For decades, India’s conversation about beauty standards has centred on women — skin-lightening creams, the relentless pressure to be slim, and more. The cultural fixation on female appearance has fuelled entire industries. It is a legitimate and important conversation we have been having for a long time. But there is another one we have been largely avoiding: the one about what is happening to Indian men. Because of the unbelievable speed of a social media trend, a new beauty trend called looksmaxxing has arrived at India’s doorstep, and this time, it has come for the men.

The new currency of attraction has arrived

Ask any young man navigating the modern Indian dating scene, and he will tell you something that his father would find baffling: clothes, accessories, and even wealth no longer do the heavy lifting they once did. What matters now, after emotional compatibility, is how well you maintain yourself — a sharp jawline, chiselled physique, high cheekbones, hunter eyes, or basically a good bone structure. Indian women, particularly in urban areas, have become more selective about the physical attributes of their partners. This is driven by a combination of factors: expanded economic independence, access to global standards of attraction through social media, and the simple fact that in a world where dating apps require a photograph as the first impression, appearance has become the price of admission. The result is a fiercely competitive landscape for Indian men that few people are openly discussing.

Bollywood set the stage, but the algorithm lit the fire

Indian men have always had some version of masculine beauty standards to contend with. Bollywood, with its chiselled heroes and their impossible physiques, has long projected an idealised version of masculinity onto screens. Hrithik Roshan, the “Greek God of Bollywood”, set a benchmark for what a desirable Indian man was supposed to look like. His sharp features and a killer jawline are desirable but also unattainable.

But Bollywood, for all its influence, was limited. They are stars on the screen; they are bound to look a certain way. The real change came with the algorithms. Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts have done what Bollywood couldn’t. These platforms don’t show us out of reach celebs, but real ordinary men, who look like you, went to school where you did, live in cities you recognise, who have transformed themselves. Before and after transformation videos rack up millions of views. “Glow-up” content is everywhere. And the message embedded in every frame is identical: your current face is a problem, and here is how to fix it. This is the ecosystem that gave birth to looksmaxxing in India.

What is India’s looksmaxxing trend?

 

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Looksmaxxing refers to the systematic, often obsessive pursuit of maximising one’s physical attractiveness. At its most benign, looksmaxxing is simply self-improvement: better skincare, improved posture, a gym routine, a more flattering haircut. These are the practices of “softmaxxing,” and there is almost nothing to object to here. But looksmaxxing has a far darker edge, known as “hardmaxxing,” and it is here that things begin to unravel. This end of the spectrum involves Botox, fillers, thread lifts, and surgery. It also includes practices like mewing and whitemaxxing, the repositioning of the tongue to restructure the jaw over time. But the most alarming of it all is bone smashing. It’s the practice of repeatedly striking one’s own jaw or cheekbones with a hard object, based on the pseudoscientific belief that trauma stimulates bone remodelling and produces a more angular face. 

However, doctors have warned that bone smashing causes nothing more than bruising, nerve damage, and potentially permanent disfigurement. As reported by Deccan Chronicle, doctors are reporting a sharp rise of nearly 30-40 per cent in young men seeking aesthetic procedures driven by the looksmaxxing trend and social media pressure, with jawline sculpting, hair transplants, beard transplants, and skin treatments like Botox and chemical peels becoming increasingly common. One New York plastic surgeon reported a 400 per cent increase in 20-something men seeking jawline treatments since 2020. India is following the same trajectory. 

How the algorithm radicalises young men

Looksmaxxing as a trend might not be harmful, but the radicalisation caused by social media is. A young Indian man, perhaps insecure about his appearance after a rejection on a dating app, watches a video about improving his jawline. The algorithm notes his engagement. It serves up another video, then another. Within days, his feed has been colonised by content that grades human faces using pseudoscientific frameworks, rates men on 10 point scales, and presents a worldview in which your physical features are the primary determinant of your worth.

Researcher Jamilla Rosdahl of Applied Psychology has noted that algorithms can effectively radicalise young men through this process, writing that “where young people feel like they can’t control their environment, they may turn to trends such as looksmaxxing as something they can control.” For many young Indian men, navigating unemployment anxiety and a brutally competitive dating market, looksmaxxing offers the seductive promise of control. You cannot change the job market. But you can, apparently, change your face.

The consequences of extreme looksmaxxing

 

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In February 2024, 28-year-old Laxmi Narayana Vinjam, a businessman from Hyderabad, died during a smile enhancement surgery just weeks before his wedding. Vinjam had reportedly not told his family he was planning the procedure. But the broader consequences of extreme looksmaxxing extend well beyond the operating table. 

Looksmaxxing has been directly linked to body dysmorphia, disordered eating among teenage boys, and the use of unregulated SARMs (Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators), which have the same effects as testosterone. But the worst part is that these SARMs are still being tested and aren’t approved yet. So, these young men are purchasing them off grey-market online platforms. 

Boys as young as 14 are watching content that tells them their faces are inadequate. Young men in their twenties are spending all their money at unlicensed clinics. The desire to present one’s best self is human and legitimate, but there is a world of difference between self-improvement and self-destruction. And looksmaxxing, when taken to an extreme, is self-destruction. 

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