‘Looksmaxxing’ among Asian American men

In September 2025, the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC) released a study with a shocking finding: one in five Asian American men between 18 and 45 are knowingly engaging with manosphere content on the Internet. Of those who aren’t actively engaging with it, 35 percent encounter it on their feeds several times a week, even when they're not looking for it. 

The “alt-right pipeline” is a phenomenon in which young men, generally those who are isolated or lonely, are fed information online that gradually goes from mainstream content into far-right extremism through a snowballing effect. It starts with a video about fitness or dating, and suddenly, the social media algorithm serves them something a little angrier and more extreme. With a few diversions, the content becomes about who’s to blame for a man being involuntarily celibate (shortened to “incel” in online spaces) and these men become more certain that the problem is the women who won't date them, aligning them with alternative-right and extremely misogynist views. A 2021 report from the Cyprus University of Technology found that YouTube's algorithm could route a user from neutral content to incel-adjacent videos within five clicks.

The manosphere is a key stop down the alt-right pipeline. It is a network of online communities, influencers, and content creators who bury themselves within subreddits, on TikTok, and in Discord servers. The content generally frames men's struggles with loneliness, class status, and dating as the result of modern-day feminism gone too far. The proposed fix tends to involve toxic masculinity and dominance, practicing rigid gender roles in relationships, and an instilled sense of suspicion towards all women. What began as a small Internet subculture ultimately has, according to the NAKASEC data, become a mainstream media diet for a growing number of young Asian American men—many of whom just happened to stumble upon it.

The manosphere inserts itself perfectly into an already existing deep wound for Asian American men, making them the perfect prey. According to the NAKASEC study, 67 percent of young Asian men grew up in households where expressing their emotions was discouraged, and 71.7 percent felt pressured to "be a man" or "act tough," enforcing the roots of toxic masculinity. Hollywood portrayals of Asian men have historically fed into the emasculation of the community with male characters of Asian descent generally playing into stereotypes such as the asexual nerd or being the butt of the joke. And even though some men have found a home within the Internet subculture that they believe accepts them and truly wants to help them, it has specific vocabulary that separates the Asian men from the others. The terms "ricecel" and “currycel” are used to describe East and Southeast Asian men, and South Asian men, respectively, who attribute their romantic struggles to their race. These communities still organize around a racial hierarchy that places white men at the top and Asian men at the bottom.

One of the manosphere's more effective entry points right now is looksmaxxing, which is exactly what it sounds like—maximizing your looks to become more desirable to women and achieve more success in the world. This builds on that same idea that feminism is at the root of men’s  problems. It reduces dating and relationships to a transactional hierarchy in which physical traits are ranked and arbitrary values are assigned to reflect what incels believe to be a “sexual market value,” based on genetics and attractiveness. A recent study found that TikTok users promoting this worldview have been deliberately packaging their ideology within the looksmaxxing bucket to avoid moderation. Skin care tips and jawline exercises don't get flagged the way misogynistic rhetoric does, even if the underlying worldview is the same.

The face of the looksmaxxing trend is a 20-year-old American influencer and fiercely proud member of the manosphere who goes by the name Clavicular. In a November 2025 livestream, he told his 800,000 followers that he believes that “bone smashing is amazing.” Bonesmashing is when you hit your own jaw and cheekbones with a blunt object—whether it be a fist, a hammer, or something stronger—to intentionally break it. The result, in theory, is that the trauma will cause bone to heal into a sharper, more chiseled shape. Clavicular didn't invent this idea, but he has become its most visible and potent evangelist, turning it into a trend among men in his community. For Asian American men in these spaces, this carries an added dimension. The features under discussion and blamed for sexual inadequacy and genetic inferiority—monolid eyes, flatter nose bridges, and softer jaw angles—are specifically Asian features. The forums have a term for the goal of what Asian men should aim for:  “whitemaxxing,” which encourages invasive procedures or surgery to get as close as possible to Eurocentric beauty standards.

“Asian American men are not immune to the manosphere,” NAKASEC communications director Rachel Koelzer says. “In fact, they are being actively targeted in ways that exploit racialized masculinity, social isolation, and personal challenges.” The targeting works because the pain driving it is real and has been ongoing for generations. The desexualization of Asian men by American culture is well-documented and continues well into our current reality. What the manosphere and the looksmaxxing community share is the beneficiary: the young Asian American man who has been told, in ways that are both subtle and direct, that something about him needs to be fixed to be desirable and successful.