Understanding Morphological Reductionism
What drives some to attribute everything to physical characteristics?
A new philosophy which has become known as the ‘black pill’ has been steadily gaining traction, not only in the size of its following, but also its cultural influence, with terminology such as ‘mogging’, ‘looksmaxxing’, ‘Chad/Stacy’, etc., entering common parlance.
The central tenet of this philosophy can be summarized as ‘looks are everything’. Its primary focus is on dating/sexual dynamics, but it also extends to other areas of life such as social hierarchies and career success. It envisions a relentlessly ‘superficial’ world wherein human worth is judged solely by aesthetics.
Though facial attractiveness may take centre stage, other physical characteristics also get some attention—chiefly height, though occasionally ‘frame’ (used to refer primarily to shoulder width) will get a mention. Muscularity is typically put to the side and even ridiculed though, with ‘gymcelling’ regarded as a desperate cope for men lacking in these more genetically fixed features.
‘Normies’ will often argue that morphological reductionists (henceforth MRs) are needlessly insecure about their looks and that their personality is the true root of their problems. MRs dismiss this as a ‘blue pill’ that is deployed to keep ‘sub-8’ men from rising up to overthrow the Chadocracy. ‘Personality is a meme’, they will proclaim; ‘your face is your personality!’.
I thought it might be worthwhile to explore some possible reasons behind this outlook. Why do MRs insist that morphological features are all that matters?
The Bad Chad fallacy
The notion that women are drawn to 'dark triad bad boys' has long been a subject of debate. With the continuous shift towards MR however, these men are increasingly referenced not to illustrate how women are drawn to these traits themselves, but rather how ‘Chad’ can be a jerk—or even a serial killer—yet his bad behavior will be overlooked thanks to his good looks. This is often advanced as a supposed demonstration of how ‘personality doesn't matter’.
Hot felon turned runway model Jeremy Meeks is no doubt the most commonly cited example of a ‘Bad Chad’ whose chiseled jawline, sharp cheekbones, and piercing blue eyes nonetheless had women gushing over him.
It’s also common to reference certain ‘Chadfish experiments’ where the man’s bio explicitly states that he is a rapist, serial killer, child predator, or some combination therein.
It will also be argued that the love letters sent to handsome serial killers like Ted Bundy demonstrates MR.
Here are some issues I can think of regarding these arguments:
Non-sequitur: It doesn’t follow from the notion that exceptionally attractive people might get away with more that other factors don’t make a difference for less attractive people1. If someone were able to compensate for poor looks by becoming a successful comedian, for example, few would seriously argue that this demonstrates how ‘looks don’t matter’.
Good personality =/= nice guy: ‘Good’ carries with it moral connotations; a better term might be ‘effectual’. Being outgoing, spontaneous, socially competent, etc., while also being somewhat disagreeable will likely bring more success than being a goody two shoes with a timid and awkward homebody personality. Aggressive behaviour—as long as it’s not directed at the woman—could also be interpreted as signaling an ability to protect.
When it comes to the ‘reformed kiddie diddler’ Chadfish experiments, they’re too on the nose to be believable. Why would anybody just casually disclose that they have a history of raping children to potential dates? Also, we don’t see all the times where it was a deal breaker.
The phenomenon of certain women lusting after murderers doesn’t seem confined to particularly handsome ones (though it could well be a multiplier). Take Chris Watts or Bryan Kohberger, who received love letters and bikini pics despite hardly being Chad material. School shooters like the Columbine duo and Nikolas Cruz also have their fangirls.
While it’s probably not advisable to start storing decapitated heads in your freezer, nor is the point that all women are ‘hybristophilic’ or aroused by murder (and it could be more about the fame or notoriety), it’s probably the case that what constitutes a ‘bad’ (i.e., ineffectual) personality is largely orthogonal to moral badness—and vice versa. The ‘good guys’ don’t always win, whether or not MR is true.
The moralization of morphological preferences
The words ‘superficial’ and ‘shallow’ are pejoratives commonly used to describe those who prioritize physical appearance over character or competence, which is seen as unrefined or even immoral. For those who feel marginalized and resentful, it may therefore be tempting to frame the perceived victimizers as placing undue emphasis on morphology.
The conflation of genes with morphology
Even among MRs who are always preaching the importance of ‘GENES’, there often persists a blank slate conception of the human mind. In fact, MRs arguably place greater emphasis on the environment’s influence than the average person does, as they tend to claim that psychological development is determined solely by social approval, which in turn is determined solely by how you look, reducing the mind to a mere reflection of one’s external visage.
If physical traits are perceived as particularly genetically fixed, it may be more appealing to attribute one’s difficulties to them, as the more immutable a factor is, the stronger a ‘justification’ it provides for one’s difficulties.
The desire to feel brave and enlightened
The black pill/MR worldview may serve a psychological function similar to conspiracy theories. By confronting what they perceive as a controversial ‘harsh truth’, they feel empowered, as though they’re ‘in the know’, while the rest of society remains hopelessly trapped in their ‘blue pill’ delusion.
