Why men must look max

Everyone wants to look good these days.

Still, as the great and clearly immortal Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want.” That’s certainly true of our audience. Here at the Slow Harbor Center for Social Norms, we know exactly who’s reading our publications. Sure, it takes us almost two full minutes a week, but we think it’s important that we get to know both of you. From a distance, of course.

Mick, though, looks exactly the same today as he did in 1979, and that’s saying something. From that perspective, it’s easy to understand that the Rolling Stones have forever been a trendsetter: they were cool before anyone knew what cool was. And the truth is, the rest of society is only now catching on, with “self-care” regimens the common folk didn’t think twice about back then.

So in the 70s and 80s, when everyone else was drinking, smoking cigarettes, dabbling with various “substances,” and inhaling hairspray, Mick was devoted to his personal health. We suspect many of the things we use now, like lotions, moisturizers, and even soap, were everyday routines for Mick. My body is my temple and all that.

And speaking of lotions, people don’t just want to look good. They want to feel good, too. Even here at The Center, Sam over in accounting has recently discovered lotion. Sure, our books are for shit, but Sam feels amazing, walking around with barely a limp, a dull, distant smile permanently plastered on his face. Now that we think about it, Sam’s starting to look a little like Mick himself.

But the point is, before social media, people didn’t think so much about it. Not every single female in the Western world looked exactly like every other single female in the Western world, as they do today. And for those of you who haven’t been keeping up with TikTok, it’s called “Looksmaxing.” Or something.

Men certainly didn’t care. Look at a photo of any middle-aged man from the 80s. He looked … middle-aged. Thinning hair, a belly, a few remaining teeth, and dark circles under his eyes. This guy didn’t notice these things; they just came with the territory of aging, and nobody gave it a second thought.

Now, if you can bear it, walk outside today. You’ll see men the same age. Not that you’d know it. Being 45 today means a confident expression, strong jaw, rock-hard abs, and a 32-inch waist. There is, literally, no resemblance to the 45-year-old man of years past.

Why, you ask?

Good grief, it’s always social media. Everything bad that’s happened in the world over the last 20 years is a direct result of social media. Duck face, inflated lips, absurdly long eyelashes, and we’re not even talking about the lengths females go to, which is, frankly, insane.

Anyway, looksmaxing now applies to men of all ages, and the history of it is disturbing, if not predictable. It turns out, the whole movement got started years ago in online groups for incels. Now, we are aware that both of our readers are intimately familiar with the term “incel,” but on the off chance that a normal human person stumbles across this article at some future date, an incel is a male who is not having any sex through no fault of his own. Even as we write this, Sam is over there in his cubicle, nodding and reaching for the lotion.

So, these incel people decided that what they needed was to look hot, which of course was obvious, but took them a while to land on. Their reasoning was, if they looked hot, they would be confident, and the combination of looks and attitude would result in barrels full of women just dying to hook up with them. Hah! Turns out the women were way too busy trying to look hot themselves to even notice, but we’re losing focus.

They loved the movie, American Psycho, and somehow, no one saw the satire. Instead, millions of guys began doing unspeakable things to their own personal bodies, all so they could look “max.” And while it would be easy to point out all this resulted in a bunch of 5’7” dweebs with perfect hair and gym memberships, it would be papering over the main point of this article.

** WARNING: The main point of the article is finally coming **

And that point is, men today have a confidence problem, and they are overcompensating.

Of course it’s because of social media. Just because we can’t all be Mick Jagger doesn’t mean we don’t want to be. The phone and computer screens that pass for society today tell us exactly how we should look, and they don’t hold back when pointing out flaws.

Looksmaxing has even made it to older generations of men. Remember walking outside and seeing the abundance of impossibly perfect 40-year-old male specimens that you will never, ever look like no matter how much moisturizer you use? Well, these “older” men have all followed the same formula, which we are recapping here for you to use as a guide:

Formula for becoming the perfect middle-aged man:

1. Quit smoking. Apparently, despite never having been told when we were young, nicotine isn’t that great for you.
2. Eat healthy. And we say this with all the sincerity in the world: Good luck with that.
3. Exercise often. LOL LOL LOL.
4. Attack hair loss early. Don’t be timid here; you’ve got to get in front of this before it becomes a problem.
5. Get a jaw job.

Yes, really. Men these days are visiting plastic surgeons and willingly allowing them to inject “bone-like” stuff into their face so that it looks like they have a stronger jawline. A jawline worthy of the boardrooms they, personally, will never enter.

The idea, of course, is that if you look successful and rich, you can post pictures of yourself on social media, completing the journey from incel to an incel who looks sort of like the guys other incels want to look like.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re late for our surgery consultation.