From hobbitmaxxing to Catholicmaxxing: how well do you know your maxxes?

It started more than a decade ago with looksmaxxing, a disturbing manosphere-based strategy for optimising personal appearance through diet, exercise, surgery or smashing your jawbone. Back then, “maxxing” carried with it an unwholesome sense of overkill for its own sake. Even that extra X – maxing out the word in a way that served no orthographic purpose – seemed to be a symptom.

Over time the -maxxing suffix has come to mean going all in on a particular trait, habit, quality or pastime, generally in a manner that misses the point. Booksmaxxing, for example, seems to be less about reading, and more about coming across as optimally bookish in your dating profile. Sleepmaxxing is about getting as much sleep as you can, rather than as much as you need.

Maxxing trends tend to burn brightly and briefly – people are always on the lookout for the next one. But how well do you know your maxxes? How many of the following are real?

1. 1.Auramaxxing. Sometimes seen as the antidote to looksmaxxing, it involves enhancing and intensifying the invisible personal magnetism – your aura – that flows from you. Or does it?
2. 2.Smellmaxxing. Optimising one’s aroma through the application of perfume is nothing new. But maxxing your smell is a trend among boys, some as young as 11. Forget Lynx – expensive colognes are the new Tamagotchis.3. 3.Ethicsmaxxing. This doesn’t mean "Get as many ethics as you can, and quick!" It’s just having a code of ethics and applying it rigorously to every decision you make.
3. 4.Hobbitmaxxing. The seven habits of highly effective hobbits include going barefoot, keeping warm, prioritising meals and generally tending to the small things in and around your hobbit hole. To be honest, it’s not that different from being a badger.
4. 5.Sidequestmaxxing. Completing seven marathons in seven days, running away to join the circus, breaking a world record, inventing a new cheese, becoming an astronaut – in one sense, sidequestmaxxing is simply about being open to new challenges. In its true sense, however, it’s about taking your hobby way too seriously. 6. 6.Bootymaxxing. It’s exactly what it sounds like: engaging in a series of exercises to optimise your bottom, but with an eye toward strengthening your gluteal muscles, rather than simply enlarging them. But also, incidentally, enlarging them.
5. 7.Tanmaxxing. Tanning your skin to its maximal darkness by spending longer in the sun and ignoring warnings about what an obviously terrible idea this is. 8. 8.Bum-maxxing. This may sound like the British version of bootymaxxing, but it’s a male fad for deliberately becoming as toxic, self-absorbed and emotionally distant as possible, out of a misguided belief that being an immature pain in the arse makes you more attractive to women.
6. 9.Solomaxxing. It may seem impossible to be optimally single (you either are or you aren’t), but you can be deliberately alone – either because relationships are too complicated or too expensive – and learn to enjoy your own company. That’s solomaxxing!
7. 10.Catholicmaxxing. You don’t need to be raised as a Catholic to Catholicmax. In fact, it probably wouldn’t help. This is a hardcore approach to religion that focuses on rules, ritual, deprivation (mostly fasting) and, ultimately, oneself. 11. 11.Fibremaxxing. A nutritional discipline seemingly designed to test the notion that “there is no such thing as too much dietary fibre”, while causing you to suffer the constipation, bloating and farting that comes with it.
8. 12.Wokemaxxing. A casually flung accusation that someone is being deliberately or provocatively politically correct.
9. 13.Chinamaxxing. If you’re hoping this is an innocent ambition to own a complete tea set, or rhyming slang for a desire to increase one’s immediate circle of friends, prepare to be disappointed: Chinamaxxing is about disaffected US TikTokers trying to become more Chinese, mainly by wearing slippers, learning Mandarin or collecting Labubu dolls. 14. 14.Ballmaxxing. There’s no easy way to put this: ballmaxxing is the practice of making your scrotum appear as large as possible through the injection of saline. Worse still, this seems to be not so much a cosmetic procedure as a DIY project, with all the risks that implies.
10. 15.Whimsymaxxing. This lifestyle regime calls for a more carefree and playful approach towards anything and everything, although, in practice, it’s largely restricted to menswear: pink-tinted sunglasses, leopard prints, cardigans with hearts on. Think Harry Styles, or even Austin Powers. 16. 16.Climaxxing. This one isn’t specifically about orgasms – climaxxing just means putting sex higher up your "to do" list, even to the point of scheduling some in if necessary.
11. 17.Frictionmaxxing. This is based on the idea that our increasingly frictionless lives are turning us into complacent idiots. To grow, to learn, to become resilient, we must actively seek out difficulty – using maps, reading books, cooking food – and systematically avoid ease, pointless convenience and above all AI.
12. 18.Nothingmaxxing. Logically, we were destined to arrive at this point: sitting in a room, all alone, doing nothing, but to the max. You might also describe it as meditation for people who have never heard of meditation. 19. 19.Nonnamaxxing. The secret to living a fuller, longer and happier life is to emulate Italian grandmothers: embrace getting old, walk everywhere, shop locally, eat a Mediterranean diet and interfere in everyone else’s business.
13. 20.Spermmaxxing. Thankfully, this refers specifically to maximising fertility. Adherents may attempt to increase their sperm count by various means, including testicle ice baths and the consumption of raw garlic.