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DEEP DIVE The Complicated and Sordid History of Looksmaxxing (It’s Not What You Think) · The Matt Walsh Show

0:00
Speaker 1: It wasn't too long ago that doctors made an alarming finding.
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Speaker 1: Colon cancer among young adults is surging. In fact, since 1994,
0:07
Speaker 1: colon cancer has become 50% more common. And you've almost
0:11
Speaker 1: certainly heard this data by now. It's been covered by
0:13
Speaker 1: every major media organization. It's all over social media. Everyone
0:17
Speaker 1: has a theory as to why it's happening, from diet
0:20
Speaker 1: to environmental factors to the COVID shot or all the above.
0:23
Speaker 1: We all recognize that it's important to figure out what's
0:25
Speaker 1: going on here because it's having a catastrophic effect on
0:28
Speaker 1: many young lives, obviously. And by the same token, there's
0:31
Speaker 1: been a lot of discussion about the massive increase in
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Speaker 1: the number of young adults who have been diagnosed with
0:35
Speaker 1: depression and ADHD and autism and a host of other
0:38
Speaker 1: alleged mental disorders. There's been a debate, which we're now winning,
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Speaker 1: about whether it's a great idea to administer psychoactive drugs
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Speaker 1: to treat any child who supposedly presents with one of
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Speaker 1: these disorders. Answer, it's not a great idea. It's a
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Speaker 1: horrifically awful idea, as it turns out. But There's one
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Speaker 1: trend in the medical field that's just as stark, and
0:59
Speaker 1: yet it's not discussed very often by anyone. I'm talking
1:02
Speaker 1: about a trend that's clearly relevant to the future of
1:05
Speaker 1: civilization and our ability to propagate the species, which is
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Speaker 1: that men are seeking out cosmetic procedures, plastic surgery, to
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Speaker 1: a degree that would have been unheard of and inconceivable
1:18
Speaker 1: just a decade ago. Women are also going under the
1:21
Speaker 1: knife for plastic surgery at unprecedented levels, and this is
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Speaker 1: a surge that cuts across both sexes, no pun intended,
1:28
Speaker 1: but the massive uptick in plastic surgery for young men
1:32
Speaker 1: is especially interesting and especially troubling. According to the American
1:36
Speaker 1: Society of Plastic Surgeons, from 2019 to 2022, the total
1:39
Speaker 1: number of cosmetic procedures performed on men increased by more
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Speaker 1: than 200%. Procedures that are characterized as minimally invasive increased
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Speaker 1: by more than 250%. In total, more than 1.3 million
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Speaker 1: cosmetic procedures of some kind are now performed on men
1:58
Speaker 1: every single year. This includes ab implants, liposuctions, nose jobs, facelifts,
2:05
Speaker 1: and so on. So if you combine the populations of
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Speaker 1: San Francisco and Miami, you wouldn't have the number of
2:12
Speaker 1: men who are getting cosmetic surgery every year. Just to
2:16
Speaker 1: put things in perspective. Now, the biggest increase in this
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Speaker 1: period was for cheek implants, where demand among men increased
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Speaker 1: by 80% in this period. Then there's dermal fillers, which
2:28
Speaker 1: are gel-like medical substances injected beneath the skin to restore
2:31
Speaker 1: lost volume and smooth wrinkles. Demand for these fillers increased
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Speaker 1: by 70% among men from 2019 to 2022. Meanwhile, Botox
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Speaker 1: injections went up by 65%. They're up 400% overall since 2000.
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Speaker 1: Demand for sclerotherapy, which is used to treat varicose veins
2:50
Speaker 1: and spider veins, increased by 54% among men. Chin augmentations
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Speaker 1: went up by 32%. Lower body lifts by 61%. And
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Speaker 1: what's more, in addition to liposuction, which remains the single
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Speaker 1: most popular male cosmetic surgery, men are now increasingly seeking
3:07
Speaker 1: out male breast reduction surgery. In fact, some medical practices
3:11
Speaker 1: report that demand for male breast reduction surgery has increased
3:14
Speaker 1: by more than 35% in recent years. Now, in fairness,
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Speaker 1: some of these procedures are treating actual medical conditions. Most
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Speaker 1: men who get breast reduction are suffering from gynecomastia, which
3:27
Speaker 1: is an enlargement in breast tissue in men. Now, frankly,
3:30
Speaker 1: if I had that condition, I'd probably get the surgery too.
3:34
Speaker 1: So the fact that there's an increase in those surgeries
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Speaker 1: tells us probably there's an increase in that condition, which
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Speaker 1: tells us something about hormones and other things that are
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Speaker 1: going on with men which is also important. And then
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Speaker 1: there are other procedures which might be called cosmetic that
3:49
Speaker 1: are meant to address medical conditions. I wouldn't put those
3:52
Speaker 1: in the same category as something like cheek implants or
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Speaker 1: a nose job. Now, the most concerning part of the
4:00
Speaker 1: story is that this is a generational shift. Young people
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Speaker 1: are driving it. Gen Z, people who are 29 years
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Speaker 1: old and younger, account for 37% of rhinoplasties, which are
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Speaker 1: nose jobs, They account for 25% of all cheek implants.
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Speaker 1: This is a demographic that overall only accounts for around
4:20
Speaker 1: 6% of all cosmetic surgery. So young people are more
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Speaker 1: preoccupied with their appearance, particularly the appearance of their face,
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Speaker 1: to the point that they're undergoing surgery to correct the problem. Many,
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Speaker 1: many more young people are considering surgery as well. A
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Speaker 1: survey by the American Academy of Facial, Plastic, and Reconstructive
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Speaker 1: Surgery found that millennials account for 58% of men who
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Speaker 1: are interested in getting a cosmetic procedure, while Gen Z
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Speaker 1: accounts for 35%. Now, to the extent that men were
4:51
Speaker 1: ever interested in these procedures in the past, at least
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Speaker 1: in modern history, it was overwhelmingly because of older people
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Speaker 1: who were unhappy with how they were aging. Older people
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Speaker 1: tend to have the money to afford these surgeries, They're
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Speaker 1: also aging. Their looks are changing. So the whole industry
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Speaker 1: was marketed towards them for many years. But now we
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Speaker 1: have a scenario where the demand curve has suddenly flipped.
