For people my age, there was no greater adolescent thrill than seeing your crush post “like my status for a rate” on Facebook and taking the bait. Rating and getting rated is what social media was built on. After all, Facebook, the third-busiest website on the internet, began as a hot-or-not website.
Pity the modern teenager, then, who instead of calling a cute girl “cute,” might call her mid high-tier Becky with high sexual-market value. Or who calls the handsome jock in your class Chadlite and the gangly nerd subhuman. (But if he clears that acne up and hits the gym, he could ascend to low-tier normie.)
This is the PSL scale, an elaborate attractiveness scoring system that has become popular on TikTok and among teenagers in the last three years. An invention of the aesthetics-obsessed online community known as looksmaxxers, it seeks to provide a supposedly empirical assessment of facial attractiveness. “The ratings are done by four aspects,” says Mep, a 16-year-old from Georgia (the country) who moderates the Looksmax.org Discord. (Like many people whom I spoke to for this story, Mep asked to use only his first name for privacy.) They are: “harmony,” or how well your features work together; “dimorphism,” how distinct you look from the opposite sex; “angularity,” how sharp you look, correlating to low body fat; and “miscellaneous features,” your individual features taken alone, namely eyebrow thickness, skin clarity, nasolabial folds, color, contrast, nose shape, teeth, and more.
How you score in those categories determines your PSL rating. For men, the scale starts with “subhuman,” goes up to “low-, mid-, and high-tier normies,” then “Chadlite,” and finally “Chad” on top. The female hierarchy swaps “Becky” for “normie” and “Stacy” for “Chad.”
The acronym PSL comes from the forums PUAHate (short for Pick Up Artists), SlutHate, and Lookism, three broadly misogynistic incel communities where looksmaxxing took shape in the 2010s. PUAHate gained notoriety after one of its users murdered six UC Santa Barbara students in 2014. He described being inspired by the forum in his profoundly misogynistic and racist manifesto. Shortly after, PUAHate rebranded as SlutHate due to negative media attention. The Santa Barbara shooting marked “a point at which the men’s misogynist incel ideology begins to coalesce as a separate movement organized online,” according to a report by New America.
Over time, that ideology evolved into lookism, the belief that a man’s appearance determines not just his place in the supposed “sexual marketplace” but his destiny in life. This extreme focus on looks led community members to take extreme measures to improve themselves. These were eventually codified into looksmaxxing—a loose methodology of hard-core aesthetic improvement—on forums like Lookism and Looksmax.org. PSL is the rating system with which looksmaxxers assess their existing face and track their progress while mewing and blasting peptides.
Now, the parlance of hyper-online misanthropes is just how teens talk. “I think everyone my age knows about it,” says Xavier, a 17-year-old in New York City. “Like, it’s very, very mainstream, and it’s become something that everyone memes about.”
As early as 2023, researchers flagged that TikTok was facilitating the “‘normiefication’ and normalization of incel ideology and discourse” with the spread of PSL lingo. Today, influencers are posting sponcon promising viewers they’re one shampoo order away from Chad and hosting five-hour livestreams titled “LOOKSMAXING RANDOM HOMELESS PEOPLE.”
“ Looksmaxxing introduced these new things that supposedly define how good you look that no one would ever really think about before,” says Xavier. “ We have one friend that has like pretty negative canthal tilt, which is kind of, like, determined as bad. So sometimes we’ll just, like, make fun of him.” (Canthal tilt is the angle at which your eyes sit on your face.)
Given its origins, it should be no surprise that PSL is harsh, biased, often racist, and not gender inclusive. Rating is usually done by teenagers on the internet, meaning it is mostly subjective and generally mean. But, in the interest of understanding how young people think and talk, how it works is outlined below.
The PSL labels (subhuman, normie, Chad, etc.) are proxies for a numerical, normally distributed score out of 8. The bottom ~1% of society, PSL 0-1.5, are “subhuman.” “The people who fall in this range will be considered ugly by the entirety of the population and extremely undesirable,” according to a popular PSL guide posted on the Looksmax.org forum in 2021. The exact thresholds and percentiles of each tier vary across sources. Some stretch subhuman as high as 4, covering half of humanity. “Sub5,” as in a rating under 5, effectively means “ugly” on TikTok.
