Blackpill – The Bizarre But Aesthetic Pitfall of Doom

If you’ve been on Instagram recently, you’ve probably heard of a man who goes by Clavicular. You’ve probably seen clips from his streams where he’s injecting his girlfriend with some anti-fat solution or crying over cheese on his cheeseburgers. But most popularly, you’ve probably seen the clip of Clav getting frame-mogged by the ASU Frat leader. And to the mainstream (which is most of us), everything I have just said sounds like an entirely new language. In a way, it is. Well, this internet phenomenon of Clavicular is no one new, and neither are his beliefs. Clav, the apparent king of mogging, hails from the longstanding incel community: blackpill.

What is Blackpill?

Blackpill is essentially the idea that a person’s livelihood entirely depends on their external aesthetics and appearance. It states that, to garner any attention from the opposite sex, you must have an attractive appearnce. It goes as far as to say that appearance is the sole factor determining anyone’s success in the dating pools. This is especially applied to men in particular, mainly because the blackpill rhetoric was borne out of the incel (involuntarily celibate) community. While incel’s are not exclusively male, the majority of the people in the comunity are male. So in the terms Blakcpill is used in the online community, it is the ideology that female attraction to a man is solely based on the man’s appearance, leaving unattractive males to a life of loneliness and celibacy.

The Origins of Blackpill

The idea of blackpill initially originated from “redpill”, an ideology already populaprized in incel communities. But to understand that, we have to go back to the things that first inspired the redpill community. That would be, like many of you might know, the 1999 film known as The Matrix.

The Matrix

The general premise of this film was that a race of AI robots that had gained awareness and rebelled against their human creators. The humans blocked the solar power source that was energizing the machines in an attempt to A war erupted in between them and The AI race emerged victorious. However, since the machines no longer had a source of energy, they decided to derive their energy from human beings. To do so, they trapped all humans into a neural simulation, known as the matrix, through implants that controlled their minds. 

The movie follows a man named Thomas Anderson, or “Neo” as his hacker persona, who wants to understand the mystery of the “Matrix”. This leads him to a hacker known as Trinity. She tells him that a being named Morpheus could answer his questions. However, Agents began tracking Neo, and after attempting to escape, Neo surrenders to them. They demand from Neo information about Morpheous, and when Neo refuses, they implant a tracking device in his abdomen. But when Neo wakes up at home, Trinity and her friends remove the tracking device to take him to Morpheus. There, Morpheus offers Neo two pills: the blue pill, to return back to his normal life, or the red pill, to uncover the truth. 

Of course, there is more to this story, but this is about all we need to know now. This concept of the “red pill” and “blue pill”, and more importantly, what they represent is what is going to guide us to what we need to know.

The “Red Pill” and the Manosphere

This idea of the “red pill” or enlightenment and “blue pill” of disillusionment became adopted by the manosphere. The manosphere is essentially the collective presence of the far-right male-centered community online. They’re content is quite known to the mainstream nowadays, often mocked for their ultra right-wing politics, blatant misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and racism, and hyper-fixation on masculinity. The latter is what blackpill focuses on, but let’s discuss the red pill first. 

The manosphere took the redpill metaphor as a differentiation between the left and right; the red pill was the “enlightenment” of the right while the blue pill was the “disillusionment” of the left (the left they often speak of is not the “real” left; read about the actual left here). In this way, people on online forums like 4chan and Reddit were encouraged to take the “red pill” and “uncover the truth” (ie., join far-right politics). 

The red pill community mainly preaches the same ideas that the general manosphere did. They are very anti-feminist and pro-traditionalist, believing men and women to have different roles in society. They believe in male-superiority, that men have inherent superiority to women, hence support the keeping of the patriarchy. They are against any LGBTQIA+ identities, so homosexuality and transgenderism is vehemently frowned upon. There’s a lot to get into here but you get the gist.