In a qualitative study of former Incels by Maryn et al. (2024), Anon describes how the worldview provides them with a sense of superiority over ‘normies’:
Former Incels also reported feeling drawn to Incel content because it made them feel special. Despite Incels’ claims of low status, participants like Anon (20, Indian) felt that they have special knowledge of the true nature of society, making them superior to “normies” (i.e., non-Incels), “It’s this false sense of like superiority. Like ‘Hey we are better than them, we know the truth. All these people are like normies.’”
Autism
Autism has been found to be highly overrepresented in the MR community, which may ironically play a role in shaping their black pill/MR worldview:
Incels on the spectrum often recognize that they struggle to engage in neurotypical patterns of interaction, and therefore seek ways to make sense of its implicit rules and try to explain how intimate relationships are formed. The black pill theory, with its categorizations and rankings of attractiveness and social desirability, can thus be understood as one of the strategic means of trying to grasp and organize the social cues implicit in neurotypical behavior. In other words, it may function as a tool for organizing a social world that otherwise appears random and unpredictable.
Some MRs might not be fully aware of their neurodivergence, leading them to search for answers as to why they’re not thriving socially. Others might feel ashamed of it, for instance due to stereotypes of autists being geeks or like rain man, and find more comfort in imagining that they fall short of a morphological threshold.
Owing to a failure to ‘read between the lines’, some may have taken the message that ‘looks don’t matter’ too literally, until having a shocking realization after becoming older which then led to an overcorrection.
Some may be driven to externalize, and while autistic people may tend to face worse treatment, it's also largely a personal limitation which would exist regardless. Morphological inferiority on the other hand doesn’t hinder your ability to connect to others in and of itself.
‘Looksmaxxing’ may be appealing as a form of ‘self-improvement’ that doesn’t demand one step outside their comfort zone to interact with people. Some may even feel that compensating for their autism through this method is a more realistic path to success than overcoming their autism.
In line with the reductive nature of the worldview, there’s also the fact that absolutist thinking tends to be more common among the autistic.
First impressions
Looks play a significant role in first impressions2. If someone places most of their focus on first impressions, perhaps because they have limited experience going beyond that stage, this may lead them to mistakenly disregard factors that may go on to become deal breakers.
The rise of image-centred dating apps and social media and the exaggerated perception of how widespread dating app usage is may have reinforced the impression that society is excessively driven by surface level judgments.
The memeability of looks
Memes, as a predominantly visual medium, naturally lend themselves to appearance-based themes. The internet is filled with memes involving the ‘virgin vs. chad’ template, ‘chinlets’, characters such as ‘St. Black Ops’, etc. ‘Ur ugly lol’ remains one of the most effective means of denigrating opponents. Repeated exposure to these memes could foster insecurities about perceived morphological shortcomings, or the humour could make people more inclined to accept the message behind them.
Just a meme bro
Another point to consider is that a lot of it might simply be hyperbolic language used to elicit a reaction (they’d hardly be the first to use this tactic) or because they find it personally cathartic.
Finishing thoughts
It’s possible that morphology holds greater importance now than ever before, but the effect of looks in dating experiments doesn’t really bear this out. As far back as 1966, attractiveness had about the same predictive power that it does now. There doesn’t seem to be a stronger effect on one’s likelihood of entering a relationship, either. Nor of height. If there has been some kind of shift, it’s probably more perceptual, much like in the case of the impact of dating apps in general.
I could have chosen to ‘debunk’ this perspective, but this would be trivially easy—all you’d need to do is show that non-morphological traits exert any influence whatsoever. I haven’t yet focused on this much on this.. ‘blog’?, though even just the article on wizards has more than enough there to render MR untenable. Instead, I feel like it’s more interesting to attempt to get at the psychological underpinnings of it. If MRs merely claimed that ‘morphology matters’, or even that ‘morphology matters most’ by whatever metric, this likely wouldn’t warrant psychoanalysis. It’s the insistence on the seemingly irrational belief that nothing else matters which begs for an explanation.
Hopefully this has shed some light on the mindset of those who insist that everything can be reduced to morphology. If you feel gaslit and still convinced that you are right, stay tuned to see why this is indeed an overly reductive perspective.
This also goes for argument that ‘autistic Chad’ is supposedly exempt from its disadvantages.
Though it’s not the only factor even here—there is also an ‘expressivity halo effect’ with an effect size which may be comparable to the looks halo effect, and there is evidence for a ‘reverse halo effect’ whereby interaction quality influences attractiveness ratings.
Ted Bundy was ugly. He had a witchy nose, close-set eyes and a partial unibrow. Were women blind or what?
I’ll never understand people who prioritize physical attractiveness when looking for a romantic partner. Looks are both transient by nature and a terrible predictor of sexual chemistry and compatibility.
That being said, I think that while looks are important to most women (and people generally), they’re on balance more likely to date an average-looking good guy than a hot asshole, particularly in the long term. Pretty privilege only goes so far.