Looksmaxxing

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Incels" – Episode 9: Looksmaxxing

Host: Courtney Armstrong (KT Studios, iHeartPodcasts)
Date: November 19, 2025

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Overview

This episode of Incels delves into the phenomenon of "looksmaxxing"—a subculture intertwined with online incel communities focused on maximizing physical attractiveness. Through the voices of journalists, social scientists, former and current incel members, and cultural critics, the episode explores how what starts as self-improvement spirals into cycles of criticism, marginalization, monetization, and occasionally, radicalization. The conversation also touches on related trends like "transmaxxing" and the underlying psychological dynamics fueling these subcultures.

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Main Topics & Key Insights

1. What Is Looksmaxxing? (04:32–06:42)

• Definition:
  Rupert Smalls (Social Scientist):

  “It's kind of a belief that, you know, there are various different ways and methods to maximize your physical appearance as a kind of methodology and set of recipes...the belief is that they'll improve their life in some way.” (04:32)

• Origins:
  Journalist Simon Osborne relates that looksmaxxing rose from forums like 4chan, later spreading to TikTok, and is primarily a male pursuit focusing intensely on facial features—"jawlines, cheekbones, hunter eyes"—and sharing improvement routines.
• Peer Critique:
  Osborne highlights the harsh, often cruel, “bitchy and mean” (21:18) nature of communal feedback, likening it to the social scrutiny traditionally associated with young women.

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2. Community Dynamics & Radicalization (07:01–09:42)

• Dangerous Advice:
  Smalls warns:

  “Instead what many people are getting is, you know, if you can’t hit these benchmarks, then you should really consider self-harm.” (07:05)

• Monetization:
  Vulnerability is often exploited for profit, with dubious products/services marketed as solutions.
• Crossover to Incel Ideology:
  Looksmaxxing, originally self-improvement, can devolve “to a manifestation of ill will—a contest between men and women…some of the men have started to exhibit violent behaviors towards women…” (08:38)
  The parallel to female "natural beauty" industries becomes darker due to recruitment into misogynist, grievance-based narratives.
• Trauma and Blame:
  Community pressure and failed self-modification can traumatize young men, escalating resentment toward women (11:02).

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3. Origin and Spread of Lookism and Incel Communities (12:28–14:34)

• Community Evolution Timeline:
  Luis (self-identified black pilled incel) maps the community’s genealogy from early inclusive forums (created by a lesbian woman) to PUA Hate, Slut Hate, Lookism.net, and modern PSL (Physical Sexual Looks) ranking forums.

  “The modern iteration…black pill and lookism…started on a forum called PUAhate.com...They started talking about the importance of your looks.” (12:28–13:52)

• PSL Ranking:
  Forums created a scale rating men’s looks from 1–8; obsession with these standards proliferated.

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4. Popular Techniques & Influencers (10:16–24:36)

• “Mewing” Trend:
  Describes the widespread tongue posture exercise trending on TikTok to “accentuate your jawline and get rid of a double chin.” (10:33–10:50)
  Hashtag #mewing has over a billion views online.

• Punitive Practices:
  Extreme methods like “bonesmashing”—literally hitting one’s jaw to alter its shape—are present, highlighting the community’s self-destructive undercurrent.

• Surgery Market:
  Simon Osborne notes serious consideration of procedures like “£10,000…to extend his chin” (22:37) and other male-targeted aesthetic surgeries (leg lengthening, penis enlargement).

  “I've written about hair transplants and tooth surgery and chin implants with this…I’ve written about leg lengthening surgery, penis enlargements, and then they’re all about men.” (23:16)

• Influencers:
  Kareem Shami (“Syrian Psycho,” “godfather of looksmaxing,” 2.5 million followers)—a transformation influencer who markets aesthetic enhancement coaching and bridges “hypermasculinity, influencer commerce, and self-improvement.”
  Osborne notes Shami’s conflicted image, using “Patrick Bateman from American Psycho” as a TikTok photo, raising questions about “misogyny and hyper masculinity.” (20:09–20:52)

  “He had really taken off as a kind of big figure on TikTok under the name Syrian Psycho.” (20:52)

