Looksmaxxing Is Just Mar-a-Lago Face For Men

It feels like everything I’ve learned about Clavicular has been against my will. The 20-year-old misogynist and influencer seemed to come out of nowhere in the space of only a few weeks, garnering write-ups in major publications and becoming the stuff of late-night jokes and TikTok drama. It’s an unwinnable situation trying to even discuss someone so horrendously stupid whose rise to fame is the stuff of a shameless publicist with a history of sexism and a culture that has giddily embraced the stranglehold of roided-up patriarchy (side note but he shares a publicist with Caroline Calloway — lol.) He’s no different from any number of iPad jawed men with Turkey teeth who have moulded themselves into dictators of attractiveness for a bored and hate-fuelled audience. Everything old is new again, and the age of so-called looksmaxxing is a highly familiar state of mind (and body.)

Ignoring the trolls has never worked to quash their influence, and losers like Clavicular, who claims he has reshaped his bone structure with a hammer and that he’s infertile due to years of testosterone injections, thrive on pseudo-ironic gawking at their humiliation rituals. Still, this one creep is not the problem. He is but one of countless men trying to push an old philosophy dressed up in new language, a brand of toxic masculinity so parodic that it’d be funny if it weren’t so terrifying. But every time I see these guys in public, peacock-strutting through crowds and streaming their word vomit of brainrot buzz words, I cannot help but think of the other prevailing beauty trend of our current time. Clavicular, have you heard of Mar-a-Lago Face?

But first, a quick definition of looksmaxxing. Essentially, it’s incel rhetoric for the idea of people, mostly men, finding ways to maximise their physical attractiveness. The term has been around for a while, frequently appearing on 4Chan and Reddit, but has grown in popularity over the past couple of years. It can be low-level stuff, like encouraging men to go to the gym or better their personal hygiene, or it can be ludicrously overdone, such as promoting steroid use and plastic surgery. The idea maxxed-out look is one of hard edges, hyper-defined musculature, and oddly pouty lips: think defined jaws, ‘hunter eyes’, the Dorito-shaped body with a heavy torso and aversion to leg day. Many looksmaxxers promote ‘mewing’, a kind of ‘oral posture training’ created by a quack that claims to change your jawline through suctioning one’s tongue to the roof of the mouth. Yes, it’s all very dumb, and yes, the misogyny in these subcommunities is overwhelming.

The idea of looksmaxxing has grown in stature at a time of intense body fascism. The Trump government is defined by its legislative and cultural control over bodily autonomy, from the attacks against trans people to the mass deportation of immigrants and refugees. It’s no surprise that many of its loudest preachers are Trump supporters and also have gross ideas about marriage and parenthood. They’re all just variations of Andrew Tate with slightly more prominent jaws. And, of course, they’re all selling the same fantasy perpetuated by Mar-a-Lago Face.

I’ve done a deep dive into this before so I won’t repeat myself too much here. To keep things brief, Mar-a-Lago Face is a beauty trend associated with Republican women that’s distinguished by tanning, overinflated lips, obvious filler, and heavy make-up. Think Kristy Noem, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Karoline Leavitt, and Melania Trump, all of whom look radically different in their current visages than they did a decade prior, and who all share the same plastic characteristics.

There is, of course, gender crossover with both of these concepts, from Matt Gaetz’s drag eyebrows to wannabe fitness girlies getting weird about brow sizes. I do, however, think the divide between men and women in its most binary manner is revealed through these aesthetics. They are both reliant on asserting a kind of gender mould that is archaic and conservative but still heavily sexualised. These are intended to be the model for the desired default mode of men and women under conservative rule: where men are men and women are in the kitchen but still dressed to the nines. It cannot help but look ridiculous, even without the endless social media filters and AI-generated inspo that comes with it. These charades are just drag without the irony or joy. One cannot help but wonder if reshaping yourself to look awful is half the point.

Both are also, crucially, about obedience. They are loyalty tests designed to prove that you fit in with the elites of politics, culture, and biology. Mar-a-Lago Face is a caricature of femininity perpetuated by a Trumpian standard of both beauty and hierarchy. It may not be mandatory for women in or adjacent to the current administration but the implicit demand is evident. To reinforce the desired brand of tradwife, faux-girlboss, hyper-sexual and anti-androgyny femininity, everyone has to comply. Looksmaxxing is no different. It just wraps its braying calls for conformity in the language of eugenics with a side-order of early-2000s pick-up artist negging. You memorize the language, repeat it ad nauseum, and choose being the bully over calling it out.

Mar-a-Lago Face isn’t spun so forcefully as a societal ideal for women compared to looksmaxxing and men, I’d argue. There are other trends that are visually similar to this kind of tighten-and-fill approach - consider every woman on Love Island — but attitude is what differentiates them. Nobody says Lisa Rinna has Mar-a-Lago Face because she’s got a sense of humour and isn’t preaching hate to her fans, while Lauren Sanchez, not officially a Republican, does earn the name as an obscenely rich figurehead of control and greed who desperately wants to fit in with the fashion elite. We’re aware that there are no promises of power or liberation through Mar-a-Lago Face, which looksmaxxing claims to offer. The gender binary is in full effect.

And the way this binary impacts men and boys is corrosive. Selling quackery, steroids, and extreme surgeries like leg lengthening as necessary to achieve one’s ideal form is not a new phenomenon. Nor is having it be associated with fascistic ideals. The hard-right has long been obsessed with physical perfection as a form of racial purity. Having it all be packaged for the masses and spread through the media as a pseudo-ironic joke in a post-truth world? I’m not sure that’s new either, but one cannot deny how smothering its pervasiveness feels. It’s becoming harder than ever to combat this kind of hate, which spreads like wildfire on every platform and often isn’t taken seriously enough until it’s too late. Clavicular is an N-word spewing numbskull who hangs out with Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate, and yet we’re supposed to be gently entertained by his act, unquestioning of its ludicrousness and cruelty.

Beauty standards change with the times but they almost always return to a status quo of whiteness, thinness, and pink-blue gender conformity. The Kardashians can make their money by hijacking Black womanhood but their turn to ‘respectability’ required them to remove their BBLs and tone down on the contouring. The shreds of progress made by the body positivity movement were decimated the moment Ozempic went mainstream. Both looksmaxxing and Mar-a-Lago Face are a reinforcement of the stifling boy/girl assertion that has permeated our daily lives, a fresh tanning session and Botox top-up on the same old face. They preach genetic perfection even as their wigs are ripped off, but the illusion is maintained in spite of it all. At least we can take a sliver of comfort in laughing at so many handsome Squidwards blinded by their own delusions.