As Ria Listic, a new student, walked through the halls and observed, she noticed that everyone was holding a little mirror in their hands and looking at themselves.
“Huh, that’s weird,” Listic said under her breath.
Looking down at her phone, she saw that human anatomy was her first period. She continued to try and find where her class was when she realized that she was in the wrong building. Having to rush to get to the correct place, she ended up being six minutes late for class.
As she walked in, the teacher said, “I know that it’s the first day of school but coming in six to seven minutes late is unacceptable.”
Listic mumbled an apology while sitting down on the last available seat.
“For our lesson today, we are going to talk about mewing. It’s when you adjust your tongue and mouth to have a better jawline.” the teacher said.
“Why are we talking about that? I thought this was science class.” Listic said in confusion.
“Exactly, having a good jawline is one of the most important parts of looksmaxxing. That’s why it is the first lesson of human anatomy at this school.” the teacher said.
As the rest of the period went on, Listic wondered why any normal school would have a whole lesson on mewing. At the end of class, she checked her phone to see that her second period was art. When she looked up from the screen, she saw that many of her classmates were looking at themselves in a mirror instead of using their phones.
At her old school, everyone would spend every free moment scrolling through social media. She once again thought that the whole mirror thing was weird and decided to ask the person next to her.
“Hey, why is everyone checking their reflections?” Listic said.
“We’re all making sure that we look good for the next period. Here at this school, looksmaxxing is all that matters.” the student said.
After hearing so, Listic thought that this was the craziest thing she had ever heard. No way does everyone at school only care about looks.
Again, in the hallways, so many people were rushing to the bathrooms to fix up their appearance, and others were looking at themselves in mirrors on the walls.
As she walked into art class, she thought that things would be more normal there, however, instead of markers and paint, she saw makeup products and brushes. It turned out that this class also revolved around looksmaxxing.
“For today, we are going to learn about color theory and how to mix colors to match your skin tone.” the teacher said.
The rest of the day blurred by as Listic went through the rest of her classes. All of them seemed normal at first, until the teacher explained what the lessons were about. For example, instead of learning about the angles of a triangle, she learned about the angles for taking photos in math.
“Hey! No sleeping in class, Ria Listic! Do I need to contact your parents?” a voice said angrily.
Listic jerked awake and realized that she had fallen asleep during school. She was scrolling on her phone, looking at tutorials on looksmaxxing, when her eyes had closed.
Looking around, she was relieved to see that the lesson on the board was normal and wasn’t all about improving appearances.
When she got home, she looked in the mirror and decided that there was no reason for her to change her looks because everyone is perfect as they are. She deleted the unrealistic photos and videos on her phone and decided to be happy with just her natural self.
Photos taken and edited by Minhkhue Tran.