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5. Overlap, Radicalization & Harms (24:19–29:56)

• Toxic Feedback Loops:
  Forums are filled with negativity:

  “We saw no one get universal praise. We saw everybody get insults…and predominantly people are told they’re considerably ugly or unattractive.”
  —Rupert Smalls (22:17)

• Self-Harm & Violence:

  “Some would lead to self harm, some would lead to violence against women...”
  —Rupert Smalls (33:10)

• Correlation with Violence:
  While rare, a cultural overlap exists between looksmaxxing, incel, and even mass shooter communities:

  “They share memes, they share members, they share symbols and meaning together and they develop that.” (26:03) Elliot Rodger is highlighted as a mythologized figure in these circles.

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6. Is This New for Men? Gendered Pressures and Impacts (23:10–24:36)

• Comparison to Female Beauty Standards:
  Osborne:

  “It’s the same motivations, the same people and the same kind of pressures...it’s young men feeling insecure and then having that insecurity fueled by online communities.” (23:16)

• Market Exploitation:
  Demand is driven by insecurity; dubious cosmetic surgeons and products capitalize on vulnerability.

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7. The Black Pill & Fatalism (28:03–28:47)

• “Black pill” Ideology:
  The belief that one’s genetics and lack of attractiveness are immutable and doom one to social and romantic failure.
  Smalls observes looksmaxxing can become “an innately hopeful ideology,” but in the incel context is path-dependent and easily turns fatalistic.

• Firsthand Account (Mr. East, black pilled incel):

  “Certain traits you have, such as looks, wealth, they make it more likely for you to succeed...despite what society tells you, the nice guy never wins. Unless you’re handsome and good looking.” (28:47–29:56)

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8. The Rise and Meaning of "Transmaxxing" (35:17–39:31)

• Definition and Roots:
  Quispe Lopez (Editor, them):
  “Transmaxxing” is a transphobic internet trope, not a real-life movement—idea that men should transition to women for supposed social benefits, based on a fringe, “rambling manifesto.” (36:24)
• Underlying Ideology:
  Based in the incel belief that “society benefits women” and that transitioning is a shortcut for failed men.
• Manifesto Origins:
  Authored by a user “Bentology” and rooted in obscure internet forums.

  “It basically details all of the social benefits...like, you’ll get cheaper car insurance. You will find partnership...ignoring tangible realities…like increased threats of violence.” (38:03)

• Lopez’s Warning:

  “Trans maxers aren’t a threat to your daily life...they don’t exist as a movement…It’s just a transphobic internet trope as opposed to, like, an entire community of people.” (39:31)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On harsh self-critique:
  “A big part of [looksmaxxing forums] is swapping pictures of your own face for often quite harsh criticism.”
  – Simon Osborne (06:13)

• On hopelessness:
  “I see literally zero hope.”
  – Rupert Smalls (03:00)

• From a black pilled incel:
  “If I was a woman, I wouldn’t date me either.”
  – Luis (02:48)

• On the community’s internal logic:
  “The general consensus within society is that be nice, be respectful, you will succeed. This is like the biggest contradiction...the nice guy never wins. Unless you’re handsome and good looking.”
  – Mr. East (28:47)

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Important Timestamps

• Definition and early discourse – 04:32
• Evolution of incel forums – 12:28
• Mewing explained – 10:33
• Surgery and influencer aspects – 19:00, 24:19
• Online negativity and peer feedback – 21:59, 22:17
• Overlap with violence and radicalization – 26:03, 33:10, 34:07
• Transmaxxing explained – 35:17, 36:24

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Tone & Language

The episode is analytical, at times somber and urgent, drawing on clinical social science, first-person testimony, and cultural critique. Interviewees often speak matter-of-factly about self-loathing and hopelessness, sometimes using community jargon (“black pill,” “hunter eyes,” “lookism”), but always circling back to the psychological cost and societal implications. The hosts maintain a neutral, investigative tone while emphasizing concern over the more dangerous or exploitative elements.

