Pheromone maxxing is the latest self-optimization trend to make a bold claim about attraction. Like most bold claims about attraction, it’s about 30% correct.

The practice, circulating on TikTok as part of the looksmaxxing pipeline, involves ditching deodorant, skipping showers, and occasionally—among the more committed—drinking their own urine to “sweat out toxins.” All of this in service of amplifying a “natural musk” that allegedly contains pheromones that make you biologically irresistible. The sell is basically this. Stop trying so hard, smell like an animal, watch the attraction happen.

The trend is running several laps ahead of the research. “As a means of survival, sex workers are eroticizing body parts that can get through the algorithm,” sex educator Topher Cusumano told Men’s Journal. As platforms have cracked down on explicit content, underarms and sweat became vehicles for erotic material that doesn’t trigger a flag. What starts as an algorithmic workaround becomes a trend. A trend becomes a guy skipping showers and calling it a dating strategy.

The problem with the whole thing is that human pheromones, as a confirmed scientific category, are still theoretical. A 2025 review in Physiology & Behavior took a detailed look at androstadienone—a steroid in male sweat that’s been the frontrunner for decades—and still concluded the classification “remains inconclusive.” That’s 60-plus years of searching, and the answer is still a polite shrug. The pheromone cologne industry, though, is not letting that slow it down.

@fluffdumpster

first off #table #computer #firstoff

♬ original sound – Fluffdumpster

What Is Pheromone Maxxing? The Dating Trend Telling Men to Stop Showering.

The actual science is more interesting than the trend. Research on the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a cluster of immune system genes, has found that people are unconsciously drawn to partners whose immune profile differs from their own. In a famous set of experiments nicknamed the sweaty T-shirt studies, women consistently preferred the body odor of men whose MHC genes were most different from theirs. 

There’s a wrinkle. Research has found that hormonal birth control appears to completely reverse the MHC preference. Women on the pill tend to be drawn to men with similar immune profiles rather than different ones, raising a question no one warned them about when they started the prescription. The scent-attraction connection has more going on than a hygiene boycott can fix. It also works better when you don’t smell like a gym bag.

Your body odor is carrying biological data that someone, somewhere, is evolutionarily primed to find attractive. The deodorant is probably getting in the way, but please, please still take a shower. 

The post Introducing Pheromone Maxxing, TikTok’s Latest Disgusting Dating Trend appeared first on VICE.

Sex with yourself is, theoretically, the time when you can drop the moaning and the sexy faces and just enjoy yourself. New data suggests we’ve found a way to ruin that too.

A 2026 Pleasure Census conducted by dating app HUD and sexual wellness brand Girls Get Off surveyed 2,183 people across 63 countries and found that 54% of Gen Z catch themselves “performing” during solo sex—thinking about how they look, sound, or should feel, with no one even in the room. Across all age groups, the figure sits at 44%. The same survey found 73% of Gen Z say appearance concerns make sex harder to enjoy.

There’s a clinical name for this. Spectatoring—coined by sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson in 1970—describes the act of mentally observing yourself during sex from a third-person perspective, evaluating your performance rather than experiencing your body. It was originally studied as a factor in sexual dysfunction and assumed to require a partner. The Pleasure Census data suggests the imagined audience is sufficient.

Performance Anxiety Is Ruining Masturbation for Gen Z

And once again, you can’t not talk about porn. A 2026 study found that women who watched porn reported increased performance anxiety about how they look and behave during sex. One participant said: “I feel stressed about not looking like the girls in porn movies.” The study found pornography led many respondents to view sex as performative rather than a shared pleasurable experience—a subconscious thought that doesn’t turn off when the other person leaves the room.

“For a generation raised on porn, it can be genuinely hard to unlearn the way we think we’re supposed to behave during sex,” sexologist Becky Crepsley-Fox told Metro. The internal audience doesn’t switch off. For many people, it eventually becomes the default, operating beneath every experience that was supposed to be free of it.

There’s decades of spectatoring research confirming what most people already know from experience: the moment your attention shifts outward, your body checks out. Orgasm requires presence, not an audience. Solo sex is the one place in the world where nobody else’s needs, reactions, or expectations are in the room. Using it to rehearse for them anyway is a waste

The only audience in the room is the one you built yourself. That’s both the problem and the only place the solution lives.

The post A Fear of Looking Weird Is Ruining Masturbation for Gen Z appeared first on VICE.

Fandom in general seems to have been one of humanity’s big mistakes. That’s a broad statement, but you see what I mean when you start exploring individual fandoms, from the notoriously toxic corners of Star Wars to unsettling devotion surrounding The Pitt. You know, a show that has only released 30 episodes and already has a fanbase that has developed enough toxicity for several fandoms.

Harry Potter fans are making a strong case for the top spot in the toxic fandom rankings. Case in point: a Welsh beach where a fictional elf was buried in a movie has apparently become sacred ground, and fans successfully stopped a $570 million electrical cable project from passing underneath it.

The key word here is underneath.

Harry Potter Fans Successfully Protected Dobby’s Grave From an Underground Power Cable

As reported by The New York Times, the character Dobby, the enslaved house elf who eventually wins his freedom and then dies shortly thereafter in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. In the movie, Harry buries him at Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, beneath a marker reading, “Here lies Dobby, a free elf.”

Dobby is of course fictional. He was words on a page that got turned into a fully computer-generated character voiced by famed British character actor Toby Jones. Dobby is very fake, and so is his grave, along with everyone who buried him. Fake. Fake. Fake; they’re all fake.