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Speaker 1: Young people are increasingly insecure about their own appearance, and
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Speaker 1: they're willing to stretch their budgets to do something about it. Now,
5:22
Speaker 1: if you ask the American Society for Plastic Surgeons, they'll
5:25
Speaker 1: tell you that the new demand for plastic surgery is
5:28
Speaker 1: closely related to the fact that young people aren't starting
5:31
Speaker 1: families anymore. which is actually close to a real explanation, although,
5:35
Speaker 1: of course, they try to put a positive spin on it. Quote,
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Speaker 1: a new analysis of data by Pew Research Center that
5:40
Speaker 1: shows millennials are taking a different path in forming or
5:42
Speaker 1: not forming families compared to their counterparts, Gen X. The
5:46
Speaker 1: analysis concludes that millennials trail previous generations the same age.
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Speaker 1: I think a lot of these unique elements to this generation,
5:52
Speaker 1: coupled with the exposure to the Internet and the various
5:55
Speaker 1: facets of social media, will create this whole new generation
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Speaker 1: of plastic surgery patients, said Dr. Ryan Neinstein. With the
6:03
Speaker 1: waiting for families that is a regular occurrence amongst these
6:06
Speaker 1: ages 27 to 42 comes an increase in education and
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Speaker 1: therefore a higher income. According to Ashley Amalfi, the affluence
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Speaker 1: that this younger generation has allows them to feel like
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Speaker 1: I can afford to do this and I want to
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Speaker 1: do this for myself. And they're taking that back and
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Speaker 1: doing what it is that they need to do to
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Speaker 1: feel well about themselves rather than waiting around until after
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Speaker 1: they have kids like previous generations. Now, somewhere in that
6:31
Speaker 1: statement is an acknowledgement of the fact that when young
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Speaker 1: people get married and start families, demand for cosmetic surgery
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Speaker 1: tends to plummet among young people in particular. And indeed,
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Speaker 1: even if you only look at this from a practical perspective,
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Speaker 1: there's not a lot of time in your life to
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Speaker 1: be vain about your appearance and to wallow in your
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Speaker 1: own narcissism when you're trying to raise kids. There's not
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Speaker 1: a lot of time for it, even if you want to.
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Speaker 1: And yes, even if you're solely looking at the finances,
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Speaker 1: it wouldn't make a lot of sense. You'd have to
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Speaker 1: be a criminally negligent father to spend $ 10, 000 on a
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Speaker 1: nose job for yourself instead of saving for the future
7:07
Speaker 1: of your own children. But really, they have the causation
7:11
Speaker 1: backwards here. It's not the fact that young people, when
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Speaker 1: they have no kids, suddenly want to spend money on
7:17
Speaker 1: themselves in a narcissistic, self-absorbed manner. As an explanation, that
7:21
Speaker 1: doesn't really make sense. The actual issue is that when
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Speaker 1: young people become more narcissistic and self-absorbed, as well as
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Speaker 1: more socially isolated, they're much less likely to start families
7:32
Speaker 1: in the first place. So how exactly did that happen?
7:37
Speaker 1: What caused this transformation? Well, to answer that question, we
7:41
Speaker 1: have to talk about a 20-year-old internet personality by the
7:44
Speaker 1: name of Braden Eric Peters, who's better known by his
7:48
Speaker 1: stage name of Clavicular. Now, if you have not heard
7:51
Speaker 1: of Clavicular, I can guarantee that your children have. He's
7:55
Speaker 1: pretty hard to miss if you spend any amount of
7:56
Speaker 1: time online. Clavicular shot to fame out of nowhere. He
8:01
Speaker 1: was a complete unknown as recently as like nine months ago.
8:05
Speaker 1: But then in late December of 2025, right around Christmas Eve,
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Speaker 1: millions of people were talking about him. And the reason
8:11
Speaker 1: is that he ran somebody over with a Cybertruck, or
8:15
Speaker 1: at least that was the story. And it was all
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Speaker 1: caught on video. Clavicular was being harassed by some other
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Speaker 1: social media character. who jumped on his truck and clavicular,
8:25
Speaker 1: as the narrative goes, calmly hit the accelerator and mowed
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Speaker 1: him down. Watch.
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Speaker 2: Oh my God.
8:33
Speaker 3: Oh my God.
8:37
Speaker 2: Oh my God.
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Speaker 1: Is he dead?
9:00
Speaker 3: I don't know.
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Speaker 1: Hopefully. Now, pretty much everyone took this particular stunt at
9:08
Speaker 1: face value for some reason. Nobody asked why the police
9:11
Speaker 1: didn't file charges or why we never actually see what
9:15
Speaker 1: happens to the guy he hit. Instead, he gained a
9:18
Speaker 1: legion of new fans, none of whom wondered whether they
9:20
Speaker 1: were being played by a guy who, until five minutes ago,
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Speaker 1: they had never heard of. And conveniently enough, the video
9:26
Speaker 1: was uploaded at the end of December, well outside of
9:29
Speaker 1: any major news cycle. It's a very striking example of
9:32
Speaker 1: how easily people can be manipulated online and how social
9:36
Speaker 1: media stars are just generated out of thin air, out
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Speaker 1: of nothing. Really, the PR operation, whoever was behind it,
9:44
Speaker 1: could not have been more effective. And virtually overnight, Clavicular
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Speaker 1: was famous. But more importantly, his whole philosophy, the idea
9:53
Speaker 1: of looks maxing, which generally means that you should go
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Speaker 1: to extreme or unusual lengths to optimize your physical appearance.
