Natalie Kitroeff

How is it of value to Americans considering so many challenges that we have domestically?

It feels like a moment where an explanation of what our role in the world is and when we should insert ourself into complicated regions like the Middle East is.

It's a dialogue begging to be had that has been avoided for years, which now it feels like can't be avoided much longer.

My pleasure.

From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitchoff.

This is the Sunday Daily.

There's a corner of the internet where young men spend hours rating each other's bodies.

They evaluate the length of their midfaces and the distance between their pupils.

They take testosterone and inject fat-dissolving compounds into their jaws.

They hit themselves in the cheekbones with hammers.

They call what they do looks-maxing, and their community, which started as a subculture, is now bursting into the mainstream.

Their particular way of speaking popped up at last week's Oscars and has been used by the Pentagon.

They even made it to Saturday Night Live.

The rise of this movement has a lot to do with the ascendance of its biggest star, Clavicular, a 20-year-old influencer whose most deeply held belief is that looks are genuinely all that matters.

Today, I talk with my colleague Joe Bernstein about why the ethos of looks maxing appeals to so many young men and what its resonance says about our culture.

It's Sunday, March 22nd.

Joe, welcome to the Sunday Daily.

So we are about to embark on a conversation about looks maxing, which we should acknowledge is a made-up word.

It is an internet meme community-turned-cultural phenomenon, inspiring dozens of articles in every magazine and newspaper that you've heard of, including ours.

And all of that attention, as far as I can tell, essentially boils down to everyone trying to understand what exactly this trend actually is and what it means about our culture.