, , , . There are so many TikTok trends that promise to optimise our lives.
Just when you thought there was nothing left to #maxx, there’s another trend to add to the list – voicemaxxing.
Its proponents claim the deeper a man’s voice, the greater his success at attracting a woman. And they’re offering exercises and apps to help train young men to sound more “manly”, and so up their dating game.
But voicemaxxing might not give young men the results they intended.
Pitch perfect?
The , or voice box, is a structure made of cartilage that sits at the top of the windpipe. The bump that sticks out is your .
The – two bands of muscle and connective tissue covered in a thin mucous membrane – stretch front to back inside the larynx. Their length, thickness and tension shape the pitch of your voice (how deep it is).
Testosterone thickens these folds in puberty and lengthens the vocal tract. This is why men’s voices are generally deeper than women’s and why they have a more prominent Adam’s apple.
It is also why the pitch of a man’s voice is . Once anatomy sets the pitch, the sound then resonates through the throat, mouth and nasal cavities to adjust the tone. This is the quality of the sound, which can be adjusted somewhat.
For voicemaxxers, TikTok prescribes a vocal regimen that is a mix of legitimate voice training and sciencey-sounding bro folklore.
Singing teachers may recognise and approve of humming exercises, “head voice” and “chest voice”, diaphragmatic breathing techniques (where you push air out of your lungs from the diaphragm), and regularly drinking water.
From here things get more speculative.
Muscles, exercises, apps, AI
For a deeper voice, to perform exercises known as neck crunches to strengthen their – the long neck muscles running from your ear to your collarbone.
But voice professionals say resonance (adding depth, volume and colour to your voice) comes from releasing tension from the jaw, not building muscle in your neck.
is a . It’s where you place your tongue to the roof of the mouth to encourage nasal breathing, tape the mouth shut overnight, and adopt a flatter, more monotone delivery. There are even .
is an app that promises to “Unleash your Most Muscular, Attractive Voice!”. It rates your voice on masculinity, attractiveness, confidence and deepness.
is a competitor product. It says it uses an artificial intelligence model trained on real women’s responses to see if your voice is “hot or not”. It says “80% of female attraction is determined by voice”.
But faking it doesn’t work
Male primates compete fiercely with one another for status and, ultimately, mating opportunities. And in species where males compete most intensely for dominance and territory, there’s a in vocal pitch between males and females.
In humans, too, voice pitch is associated with dominance. Other men long before a competition for dominance can escalate to physical fighting.
It pays men to attend to other men’s voices. higher testosterone and greater upper body strength. They are also perceived as more . By paying attention to voice pitch, men can make pragmatic decisions, from a safe distance, about whether to challenge another man, or whether to join with him against other men.
Deeper voices affect women too. They consistently rate , especially when . This attractiveness, combined with men’s dominance over other men, mean deep-voiced, tall, strong men tend to be more sexually successful. A showed men’s voice pitch, height, testosterone and a measure of strength and muscularity all predict mating success.
But faking a deeper voice , undermining the case for voicemaxxing.
Faking a deeper voice can, however, make a man sound more dominant to other men. This may partly explain voicemaxxing’s appeal in the manosphere.
There are real harms
Voicemaxxing is one expression of potentially harmful health messages for men popping up in self-optimisation content. These include , a tolerance to , and a normalisation of .
Habitually speaking at an artificially low pitch contributes to . This is voice strain caused by squeezing the muscles around the voice box. It leaves your voice sounding rough, tight or breathy, and can cut out mid-sentence.
Taking testosterone to change your voice comes with even more .
Others a fake lowered pitch, it’s unsustainable, and probably won’t improve how women see you.
, Research Fellow in Public Health, ; , Research Fellow, Centre for Youth Mental Health, , and , Scientia Professor of Evolution,
This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .