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Speaker 1: that also went mainstream. So here's how the BBC elaborates
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Speaker 1: on the meaning of looks maxing. Quote, looks maxing claims
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Speaker 1: to be about the maximization of one's appearance. The aim
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Speaker 1: of looks maxing is becoming the most attractive one can
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Speaker 1: possibly look. According to a set of prescribed criteria with
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Speaker 1: particular importance given to jawlines, eyes, and physique, including hunter
10:21
Speaker 1: eyes angled slightly upward toward the temple, a positive canthal tilt.
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Speaker 1: The trend has existed for at least a decade, but
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Speaker 1: has recently been popularized and redefined on TikTok, where it's
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Speaker 1: reaching a widening demographic of teenage boys algorithmically predisposed to
10:35
Speaker 1: the manosphere subculture. Looks Maxing attaches scores to aspects of
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Speaker 1: male appearance, focusing particularly on jawline, muscularity, and skin. Now,
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Speaker 1: by itself, when it's defined like that, it's not hard
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Speaker 1: to understand how looks maxing would be popular in some circles.
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Speaker 1: It's a little over the top of the score system. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but there's no question that society would be improved to
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Speaker 1: a significant degree if more people put some basic effort
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Speaker 1: into their physical appearance. You know, when you go to
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Speaker 1: the airport or grocery store or some other public place
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Speaker 1: and everybody's wearing sweatpants and smells like marijuana, It's obviously
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Speaker 1: a demoralizing and tedious experience. So it's natural and appropriate
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Speaker 1: to want to be around people who haven't visibly given
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Speaker 1: up on themselves. Your physical appearance does matter. We're not
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Speaker 1: going to say it doesn't matter. And not just when
11:27
Speaker 1: you're single either, but when you're married too. It's not
11:30
Speaker 1: really fair to your spouse to lock them down and
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Speaker 1: then immediately devolve into a fat, greasy slob. The problem
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Speaker 1: is that, as the name implies, looks maxing is more
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Speaker 1: about a relentless, obsessive fixation with your physical appearance and
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Speaker 1: the appearance of others. It's an ongoing sense of profound
11:47
Speaker 1: discomfort with things that are completely normal, reminiscent of what
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Speaker 1: the DSM calls dysphoria. And it leads to all kinds
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Speaker 1: of unnecessary procedures like the ones that Clavicular has undergone.
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Speaker 1: So here's just one side-by-side of the transformation he's been
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Speaker 1: advertising on social media after multiple cosmetic surgeries. Obviously, there
12:07
Speaker 1: was nothing that needed to be corrected before. He probably
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Speaker 1: looked better before, if we're being honest. His nose was
12:13
Speaker 1: arguably straighter. When people do this to their face, they
12:17
Speaker 1: start to look uncanny, which is why almost everybody looks
12:22
Speaker 1: better before they start doing this. You look uncanny. You
12:25
Speaker 1: look unnatural. There's something about it that isn't human. It
12:28
Speaker 1: isn't quite right. But the point is that with this mindset...
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Speaker 1: He's obviously never going to be satisfied with his appearance,
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Speaker 1: no matter how many surgeries he has. That's not ever
12:39
Speaker 1: going to happen. And he's not just doing surgeries, by
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Speaker 1: the way. He's also popularizing bone smashing, which is defined as, quote,
12:46
Speaker 1: hitting facial or collarbone areas with a small hammer or
12:49
Speaker 1: hard object in a misguided attempt to trigger bone growth
12:53
Speaker 1: through micro fractures. Now, as with anything else concerning this guy,
12:57
Speaker 1: there's always the possibility that this is fake. Is he
13:00
Speaker 1: really sitting around when he's not on camera smashing himself
13:03
Speaker 1: in the face with a hammer? Who knows? You know,
13:06
Speaker 1: his rise to fame was completely contrived. Most everything about
13:10
Speaker 1: him is contrived. Even his face is now contrived. So
13:12
Speaker 1: there's no reason to take anything he does or says
13:15
Speaker 1: or claims to do at face value. But if he
13:18
Speaker 1: is doing this retarded bone smashing thing, then again, he's
13:21
Speaker 1: inflicting irreversible damage on his body in service of a delusion.
