I’m no gambler, but if I was so inclined, I’d put a few quid on the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2026 ending in “-maxxing”. For the uninitiated, the “-maxxing” suffix has exploded online via the popularity of a discourse around “looksmaxxing”, a neologism describing a commitment to maximising physical attractiveness, especially within narrow aesthetic strictures. Looksmaxxing emerged as a subset of the “incel” (short for “involuntary celibate”) online subculture.

Given the glib approach many take to this dark manifestation of crisis masculinity, it has become popular to trade on this irony, affixing “-maxxing” to the end of pretty much anything. The pursuit of better sleep is now “sleepmaxxing”. My sister sent me footage of a key influencer describing how one might use aspects of the looksmaxxing toolkit to obscure one’s short stature in a romantic entanglement. He refers to lifting one’s heels beneath baggy trousers (and standing on books placed strategically on the bedside floor) as “tiptoemaxxing”.

Looksmaxxing in its radical form is unsettling, involving everything from “bone-smashing” (trying to remodel facial bones by inflicting microfractures with hammers) to weight management using crystal meth (methamphetamine). Given its origins in the incel discourse, looksmaxxing is a niche masculine manifestation of extreme beauty habits from the mainstream world of aesthetic plastic surgery.

Body modification of this kind is so widespread in celebrity culture that only extreme cases merit discussion. Clinical procedures are so common now as to constitute a normal medical subfield. And why not? People want to look better – or different, at least – and we have reasonably safe ways to achieve that. Surely, a liberal society should be at peace with people freely choosing to change their appearance in line with their preferences?

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I’ve been suffering some philosophical unrest over my reaction to some such faces recently. In three cases, I’ve found my negative response to what I regard as the vastly transformed faces of famous actresses morally perplexing. I’m not alone in noticing; there has been considerable discussion – much of it unkind – about the changed appearances of Millie Bobby Brown, Erin Moriarty and Nicole Kidman as they’ve reappeared in returns to new seasons of programming.

I admit I find it hard to keep watching. Part of this is practical; the invasive nature of many procedures has consequences for acting performance. Procedures that block forehead wrinkles and plump lips restrict normal affective expression. Equally, it is narratively odd when a character who looked so different in a previous season reappears looking so much changed with nobody seeming to notice. Ageing alters faces naturally, but the changes I’m describing would be hard to describe as consistent with normal ageing over a year.

Philosopher Luna Dolezal discussed philosophical aspects of these trends before plastic surgery became as mainstream as it currently is. She explains how “the judgmental gaze where the body’s appearance is being scrutinised and evaluated” (as is heightened with celebrities) produces behaviour where people seek to bend their appearances to fit societal norms.

Dolezal describes “social dys-appearance”, a state where, instead of blending seamlessly into our experience, our bodies come to dominate our attention via the objectifying gaze of others. People then “seek to behave within socially acceptable parameters and, in addition, to ensure that the body’s physical aspect conforms to socially acceptable norms”. They engage in what Michel Foucault called “self-monitoring”, and then they change themselves.

[ We are in the age of ‘looksmaxxing’: Consider the glass floor truly smashedOpens in new window ]

Most actors deny having surgery and ditto for those who’ve experienced significant weight loss in the semaglutide (aka Ozempic) era. This culture of radically changing celebrity faces amid widespread denials of interventions can produces something of an uncanny response – radical difference is presented to us as consistent in a way that contradicts our experience.

As a feminist, I want individuals to be able to exercise bodily autonomy and make changes they feel they will improve their self-confidence and perhaps quality of life.

[ Why are young men embracing damaging beauty ideals?Opens in new window ]

In the Ozempic case, I’m acutely aware that, for many people, these drugs represent one (perhaps decisive) stage in a battle over weight-management that may have been a lifelong arc of struggle. At the same time, the social and political forces that explain the popularity of these drugs and procedures are nefarious, and anything but conducive to human flourishing.

This discussion has historically been focused on women, but it’s interesting to see that certain “incel” anxieties about “passing on genetic material” have pushed some young men’s engagement with their bodies into fraught new terrain. What used to be the preserve of women and others with marginalised social identities has found a new presentation as a marketed solution to a group of young straight men panicking about their hereditary legacies.

Dr Clare Moriarty is a Research Ireland Enterprise Fellow, working at University College Dublin and the National Library of Ireland

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