“Do you think about me?”
So asks a disembodied voice at the beginning of a TikTok from user @velvet.mind. The question is followed by hypnotic synth pulses, hissing static, and sped-up, garbled human speech. An accompanying visual: a montage of immaculately made-up and stylish women who could all be models—indeed, some of them probably are. The text overlaid on the video reads “extreme beauty subliminal.”
The minute-long clip has nearly 300,000 likes and 1.4 million views. Why all this engagement for a bit of vaporwave ephemera? Because an online community of young women sincerely believe that sustained exposure to these sounds and images will improve their physical appearance.
According to the creator, the indecipherable words are a series of affirmations that include “My face is naturally symmetrical, balanced, and breathtaking” and “I have flawless, poreless, glowing skin.” Listeners are meant to subconsciously internalize and manifest such ideals; they echo that language in their replies, speaking their beauty goals into existence. “I am drop-dead gorgeous,” one comment reads.
Welcome to the world of “subliminals,” a subculture of feminine self-optimization that rests on the power of suggestion and hypnosis. Whereas recent media coverage has scrutinized young men’s extreme “looksmaxxing” strategies for enhancing their features, which arose from toxically misogynist web forums of the mid-2010s, the subliminals genre is perhaps even older (one subreddit dates back to 2012), albeit with far less mainstream recognition.
The diversity of these audiovisual artifacts shows their branching evolution over time. Some take the form of music snippets. Others are ASMR monologues or ambient soundscapes that make use of white noise effects like the patter of falling rain. Some feature footage of attractive celebrities—see this video that purports to make the viewer more closely resemble the actress Megan Fox—while others rely on trippy abstract shapes and colors.
Though there are “subs” for every imaginable makeover (fuller lips, curvier hips, silkier hair, smaller nose, bigger breasts, longer legs, even eyes of a different shape or color), the practice extends to all aspects of well-being. The right subliminal can supposedly help you ace an exam, achieve financial success, or make your crush fall head over heels for you. No matter what you want to change about your circumstances, there’s a subliminal for it.
Still, appearance-focused videos are far and away the biggest category, and as the recent proliferation of subliminals using terms including “looksmaxxing,” “facemaxxing,” and “beautymaxxing” make clear, they have links to the anxieties over perceived physical flaws that continue to drive young men into radicalizing online communities. Male looksmaxxers have occasionally voiced curiosity about and debated the techniques involved. Last week, a Redditor on r/subliminal asked if anyone could point him to a “male enhancement” subliminal that would potentially double his penis size.
Young women, of course, have always been under enormous pressure to meet unrealistic body standards. Apparently the internet has pushed a large contingent of them toward this quasi-spiritual solution rather than the brutal gym routines, hormone therapies, and radical surgeries favored by disillusioned young men.
Kyla, 20, tells WIRED that at a very young age, she was unhappy in life but then discovered “self-love” subliminals, which are intended to shift the listener’s image of themselves. (She requested that her last name be withheld out of concern for her professional standing.) “Once I realized I was viewing myself more positively and feeling happier with who I am, I tried some other subliminals for weight loss and desired features,” Kyla says, acknowledging how “insane” it sounds to claim that they produced results. “I lost 70 pounds and reached a healthy weight when I was previously overweight, without changing my lifestyle drastically,” she says. Kyla went on to make her own subliminals to help her work through other issues and find a relationship. She has since met both goals.
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