13:25
Speaker 1: And he's doing it with the support of a movement
13:27
Speaker 1: that's affirming those delusions every step of the way. Now,
13:31
Speaker 1: if that sounds strikingly familiar, it's because this is a
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Speaker 1: preoccupation that in many ways echoes the behavior of many
13:38
Speaker 1: people who identify as transgender. There are entire online communities
13:42
Speaker 1: in which trans-identified people talk about undergoing various surgeries and operations,
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Speaker 1: constantly affirming one another, even as they cause very obvious,
13:51
Speaker 1: irreversible damage to their bodies. Now, in response to Clavicular
13:56
Speaker 1: in particular, the commentator using the name raw egg nationalist
13:59
Speaker 1: offered this theory as to what's going on. And I
14:03
Speaker 1: think this is interesting. Quote, one of my firm beliefs
14:06
Speaker 1: is that the spread of the front facing camera designed
14:08
Speaker 1: in Asia to flatter Asian facial features is responsible for
14:12
Speaker 1: the massive wave of disastrous facial treatments being undertaken by
14:15
Speaker 1: women and increasingly men in the West. We're seeing a
14:18
Speaker 1: kind of mass psychosis. a fracturing of the self caused
14:22
Speaker 1: by a camera device that by design distorts the facial
14:25
Speaker 1: features of European people. There's a lot of truth to that,
14:30
Speaker 1: and you'll find various names for this phenomenon in research papers,
14:34
Speaker 1: selfie dysmorphia, Snapchat dysmorphia, Zoom dysmorphia, and so on. There's
14:39
Speaker 1: no question that with the rise of smartphones and now
14:42
Speaker 1: AI filters combined with front-facing cameras and social media platforms,
14:48
Speaker 1: Young people are seeing close-up shots of their faces and
14:52
Speaker 1: the faces of other people more often than ever. And
14:57
Speaker 1: the problem clearly predates smartphones and AI. I mean, I
15:01
Speaker 1: often think about the fact that most humans through history
15:05
Speaker 1: grew up and lived their lives hardly ever seeing what
15:09
Speaker 1: they looked like. They would have gone days, weeks, months, years,
15:14
Speaker 1: and never seen themselves. Glass mirrors didn't become popular household
15:19
Speaker 1: items until the late 19th century. And now with lives
15:23
Speaker 1: dominated by screens, we see ourselves constantly. We are spectators
15:29
Speaker 1: of our own selves in a way that would have
15:31
Speaker 1: been impossible and impossible to comprehend for most humans through history.
15:38
Speaker 1: This constant minute by minute, physical, not to mention emotional, mental,
15:44
Speaker 1: with all the therapeutic nonsense, self-analysis is, I think, driving
15:50
Speaker 1: people insane. Spending every day scrutinizing what they look like
15:55
Speaker 1: and also scrutinizing how they feel and what they're thinking,
15:58
Speaker 1: just this constant, the gaze constantly flipped around and focused
16:05
Speaker 1: back on the self in a way that, that again,
16:08
Speaker 1: would have been totally alien to our ancestors. There's something
16:14
Speaker 1: very unnatural and unhuman about it. Humans are not capable
16:19
Speaker 1: of coping with this level of self-scrutiny. That's why looks
16:24
Speaker 1: maxing is rooted in a very deep sense of insecurity
16:27
Speaker 1: and inner frustration, which is related to the fact that,
16:30
Speaker 1: you know, Clavicular is known for taking hard drugs, sometimes
16:33
Speaker 1: on camera. But if you watch corporate media outlets, they'll
16:36
Speaker 1: criticize Clavicular from a different angle. In fact, they'll miss
16:40
Speaker 1: the point entirely, as they so often do. Instead of
16:43
Speaker 1: addressing looks maxing on its own terms, these outlets will
16:47
Speaker 1: try to smear Clavicular by association. They'll make political attacks
16:50
Speaker 1: without admitting it. And that's what happened in his viral
16:54
Speaker 1: 60 Minutes interview. Rather, it's a 60 Minutes Australia interview,
16:59
Speaker 1: for example. Watch.
17:00
Speaker 3: He was born out of the incel community and movement.
17:07
Speaker 3: Do you identify with that group? How do you feel
17:10
Speaker 3: about being linked to that group of people?
17:15
Speaker 4: Do I identify as an incel? I mean, how could
17:20
Speaker 4: you ask me that question as a follow-up after you
17:23
Speaker 4: asked me about my relationships to women? I mean, that's
17:27
Speaker 4: quite literally the worst sequence of questions I think I've
17:31
Speaker 4: ever heard.
17:32
Speaker 3: Let me rephrase it then. looks maxing was obviously a
17:36
Speaker 3: term created by the incel community how do you feel
17:39
Speaker 3: about being linked to that group.
17:44
Speaker 4: I'm not linked to that group in any way looks
17:46
Speaker 4: maxing is self-improvement right so it's about uh potentially even
17:52
Speaker 4: ascending out of that category so that's that would be
17:55
Speaker 4: kind of one of the goals is to disassociate from
17:59
Speaker 4: being an incel and overcome that so that doesn't make sense.
18:05
Speaker 3: You've obviously shared company with Andrew Tate and other, dare
18:09
Speaker 3: I say, rather controversial figures. Why do you spend time
18:16
Speaker 3: with people like that?
18:18
Speaker 4: Are you trying to... I see you want to make
18:21
Speaker 4: this political.
18:23
Speaker 1: Not at all. Not at all.
18:24
Speaker 3: I'm just curious.
18:25
Speaker 4: That's what you want to do.
18:26
Speaker 3: No, no.
18:28
Speaker 4: Don't try to go down that line of questioning with me,
18:31
Speaker 4: all right? Because I'm not doing any political.
18:35
Speaker 3: I'm not married, but I was simply only asking because
18:39
Speaker 3: obviously you've been filming with these people.
18:42
Speaker 4: So I could teach you about looks, Max, and then
18:44
Speaker 4: maybe you could switch that up. But thanks for the time.
18:47
Speaker 3: Appreciate the interview.
18:49
Speaker 4: All right.
18:55
Speaker 2: Thank you, guys.
19:04
Speaker 1: So talk about an interview where you just want everybody
19:07
Speaker 1: involved to be banished from the earth and deported to Jupiter.
19:10
Speaker 1: There are just no winners, nobody to root for. Very bleak,
19:15
Speaker 1: extraordinarily bleak content there. And it overlooks something important, which
19:21
Speaker 1: is that if you go back far enough in history,
19:24
Speaker 1: so-called looks maxing doesn't have anything to do with Andrew
19:28
Speaker 1: Tate or incels or whatever. Looks maxing actually does go
19:33
Speaker 1: back to the ancients. They wouldn't have called it that, obviously. But,
19:38
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't always rooted just in narcissism because, again,
19:41
Speaker 1: people weren't constantly looking at themselves in the way that
19:44
Speaker 1: they do now. So to give just one example, ancient
19:46
Speaker 1: Egyptian men, everybody from laborers to the pharaohs, wore armor. eyeliner.
