Do You Even Maxx, Bro?
January 06, 2025 at 11:21PMGreat news: Restrictive beauty standards that take inordinate amounts of time and effort to achieve via questionably safe means are no longer just for women. Young men are also joining the club. If you’re wondering whether these trends were birthed by the incel community before being spread on TikTok, 10 points for you. And if you’re Gen X or older, get ready to learn a slew of new slang in Mickey Rapkin’s dive into the new attractiveness standards for young men.
And his jaw really is something—an exaggerated right angle that looks like it was drawn by a caricaturist. But he became an incel poster boy by putting the power back in the public’s hands. If you’re reading this—or watching one of his popular YouTube videos, which regularly reach millions of viewers—it’s probably too late for you to try orthotropics. But Mike Mew promises that you too can have his jawline with a little practice. All you have to do is press your tongue against the roof of your mouth for hours a day.
The chronically online have dubbed his technique mewing, and that hashtag has been viewed more 2 billion times on TikTok. As seen in the documentary Open Wide, Kim Kardashian has tried mewing. Apparently, mewing was pitched so many times in the writers’ room of the FX series English Teacher that the showrunner was forced to put it on a list of banned words, alongside overused slang like skibidi.
When asked about mewing, a representative for the American Association of Orthodontists sent me a lengthy statement that included this burn: “The scientific support for mewing’s jawline-sculpting claims is as thin as dental floss.” And “these trends, popularized on social media, raise significant concerns about their safety and efficacy.” It’s worth noting that John Mew lost his medical license in 2017 after being found guilty of making unsupported claims. Mike Mew, meanwhile, has been involved in his own litigation and was nearly forced to close his London practice after his initial insurance company dropped him. One of the first things he tells me is that he and his wife are living in a home paid for by their church.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/01/06/do-you-even-maxx-bro/
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