Are you boy pretty or girl pretty? Are you a deer, bunny, jellyfish, cat or dog? Have you ever got high or low visual weight? Do you’ve gotten a dramatic, natural, classic, gamine, or romantic body type? Are you a bug, fish or alien? What about your canthal tilt–positive or negative? How’s your facial harmony? Do you’ve gotten high or low visual contrast?
Perhaps you’ve come across among the above circulating on TikTok, Reddit and Instagram over the past yr or so. They’re all ways to dissect the color, shape, size and prominence of features. High visual weight, for instance, means you’ve gotten large facial expression that stand out. A high contrast face has a dramatic difference between the color of skin, hair and eyes. A lot of these function as ways to reinforce your make-up, or determine whether gold or silver jewellery suits you higher. Fun, right? But there’s an insidious side to those analytical trends. A lot of them play into the sketchy pseudoscience of phrenology and physiognomy.
Phrenology, the study of the skull predicting mental traits, was big through the Victorian era. The contours of scalps were read like palms to try to know personality traits, resulting in things like Nineteenth-century doctors mistakenly believing they’d have the ability to take a look at faces and pick criminals. Phrenology was debunked by the 1840s, however it seems these ideas haven’t been fully left prior to now. Just take a look at the ‘angel versus witch skull’ TikTok concept: ‘angel’ skulls supposedly have upturned noses and protruding chins, while a ‘witch’ skull has a recessed jaw and chin (the latter, it’s implied, is less desirable). Since racial groups might be linked to physical characteristics, dividing skull shapes into ‘good’ or ‘bad’ categories is wading into very dangerous territory.
Physiognomy, meanwhile, is an concept that’s been around since Ancient Greece – and, like phrenology, has also been discredited. This idea (which has been rebranded as ‘face-reading’ on TikTok) is the study of an individual’s facial expression or expression and what that claims about their character. Consider that famous Roald Dahl illustration, which says “a one who has good thoughts can never be ugly.” Metaphorically, there is perhaps a positive sentiment in there, however it’s ultimately problematic: beauty being linked with morality is a deeply entrenched concept that continues to shape the way in which individuals are perceived despite our appearances being, genetically, completely out of our control.
‘Sanpaku eyes’, which have visible whites underneath the iris, is one other concept that’s gained traction online. A superstition with ancient origins in Japan, it suggests those that have them are destined for tragic lives (examples given are as varied as Jimmy Savile, Billie Eilish and Michael Jackson). One other TikTok explains high trust versus low trust faces. Individuals with low-set brows, for example, are deemed untrustworthy.
Some of those ideas have factual roots – facial symmetry makes us perceive someone as more attractive, for instance. But most are complete nonsense and it’s unattainable to get away from the sinister origins of those particular sketchy ideas. “I cannot stress this enough: physiognomy, phrenology and craniometry are really bad, there’s nothing redeeming about them… they’re not fun, they’re not cute, they are literally tools of harm. And marginalisation, oppression, genocide and systemic racism,” says Abby Cox, a fashion historian on YouTube. They’re ideas which can be interconnected with white supremacy, colonisation and suppression of individuals, she says. The Nazis, for instance, were big into physiognomy. Phrenology has strong links to racism and it was used to justify slavery and white supremacy.
Present in lots of these online trends is an obsession with evolutionary biology, paying homage to when humans were hunter-gatherers. On X, one user posted about Anya Taylor-Joy and Halle Bailey having “herbivore eyes”, which “make them look easily predated upon”. Then there’s the canthal tilt: a ‘positive’ tilt is taken into account the optimum of attractiveness, or “hunter” eyes. Male incel culture, particularly, is susceptible to absorbing these aesthetic trends, sometimes going to extreme lengths to change their looks (see: bonesmashing). Then there’s mewing – a tongue posturing technique which has no scientific evidence behind it. This yr, looksmaxxing peaked (together with other types of -maxxing, or self-optimisation, which can be big within the manosphere).
The issue is that, in addition to by lesser-known creators, these ideas are being parroted by people in power. Earlier this yr, Elon Musk – who currently wields a worryingly large amount of influence over the US government – responded to a fringe account on X that promotes phrenology, claiming there’s a correlation between skull size and intelligence. The Onion, often on the cash relating to the zeitgeist, published the satirical piece ‘Trump Releases Skull Measurements From Phrenology Exam’. “As someone who grew up in Germany, it’s questionable why TikTok is fascinated with a way Nazis used to segregate people,” reads one comment underneath a video by creator Noah Samsen, in regards to the platform’s phrenology problem.
All this isn’t limited to facial structure: kibbe body types have gained traction online, which classifies people into six primary body types: dramatic, natural, classic, gamine, theatrical romantic and romantic. While some might see these as harmless ways to show you how to dress, others find these notions of categorisation oppressive and a latest strategy to feel bad about yourself (when you don’t have the one blessed body type, after all).
Why do these aesthetic pseudosciences hold a lot allure? Perhaps it plays into the appetite to categorise ourselves, from horoscopes to Meyers Briggs tests, love languages and attachment styles we love to offer ourselves labels. We’re also increasingly occupied with trying to seek out methods and hacks to maximise our physical attractiveness. The web has intensified glow-up culture – on Reddit, r/rateme and similar subreddits are huge, begging for other users to rate them or discover what they’ll do to enhance their looks. Categorisations like “high visual weight” or “deer pretty” give the illusion of offering people the answer of the way to ‘maximise’ their appearance and take the selections out of their hands. Once you’ve gotten identified that your face has a low visual contrast, there can be lots of of videos telling you what type of make-up is ‘best’ for you.
But while this may increasingly seem harmless, and even helpful, it ultimately is barely further intensifying the pressures we’re feeling to suit certain beauty standards. We regularly talk in regards to the damage done by beauty standards within the 90s and 00s – the era of lads’ mags and heroin chic (which, after all, is now back in vogue). However the young generation is now being bombarded with a latest set of rigorous, mathematical – and phony – ideals to fret about. Is it any wonder, then, that we now have Sephora tweens and a normalisation of cosmetic surgery? And if any of this physiognomy-esque pseudoscience starts to creep into the federal government, via Musk or secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is understood for his pseudoscientific beliefs, the risks can be much more serious. So in 2025, let’s leave phrenology and physiognomy where they belong – prior to now.
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