Mogged by the Algorithm

How Two Models Helped Incels Shape Their Beauty Standard

Everyone’s writing about looksmaxxing again. It’s the subject du jour across fashion and culture media, the buzzword in headlines, group chats, and chaotic TikTok comment sections. A term pulled straight from the steaming cesspool that is the manosphere, “looksmaxxing” is no longer just a niche Reddit obsession, it’s trending, all over For You Pages and Reels tabs.

And while the latest wave of thinkpieces breathlessly analyzes Adolescence, the hit Netflix show that depicts what happens when the internet radicalizes a generation of lonely, horny, furious young men, almost nobody’s talking about the part where two of the world’s most recognizable male models began actively leaning into the exact same rhetoric the show is trying to expose.

Let’s back up.

Looksmaxxing is, at its core, an ideology born from incel forums that preaches a brutal binary: you’re either genetically superior, or you’re a failure. If you’re hot, you win. If you’re not, you “cope.” It’s tied to mogging, a concept so deranged it could be an SNL skit, where one man “dominates” another simply by being more attractive. The term comes from AMOG (Alpha Male of the Group), and in these circles, life is a never-ending face-off of jawlines and bone structure.

It’s eugenics with better lighting. It’s Nazism with a skincare routine.

And now, it has influencers, and those influencers have Gods.

Enter: Jordan Barrett and Chico Lachowski. Two genetically gifted men who’ve become the unofficial poster boys of this aesthetic hellscape. For a while, it was subtle. TikTok edits. Twitter threads. Anonymous incel accounts obsessively ranking their eye-to-jaw ratios. But then something shifted. The edits weren’t just being made about them, the models started playing along. They began filming now viral videos with fans asking them if they want to be mogged. Comparing jawlines with them. Embracing it. Making it funny. Validating it.

Chico Lachowski & Jordan Barrett

This is where things get dangerous.

Because this is not harmless camp or self-aware satire. Barrett and Lachowski are two of the most visible faces of male beauty. Their choice to wink at this ideology, to openly lean into it, is like a fashion model in 2012 joining pro-ana Twitter threads to joke about their thigh gap. And yes that happened too. What a fucking time. But back then, we eventually realized it was sick. This time, people are clapping. Or worse sharing.

Jordan Barrett asking a fan if they want to be Mogged

And of course, none of this happens in a vacuum. Social media algorithms are designed to reward extremity, whatever keeps you scrolling, gasping, commenting. Looksmaxxing content performs insanely well because it taps into the primal: beauty, shame, aspiration, humiliation. The more deranged the comparison, the more viral the video. Clips of teens crying about their eye spacing or grown men teaching “canthal tilt” hacks are fed into an engagement loop that platforms don’t just tolerate, they optimize. Barrett and Lachowski didn’t just get noticed by the incel crowd, they were boosted by the algorithm itself, slotted into a conveyor belt of toxic content that rewards aesthetic obsession and punishes nuance.

The internet loves a spectacle. But the spectacle right now is an entire subculture built on rage and resentment being handed aesthetic legitimacy by two men who are already on top of the pyramid. And no, they didn’t invent looksmaxxing. But their participation is like pouring gasoline on a wildfire started by insecure 17-year-olds with a ring light and rage issues.

Chico compares jawlines with a

Meanwhile, in the real world: masculinity is in full crisis mode. You’ve got Andrew Tate (unfortunately) still getting millions of views and right-wing influencers hijacking self-help culture. Add in TikTok’s beauty filter apocalypse, and you’ve got the perfect storm for a culture that tells young men their only value lies in their face, their frame, and their ability to dominate. And if they can’t do that? Rage, spiral, and turn to the incel forums whispering that they’re not ugly, they’re oppressed.

It’s not surprising that Adolescence hit so hard. The show puts a spotlight on the epidemic of lonely boys radicalized by a mix of beauty obsession and the last thing we need is model out here reenacting the script for clout.

We all know fashion is already the devil when it comes to beauty standards. But this isn’t just harmful, it’s activating something. It’s like putting the discourse on The Substance. When models like Barrett and Lachowski, men who already benefit from every structural advantage, start joking about “mogging” people, it’s not ironic. It’s throwing meat to a starving crowd of disaffected, angry men looking for someone to worship and someone to blame.

And we haven’t even talked about what this means for everyone else. Every TikTok edit, every quote-tweeted video of someone being “mogged,” reinforces the idea that your worth is in your face. That if you’re not hot, you’re not human. This isn’t just about men. This is about a system where beauty equals power, and anyone outside the ideal gets flattened into irrelevance. It’s fascism, but make it FYP.

Methods of Looksmaxxing:

So, what exactly is looksmaxxing? It’s a system of deliberate, often extreme efforts to enhance one's physical appearance, primarily to increase social and romantic opportunities. In the incel world, this is framed as a moral duty to make oneself "better" for survival in a world that rewards beauty. Typical looksmaxxing methods involve anything from diet and exercise to more invasive procedures. For some, it includes body-building to achieve a lean, muscular physique that aligns with idealized versions of masculinity. Others might pursue facial surgeries, jawline augmentation, rhinoplasties, and even hair transplants to correct what they deem imperfections. Skincare routines, teeth whitening, and manicures also fall under this banner. On the extreme end of the spectrum users even recommend using hammers to break the bones in your face to change your facial structure. But it’s not just about the physical; it’s the obsession with the ideal, constantly chasing the unattainable.

A YouTube tutorial on bone smashing

This obsessive need to “improve” one's appearance stems from a toxic, feedback loop created by the internet's culture of superficiality and constant comparison. Looksmaxxing becomes not just a personal endeavor but a way to validate one’s worth in a society that rewards physical perfection. It’s a never-ending game of self-enhancement, where the goalposts keep moving one more procedure, one more hour at the gym, one more filter.

So no, Jordan and Chico didn’t invent mogging. But by participating in the spectacle and enjoying the spectacle they’re giving it a new level of cultural legitimacy. They’re not just poster boys for fashion anymore. They’re co-signing a worldview that’s violently reactionary one that sees hotness as a hierarchy and ugliness as moral failure.

What happens when the world’s most beautiful people validate the ugliest ideology online?