They’re taking shallowness to the maxx.
Gen Z pick-up artists have devised a superficial online rubric for judging people’s looks, grading them on a scale from “subhuman” (hideously ugly) to Tera Chad (unattainable aesthetic perfection).
According to this hierarchical system, Angelina Jolie, Margot Robbie and Australian model Jordan Barrett rank among the most attractive people on Earth.
Dubbed the PSL scale — an amalgam of Pickup Artist Hate, SlutHate, and Lookism (three misogynistic online communities) — the attractiveness rater has become a fixture among teens on TikTok over the past few years, GQ reported.
It was the brainchild of Looksmaxxers, a subset of teens and 20-somethings looking to up their value on the sexual marketplace by reshaping their faces. This is achieved via every measure from mewing — a tongue exercise to streamline one’s jawline — to hair restyling and even dropping thousands on plastic surgery or dangerous bone-smashing techniques to reshape the face.
Looksmaxxing is often associated with the “incel” — involuntarily celibate — community, who blame women’s supposed superficiality for their lack of success in the sack, among other issues.
To help people attain this Olympian beauty ideal, the experts at Looksmax.org have unveiled a pyramidal road map to facial perfection — like a more empirical version of the hot-or-not scale.
“This guide will provide you with a comprehensive overview of what is valued most when it comes to beauty,” reads the PSL scale’s description.
Looks are rated across four categories: “harmony,” the cohesiveness of one’s features; “dimorphism,” how distinct you look from the opposite sex; “angularity,” the keenness of one’s features, which correlates to low body fat; and “miscellaneous features,” from eyebrow thickness to skin clarity and nose shape.
They’re then scored on a scale from 1 to 8.
At the bottom of the cosmetic caste system, with a score of 0.25 – 1.5, are the subhumans, who are deemed “exceptionally unattractive and often exhibit deformities.” “Revealing their face could genuinely frighten people and they have almost no redeeming facial qualities,” reads the description, which includes the “Elephant Man” as an example.
Most humans fall in the “Normie” category (“Becky” if they’re female), per the scale, which divides this designation into three tiers. The first, “Low Tier Normie” (1.5 – 3), constitutes an “ordinary level of unattractiveness” and includes such celebrities as singer Ed Sheeran, rapper Jay-Z and actress and comedian Sandra Bernhard.
This culminates in the high-tier version (4.5 – 5.5), defined as “appealing and good looking” on par with the “most attractive individuals in a classroom or small workplace setting.” Justin Bieber, Cristiano Ronaldo and Zendaya are lumped in this category.
In the top 1%, per the rubric, are the stunning Chadlites and Stacylites (5.5-6), examples of whom include Ana De Armas and Jennifer Connelly and Cilian Murphy.
“Their appearance can potentially launch a modeling career or lead to a substantial following on social media,” per the scale.
When it comes to realizing humanity’s full aesthetic potential, none surpass the Giga Chad and Giga Stacy (7.25 – 7.75), only a handful of which are “found globally.” This elite fraternity/sorority — described as possessing “extremely minimal flaws” — includes Australian model Jordan Barrett as well as ethereally beautiful actresses Margot Robbie, Angelina Jolie and Megan Fox.
But this is not the summit of this misogynist’s Mount Olympus. That honor goes to Tera Chad and Tera Stacy (7.75 – 8), god-tier designations that are “virtually impossible, as no one can achieve absolute perfection or universal attractiveness to every woman worldwide.”
“This designation is reserved for mythical figures like Adonis or Apollo, as well as religious icons such as angels or prophets,” reads the site, which places the odds of being in this category at 1 in 12 billion.
And while the PSL scale might seem superficial at worst, trends like Looksmaxxing can help funnel harmful incel ideology into the mainstream, per a recent study by scientists at the University of Portsmouth that analyzed said rubric.
“Platform algorithms, trending features, and viral content mechanisms supercharge this spread, exposing millions to harmful ideologies,” explained lead author Anda Solea, Lecturer in Cybercrime from the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the institution.
The study reportedly blamed the ideology for the 2021 mass shooting in Plymouth by Jake Davidson, who was reportedly fascinated by serial killers and “incel” culture.
