Oct 7, 2026 · 1 hr 40 min · 14 segments
What’s going on with young men? In this episode, Dr. Kibby McMahon sits down with Connor to unpack the rise of looksmaxxing and what it might reveal about a much bigger problem: young men feeling…
Kibby McMahonHostYeah, it's, it's, um, you know, I was telling you right before we hit record, it's, it's interesting 'cause, like, you know, I'm, I'm relatively chronically online.
Uh, so I see a lot of these things pretty early, and, like, I was aware of a lot of the space in, like, '22 and '23.
It actually had a little...
It had a relative, like...
It actually had a social media growth s- like, this whole community had a, had a spike around '23 and '24.
It cooled off a little bit, and then it kinda, like, shot up to crazy mainstream.
I think a lot of the reason for that is before it was, like, uh, like looksmaxing edits or whatever would do well on TikTok, and there'd be a few creators who would k- And, like, it had some real volume under this curve of, like, how, how many people saw it.
But it was the combination of, uh, clip, because, like, really clipping culture, uh, really, uh, as, as a mechanism for distribution really started to pick up in '24.
I mean, people have been using clipping for a while.
I mean, going back to how did Andrew Tate appear in everyone's, uh, screens at the same time in '21? It was through clipping, but an in-house primitive version.
Then there's been more and more people using clipping, and then now it's like it's really productized, where you can go to companies.
You can say, "I have an X number of dollar budget, and I'm gonna pay you by views," and they have 100 clippers that will just clip up across accounts.
So, it's actually not easy, but it is relatively inexpensive to go viral.
Compare it, like-
Yeah, go ahead.
For, I'm, we're at the level of some people are like, "What is looksmaxing?" We see it on the news.
Yes.
Uh, so I, I, I don't claim to be, be an expert, but I've been, I've been around it enough.
Yeah, it's, it's, um, you know, I was telling you right before we hit record, it's, it's interesting 'cause, like, you know, I'm, I'm relatively chronically online.
Uh, so I see a lot of these things pretty early, and, like, I was aware of a lot of the space in, like, '22 and '23.
It actually had a little...
It had a relative, like...
It actually had a social media growth s- like, this whole community had a, had a spike around '23 and '24.
It cooled off a little bit, and then it kinda, like, shot up to crazy mainstream.
I think a lot of the reason for that is before it was, like, uh, like looksmaxing edits or whatever would do well on TikTok, and there'd be a few creators who would k- And, like, it had some real volume under this curve of, like, how, how many people saw it.
But it was the combination of, uh, clip, because, like, really clipping culture, uh, really, uh, as, as a mechanism for distribution really started to pick up in '24.
I mean, people have been using clipping for a while.
I mean, going back to how did Andrew Tate appear in everyone's, uh, screens at the same time in '21? It was through clipping, but an in-house primitive version.
Then there's been more and more people using clipping, and then now it's like it's really productized, where you can go to companies.
You can say, "I have an X number of dollar budget, and I'm gonna pay you by views," and they have 100 clippers that will just clip up across accounts.
So, it's actually not easy, but it is relatively inexpensive to go viral.
Compare it, like-
Yeah, go ahead.
For, I'm, we're at the level of some people are like, "What is looksmaxing?" We see it on the news.
Yes.
Uh, so I, I, I don't claim to be, be an expert, but I've been, I've been around it enough.
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