Black Pill

From the red pill community emerged the black pill. Black pill took the emphasis on masculinity and shallowness of women from the red pill community and expounded upon it immensely. As I mentioned before, black pill claims that appearance is the sole factor for your dating success. So without being aesthetically pleasing, you are pretty much doomed.

Just like how swallowing the red pill reveals the truth to you, even if it’ll completely shatter your perception of reality, the black pill is a hard one to swallow. So, when you swallow the black pill, you are finally accepting the idea it brings with it. You are no longer disillusioned by the idea the personality and character plays any role in forming a romantic bond. You are finally able to accept, or swallow, the fact that looks are the only thing that matters. If you’re not born attractive, you’re fated to a life of involuntary celibacy and solitude.

That is, unless you ascend. 

Looksmaxxing : The Path to Ascension

The thing is, if you are unattractive, there is still a path out, that path being looksmaxxing. Looksmaxxing is exactly what its name suggests; you can max out your looks through diet, exercise, and surgery. All those weird videos of Clavicular hammering his face? Well, that is a method of lookmaxxing. But of course, that’s not all to looksmaxxing. As you can see with that pyramid, there is much, much more. 

Softmaxxing

Softmaxxing are the basic and normal things you can do to looksmax. On this pyramid provided, those activities would occupy the bottom tiers of the pyramid. As you can see, they’re all pretty standard things: improving hygiene, exercising regularly, eating a balanced and nutritious diet, and so on. These are simple things, which is why it’s called softmaxxing. They are reversible and not too permanent. They give you control over the results. These things are quite introductory and soft compared to the hardcore you’ll see later on down the line.

 In normal terms, softmaxxing it’s taking care of yourself. However, you must remember that these are people deep into the incel community. In here, there is a concerningly large number of people who do not leave their room, even if it is to go to the bathroom. For them, basic forms of hygiene and self-grooming may be the first steps to looksmaxxing. The fact that it does get these chronically online basement dwellers to engage in normal grooming practices is possibly the best thing to come out of looksmaxxing.

Hardmaxxing

Hardmaxxing is when you get into the really hardcore things, things that are purely done in pursuit of maxing out your appearance. Hardmaxixng occupies the top half of the pyramid. These lengths include many cosmetics treatments that you may already be familiar with, like waxing, botox, or threading. These treatments are all solely done for aesthetic purposes, and are slowly creeping up to the most hardcore looksmaxxing of all: plastic surgery. 

Plastic surgery is the biggest thing you can do to looksmax. Many of the looksmaxxers you see most popular online have done it, or are at least saving up to it. It’s the most altering thing you can do to your appearance, the biggest thing that could turn you from a “low-tier normie” to a “chad”. 

However, they aren’t called hardmaxxing for no reason. These things can be painful, permanent, and irreversible. When people can’t afford plastic surgery, they turn to pseudo-scientific and dangerous means to change their appearence. Remember when I mentioned Clavicular hammering his face? Well, in the looksmaxxing community, that actually has a term—bonesmashing. Bonesmashing is literally just smashing your bones to change its structure. T attempts to create small fractures in the bone so that once the bone is done healing, it’ll change its structure to the one you desire. Another one of these pseudo-scientific looksmaxxing methods would be mewing. Mewing is when you suck the base of your jaw up to the palate of your mouth in an attempt to improve your jawline. Of course, the probability these methods truly work is low, but looksmaxxers will do everything they can to max their looks.

Ascension

Ascension is essentially when you reach the peak you can with looksmaxxing. You’re as attractive as one can ever be, a beauty so beautiful it’s akin to God. If you keep reading, you’ll see the looksmaxxing hierarchy. Here, the last tier is true Adam. This is the highest state of beauty possible. Once you’ve reached this stage, you have ascended. You have the mortal realm of aesthetics and entered one that no normal person could even think of being in. That is the goal of looksmaxxing—to ascend.

The Looksmaxxing Hierarchy

This separation of “ugliness” and “beauty” is further expanded upon with this chart. Of course, this might seem like a bunch of gibberish to you right now so I’ll explain. This chart is ranked on a 1-10 scale in part and this sort of name system for the other.