The meaty part of the curve, some 92.7% of humans between 1.5 and 5.5, are normies and Beckys. This is where the low, mid, and high subdivisions come in. According to that Looksmax.org PSL guide, low-tier normies such as Steve Buscemi and Michael Cera are “noticeably below average and widely considered unattractive and unappealing.” High-tier normies are “some of the most good looking people you may see on a daily basis,” such as Jake Gyllenhaal, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gigi Hadid, and Dua Lipa, according to another popular Looksmax.org ranking. Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet are a high-tier Becky/high-tier normie power couple.
The top 1% between 6-7 are categorized as Chadlites and Stacylites. This is the domain of models and the most attractive actors. In looksmaxxing theory, their attractiveness makes life easy and finding love simple. According to one guide, “They typically encounter no difficulties with attracting romantic partners unless facing severe mental health issues.” Past 7 are true Chads and Stacys, the most beautiful people on earth. “These individuals are rare, with only a handful found globally,” says one guide. “Near-perfect facial symmetry, unique features, top-tier bone structure, and incredible facial Harmony is common in this rating,” says another. Commonly cited 7s include Tom Cruise, Matt Bomer, Margot Robbie, and Angelina Jolie.
OK, we’re almost done. Once we have our 1-8 PSL score, we can convert it into a “real-life rating” out of 10 by adding up to 2 points for your sexual market value (SMV). “It takes into account things like your status (your job, popularity), wealth, height, and facial rating,” says boyhymendestroyer, another Looksmax.org Discord moderator. “Some people take penis size into account when calculating SMV but usually it’s just these four things.” (Like most people I spoke to on Discord, boyhymendestroyer refused to reveal any personal information due to privacy concerns.)
In a complete analysis, Mep considers 46 different facial dimensions. For example, the cervicomental angle, the angle between the neck and the chin, or the palpebral fissure ratio, the height and width of the space between your open eyelids. He rates each trait from tier 1 to tier 4, then uses a color-coded spreadsheet to calculate a numerical score out of 305.5 possible points. Many looksmaxxing content creators offer paid face ratings, charging as much as $100 for a detailed analysis. Though PSL purports to be an objective assessment, rating strikes me as more of an art than a science, with each person employing their own slightly different methodology. Looksmax.org forum posters frequently disagree on which ratios to use and what the ideal values are.
Beyond 7.75 on the PSL scale are the mythical holy grails of looksmaxxing: “True Adam” and “True Eve.” Mathematically, there should only be one True Adam or Eve in every 12 billion people. In other words, these are the best-looking humans in history. One guide writes that these ratings are reserved for “Adonis or Apollo, as well as religious icons such as angels or prophets.” Still, that doesn’t stop people from speculating. The names floated for these titles are often esoteric, better known among looksmaxxers than the general public. The most common True Adam candidates include Jon-Erik Hexum (an actor most famous for dying in a Russian-roulette accident), Argentinian model Hernán Drago, and Russian B-movie star Vasiliy Stepanov.
That said, many serious looksmaxxers scoff at True Adam and True Eve discussions as a waste of time. “If we’re trying to genuinely rank attractiveness, perfection can not be involved since humans were never meant to be perfect and we’re not designed to find perfectness attractive,” says Mep. “The only reason we find some faces attractive is because they have that 1-2 flaws that makes [sic] it unique.”
While looksmaxxing skews heavily male, there are young women who participate. And among them, there is far less consensus around the ideal woman. Many True Eve arguments involve tearing another woman down in order to promote your champion. Gio Scotti isn’t True Eve, Loli Bahia is! You think Yael Shelbia is True Eve? She’s high-tier Becky compared to Brooke Shields!
A cottage industry of True Eve subliminals has sprung up on YouTube: long slideshows of beautiful women set to intense electronic music which viewers believe can improve your appearance simply by having them on in the background. One commenter writes that “From the first few seconds, my nose started hurting, and when I looked in the mirror, I saw my face had become more beautiful.” Another reports “instant cheek and jaw aching, good work!”
Xavier maintains that he and his friends use PSL as a joke. They don’t post on the Discord or the forums. But as the terminology has become more common on TikTok, they have started to clock their imperfections. “ I think it’s definitely pointed out things in my appearance that I wouldn’t like necessarily have noticed before, like I might find more flaws in how I look,” Xavier says, noting that his friends have mocked him for his narrow clavicles.
