Facts

Contact person:
Aurelien Daudi
Financer:
  • Centrum för idrottsforskning
Responsible at MaU:
Aurelien Daudi
Time frame:
01 April 2026 - 31 March 2027
Faculty/department:
Research subject:

About the project

The project investigates the phenomenon of "looksmaxxing", a growing trend in which young men seek to maximise their physical appearance through exercise, lifestyle changes, and sometimes more extreme methods, such as bone smashing. The term has spread through social media and is associated both with neutral self-improvement practices and with ideological, at times misogynistic, online communities. The project maps the digital origins of looksmaxxing, examines the participation of young Swedish men in the phenomenon, and analyses the tension between its links to ideologically extreme environments and its non-ideological health, fitness, and self-improvement practices.