‘Looksmaxxing,Bone Smashing,Emotion Avoiding,and Toughness’: An Analysis of Modern Masculinity Through Brent Robbins’ Anesthetic Culture

A current internet celebrity, Clavicular, is the starting point for a discussion on the connections between an internet subculture called ‘looksmaxxing’ and Brent Robbins’ Anesthetic Culture. Robbins argues that our current society has moved away from a meaningful body to a mechanized body, and in turn, has pathologized sensation, feeling, and emotion. That pathologization of ‘normalcy’ is brought to bear by a combination of the works of Ernest Becker, Erich Fromm, and René Girard. The writer then connects their personal experience of living within, suffering through, and escaping from an anesthetic culture as a way of showing how awareness of Robbins’ concept can help heal, or become a ‘cultural therapeutic’, for a detached, alexithymic cultural milieu. The article ends by examining how awareness and mindfulness may help in understanding and intervening on the ‘sick’ social subcultures of Incels and the Manosphere.