"Hey, Kid, are you maxxing?" asked my friend, Karl the Curmudgeon.
Am I what? Maxing? I said. What the heck is that?
"No, maxxing. With two x’s. As in 'looksmaxxing' or 'healthmaxxing.'"
Did you get hit in the head again? I asked, staring at Karl like he’d sprouted lobster claws from his ears. That’s head with one 'd,' I added. We were at First Editions for our regular late-afternoon lunch, which we mostly kept a secret from my wife and his daughter (who are two different people, by the way).
"No, it’s an Internet thing the kids are doing," said Karl, taking another drink from his beer.
You sound a hundred years old when you say 'kids' like that.
Karl ignored me. "It means to use data to quantify your improvements in areas of fitness, money, health, or even beauty. So, instead of just saying you’re going to the gym more, you would start 'gymmaxxing,' and then track as much data as possible to quantify your performance and improve your results. There are apps and influencers for it and everything."
Bleh, that sounds terrible. Why can’t we just do it the old-fashioned way, and write our workouts down in a little notebook? Better yet, repeat what you did last time? Why does everything have to be quantified in an app? Just let me do the thing.
"Oh, now who sounds a hundred years old?" he said. I made a rude gesture in response.
Kurt came and took our lunch orders; we didn’t even need menus because we ordered the same thing every time: bacon cheeseburger and fries for Karl; peanut-butter-and-jalapeño-burger and tater tots for me (because I’m emotionally 10 years old), and milkshakes.
Hey, we’re beefmaxxing, I said. Did I say that right? Beefmaxxing? And shakemaxxing?
"I don’t think that’s quite the spirit of the movement," said Karl.
So I can’t just stick 'maxxing' at the end of any random word and make it a thing?
"No, not quite."
And I can’t create a stupid app for it and charge a $9.95 monthly subscription?
"Definitely not."
"Not at all," said Karl.
Yeah, it’s definitely stupid.
"No, it isn’t, Kid!" Karl plonked his beer mug on the table. "Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t make it stupid."
No, the fact that it’s stupid makes it stupid. How do you even measure your looks quantitatively?
"That’s easy. Looksmaxxers quantify human beauty and assign scores to a person’s face based on things by measuring the angle of a person’s eyes or the length of the face versus the width, or the angularity of the jawline."
Ewww, I said. So human beauty is reduced to numbers? How does one maximize that? Or is that maxximize?
"Not that I do any of this myself, you understand," Karl said. I was pretty sure he was lying; his eyebrows looked suspiciously less shaggy than normal.
Oh, of course not. I would never accuse you of trying to improve your looks.
Karl made another rude gesture at me. "Anyway, the looksmaxxers do things called 'softmaxxing,' which include skincare routines and eyebrow grooming. They’ll also do 'gymmaxxing' to reach lower body fat percentages, which enhances their facial features. And some people also do 'hardmaxxing,' which includes surgery to do jaw realignment and hair transplants."
Oh, like Elon Musk’s gender affirming surgery. Anyway, what is 'gymmaxxing?'
"That’s part of the whole 'healthmaxxing' thing. You gather all the data you can get when you do your workouts, like weighing yourself right before and right after you work out to measure how much water you need to drink to rehydrate."
Oh! I said with recognition. You mean quants.
"Kid!" gasped Karl.
"Hey, we don’t use that kind of language in here," said Kurt as he was delivering our lunches. He set Karl’s plate in front of him and just sort of tossed mine at me.
No, it’s short for quantifiers or quantification, I said. It means people who quantify their bodily activities, like how long they brush their teeth, the number of miles they run, or their body fat measurements on one of those fancy scales.
"Oh, OK," they both said.
It just sounds like 'maxxing' is the new word for quantification, but it’s not new. It sounds like Gen Z created a round tube and thought they invented the wheel. They’re just tracking their progress on their phones instead of with paper and pen.
"Sure, it sounds stupid when you put it that way," said Karl.
Because it IS stupid! I said. I understand the desire to improve yourself, but calling it maxxing speaks to the growing vanity and arrogance of spoiled young people. Whatever they have is never enough; they always want more. And yet again, they’ve managed to ruin things that people do to be healthy. They’re like King Midas, except whatever they touch just turns to stupid.
"Are you quite finished?" said Karl, looking irritated.
No, I’m rantmaxxing.
Photo credit: PickPik (Creative Commons 0)
My new humor novel, Mackinac Island Nation, is finished and available from 4 Horsemen Publications. You can get the ebook and print versions here.