How looksmaxxing is pulling young Kiwi men towards dangerous extremes

Every afternoon after school, a 17-year-old Wellington student would lock himself away and hit his own face with a hammer.

By James Fleury and Reuben Smith

Deliberately, methodically — striking the bones beneath his eyes, along his jaw, across the tip of his chin — in the belief that repeated impact might reshape his features into something more chiselled.

"I was very unsatisfied with what I saw in the mirror," he told 1News, his identity protected.

"Every day I'd look at myself and get really unhappy and sad. And I knew that I had to change."

Buccal fat and 'bonesmashing' : Inside the worrying world of 'looksmaxxing' - Watch on TVNZ+

Mental health experts say some young men are now turning to increasingly extreme measures in pursuit of their ideal look, fuelled by an online trend known as "looksmaxxing".

The online movement encourages people to maximise their physical attractiveness through techniques ranging from grooming and fitness advice to more controversial practices.

For this student, it began with using cleanser and going to the gym before escalating to 'bone smashing', using a hammer to repeatedly strike parts of the face in an attempt to alter facial features.

“I would hit my zygos [zygomatic bones] just under my eyes and I would hit all across my jaw to create it more chiselled and the very tip of my chin,” he said.

Doctors have warned the practice is based on pseudoscience and can result in severe and permanent damage.

Before his parents found out, the teenager was bone smashing daily after school.

He recently stopped eating at school and started consuming below the recommended daily sodium intake, a practice he says is "strict".

"[I'm] trying to get hollowed cheeks, the best jawline," he said.

His interest in the trend began after experiencing feelings of rejection from girls on social media.

“I would just get unadded, and it does make you feel bad about yourself," he said.

"It does change how you look at yourself and I don’t really want to feel that ever again."

Krista Fisher, a psychologist working for the Movember Institute of Men's Health in Melbourne, said concerns about appearance among young men were not new — but that online communities were changing how those insecurities were being discussed.

"These online spaces are now creating a community that weaponises those insecurities in a lot of ways."

Fisher's team is researching how looksmaxxing content is being consumed by young users on TikTok in Australia. What they found challenged the idea that teenagers were actively seeking this material out.

“Young men don’t need to seek this out, it’s pushed towards them," she said.

"If you create a TikTok account as a young guy aged 16/17 years old, we know that the algorithm will feed you looksmaxxing content without you needing to seek it out."

Academic researcher and counsellor Kris Taylor said it is important not to dismiss the trend or the young people drawn to it.

"Looking at this as a freak show doesn't do justice to the ways that these messages do resonate with young people," he said.

"It resonates with their anxieties and so we need to step away from that judgmental space."

Both experts said parents should approach conversations about looksmaxxing with curiosity rather than criticism to avoid pushing their children away.

"We need to start from a place of being as calm as possible, being as interested as possible, and also putting ourselves in their shoes," Taylor said.

"How would I respond if I was a 15-year-old and I had all of these men online telling me how important it is to have a jaw that looks like this or that my eyes should look like that."

Fisher said schools, policymakers and technology companies also have a role to play.

"We need to support schools to create curriculum and to upskill on the issues that are taking place in these online spaces," she said.

"We need to advocate for better regulation and challenge the tech companies to ensure the products they are profiting off actually keep their young users safe."

Despite the warnings, the Wellington teenager said he has no plans to leave the looksmaxxing community.

"I've still got tons of work to do."