19:50
Speaker 1: They called it coal, and it was made from ground
19:54
Speaker 1: minerals and soot. And as you can see, it gave
19:58
Speaker 1: people kind of a cat eye look, which was very
20:01
Speaker 1: distinctive among Egyptians who worshipped cats. But it wasn't just
20:05
Speaker 1: for decoration. Like any good looks-maxing technique, it was also
20:08
Speaker 1: a biohack. as well, although again, they would not have
20:11
Speaker 1: called it that. It served multiple purposes, reducing glare from
20:15
Speaker 1: the sun, repelling flies, and even supposedly safeguarding the eyes
20:18
Speaker 1: from inflammation, particularly when the Nile was flooding. And there
20:22
Speaker 1: was a religious component to it, of course, too, in
20:24
Speaker 1: that the cat eye look was seen as kind of
20:27
Speaker 1: a tribute to the gods. Now, the ancient Egyptians had
20:30
Speaker 1: elaborate skincare routines as well. As the legend goes, Cleopatra
20:34
Speaker 1: bathed in donkey milk. They created paste with clay or
20:38
Speaker 1: ash mixed with olive oil. rubbed it all over their bodies.
20:42
Speaker 1: Archaeologists found papyrus records dating back to the 1500 BC
20:45
Speaker 1: that described how they would use a mixture of animal
20:47
Speaker 1: and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to cleanse their skin.
20:52
Speaker 1: And there were also more militaristic examples from ancient times,
20:56
Speaker 1: like Herodotus describing Spartan warriors combing their hair before battle
21:01
Speaker 1: while there were others who were working out naked. This
21:05
Speaker 1: is from Herodotus's history when he described the lead-up to
21:08
Speaker 1: the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. And later Plutarch
21:13
Speaker 1: offered this explanation for the Spartans custom, quote, in time
21:17
Speaker 1: of war too, they relaxed the severity of the young
21:19
Speaker 1: men's discipline and permitted them to beautify their hair and
21:21
Speaker 1: ornament their arms and clothing, rejoicing to see them like
21:25
Speaker 1: horses prance and neigh for the contest. Therefore, they wore
21:29
Speaker 1: their hair long as soon as they ceased to be youths.
21:31
Speaker 1: And especially in times of danger, they took pains to
21:34
Speaker 1: have it glossy and well combed, remembering a certain saying
21:37
Speaker 1: that a fine head of hair made the handsome more
21:39
Speaker 1: comely still and the ugly more terrible. So the ancients,
21:44
Speaker 1: if we're being honest, could be a little effeminate by
21:47
Speaker 1: modern standards, which, of course, we can't apply retroactively to
21:50
Speaker 1: ancient times. But none of these behaviors were disordered in
21:54
Speaker 1: the manner of modern looks maxing, because for one thing,
21:58
Speaker 1: in many cases, at least, they weren't causing self-harm. And
22:01
Speaker 1: for another, the so-called looks maxing back in those days
22:04
Speaker 1: tended to be about maintaining customs and traditions and building
22:10
Speaker 1: social cohesion. It wasn't solely about improving individual attractiveness as
22:16
Speaker 1: part of a competition. And thousands of years later, along
22:19
Speaker 1: came the Americans. And while early Americans had some standards
22:23
Speaker 1: for looks and dress, once again, it was more about
22:25
Speaker 1: customs and manners. and etiquette than being seen as highly attractive.
22:33
Speaker 1: As a boy, George Washington famously hand-copied a document called
22:35
Speaker 1: The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation,
22:39
Speaker 1: which contained dozens of rules covering everything from posture to
22:43
Speaker 1: dress to manners. It didn't say anything about smashing your
22:47
Speaker 1: bones with a hammer, but maybe that part of it
22:50
Speaker 1: was lost to time.
22:50
Speaker 4: Who knows?
22:52
Speaker 1: The slippery slope into modern looks-maxing began with TV and
22:55
Speaker 1: bodybuilding culture, which was born out of modernity and boredom.
23:00
Speaker 1: After all, people who work on the farm all day,
23:02
Speaker 1: if you have reasons in your everyday life to lift
23:06
Speaker 1: heavy things, you have no reason to go to a gym.
23:10
Speaker 1: And they wouldn't have had time, even if they wanted to.
23:12
Speaker 1: But beginning in the early 20th century, in a post-industrial society,
23:16
Speaker 1: that started to change. Vince Garanda, the Iron Guru, opened
23:20
Speaker 1: up a gym in North Hollywood in the 1940s. Decades later,
23:24
Speaker 1: he famously told Arnold Schwarzenegger that he was too fat
23:27
Speaker 1: and needed to lose about 30 pounds. Schwarzenegger, as we
23:29
Speaker 1: all know, then leveraged his bodybuilding career into Hollywood stardom. Bodybuilders,
23:34
Speaker 1: men with frankly cartoonish physiques, played well on television and
23:39
Speaker 1: in theaters. They were bankable because millions of people looked
23:42
Speaker 1: up to them, along with professional athletes. And it's part
23:46
Speaker 1: of the reason why in the 1980s, steroids exploded in popularity.
23:50
Speaker 1: By 1988, one in 15 male high school seniors reported
23:55
Speaker 1: using steroids at one point. Gym culture, which obviously still
24:01
Speaker 1: exists today and is arguably bigger than ever today, can
24:05
Speaker 1: become narcissistic and effeminate after a certain point. Now, there's
24:09
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with going to the gym. That's a positive habit,
24:13
Speaker 1: or it should be. Men should be getting physical exercise.
24:17
Speaker 1: They should have visible muscles rather than being weak and flabby.
