Björn Andrésen, who died in October 2025 at the age of 70 from cancer, remains the most documented case study of a specific mechanism: the creation of an ideal of masculine beauty by a cultural industry, at the expense of an adolescent without negotiation power.
Death in Venice Casting: Anatomy of a Creation
Luchino Visconti was looking for a youth to embody Tadzio in his adaptation of Thomas Mann. The casting, conducted in several Scandinavian countries, was based on precise physical criteria: blondness, fine features, androgyny. Björn Andrésen, then 15 years old, matched Visconti’s fantasy of a pre-Raphaelite beauty transposed to cinema.
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The screening at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971 transformed a teenager into a public object of desire. Visconti presented him to the press as “the most beautiful boy in the world,” a performative phrase that fixed Andrésen in an image from which he could never escape. Asking who is the most beautiful boy in the world raises questions about the production conditions of such labels far more than the appearance itself.
The documentary by Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri, aired in 2021, showed the concrete consequences of this exposure: loneliness, alcoholism, inability to build a career outside the myth. The co-director praised Andrésen’s courage after his death for publicly sharing these struggles.
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PSL Scale and Looksmaxxing: The Industrial Quest for the “Most Beautiful”
The myth of the perfect boy did not die with the cinema of the 1970s. It migrated to forums and then to TikTok and Discord in a technicized form. Looksmaxxing, born in incel communities in the early 2010s, proposes a systematic optimization of masculine appearance: maxillofacial surgery, aesthetic medicine, grooming protocols.
The Child Mind Institute has documented the existence of a formalized hierarchy, the PSL scale, which ranks men according to measurable morphological criteria: jaw angle, eye shape, body fat percentage, facial proportion ratios. The categories range from “subhuman” to “Chad,” the latter representing the optimal male model.
We observe a significant shift here compared to the Andrésen case. The title of “most beautiful boy in the world” is no longer assigned by a director or a festival jury. It is collectively constructed by online communities that quantify masculine beauty.
- The square jaw and positive canthal tilt (external eye inclination) are the two most discussed criteria in PSL spaces
- The protocols include non-surgical interventions (mewing, facial exercises) and surgical ones (genioplasty, rhinoplasty)
- The Child Mind Institute reports documented effects on anxiety and body image disorders in adolescents exposed to this content
Viral Rankings and the Fiction of Global Consensus
Every year, lists circulate on social media: “the 100 most beautiful faces in the world,” “the sexiest player.” These rankings are not based on any scientific methodology. They function as purely viral objects, designed to generate clicks and controversy.
The mechanism is always the same. A site or account aggregates online votes, sometimes manipulated by organized fandoms. The result is presented as a global verdict, while it reflects the mobilization capacity of a fan community. Personalities as diverse as Cristiano Ronaldo or K-pop idols appear in these rankings without the selection criteria ever being explained.
These rankings share with the label assigned to Andrésen the same claim to objectivity, but their lifespan is radically different. No one bears the weight of a viral title for fifty years. The rapid turnover of social media paradoxically protects the ranked individuals: the fantasy renews too quickly to destroy a single life.
French Senate and Masculinist Drifts: The Myth as a Political Issue
The Senate delegation for women’s rights has alerted to new masculinist practices, of which looksmaxxing is a part. The report points to the dissemination of normative content on masculinity to very young audiences, via platforms that largely escape regulation.
The issue goes beyond aesthetics. The quest for the “most beautiful” is part of an ideological ecosystem where male physical appearance becomes a marker of social value. The communities promoting these standards do not just offer grooming advice. They convey a hierarchical vision of relationships between men, based on supposedly objective biological criteria.
- The Senate specifically targets content aimed at minors on video platforms
- The link between looksmaxxing communities and incel ideology is documented by several social science researchers
- The issue of male body image remains less studied than its female equivalent, complicating prevention efforts
The journey of Björn Andrésen and the rise of looksmaxxing tell the same story fifty years apart. An external gaze, whether from an Italian filmmaker or a TikTok algorithm, transforms a body into an object of collective desire.
The difference lies in the scale: millions of boys are now exposed to this pressure, where Andrésen was alone facing Visconti. Today, the label circulates on all platforms, carried by entire communities, and reaches adolescents long before they have the means to reject it.