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Conclusion

This episode of Incels exposes how the drive for self-improvement in the digital age can, inside online echo chambers, morph into cycles of harsh judgment, exploitation, and even radicalization. Looksmaxxing, while rooted in familiar beauty culture, becomes a distinctive vector for masculine self-loathing, monetized vulnerability, and community-enabled psychological harm. The episode closes by recalling how tropes like "transmaxxing" serve as transphobic memes and underscores the need for critical media literacy and supportive intervention—especially as more young men become enmeshed in these spaces.

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Transcript

[Courtney Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Courtney Armstrong]

From the dark corners of the web, an emerging mindset.

[Luis (self-identified black pilled incel)]

I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either.

[Courtney Armstrong]

A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Incels will be added to the Terrorism Guide.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

I see literally zero hope.

[Courtney Armstrong]

This is Incels, a production of KT Studios and iHeart podcasts. Season one episode nine looks maxing.

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

I've written about leg lengthening surgery, penis enlargements, and they're all about men.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

As soon as you do that and you start to look for a perpetrator. For a lot of men in the looks maxing community, that enemy has become women.

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

It's a kind of story about insecure young people probably not finding the best places to look in the mirror. Online.

[Courtney Armstrong]

I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lydecker, Gabriel Castillo, Connor Powell and Carolyn Miller. Online self improvement is everywhere. Jawlines, cheekbones, hunter eyes. Routines and recipes to fix a face. Routines to fix a life. We follow how looks maxing, a push to optimize your appearance, intersects with incel forums, nihilistic beliefs and a new transphobic trope called transmaxing. Investigative journalist Connor Powell speaks to Rupert Smalls, CEO of Egregious. It's a UK startup that specializes in understanding social issues online. He also recently co authored a paper on looks maxing and radicalization pathways. We asked Rupert to start by describing the word looks maxing.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

It's kind of a belief that, you know there are various different ways and methods to maximize your physical appearance as a kind of methodology and set of recipes. And if you follow them, you can try and maximize how good you look physically, objectively. And through improving their looks, the belief is that they'll improve their life in some way.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Connor also spoke with Simon Osborne, a freelance features writer based out of London, for a different perspective. Simon often writes for the Guardian, and we asked how he first came across looksmaxing.

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

I'll be honest, it was new to me, but my editor at the Guardian, who I wrote this story for, has teenage sons and he had heard about it, I think, via their online lives. Looks maxing is, in a way, it's quite simple. It's generally young men online swapping Ideas for how to improve how they look, mainly focusing on their facial esthetics, but also their bodies. And it's, it's a kind of hyper masculine version of what these guys think they should look like for their own, I guess, sense of security and also to attract the opposite sex. And when we look at the face, looks maxing means hardening the jawline. It values things like hunter eyes, which are kind of eyes that point slightly downwards towards the nose, you know, strong foreheads, basically a sort of very masculine, strong man kind of look.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

Does it also go into the sort of traditional male desire to be strong and fit as well, or is it generally sort of this facial feature?

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

It's very much sort of focused on the face and a big part of it is swapping pictures of your own face for often quite harsh criticism within a community that might be a forum or a Reddit or. It all started a long time ago, I think, on 4chan, and then it's become very big on TikTok more recently. But I think it goes hand in hand with this sort of general masculine look that promotes a muscular physique.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Simon's mention of harsh criticism wasn't the first time we'd heard that. In fact, it seems almost a tenant of a lot of the online looks maxing communities. Here's a clip from first at 5 CTV News, followed by Connor and social scientist Rupert Smalls.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

It's a term you may have never.

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

Heard before, looks maxing.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

So it looks like it's a community where you are going to maybe pick up some tips for living a healthier life, maybe modifying your appearance in some way. And instead what many people are getting is, you know, if you can't hit these benchmarks, then you should really consider self harm.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Clearly any approach that encourages someone to harm themselves is deeply concerning. But we wanted to know on a broader level how Rupert sees the idea of looks maxing.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

I think there's never anything wrong with the kind of high level objectives that are there to kind of ambitiously achieve a goal. I think what sometimes can go wrong is the route we take to achieve that goal. So it's almost like that iRobot situation from the famous film with Will Smith where the robots are told to protect humanity and actually in order to protect humanity, they figure out that if they lock us all up, we're going to be safe because we just can't be trusted. So I think it's a bit like that. But I think what you also see, which is a bit more worrying, is that people are exploiting men, they're trying to monetize the situation, and that's when things can go bad.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

So looks Maxine to me is it has a parallel just in the traditional female natural beauty genre, right? Which is like breast implants, lipo. But I think what we are seeing online specifically is a recruitment to a much more darker world with young men. Can you walk me through sort of what you're seeing and what your research points to?

