How ‘looksmaxxing’ self-improvement apps are marketing misogyny to young men

A theory about male “sexual market value” that began in online manosphere forums is now appearing in the TikTok feeds of Australian teenagers — repackaged as AI-powered “looksmaxxing” apps.

The idea is closely tied to the incel (“involuntary celibate”) subculture. These are loose online communities of mostly young men who believe they are unable to form romantic or sexual relationships with women.

Within these spaces, users often rank men according to physical attractiveness and argue that dating success is largely determined by genetics. This worldview is sometimes called “the blackpill”.

Our research suggests that, by scoring faces and suggesting ways people can “optimise” their appearance, looksmaxxing tools are quietly mainstreaming a toxic view of masculinity and monetising insecurities.

Looksmaxxing is mainstreaming misogynistic incel ideology

Looksmaxxing describes an extreme physical optimisation of a person’s appearance, usually within a numerical rating system known as the PSL-scale.

Our TikTok network analysis reveals a dominant subculture around this concept, with so called “blackpill edits” at its heart. These usually show a conventionally less attractive person who is “mogged” (physically dominated based on looks) by a contrast with a person deemed attractive in the looksmaxxing community.

Such edits generate massive reach. One looksmaxxing influencer garnered more than 100 million views in 2025 alone.

Besides blackpill edits, the community also shares tutorial videos purportedly helping to improve one’s appearance. These include such dubious tips as recommending “mewing” (adjusting tongue posture) for a stronger jawline.

The looksmaxxing app economy

Within this ecosystem, we identified more than a dozen smartphone apps that promise to help users on their looksmaxxing journey. Essentially, all these apps offer the same service.

A user uploads a recent selfie, which an artificial intelligence (AI) model scans for arcane metrics such as “gonial angle”, “maxilla ratio” and “mentolabial angle”.

The user is then provided with an attractiveness score, and an associated rank on the PSL scale. Then, users receive a supposedly personalised assessment of their “potential”. The apps also offer generic fitness and dietary advice, but also recommendations of more niche practices such as mewing.

Monetising insecurity

Most apps hide their core features behind weekly subscriptions, usually priced around A$6. To attract paying customers, these apps are advertised in video descriptions (“Make your own reality @UmaxApp”), as well as in blackpill edits, for example by flashing rating screenshots between video clips.

Quantification, gamification and reframing

These apps are an active vector for mainstreaming an appealing version of formerly niche incel beliefs. While the focus on self-improvement seems to contradict the extreme fatalism present in dedicated incel forums, the apps act as a gateway, making harmful assumptions accessible through three key mechanisms.

First is quantification.

Incels believe every person has a “sexual market value”, usually expressed on a scale from one to ten. Looksmaxxing apps use the PSL-scale (running from one to eight), but the concept is identical: a user’s face is assigned numerical scores based on obscure calculations, reducing human worth to an AI assessment.

Second is gamification.

Scores are tied to specific ranks that often reflect key incel language, such as “low-tier normie” or “chadlite”. Much like a video game, the apps promise users the ability to “ascend” to a higher rank.

Unlike passively reading incel ideology in a web forum, these apps allow users to directly engage with the ideology by having their own faces assessed.

The third mechanism is reframing.

A key part of the success of these apps is that they provide a “recipe for ascension” instead of the traditional stream of blackpill fatalism. This makes these apps attractive to young men struggling with confidence. It’s worth noting, however, that alongside ordinary celebrities looksmaxxing ads sometimes include AI-generated versions of rich, famous sex abusers such as Jeffrey Epstein and Sean Coombs (better known as Diddy).

However, besides the reframing, the underlying assumptions are still rooted within incel ideology: a person’s ascension potential is limited and dictated by biology.

To illustrate, we observed young boys posting their selfies in the comment section of app advertisments, asking for others to rate them. In exchange, they were sometimes asked to “ropemax” – an incel term for committing suicide – if deemed incapable of ascension.

Looksmaxxing apps as a potential funnel to violence

Beyond the reframing, the foundation of looksmaxxing in underlying violent incel ideology can become quite explicit.

In a recent TikTok interaction we documented, a looksmaxxing influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers responded via video format to a user comment. The user’s profile picture was a photo of Elliot Rodger, the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings, and a celebrated “saint” within the incel community. A subsequent comment pointing out this dark connection received more than 20,000 likes.

The particular danger at hand is that looksmaxxing apps, through the mainstreaming mechanisms described above, actively target vulnerable individuals struggling with self-confidence, drawing them into a harmful and potentially violent ideology.

Looksmaxxing apps might seem like an easy cash grab fuelled by young boys going through puberty. But as long as they remain openly accessible in app stores, using viral TikTok edits to reach a massive audience, they can function as a potential radicalisation pipeline into extremist incel worldviews.

Marten Risius receives funding through the Distinguished Professorship Program via the Bavarian Hightech Agenda from the Bavarian Ministry of Sciences and Arts. Marten was recipient of the Discovery of Early Career Researchers Award by the Australian Research Council.

Christopher David and Daline Ostermaier do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.