Earlier this month, New York Times writer Marie Solis wrote a story exploring a new frontier in contemporary cuisine: the intense, almost aggressive, flavor engineering to create experiences of maximum sensory impact. Also known as “flavormaxxing.”
The article dropped us into Solis’ own attempt at solidifying a “scientifically designed, flavormaxxed menu” — “a ‘sweet heat’ beet salad,” “salmon glazed with miso and gochujang, instead of yuzu” and “brownies with a miso-caramel drizzle.” Solis wrote about feeling “slightly manic” while preparing the meal. The “hazy shame of trying too hard.” As well as the resulting “fatigue, not just with flavor but with life.”
In other words, here was yet another microcosm of “maxxing” culture. And yet another data point revealing the extent to which the language of the internet’s most alienated fringes has seeped into the mainstream.
“Incels are really creative with their language,” says Jen Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland in College Park and an expert in social networks, social media, and privacy. “They are constantly creating new terms, mixing words and mashing them together, and creating new spellings and phrasings.”
At its core, “maxxing” is about optimization. Whether it’s optimizing one’s appearance, physical performance, or even a meal’s sensory impact, the goal is to achieve a maximal state. To squeeze the maximum possible value. Perhaps the most widely discussed recent manifestation of this optimization impulse is “looksmaxxing.”
That term, which was first reported on by the New York Times in 2023, stems from incel message boards. And more specifically, from the world of role-playing games and the strategy of optimizing a character by minimizing weaknesses and maximizing strengths, often with a focus on combat effectiveness.
There are two types. Softmaxxing includes basic self-care routines like skincare, grooming, exercise, and healthy eating, often shared and discussed on platforms like TikTok. And hardmaxxing, which includes starving oneself, jaw surgery, and in the most extreme, albeit unconfirmed cases, taking a hammer to your face to promote more “manly” regrowth when the bones repair.
More recently, the suffix has detached from “looks,” becoming a viral linguistic tool to signify intense, focused improvement in any domain imaginable. “To ‘maxx’ or not to ‘maxx’ – that is the question for chronically online this year,” Laura Pitcher asked last year. Citing the “ever-growing plethora of hyper-specific maxxing trends” including sleepmaxxing, potassiummaxxing, anglemaxxing, skincaremaxxing, sunmaxxing, and watermaxxing.
To that end, “gymmaxxing” isn’t just working out for health; it’s the relentless pursuit of a maximally aesthetic physique. “Smellmaxxing” is a term describing the TikTok trend of maximizing one’s scent. “Moneymaxxing” turns financial prudence into an aggressive, all-consuming quest for maximum accumulation.
Though much of incel language, according to Golbeck is “intentionally dehumanizing and shocking,” — think “‘noodlecel’ for an East Asian Incel (noodle + cel) or cumskin for a white person (‘cum’ for the color of the skin),” — some is neutral.
“There is language creep between incel spaces and the greater manosphere, and those terms can make their way out into other communities, especially on Reddit,” she adds. “While the offensive incel language isn’t likely to stick, the more neutral and easy-to-understand terms can get picked up and modified.”
According to Google Trends, which tracks relative search interest over time, interest in the term “maxxing” was negligible until 2020. Last year, that number surged to 95.
“There are also prefixes that incels use a lot (like ‘giga’ and ‘turbo’ as intensifiers) that primarily get used incel spaces, but that also exist outside in other contexts,” says Golbeck. “We may see incel language like that getting picked up for broader usage.”
So what explains the recent widespread adoption of language originating in online fringe communities?
“The internet is a creative space,” says Golbeck. “Since people have been online, they have been creating new terms and acronyms that eventually become a normal part of language. I see this as an extension of that.”