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

Say there's a parallel there. But where it does take a darker turn for the Looks Maxine community is when that starts to lead to maybe ideologies around the incel community. And that's actually an interesting kind of difference between the two in that, you know, some of the looks, the men in the looks maxing community are being diverted or kind of radicalized in a way to see it as a grievance issue rather than a way to discover their best selves. It's become a manifestation of a lot of ill will and a kind of a contest between men and women. And that has meant that, you know, some of the men getting involved with that community have started to exhibit violent behaviors towards women and girls, et cetera, et cetera, which is not something you see so much in the other direction.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Rupert points out that for some, looksmaxing begins in a positive way. It may inspire better diet and nutrition. However, he warns, that same motivation can easily start to shift.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

I think there's a thread to that story which got metastasized to an extent and started to become exploited for ill and monetized, I should say, where it became a thing of more mewing and bone smashing and, you know, things came out of it which were quite overtly harmful for the body. And once that started happening and people started to try and I think maybe over monetize vulnerable individuals, that's where you started to see indications that there was at least a branch of that community which was leading people astray.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Mewing, as Rupert mentioned, is something that's become very popular. The hashtag mewing has accumulated over a billion views on TikTok, with millions of videos created on the topic. Here's a quick explanation of what it is.

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

This one is called mewing, okay?

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

Not meowing.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

Mewing.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Mewing's been around for a while.

[Luis (self-identified black pilled incel)]

It's this exercise where you put your tongue to the roof of your mouth and you swallow. And it's supposed to, like, strengthen and.

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

Accentuate your jawline and get rid of.

[Luis (self-identified black pilled incel)]

A double chin if you have one. So the action of mewing has started.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

To trend and has been trending on TikTok.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

People are teaching you like how to.

[Luis (self-identified black pilled incel)]

Mew, get ready to double chin, all that good stuff.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

Here again, Connor and Rupert, what's the discussion around looks? Maxing within incel forms as these techniques.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

Became more and more punitive, as they became more difficult to achieve or as they involved more and more self harm. For example bone smashing which involves hammering your jaw. I think that that kind of advice when you're receiving it from a community you trust and believe in, you can start to get almost traumatized by it. And as soon as you start suffering the question becomes as individual who's to blame for my suffering? They're feeling alienated, they're trying to improve their situation but they realize by doing so it's actually causing them to suffer. And so they're looking for who the perpetrator is. And as soon as you do that and you start to look for a perpetrator, an adversary of some form. Unfortunately what has come out of that scenario is that for a lot of men in the Luxembourgs and community that that enemy has become women. And so there is a kind of branch of the Luxembourg community that has led quite naturally into the incel community where women are blamed for the situation, their plight, for all of the difficulties that they're experiencing.

[Courtney Armstrong]

We've heard from Luis before, he's a self identified black pilled incel. In this conversation he helps us trace how these online communities have evolved and how an obsession with looks has been part of that story from the very beginning. Now many of the same ideas are resurfacing under new banner framed as self improvement.

[Luis (self-identified black pilled incel)]

Let me actually give you like the entire history of incels. It's going to be very quick. So ironically the original incel community started by a woman, a lesbian woman from Carleton University in Canada. It's called Alana's Involuntary Celibate Project. It was a community for people who couldn't find love and it was very inclusive, right? It wasn't just male. And then you had other forums like Love Shy Incel Support and but really, really, really the modern iteration of the incels that we all know that I'm a part of, right? The black pill and lookism and whatnot and PSL started on a forum called PUA Hate. Puahate.com was created in 2009 by a former pickup artist called Nicolaus. They had one section called Shitty Advice and I don't know how, I don't know why, but they started talking about the importance of your looks. If you want to be a pickup artist you have to be good looking. They came up with Looks theory, Mid Face theory. They will recommend each other surgeries Luis mentioned PSL.