24:20
Speaker 1: I'm in the gym myself multiple times a week, so
24:24
Speaker 1: I'm not going to judge anybody for that. But when
24:26
Speaker 1: a healthy focus on strength and fitness turns into an obsessive,
24:29
Speaker 1: overwhelming preoccupation with appearance, like when a man is spending
24:35
Speaker 1: multiple hours a day every day trying to maintain or
24:39
Speaker 1: improve his physical appearance... And when it's the appearance that
24:43
Speaker 1: motivates him far more than a desire to be strong
24:46
Speaker 1: and fit, then a healthy habit has mutated into an
24:51
Speaker 1: expression of vanity. But whether you go to the gym
24:54
Speaker 1: or not, it's hard to not lapse into vanity in
24:58
Speaker 1: our culture. As a culture, it seems that we are
25:03
Speaker 1: living in a society designed to make people as vain
25:06
Speaker 1: as humanly possible. Social media and the internet took what
25:10
Speaker 1: TV started and made it much, much worse. We have
25:14
Speaker 1: a generation raised on social media and smartphones that seem
25:17
Speaker 1: to have developed this kind of disconnected, disembodied sense of self.
25:23
Speaker 1: You know, for my job, I'm obviously on camera every day.
25:27
Speaker 1: I see myself on video a lot. I've even sat
25:30
Speaker 1: in a movie theater when Am I Racist came out
25:32
Speaker 1: and watched myself on a giant movie screen for an
25:34
Speaker 1: hour and a half, which is very disconcerting, especially when
25:38
Speaker 1: you're ugly like me. But I'm in the business of,
25:41
Speaker 1: you know, quote, content creation, as much as I hate
25:43
Speaker 1: that term. And, you know, when you're in this business,
25:46
Speaker 1: you are the content, or at least you're the person
25:48
Speaker 1: presenting the content. So it's very easy in this line
25:52
Speaker 1: of work for people to become absolutely psychotically narcissistic and egomaniacal.
26:00
Speaker 1: At the same time, it's very easy to become disconnected
26:03
Speaker 1: from yourself as you begin to see yourself as content
26:06
Speaker 1: or worse as a brand rather than a human. And
26:10
Speaker 1: this combination of feeling disconnected within yourself while also narcissistic
26:13
Speaker 1: and self-obsessed drives a lot of people in this space insane.
26:18
Speaker 1: So if you're wondering why so many, quote, content creators
26:21
Speaker 1: are lunatics, this is why. And yet it's occurred to
26:25
Speaker 1: me more and more recently that this entire experience I'm describing,
26:29
Speaker 1: maybe aside from the movie theater part of it, is
26:32
Speaker 1: not really all that unique to, quote, content creators or
26:36
Speaker 1: people in media or people in Hollywood anymore. I mean,
26:38
Speaker 1: the fact is that everybody is on social media. Everybody
26:41
Speaker 1: takes videos and pictures of themselves all the time. Everyone
26:44
Speaker 1: has made themselves into a public spectacle to some extent.
26:48
Speaker 1: And young people have been doing that, or when they
26:52
Speaker 1: were very young, it was done to them practically since birth.
26:57
Speaker 1: Everyone has the out-of-body experience of viewing themselves as content,
27:02
Speaker 1: as a product to be consumed by others. And so
27:06
Speaker 1: the narcissism and psychosis that used to be contained to
27:10
Speaker 1: people in media and the entertainment industry has broken containment.
27:16
Speaker 1: Now it's everywhere. And that is just one aspect of
27:19
Speaker 1: the problem. Also, young men today often lack, and sometimes
27:23
Speaker 1: completely lack, masculine male role models. The fatherlessness epidemic is
27:30
Speaker 1: obviously the core of this problem. And If a young
27:33
Speaker 1: man doesn't have a father to model himself after, or
27:36
Speaker 1: if he does have a father, but his father is
27:38
Speaker 1: weak and absent and unimpressive or some combination of those,
27:43
Speaker 1: then where else is he going to look for guidance
27:45
Speaker 1: on how to live and conduct himself? There are very
27:49
Speaker 1: few masculine figures on TV, not even cartoonish ones, at
27:53
Speaker 1: least in the important category of white male fathers. For
27:56
Speaker 1: many years now, Hollywood and the networks have cast total
27:59
Speaker 1: buffoons into these roles of that would have been masculine
28:02
Speaker 1: a generation ago. And consider the common, often cited example
28:06
Speaker 1: of sitcom fathers, the character who, in basically every sitcom
28:09
Speaker 1: for 30 years, never does anything right. It's completely outshined
28:13
Speaker 1: by his comparatively impressive wife. And this, in case it's
28:17
Speaker 1: not obvious, is a form of propaganda, but it's also
28:19
Speaker 1: a reflection of our current situation. And of course, young
28:21
Speaker 1: men today aren't generally watching network sitcoms. I don't know
28:25
Speaker 1: who's watching sitcoms anymore. Instead, they're watching influencers like Clavicular,
28:30
Speaker 1: who makes the oafish sitcom dad look like a paragon
28:34
Speaker 1: of masculine virtue by comparison. The result of all these
28:38
Speaker 1: factors has been not just narcissism and self-obsession and a
28:43
Speaker 1: collective feeling of being alienated in your own body, but
28:47
Speaker 1: also despondency on a large scale. And nothing exacerbated this
28:53
Speaker 1: despondency and this isolation more than the COVID lockdowns, more
28:56
Speaker 1: than any other modern development, the COVID lockdowns, permanently warped
29:01
Speaker 1: the perspectives and goals and social development of young people.
