Mad-maxxing
Doyenne of Sci-fi writing, Connie Willis - “Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?”
‘Friction’ used to be lobbed around in the realms of Newtonian physics until Isabel Berwick brought Kathryn Jezer-Morton’s essay on friction-maxxing to our attention, soon began encountering ‘-maxxing’ in all its forms (even with the lightest social media footprint).
“We’re foie gras ducks being force-fed escapism.
This is a sick joke that is being played on all of us. It’s infantilizing adults, and we don’t even have a word yet for what it’s doing to kids, but you all know exactly what I’m talking about. This is why I have resolved to commit to make 2026 a year of friction-maxxing, as an individual but more importantly as a parent.”
But first the origin story. According to the SCMP - “the doubled “x” possibly modelled after “doxxing” for an internet slang aesthetic – describes the practice of optimising a specific aspect of one’s life, often to an extreme degree.”
“Born in the quiet corners of forums and subreddits, maxxing has erupted across TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, turning life into a curated performance. Every pose, every routine, every post is a gamble: ambitious attempts to look, act, or live perfectly often explode, flop, or remain half-baked.”
Countries are getting in on the act - The Pentagon says it’s ‘lethalitymaxxing’ and ‘Mutual maxxing’: Singapore, Hong Kong must back each other amid disruption.
“Curiosity is one of the most proven hooks for any kind of social media content. So if you can make someone say ‘What the fuck?’, that’s a successful social media post,” says Aidan Walker, a researcher and writer on internet culture.
Nutrition was next. The Rise—and Risks—of Fibermaxxing
“The food industry has responded to Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda with a dizzying assortment of high-protein items now available in chain restaurants and on store shelves. Despite his frequent claim that ultra-processed foods are making Americans sick, protein-loaded versions of those same foodstuffs are everywhere, as an apparent compromise.”
For some, journalmaxxing any day.
TikTok, in particular, has fueled the brand’s recent popularity. “We didn’t even have an account there, but there was suddenly a big number of posts and videos,” says Motoo Suzuki, Hobonichi’s chief financial officer, recalling a surge of content about the planners in 2025. “Some items sold out so quickly, right after the launch on the same day.”
“Ironically the first people to bring looksmaxxing to TikTok appear to have been women, who unknowingly began repurposing incel concepts from the early “rate me” subreddits. Beauty influencers on #GirlTok would demonstrate how to use canthal tilt to put on eyeliner, or post video filters rating themselves on metrics like forehead size and interocular distance. Eventually, people began picking up on the phrenological absurdity of these ideas and turned them into memes. The deeper people poked into the underlying philosophy, the more the jokes multiplied, and words like “pilled” and “-maxxing” were fully trending by late 2023. Most people thought that the concepts were funny and went on to spread them; those who knew the story and were offended by it also helped the terms spread through the ragebait cycle of attention.”
― Adam Aleksic, Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language, 2025
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