[Courtney Armstrong]

PSL is an acronym from three early incel PU Hate, Slut Hate and Lookism.net It's a ranking system many incels subscribe to and some obsess over. It ranks men's attractiveness from 1 to 8. Luis continues, it's pretty funny.

[Luis (self-identified black pilled incel)]

But after that they created Slut Hate Promiscuous a term for a promiscuous woman. Right? Sluthate.com and yeah, same thing. They would just talk about looks. How pickup artists suck, how women suck, how normies suck. But in 2018 they created lookism.net so that's really the trifecta. That's where PSL comes from. PUA hate slut hate lookism.net right now it's just insoles is and looksmax.org which came after lookism.net it used to be known as lookism.me. no looksmax me. Now it's looksmax.org and that's really the history of the incel forums.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment.

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[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

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[Courtney Armstrong]

Connor continues his discussion with journalist Simon Osborne, asking how he views looksmaxing intersecting with pop culture in general and incel communities in particular.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

There.

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

There was a kind of almost a split where there was quite a lot of stuff on Tik Tok, which often wasn't particularly dark in nature. A lot of it was just often very insecure teenage boys and young men trying to find ways to kind of fulfill this look. But I think one of the reasons it's caught the attention is that it does have a darker side and it started in a fairly dark place and there is or there have been concerns that it's sort of springing from incel culture and that a lot of the men who are very harshly criticizing often insecure young men on this site are also, you know, misogynistic. There's been a lot of recent discussion about racism in Lux Maxing, and there was a young black journalist in the US who I think half jokingly tried to become the first black Looks maxer because it seemed to him to be a very white pursuit and then was very swiftly bombarded with racist abuse on social media.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

And one of the people you profiled is Kareem Shami?

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

Yes.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

What did you find out about him and what's his role in this?

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

He's a very interesting figure in that he kind of lived the life and then became a big influencer in the looks maxing world. When I spoke to him, he was 22. He had emigrated with his family from Syria as a youngster from the war there and settled in the US and he had kind of done the looksmaxing thing himself and had really changed his look quite dramatically and had a lot of the sort of holy grail features of a looks maxed person with the cheekbones and the strong jaw and all the rest of it and very good skin. Skin is another part of this. And then he started to kind of chart his own journey on TikTok and it kind of took off in a big way.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Karim Shami, the self proclaimed godfather of looks maxing, has over 2.5 million followers on social media. He's the founder of Ascend Laboratories, which provides aesthetic enhancement coaching. He ties together male self improvement, visual identity and influencer commerce. Here again, Simon, speaking about Kareem Shami.

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

But I also get the sense that he was slightly conflicted because, you know, his profile picture on TikTok at the time was Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. And that to me, sort of aligned with a lot of the concerns people were expressing about misogyny and hyper masculinity and how looks maxing was all part of that. He said that it was just because he liked some of the, you know, the way that that character looked and didn't really align with his, his worldview or his view of women. One particular video he posted of his transformation, he had really taken off as a kind of big figure on TikTok under the name Syrian Psycho. That was what his username is.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

I was looking at looksmaxing first because there was an obvious connection to incel community. There's those that are trying to sort of become the things that they hate to attract the women that they're frustrated with. And then there are those that just sort of accept beliefs which is sort of like you're never going to have a relationship. You're always going to be ugly and miserable and just use that rage, live off that rage. How did you find looks maxing within the intel community?

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

That sort of the word represents a community of people that is bigger than any sort of one element. And so as far as there is an incel overlap, I think there is also a side of it that's more just about people just being kind of bitchy and mean at each other in a way that maybe we would often sort of traditionally associate with young women. And I think part of this is that young men are increasingly subject to the same insecurities and harsh lenses as women and girls have traditionally been. Really, it's a kind of story about insecure young people probably not finding the best places to look in the mirror online.

[Courtney Armstrong]

In fact, studies show that online feedback in the vast majority of these forums is overwhelmingly negative.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

A new report by Dalhousie University saw.