29:06
Speaker 1: They did so much damage that we will never be
29:09
Speaker 1: able to fully assess the extent of it. One of
29:13
Speaker 1: the causalities of these lockdowns was Clavicular himself. Recently, footage
29:18
Speaker 1: of Clavicular's graduation from middle school surfaced online. This was
29:21
Speaker 1: a remote graduation because children weren't allowed to interact with
29:26
Speaker 1: one another or go outside. all to protect them, quote unquote,
29:31
Speaker 1: from a virus that posed zero risk to them. Teachers
29:34
Speaker 1: and parents tried to pretend that children wouldn't be harmed
29:37
Speaker 1: by these lockdowns. They obeyed the marching orders, from the
29:40
Speaker 1: criminals in the teachers union who just wanted a vacation,
29:44
Speaker 1: as well as the marching orders from the criminals in
29:45
Speaker 1: the federal government like Tony Fauci. And through it all,
29:49
Speaker 1: parents and teachers pretended that they were doing the right thing.
29:53
Speaker 1: So here's what Claviculo's graduation looked like. And you can
29:57
Speaker 1: see his demeanor. and then also his parents. Watch. Our
30:02
Speaker 1: next graduate is Braden Peters.
30:11
Speaker 3: Congratulations.
30:13
Speaker 1: So it's an extraordinarily sad piece of footage because we
30:16
Speaker 1: know that millions of other children experience the same profound
30:20
Speaker 1: lack of social connection with anyone, the same frustration with
30:24
Speaker 1: how fake and sterile everything was. Many of these children,
30:27
Speaker 1: after being forced to endure isolation for so long, never recovered.
30:32
Speaker 1: They never became functioning adults. Many of them began identifying
30:37
Speaker 1: as transgender to the point that transgenderism became a social contagion.
30:40
Speaker 1: But even the children who didn't deny the reality of
30:42
Speaker 1: their sex nevertheless found other biological realities to deny. What's
30:48
Speaker 1: happening today, what we're seeing with clavicular and the millions
30:51
Speaker 1: of young men getting nose jobs and cheek implants and
30:53
Speaker 1: everything else, and the millions of women, young and old,
30:55
Speaker 1: injecting themselves with Botox and lip fillers and everything else, is,
30:59
Speaker 1: you might say, a kind of intra-sex transgenderism. Male to male,
31:04
Speaker 1: female to female. That's the best way to describe it.
31:08
Speaker 1: You know, a trans-identified person is somebody who hates their
31:10
Speaker 1: God-given body, fundamentally rejects their own selves. seeks instead to
31:17
Speaker 1: remake themselves, not in the image of God, but in
31:19
Speaker 1: the foggy, ever-shifting image of some kind of ambiguous ideal
31:25
Speaker 1: they've concocted in their own heads. Well, clavicular is doing
31:29
Speaker 1: the exact same thing. Many people, young and old, but
31:31
Speaker 1: especially young, are doing the exact same thing. Everybody loves
31:36
Speaker 1: small business until they ask for a loan. Then suddenly
31:39
Speaker 1: the people who are always talking about supporting entrepreneurs become
31:42
Speaker 1: a lot harder to find. Well, if you've ever tried
31:45
Speaker 1: to get financing through a traditional bank, you know the routine. Paperwork,
31:48
Speaker 1: waiting around, followed by more paperwork, and then maybe you'll
31:51
Speaker 1: get an answer. Just maybe. Meanwhile, you're trying to run
31:54
Speaker 1: a business, not spend your week chasing signatures and checking
31:57
Speaker 1: your inbox. That's why I want to tell you about Cardiff.
32:00
Speaker 1: Cardiff is the largest privately held small business lender in
32:03
Speaker 1: the country. Since 2004, they've funded more than $ 12 billion
32:07
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32:10
Speaker 1: without the bank-level delays, you need to check out cardiff.co.
32:14
Speaker 1: The application takes less than five minutes. It won't touch
32:17
Speaker 1: your personal credit. Businesses can be approved in minutes and
32:20
Speaker 1: funded the very same day. Whether you're hiring, buying inventory, expanding,
32:24
Speaker 1: or financing equipment, Cardiff gets you the capital you so
32:27
Speaker 1: you can get back to doing what you actually do best,
32:31
Speaker 1: which is running your business. Banks try to lock out
32:33
Speaker 1: small businesses. Cardiff has the key. Big banks may not
32:36
Speaker 1: want to approve your business loans, but Cardiff does. If
32:39
Speaker 1: you've been in business for at least a year and
32:41
Speaker 1: are pulling in $ 20, 000 a month in revenue, apply now
32:44
Speaker 1: for up to $ 500, 000 in same-day business funding at cardiff.co.walsh. Again,
32:49
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32:55
Speaker 1: books are forgotten and only a few survive for a generation. Very,
32:59
Speaker 1: very few are still being read nearly 3,000 years after
33:03
Speaker 1: they were written. It doesn't happen by accident. It happens
33:06
Speaker 1: because those books understand something, something permanent about human nature.
33:10
Speaker 1: And that's why people still read Homer's Odyssey. It's more
33:13
Speaker 1: than an adventure story. It's about courage, leadership, temptation, perseverance,
33:16
Speaker 1: and ultimately why home and family are worth more than
33:20
Speaker 1: comfort or glory. Those questions haven't changed. Neither have the answers.
33:24
Speaker 1: That's why Hillsdale College is offering a free online course
33:27
Speaker 1: on the Odyssey taught by Professor Benedict Whelan. The course
33:31
Speaker 1: explores one of the greatest works in the Western tradition
33:33
Speaker 1: and explains why it continues to shape the way we
33:36
Speaker 1: think nearly three millennia later. Enrollment is completely free and
33:39
Speaker 1: you can work through the lectures at your own pace.
33:42
Speaker 1: Go to hillsdale.edu slash Walsh to enroll. It's totally free.
