, if you get cleared by a doctor. That’ll cost $4,200 a pop. If you want to get taller and reach the “Six Foot” benchmark of “normal” for the looksmaxxer crowd, then expect to pay between $75,000 and $250,000 for it stateside, in total.

Oh, and fun fact — -you might have to relearn to walk. Many who have had this surgery have called it agonizingly painful and regret it deeply. Imagine just getting confidence and charisma instead!?

This all has to come out of pocket, since insurance won’t cover it. They also won’t pay for the pain meds or rehab since your dumb ahh put you in on this.

Total Male Bodywork

Yes, there are entire male plastic surgery centers that help men now get fancy surgeries that give them the look they want. What I can say is that these are actually fairly safe. They’ll just be insanely pricey to afford.

These men are not okay. Some boys as young as 15 are using steroids to get women. They don’t need dark market shit to make their lives better. They need to get help, get healthy guidance, and actually, maybe…touch grass for a bit.

Guys, you are worth caring for as long as you show you’re a caring person. You don’t have to be a perfect Ken Doll. In fact, most women don’t like the bodybuilder look at all.

Yeah. The only people you’re attracting are likely other men — and at the end of the day, not listening to women but to men on how to get love from women shows that you might have been interested in male validation all along.

So, guys, don’t let this sham industry drain your wallet. Report that content. Warn others. Ask your guy friends if they’re okay, or why they want a girlfriend. You might be surprised at how much healthier that really can be.

You see, the men who run these scams know that these results alienate you from the women they promised you. That’s good for them. Because it makes you hate yourself more, which will make you ask them what they can do to help you next. They’re vipers.

Men, you’re being hunted in an area with no guardrails. There’s no approval for what you’re taking and no clue about how you’ll react. At the very least, try to hit the gym and the self-care counter at ULTA instead. It’s likely safer.