Front Burner
A look at the young men obsessed with measuring facial features, using hammers to alter their faces into new shapes, and concocting a complicated vernacular to describe their subculture.
CBC News · Posted: Feb 18, 2026 7:00 AM EST | Last Updated: February 18
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Popular streamer, Braedon Peters, also known as ‘Clavicular.’ (Cassidy Araiza/New York Times)LISTEN | FRONT BURNER:
Front Burner36:23The Rise of ‘Looksmaxxing’
Looksmaxxers are a community of young men dedicated to the pursuit of maximizing their physical appearance, often at great personal cost. Many are spending thousands of dollars on cosmetic procedures, or even taking blunt objects to their faces, in the hopes of masculinizing their features to become more handsome. Or, as they refer to it: “ascending.”
In a world where so many young people — particularly young men — feel as though it’s impossible to get ahead, we’ve got a conversation about this viral community augmenting their bodies in the hopes of doing exactly that.
Aidan Walker is a writer and content creator whose work explores all kinds of online subcultures. He joins the show to talk about looksmaxxing, its central characters, connections to the far right, and what the movement reveals about young men right now.
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