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

Researchers comb through thousands of comments on a discussion board of an online community that receives 6 million unique visitors a month.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

Many of the people participating in these communities are quite young. So they're, they're boys who are 13, 14, 15, they're university students, they're surprisingly young. We saw no one get universal praise. We saw everybody get insults. And predominantly people are told that they're considerably ugly or unattractive.

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

My bigger concern was, was that really it was, you know, people who were already worried about their facial features putting pictures of themselves in, you know, TikTok or Reddit and getting quite a lot of criticism and then just ending up feeling worse about themselves and maybe resorting to questionable, time consuming, uncomfortable processes like mewing to strengthen their faces. Or in the case of the guy I spoke to, you know, seriously considering paying £10,000 to have surgery and to extend his chin.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

If we're sort of stepping back, do you think it's terribly different than what we're seeing with just women in general?

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

No, I don't, and I think that's a good point. And for some reason I sort of seem to have developed a kind of mini specialism at the Guardian because they, they keep asking me to write about male aesthetic surgery. I've written about hair transplants and tooth surgery and chin implants with this. I've written about leg lengthening surgery, penis enlargements, and then they're all about men. It's the same motivations, the same people and the same kind of pressures on them. And it's young men, yeah, feeling insecure and then having that insecurity fueled by online communities. And then because the demand is there, finding the outlets via searches online to get solutions to their problems in extremely competitive online marketplaces, which often lead them to cut price and dodgy actors. I'm thinking of transplant surgeons charging a fraction of what you would pay in a reputable clinic.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Some men have sought out corrective surgeries such as chin lengthening or jaw repositioning. These are done to achieve a more angular projected chin and jawline limb. Lengthening is another area of Surgery which is used to increase height.

[Simon Osborne (journalist)]

And then you end up with the nightmare stories of men and young men finding that they're deeply distressed with the process and the results because they've often paid very low amounts for this sort of surgery. Often these surgeons and these markets are ones that have existed for a long time because of the demand from, from women. And now there is the demand from men. And you know, on the one hand, women might think, well, welcome to our world. This is what it's like, the pressures to look certain ways. But then on, you know, the other way of looking at is that it's the worst sort of equality because we should be addressing the sort of drivers for these insecurities and kind of trying to make people more confident whether they're male or female, because it's a pretty sorry trade. And even when you speak to people who've had surgery and chin surgery, in the case of Luxmaxing, you know, they often say, it's changed my life. I feel like a new person. It's amazing. But even they often say, I wish I didn't have to go through all this to get to that place.

[Courtney Armstrong]

We wanted to understand how far this can go. Rupert Small unpacks the overlap between looks, maxing incels and potential violence. We note again that the rate of actual physical violence based on incel ideology is very low. Here's Rupert.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

We're seeing a lot of, let's say, co correlations between that community and incel communities and communities, even in the kind of the mass shooter communities and who kind of lionize and celebrate mass shooting and violence towards women. So it's hard to make a direct link and say that, you know, because this person, let's say Elliot Rodger, for example, even if we can't directly attribute lux maxing to Elliot Roger, we can say that there's a lot of overlap in those communities. They share similar content, they share memes, they share members, they share symbols and meaning together and they develop that. They kind of co develop that meaning. So that's as. As much as we can say to date. And just because of the kind of tight relationship between those communities, we can say at the very least that they are influential to each other. Just as scientists, we don't want to directly attribute violence to a specific meme or specific person.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

You can see, as you say, there's the victimization, there's the what am I getting? How the self harm. You can see this sort of path to self destruction. Really?

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

Yeah. People are looking for an exit out of their Current situation. I think in a lot of this and like you say, sometimes that's going to manifest in self harm for the purposes of looks maxing. Sometimes actually people just doing self harm to exit in another way, like psychologically exit the situation because self harm distracts them from another pain somewhere else. And if you're in a position of as I think a lot of incels are and a lot of, you know, members of the looksmaxing community, they're in a position of really, really needing support to help them get themselves out of what they experience as a really painful situation. Ultimately it's all born of a form of desperation to get out of what is a very difficult situation.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

You mentioned that you looked at the algorithm and the sort of adjacent words and how does the black pill fit into looks maxing? From what you can tell?

