TikTok reached approximately 1.56 billion adult users globally in early 2024 (Kemp), with users aged 18-34 comprising roughly two-thirds of the platform’s adult base, and roughly six-in-ten U.S. teens aged 13-17 reporting use of the platform (Faverio and Sidoti). On a platform of this scale, “looksmaxxing”, a systematic pursuit of appearance optimization that emerged from online incel and lookism communities and was mainstreamed via TikTok by 2023 (Notopoulos; Rosdahl), has become a genre reaching millions of predominantly young viewers while generating both documented harm and documented…