The lonely world of Gen Z "looksmaxxers"

Say what you like about "incels", says Christine Emba in The New York Times, but at least they cared about "getting with the opposite sex". In the late 1990s, these "involuntary celibates" were so obsessed with love that they defined themselves by their lack of it, bemoaning the fact that their looks, they felt, prevented them from entering into romantic and sexual relationships. Today, it's all about "looksmaxxers": next gen incels who are steeped in online nihilism, under-socialised because of Covid lockdowns, radicalised by the manosphere and obsessed with improving their physical attractiveness by any means necessary. And they seem to have given up on relationships entirely.

The movement's breakout star is a 20-year-old streamer called Braden Peters, known online as "Clavicular", who earns hundreds of thousands of dollars a month from his videos. He claims to have started injecting himself with steroids at 14 to improve his physique, has dabbled in crystal meth to suppress his appetite, and promotes a technique called "bonesmashing", where you hit yourself repeatedly in the face with a hammer to heighten your cheekbones and sharpen the jawline. But, to what end? Clavicular has described his life as "hell" and claims that knowing a woman is willing to have sex with him is better than the deed itself. "It's a big time saver," he says. It's hard to tell whether looksmaxxers are obsessed with the opposite sex, or terrified of them. What's scary is that in their total focus on the self and detachment from real experiences, looksmaxxers are merely an acute form of Gen Z's general approach to romance. These kids were introduced to sex by online porn and to gender relations through #MeToo. It's no wonder they find love "scary and unappealing", and that the chasm between the sexes is wider than ever.

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Bored of reading about Iran?

Regé-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor in Bridgerton (back when it was fun)

This week we've obviously focused a lot of attention on Iran. But we've included plenty of lighter stuff, including:

💦 How Bridgerton went from winks to woke
🫠 Has Reform lost it mojo?
🪖 Why Ukrainian soldiers are using 19th-century machine guns
🐷 An extremely enjoyable tower-building game
🐶 The Irish Setter who gave birth to a record 17 puppies
🎶 Why iPods are making a comeback
🎨 All the (many) portraits of Donald Trump in the White House
🌍 The map showing the longest line of sight from any given location
🦆 An amusing anecdote about the late Norman Tebbitt
🐒 "The most loved creature on the Earth right now"
📍 Can you find cities on a globe without borders?
🇨🇳 Why the Chinese no longer dream of moving to America

To read them all, and go back to receiving the newsletter in full every day, please take out a paid subscription. We are still, for now, offering new subscribers 50% off for their first year – meaning it's just £4 a month or £40 for an annual subscription. Peanuts.

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