33:46
Speaker 1: Start reading, learn the classics, rediscover the West. Start right
33:49
Speaker 1: now at hillsdale.edu slash Walsh. In that light, the trans
33:54
Speaker 1: phenomenon has not disappeared, really. Although the trans cult has
33:59
Speaker 1: obviously been defeated at almost every level, politically, legally, culturally. Instead,
34:04
Speaker 1: in truth, the trans phenomenon has dispersed widely. It's taken
34:09
Speaker 1: new forms. And really, we should have expected that to happen.
34:15
Speaker 1: A generation raised on social media and smartphones, which spent
34:17
Speaker 1: more than a year locked down at home for no reason,
34:21
Speaker 1: was invariably going to develop this very disconnected, disembodied sense
34:26
Speaker 1: of self that we've discussed. What's now becoming clear is
34:30
Speaker 1: that gender confusion is only one aspect of this disconnect.
34:34
Speaker 1: It's just one manifestation of a much deeper issue, one
34:38
Speaker 1: pathology among many, most of them still undiscovered. But as
34:44
Speaker 1: the children of the lockdown era become the leaders of
34:47
Speaker 1: this country, which won't be very long from now, God
34:51
Speaker 1: help us, those pathologies won't remain undiscovered for long. Well,
35:00
Speaker 1: thanks for watching today. And before I go, I would
35:03
Speaker 1: be remiss if I didn't mention that Daily Wire is
35:05
Speaker 1: coming out with a new movie. It's called Run, Hide,
35:07
Speaker 1: Fight Infidels. It streams next month. And we have a
35:10
Speaker 1: first look at the trailer. Here it is. Check it out.
35:15
Speaker 4: Your country is beneath contempt. We who love and serve
35:21
Speaker 4: Allah fought back against the Americans and the Zionists from
35:25
Speaker 4: the scourge of secularism and the lands of unbelief. Anyone
35:35
Speaker 4: gonna listen to Captain Saunders tomorrow?
35:37
Speaker 1: The retired Delta Force soldier with a new book out.
35:41
Speaker 1: He's the polar opposite of those brain-dead protesters.
35:43
Speaker 3: Given the current climate, should Clay Saunders even be allowed
35:46
Speaker 3: on campus?
35:47
Speaker 2: Mr.
35:47
Speaker 1: Saunders is a close personal friend of Chancellor Friedman. This
35:50
Speaker 1: is a decision I cannot fight.
35:52
Speaker 2: There are three ways Islam will conquer the West. Through immigration,
35:58
Speaker 2: through the wombs of our women, and by using our
36:04
Speaker 2: nation's freedoms against us. Are you paying attention?
36:18
Speaker 1: Listen carefully.
36:23
Speaker 3: The great Satan America will fall.
36:31
Speaker 1: You are infidels. The bodies of women are not pure
36:35
Speaker 1: and the men's souls are unclean.
36:38
Speaker 2: What makes them so dangerous? Their goals are not in
36:42
Speaker 2: this life, but the next.
36:48
Speaker 1: Anyone? I got friends here. I can't just leave.
36:51
Speaker 2: Listen to me. In the law, we cannot run or
36:55
Speaker 2: hide from what is coming.
36:58
Speaker 1: We have to fight.
36:59
Speaker 3: I will be rewarded 10,000 times in the next life.
37:02
Speaker 3: When you die, you are nothing. Only one way to
37:05
Speaker 3: find out.
37:08
Speaker 2: That's the American way.
37:23
Speaker 1: So there's the trailer. And look, it looks I haven't
37:25
Speaker 1: seen the movie yet, I'll tell you. But just based
37:27
Speaker 1: on the trailer alone, it looks kind of psychotic in
37:31
Speaker 1: the best way. And like a fun action movie, which,
37:35
Speaker 1: you know, I think we need a lot more of those.
37:37
Speaker 1: So stay tuned for that. And speaking of staying tuned,
37:40
Speaker 1: we also have some bonus content this weekend that you
37:42
Speaker 1: don't want to miss. The daily cancellation is coming back
37:44
Speaker 1: in a new and improved form. Or maybe just new.
37:47
Speaker 1: I don't know about improved. It can't be improved. It
37:49
Speaker 1: was already perfect. And plus, I watched the new Spider-Man
37:51
Speaker 1: movie for some ungodly reason. And I have some opinions
37:57
Speaker 1: about it that I will share. You'll never guess if
37:59
Speaker 1: I liked it or not. You'll never guess what my
38:02
Speaker 1: opinion was. All that coming up this weekend. Until then, Godspeed.
38:14
Speaker 1: Once upon a time, there was a country. Not just
38:17
Speaker 1: a country, but a big one, an empire. And in
38:20
Speaker 1: that empire, there was an upper middle class family where
38:23
Speaker 1: two boys were raised by their mother, loved books, Uncle
38:27
Speaker 1: Tom's cabin, and the Bible. Their father admired the country's leaders,
38:31
Speaker 1: were patriotic and happy. Both sons went to universities where
38:35
Speaker 1: they were radicalized. One of the brothers read a book
38:38
Speaker 1: and convinced him to try to shoot the country's leader.
38:41
Speaker 1: He was hanged. The other brother In the same books,
38:45
Speaker 1: they decided to lead a movement. First, they came from
38:48
Speaker 1: the universities, and no one seemed to care. Then they
38:51
Speaker 1: took over the unions, and again, no one seemed to care.
38:53
Speaker 1: Then they created their own media organizations and took over
38:56
Speaker 1: the cities. And again, most people just ignored it. Change,
38:59
Speaker 1: after all, was something they could believe in, until it
39:02
Speaker 1: was too late. Sound familiar? This is the real history
39:06
Speaker 1: of communism, the Russian Revolution.