"There's more to life than being really, really, really ridiculously good looking." ---Derek Zoolander
So how far has the quality of writing at Atlantic magazine declined due to their TDS having become so overwhelming that they will stoop to any low in a pathetic attempt to smear those who support President Donald Trump? Well, the standards at that periodical have plunged so far that they are now even trying to link a fringe wacko group with MAGA. Very few people have ever heard of something called "Looksmaxxing" yet it is now being presented as a major movement of our era according to the latest smear campaign posing as an article on Monday by Thomas Chatterton Williams in "‘Looksmaxxing’ in the Age of Trump."
What exactly is "Looksmaxxing?" You probably don't want to know but for the morbidly curious, the first paragraph of the story provides a rather cringey answer of sorts:
The so-called looksmaxxing movement is narcissistic, cruel, racist, shot through with social Darwinism, and proudly anti-compassion. As the name suggests, looksmaxxers share a monomaniacal commitment to improving their physical appearance. They trade stories of breaking their legs in order to gain extra inches, “bonesmashing” their faces with hammers to heighten their cheekbones, injecting steroids and testosterone to inflate their muscles, and even smoking crystal meth to suppress their appetite. If you had to pick a single corner of the internet that best captures the vices of the Trump era, you couldn’t beat the looksmaxxers.
Although Williams implies that Looksmaxxing is somehow connected to Trump supporters, he admits that its "newest star" supports Gavin Newsom over JD Vance for president in 2028 not for any political reasons but simply because he thinks Newsom looks better:
Although many looksmaxxers support Donald Trump, they defy neat political classification. The community is simply too nihilistic. Its newest star, Braden Peters, made this clear during a recent podcast interview with the conservative commentator Michael Knowles, in which the two discussed a potential 2028 presidential contest between California Governor Gavin Newsom and Vice President J. D. Vance. Peters said he disagrees with Newsom’s politics, but would vote for the governor anyway because he’s more handsome—or, in the group’s parlance, he “mogs” Vance. The governor is a “Chad” and the vice president is “subhuman,” Peters explained to Knowles, who was gobsmacked.
And anybody who thinks this Braden Peters character is incredibly shallow, his beyond bizarre emphasis on looks has been echoed by another fringe character whom many in the media have also attempted to link to Trump supporters, namely Nick Fuentes. That self described "incel" who has openly admitted to having fantasies about raping men, is every bit as critical of Vance's looks as Peters:
The looksmaxxing movement—ideologically incoherent but rife with juvenile racism—echoes the ongoing Groyperization of the American right. This is particularly evident in the growing antagonism that certain factions express toward Vance. Fuentes, for example, sounded like a looksmaxxer himself when he criticized the vice president last year. “He’s visibly obese and very ugly. He’s got a fat face, no jawline, no chin,” Fuentes said, before shifting to a more familiar topic for him: “His wife and kids are not white!”
As Willams provides more stomach-churning details about Looksmaxxing, the readers will have to keep reminding themselves that this information is being published in the once vaunted Atlantic magazine which has now managed to turn itself into a laughingstock with writing such as this:
Looksmaxxing grew out of the online culture of “incels,” or involuntary celibates, a term that emerged in the 2010s. United by their resentment of women, incels tend to see attractiveness as a straightforward function of genetics—millimeters, symmetry, skin color—and therefore out of their control. Looksmaxxers hold a similarly superficial view of beauty as a kind of rigid mathematics with a single, knowable solution. But they believe that this makes it malleable: One can “ascend” to a higher plane of attractiveness with enough money, effort, and perhaps the willingness to dabble with crystal meth.
And remember, Williams really really wants you to believe that young Trump supporters are supposedly attracted to this level of sick. Please strive for at least a minimal amount of credibility in your future smear stories.