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

I guess maybe the reason you're asking this question is that you might see looks maxing as an innately hopeful ideology or belief system where you know, if you do something regularly, if you're persistent about it, if you put work in, you'll be able to look better and that's going to help improve your life. I think the answer to that again like what is the link between looksmaxing and Blackpool? Again it's, it's a path dependent state.

[Courtney Armstrong]

To better understand how these ideas take root in real life, we spoke with a man who goes by Mr. East, he's a self described black pilled incel. Mr. East explains how these beliefs shape the way he sees dating, success and the world around him.

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

Certain traits you have, such as looks, wealth, they make it more likely for you to succeed within a certain context dating romantically, I just recognize that despite what popular consensus believes about so called romantic and like just general success within, like socializing in general, it does really heavily depend on your looks and your ability to socialize. However, for some people that might not work because of their ethnicity, because of their looks, because of their height, no matter what, a lot of the stuff that they learn might not work. The general consensus within society is that be nice, be respectful, you will succeed. This is like the biggest contradiction. Despite what society tells you, the nice guy never wins. In this case, well, unless you're handsome and good looking. Which I guess is explains why good looking people don't understand the struggles that people who maybe are nice but don't have the looks to attract people may think.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Lets stop here for another break. We'll be back in a moment.

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[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

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[Courtney Armstrong]

Rupert continues explaining the complexity of how different threads within these communities can lead in very different directions from self improvement to something far more nefarious.

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

I think people have recognized that, have kind of gained that. And that's why you often see, you know, the Blackpool hashtag mentioned together in posts with looksmaxing hashtags because there's, you know, some creators have recognized that overlap and they can grab attention and they can take members from that one community by just putting those hashtags together. If you were looking at it more from the radicalization side of things, like radicalization pathways, I would say there's, there are many different threads and pathways through looks maxing. Like looks maxing is kind of one of the, the resting points or the waypoints along the way for what could be a very, a wide range of radicalization situations. Some would lead to self harm, some would lead to violence against women etc etc and the fact that there are many paths which cross lux maxing and then ultimately go elsewhere makes this a very complex situation to describe to people.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

Is it a phrase that you see growing?

[Rupert Smalls (social scientist)]

We drew in more than 80,000 videos from over 40,000 users on a social media platform. This very clear connection between Elliot Rodger fandom. Elliot Rodger being a shooter, UK born American shooter, he killed six people, injured 14 others with a mixture of, you know, knives and semi automatic pistols. And Elliot Roger is lionized by many people in NCEL and Luxembourg communities and he's given a lot of voice and his manifesto is spoken about a lot. All of which is now being laundered and mixed up within these incel and Luxembourgzin communities. That was the interesting thing to us and that was kind of what triggered our concern because it's by kind of adopting that terminology that innocent people within who just gone to looksmaxing for, you know, self improvement can easily start to get nudged into a much darker ideology and even into, you know, self harm or into violence. So that was the link for us rather than the volume of posts we were seeing. Although when we did look we saw a very high volume of posts.

[Courtney Armstrong]

We wanted to take a moment to explain what transmaxing is like. So many of the terms we've come across in this series, it's part of an online vocabulary that's constantly evolving. Connor spoke with editor Quispe Lopez who explains it's less something happening in real life and more reflection of what's being imagined online.

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

My name is Quispe Lopez, I'm the lifestyle editor over at them, which is Conde Nast's LGBTQ publication.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

I've been on some of these incel websites, and it almost feels as if it's not actually a real thing, but it's just people sort of putting it out there to make a point about how great it is to be a woman and how awful it is to be a man.

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

It's kind of stemming from the exact same ideology that is foundational to all incel thought, which is exactly what you're speaking to. It's easier to be a woman. Society benefits women. So of course someone would want to be a woman. And that's why trans people are actually transitioning. That's the kind of backing thought to it all.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

How would you define trans, Maxine, for someone who's never heard that term before?