I’m certainly not immune. The longer I studied PSL, the more I wanted to know where I really sat on it. Early on, Mep had rated me a lmtn, or low mid-tier normie. Suspicious that Mep was being charitable, I began soliciting more ratings. The Looksmax AI app, which has been on the App Store since late 2023, called me a 6.3, in the top 32% of men. It noted my “lush thick hair” and “moderate masculinity” and flagged my “moderate buccal fat” and “average jawline.” But the rating was out of 10 and seemingly not using PSL, so I disregarded it entirely.
An online tool called Ascendbase Ratios promised a more accurate “harmony analysis.” After spending a solid hour following its meticulous instructions to level my photo and place dozens of dots on the key points of my face, I received a score of low Chadlite harmony. My nose-to-face width ratio, midface-to-lower-face height ratio, and chin width were, according to the app, all above average. I was unnerved to find that these results made me happy. That is until I remembered that harmony is just one of the four components in a PSL rating. Presumably my low mid-tier normieness was caused by Cera-level dimorphism or Buscemi-esque angularity.
Frustrated with inconsistent digital tools, I returned to Discord to get rated by real people. I took front-facing and profile pictures of myself in my office’s Zoom cubicle. (Many looksmaxxers recommend using the back camera of their phones instead of selfies to avoid focal-length distortion.) I made sure to include the OVO logo on my sweatshirt, hoping it would impress them.
First, I attempted to post the pictures in the #rate-me channel on the Discord. I soon learned that only level-5 members could post pictures, and I’m level 2. I couldn’t figure out how to level up (I think you just have to post more), but nobody would tell me. I felt a sudden twinge of empathy for my grandparents when they struggle to print an email.
My reference photos:
Eventually, I arranged a private DM rating with a user named goth_17. “I gave it quite a thought bro,” he typed after evaluating my pictures. “And I’d say 4.25. LTN basically.”
“Fuck,” I responded. At 4.25, I was barely a hair above average. I admit I was hoping for better. He elaborated on his reasoning for the score: “Bro why ur skinn (sic) looks dull? U fat? How old are you?”
I answered honestly: 28. This shocked him. He said most people in the Discord are well under 20. My biggest problems, I’m told, is my lack of sharpness in the face, insufficient bone mass, weak undereyes, low-density eyebrows, and thin lips.
Goth_17 estimated my body fat at 20-30% and suggested that slimming down to 12% could get me to umtn. He added: “REMOVE THAT NOSE RING BRO.” (On this point, goth_17 and my grandma agree, though she thinks I’m otherwise extremely handsome.) But goth_17 also said I’m not hopeless. I am five ten, taller than he expected me to be from the picture. And my best asset is my hair. Goth_17 implored me to do whatever it takes to keep it. At this point in the evaluation, goth_17 had to go to sleep. When I woke up, I had 68 messages from him.
“Yoo boy I AM back,” he said, before sharing my personalized softmaxxing regimen: Get lean. Thicken my eyebrows with minoxidil and castor oil. Hit the gym, focusing on enlarging my delts, forearms, and biceps and getting my V taper dialed in. Thicken my neck with special exercises to improve dimorphism.
Once I’d done that, he explained, I could move onto hardmaxxing. Bimax double jaw surgery, which he says is expensive and risky but worth it. Jaw and chin fillers. Buccal fat removal. And a palate expander. He even edited my photo to show what I could look like if I trust the process. The first example made me look like when Shrek turns human in Shrek 2.
Goth_17’s images showing improved skin, under eyes, jaw surgery, and other modifications.
“It took me some time bro I hope U take it seriously and respect it,” goth_17 said. “Do it step by step.” I felt flattered that this young man had spent so much time on my evaluation, and guilty knowing I intended to do precisely none of what he suggested.
Spending time in the Discord was starting to bum me out. “You’ve not felt pain until you’ve been sub5 and under six feet tall and lived with parents who’ve refused to allow you to shoot HGH and peptides because of religious testimony and pseudoscience,” one poster wrote.
Like many people, I spent much of my salad days wondering if I was fat or ugly. At least I got to wait until age 28 to have a teenager crunch the numbers and tell me that, yes, I am kind of fat and kind of ugly.
Even Mep, who volunteers his time to moderate the Discord, has become uncomfortable with how his peers react to their ratings. “Kids at the age of 13-14 are out here talking about ‘is it over?’ Or which human growth hormone dose is the best or which surgery they need to get the love they never got,” Mep says.
At my big age, I can simply close the computer, walk outside, and put thoughts of eyebrow thickness and nasolabial folds out of mind. As a teenager, maybe I would have asked Mom for a Bimax double jaw implant.