The “Ugly”

The lowest of low is sub 3, sometimes known as subhuman. These people are as ugly as it gets; they’re considered so ugly that they almost can’t go up from here. 

The next tier is sub 5. These people are ugly, but not as bad as sub 3. You would look at them and think they are ugly but you won’t be personally offended by their ugliness as you might for the sub 3 tier. Sub 5 can possibly max their looks a significant amount, but the possibility of them reaching true Adam, Chad, or even just high-tier normie (HTN) is low.

The “Normies”

Next, you have the low-tier normies (LTNs). These people are relatively normal in attractiveness but still on the lower end. They don’t pop-out as ugly but aren’t people you would consider normally attractive either. Do you remember the “wabi sabi” trend on TikTok? Well, these are the people who might fall into that “wabi sabi” category.

Onwards are the mid-tier normies (MTNs). These are the most average people you can find. They aren’t ugly and aren’t particularly attractive either. They fall right in between. Most people probably fit into this mid-tier normie category. To looksmax from here and possibly ascend is plausible, and many who do practice looksmaxxing start here.

Now is when the real “attractiveness” starts to show with the high-tier normies (HTNs). These people are attractive and good-looking, but they don’t stand out to you as such. Just as the low-tier normies don’t stand out as ugly, the high-tier normies don’t stand out as good-looking. To ascend from here is quite easy as you are already much closer to true Adam status.

The “Attractive”

Second to last is Chad. You’ve probably heard the name Chad being used by 14-year-old boys to describe someone they find cool, and it’s almost synonymous in this context. Chads are incredibly attractive, the kind that makes you look twice and notice their appearance. However, there is still that little more that keeps them from being aesthetically perfect.

And that brings us to our final tier: true Adam. True Adam is quite literally perfect in terms of appearence. They’re aesthetics are beyond simple attraction; they are almost god-like in how they appear. To reach this status is to truly “ascend” and achieve the full looksmaxxing capacity anyone can.

Additional Tiers

While this chart doesn’t include them, there are a few in between tiers that can be found in other interpretations. There is also Chadlite and Adamlite, each serving as an in between for Chad and true Adam respectively. These are just minute differentiations to truly distinguish between the human beauty and god-like beauty of these final tiers. 

Women in the Blackpill Community

While the blackpill community is largely dominated by men, women also participate in these crowds, especially when it comes to looksmaxxing. Just as there are women in every ultra-right wing forum and community, there are women swallowing the blackpill as well. They are not common however, as the blackpill ideology is often geared towards men in the way its phrases. It focuses on how women don’t see men for more than their appearance,  so it’s a little hard for a woman to relate to that sentiment. 

However, in the looksmaxxing community, there is a sizable amount of women participating. This is most likely because women and girls have been participating in looksmaxxing-esq communities long before just not under the same names. EDTWT ( Eating Disorder Twitter), for example, was (and still is) dominated by young teenage girls encouraging each others’ eating disorders to get skinny and attractive. It’s not uncommon to see women wanting to get plastic surgeries to improve their appearance in just as hardcore a way as some looksmaxxers might. It’s just that the toxic, appearance-fixated communities largely occupied by females went under a different name. So, when some women began migrating to looksmaxxing, many of the same principles of those communities were carried out here. And of course, women also have their own looksmaxxing hierarchy for them to aim towards.

Conclusion

Well, after this is all said and done, I’d like to strongly discourage you from participating in any such activities or communities. It’s fun to look from the outside because they are so odd, but once you get sucked, it’s hard to get yourself out. Your appearance has no value to who you are as a person, and neither does your ability to attract people physically. If a relationship is what you crave, you don’t need to smash your bones to get it; simply take care of yourself and be healthy, both physically and mentally.

While people worry so much about their appearance, they forget what an important role your intellect can play. Why focus on looking godly when you can form a mind that is goldy in intellect and empathy? Bottom line—forget about the black pill because there is no such thing. The only thing you need to do is be the best person you can possibly be.