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

It's basically a transphobic trope that is, like, often perpetuated and spoken about in incel communities that anybody would transition not because of, like, an internal gender feeling that they're having or a mismatch in their identity, but rather for the social benefits of it. It basically perpetuates the claim that trans women are not actually women. They're, like, transitioning because they want to gain the social benefits, quote unquote, of being a woman. And that is, like, obviously rooted in deep transphobia and also in deep misogyny and the intersection of the two.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

When did you first, like, see this popping up online in conversation?

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

It's something that came about in the last 10 years. Rather than trying to change yourself to fit a society that benefits women, Black pill believers don't believe they should have to change themselves by looks maxing, and instead they've accepted their fate as an incel and they believe that, like, society should change instead to be more inclusive of incels. Transmaxing fits into that because it's basically like, well, some incels cannot look smacks out of their fate of being involuntarily celibate. So instead they should. Rather than trying to meet this ideal standard for, like, being a man, they should instead transition to be women because that would be easier for them in society. They'll get all of these, like, social benefits, et cetera, et cetera.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Kise Lopez helps us understand where transmaxing began, tracing its roots back to a single manifesto.

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

It's basically this long, rambling manifesto that's been updated 12 times called the transmaxing Manifesto. It's from the deep, deep core partners of incel communities online. It basically details all of the social benefits that, you know, one might have if they are Having, you know, not a lot of luck as an incel want to change their faith, want to, like, change their position in society by transitioning. And it kind of outlines these really ridiculous ideas that are like, you'll get cheaper car insurance. You will find partnership. You'll have access to dating other trans women. Like, all of these things that are ignoring the tangible realities that come with being trans in this world, such as, like, increased threats of violence. And it kind of puts that aside and it is like, actually, it'll be great and it'll fix your life if you're an incel to be a trans maxer. But that's just. That's the only written piece of this ideology.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

Any idea who wrote this manifesto?

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

Like many ideologies that start in the Internet, it can be hard to pin down exactly who. We know the username. It's someone who is called Bentology. And it's basically been updated a bunch of times. It exists on these Internet archives and deep Reddit threads as well as 4chan.

[Interviewer / Host (possibly Connor Powell or Stephanie Lydecker)]

Anything else you want to add that I didn't ask you or point you want to make that I didn't ask you on?

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

I think I just want to emphasize that trans maxers aren't a threat to your daily life. They don't exist as a movement. And I think that speaking about them in conversation with, like, trans people as a community is a false equivalency that I really want to urge people to not engage in because it's just a transphobic Internet trope as opposed to, like, an entire community of people who are just trying to, like, do their best and live their daily lives. I would just urge people to not add fuel to the fire and really be careful about the information that you're consuming and do research. Have media literacy, because I think it can be really easy to get in the weeds with any kind of incel community language because there is just so much of it and it's so vast and so awful. But I promise trans maxers aren't a threat because they don't exist. I think the real threat is the way that young men are socialized in this country and socialize towards violence.

[Courtney Armstrong]

For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram tstudios. Incels is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Gabriel Castillo and me, Courtney Armstrong. Additional producing by Connor Powell and Caroline Miller Editing by Jeff Toy. Music by VannaCour Steven Studios. Incels is a production of KT Studios and iHeart Podcasts. For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What kind of programs does this school have? How are the test scores? How many kids do a classroom? Homes.com knows these are all things you ask when you're home shopping as a parent. That's why Each listing on Holmes.com includes extensive reports on local schools, including photos, parent reviews, test scores, student teacher ratio, school rankings, and more. The information is from multiple trusted sources and curated by Holmes.com's dedicated in house research team. It's all so you can make the right decision for your family.

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

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[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

This show is brought to you by Corruption Uncovered, a new podcast from Roc Nation and its Philanthropic Injustice Division, Team Rock. For more than 30 years, there was an open secret in Kansas City, Kansas about a man who allegedly raped dozens of black women and terrorized them into silence. A detective named Roger Galupski.

[Courtney Armstrong]

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[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

But then, right before trial, he was found dead, leaving countless questions behind.

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He couldn't have done this alone. I'm not gonna say everyone in the department knew, but he's just one of many.

[Cindy Crawford / Quispe Lopez / Narrator (various)]

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This is an iHeart podcast.