In this eye-opening Based Camp episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins explore how looksmaxxing (and its cousins: performative masculinity, status obesity, performative altruism, and more) functions as the modern equivalent of “gender affirming care” — a seductive but ultimately sterile trap.

Drawing on John B. Calhoun’s famous mouse utopia experiments (Universe 25), they explain the rise of “the beautiful ones”: rodents in abundance who obsessively groomed themselves, avoided conflict/mating/parenting, and became socially sterile while remaining physically pristine. Sound familiar?

From Clavicular’s extreme regimen (steroids, meth for hollow cheeks, bone smashing) to billionaire status-hoarding, kidney-donating effective altruists with no kids, and Gen Z pickup artists chasing views instead of partners — this conversation reveals how abundance creates behavioral sinks where people optimize for aesthetics, validation, or signaling instead of legacy and meaning.

They discuss why these traps feel productive (they’re often high-discipline and cerebral) yet deliver zero lasting happiness or genetic/cultural impact — and how to escape them by building a real objective function in life.

If you’ve ever felt pulled into optimization loops (looks, status, altruism, masculinity, etc.) that leave you hollow, this episode is your wake-up call. A free copy of The Pragmatist Guide to Life (ebook or audiobook) available — just DM us or join our paid subscribers on Substack/Patreon.

Based Camp - The New Trend in Male Gender Affirming Care

Episode Notes

The Gist

* Looksmaxxing is the new Gender Affirming Care

* We’ve joked about how women getting cosmetic procedures are getting gender affirming care

* But men are doing it a ton now, too, in the form of Looksmaxxing

* But gender affirming care is just one of many traps people are falling into

* And these traps all map to a particular behavioral pattern that may be consistent across any abundant mammal society—something that’s even observed in rodents (and we’ll talk about that!)

* It’s important that we talk about these traps for several reasons:

* They don’t yield lasting impact

* They don’t yield happiness or contentment

* So let’s talk about this and use looksmaxxing as a case study for how people unknowingly fall into these traps so that we can be more adept at evading them personally.

And let’s start with the rodents.

The Beautiful Ones

Between 1958-1962, a man named John B. Calhoun conducted overcrowding experiments using rats and mice in an effort to study how very high population density in an otherwise “ideal” environment affects social behavior, mental health, and population stability in rodents.

His hope was to better understand the implications of overcrowding + abundance for human society, so he gave rats and mice abundant food, water, nesting material, and protection from predators and disease—so that lack of resources was not the cause of problems—and observed how increasing population density changed aggression, mating, parenting, social hierarchies, and overall psychological functioning over time.

These experiments were far from scientifically precise and had many issues, but they yielded some really interesting patterns that you could also argue we’re seeing in modern, abundant societies.

For example, Calhoun observed some consistent behavioral groupings that are analogous to behavioral groupings in modern, affluent human groups that we talk about on Based Camp all the time.

Some examples:

* Dominant aggressive males: Highly territorial “alpha” males that monopolized prime nesting areas and mates, frequently fighting and wounding other males and sometimes attacking pups.

* “Dropouts” or socially defeated males: Males driven out of territories by dominant males who congregated in central areas, often scarred, hyper‑submissive, and involved in seemingly purposeless mass brawls; in earlier rat experiments some turned to cannibalism.

* Hyperactive or indiscriminately sexual males: Males that mounted other males and juveniles, showed disorganized mating attempts, and sometimes coupled sexual behavior with aggression instead of normal courtship patterns.

* Neglectful or “failed” mothers: Females that abandoned litters, moved pups repeatedly, stopped defending nests, or became unusually aggressive toward their own young and toward other adults approaching the nest.

* “Hermit” or withdrawn females: Adult females that retreated to empty compartments, largely avoiding social contact, mating, or pup care—effectively dropping out of normal communal female roles in mouse societies.

We spend a lot of time talking about the human societal analogs of these rodent groupings, but today, we’re focusing in on the beautiful ones.

In his experiments, “the beautiful ones” were a subgroup of male rodents (first observed in rats and later highlighted in his mouse “Universe 25” study) that withdrew from normal social life. They spent their time almost exclusively eating and obsessively grooming, avoiding fighting, mating, and parenting, so they remained physically unscarred and well‑kept but were socially inert and did not reproduce.

Calhoun described these animals as healthy in body but “socially sterile,” seeing them as a late-stage symptom of social breakdown in an overpopulated yet materially abundant environment.

It’s Not Just Looks

People are falling into all sorts of obsessive loops, and I’ll highlight three just based on recent examples that have been shoved in front of me in the past 24 hours:

Status

From a friend (not sure if I can attribute):

“Something for pronatalists to shame: status obesity.

The idea is that the drive to eat is good. It helps us survive and pass on our genes. But the drive to eat can be highjacked and made unhealthy and make it less likely for us or our children to survive if we eat too much and become obese.

Status is similar where the drive in general is good and it evolved to be a strong drive because it is so good at helping us and our children survive. But there are people (especially at the top) who are status obese. Their drive for status, rather than contributing to their survival and their children’s survival, is actually hurting them. Super wealthy people who spend their money on plastic surgery instead of more kids for example. They are status obese, hurting their genetic line by investing in status peacock feathers instead of their young.”

Virtue Signaling / Aimless Altruism

Largely childless, single young men are donating their organs in larger numbers:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/altruistic-organ-donation/

* According to the article, these non‑direct altruistic donors “tend to skew male” and that “a good portion are in their 20s,” with another large cohort in their 50s.

* It also notes that donors are predominantly white, highly educated, and less likely to be married or have children than average.

Dating

We addressed the new trend in Gen Z pickup artists per steph’s substack essay “gen z pickup artists are taking over my city” that many of the leading gen z pick up dating coaches are optimizing around getting views, not actually sleeping with women.

* “The big names in Gen Z pickup are operating under a brand new set of incentives. The tactics they promote don’t necessarily need to work, they just need to hook the guys watching their content at home. In fact, the more insane his pickup line, the more bewildered her reaction, the better his clip will likely perform.”

* “Cold approaches are treated less like meet-cutes and more like sales performance reviews. Who cares about a mutual spark? Did he open strong? Did he display high value? Did he maintain frame? Did he get the close?”

* Example of one of these = Erick Ronaldo

Looksmaxxing as a Case Study for How People Fall Into these Holes

Looksmaxxing is on the rise

Google Trends shows how it came out of nowhere in 2023, came to a lull again in 2024, and swung back up in 2025 (interesting as some more extreme practices and figures within the movement got more interest, too)

Clavicular

Clavicular has, for many, become the new public face of the looksmaxxing community.

He:

* Started testosterone injections at ~14–15 and engages in long‑term steroid use.

* Uses meth to suppress appetite, stay extremely lean, and maintain hollow cheeks/cheekbone prominence.

* Practices “bonesmashing” (hammer/fists to the jaw/face) to induce microfractures for a sharper jawline.

* Side note: does the transmaxxing community practice of “bonesmashing” (hammer/fists to the jaw/face) to induce microfractures for a sharper jawline actually work?

* Basically, no

* Bonesmashing is based on a misreading of Wolff’s law, which says bone adapts to controlled, repetitive mechanical loading (like normal weight‑bearing exercise), not to random blunt trauma or deliberate fractures. Surgeons point out that striking your face with fists or hammers creates uncontrolled injury, so any microfractures or healing are unpredictable and ca...