None of that mattered to hundreds of Harry Potter fans who contacted Greenlink after project manager Simon Ludlam mentioned during a BBC interview that the company’s undersea electricity cable would pass beneath the beach. Ludlam initially had no idea who Dobby was. His colleagues eventually explained that, apparently, this was “very, very serious,” as The Guardian reports.

So planners changed the route.

The new cable avoided Dobby’s imaginary grave while also avoiding actual Bronze Age burial remains nearby. We put this in the plainest terms possible: a fictional dead elf got roughly the same consideration as ancient dead humans.

The cable is now operational, and Dobby remains undisturbed. So… win-win, I guess?

Fans can keep on visiting his memorial and leaving stones to honor him, and now they can take pride in the fact that they rerouted millions of dollars of infrastructure as they moved a cable that links the power grids of two nations, all underground, and all because they are emotionally attached to a dead CGI elf.  

The post Harry Potter Fans Forced a $570 Million Power Cable to Avoid Dobby’s Fake Grave appeared first on VICE.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who order the fries for the table, and those who steal them off someone else’s plate. Within that, there's a very special subgroup—the ones who order the fries, don’t Venmo request anyone, and just silently let the group benefit. Bless those people. There’s a special place in heaven for them (probably with a trio of unlimited aiolis and fountain Diet Coke).

Fries are technically a side dish, but let’s be real: they’re doing main character work. Whether they’re saving a sad dinner, showing up as girl dinner (see: Caesar salad, fries, and a Diet Coke), or loaded with toppings and eaten straight from the sheet pan, fries are the one food that almost no one can resist.

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If you’ve ever tried to find Medjool dates in a grocery store, you know it’s not always intuitive. You might check near the bananas, wander toward the baking aisle, or give up and ask someone. Until recently, date packaging rarely did itself any favors: generic plastic clamshells, muted colors, minimal context. The fruit may have been sweet, but it didn’t exactly look like it.

That started to change in 2019, when a line of brightly packaged, California-grown Medjool dates called Joolies started showing up in stores across the country. You’ve probably seen them even if you don’t know the name: turquoise stand-up pouches stamped with a bold yellow sun, sitting up in the produce section. Joolies wasn’t just trying to sell dates—they were trying to rebrand them entirely.

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If there’s one thing I love in this world, it’s an unexpected cocktail—especially heading into the summer months, when Friday happy hours feel more joyous than ever. I’m always on a quest to perfect my espresso martini (more on that soon), but this month, I’m in the mood for something new.

And that leads us to the question that rolls around every June: What’s going to be the drink of the summer? A safe bet (that I’d put actual money on) is the Aperol spritz, still going strong five years later. The limoncello spritz has also gained steam—and honestly, I get the appeal. I recently tried Pallini’s version for their summer spritz activation, and their sunny vibes once again sold me.

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There’s no doubt that America is currently obsessed with matcha. In desserts, savory dishes, and lattes, green tea is finally getting its flowers. However, there are a few recipes that truly stand out from the rest in terms of internet virality. In this case, I have not been able to escape matcha brookies—which are exactly what they sound likematcha blondie dough combined with chocolate chip cookie dough. The original viral video and recipe is made by Ivy Woolenberg, otherwise known as @bakedwithlovebyivy on social media, and we were lucky enough to host her in the Food52 test kitchen to make her signature dessert.

Here’s how we made them:

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The word viral is overused (I’m guilty), but when it comes to the internet-iconic Rhode Island coffee shop The Nitro Bar, there’s no better way to describe the phenomenon. The Nitro Bar has three locations across the tiny state of Rhode Island, and all of them have an ever-growing line out the door at all times. Their TikTok and Instagram rack up crazy impression numbers, which has food businesses everywhere copying their marketing tactics. The genius behind it all: Audrey Finocchiaro, the co-owner and co-founder of the successful shop(s), which started as a humble little cart serving cold brew.

The videos and social media content that perform so well pretty much all showcase a Nitro Bar drink being made, with a specialty coffee syrup or some sort of flavored twist. Right now, their summer syrups include strawberry and caramelized banana (yum), while some off-season favorites include orange chocolate, black raspberry, and cherry vanilla. Customers wait in long lines year-round for anything and everything Nitro Bar— including me. When I lived in Boston a few years ago, I would hop on the commuter rail train to Providence and get their chocolate wafer iced latte and spend a rainy day sipping and snacking with friends. I’ve been a follower of Audrey and the Nitro Bar’s work for a while now, and was so happy to get her into the Food52 office.

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In no particular order, I believe three of the world’s hardest questions to answer are as follows:

1. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
2. What do you want to eat?
3. What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?

Numbers 1 and 2 will always elicit some sort of response in the vein of “I couldn’t have less of an idea.” But number 3? Oh, I have lots of ideas… and even more follow-up questions.

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The Whole Foods Berry Chantilly cake might be the most viral cake on the internet. It's been a hit since its first release in 2002, had a few big shoutout moments online in 2021 where people raved about the dessert, and, more recently, sparked outrage when the supermarket chain changed the original recipe. Supposedly, they replaced the cake’s fresh berries with frozen berries and fruit jam, and Chantilly cake loyalists were not shy about expressing their disappointment. Fast forward to now: Whole Foods released a Berry Chantilly-flavored iced latte, and suddenly cake is once again culturally relevant.

I have to admit something: I’ve never tried it. I haven’t been able to justify buying the entire cake because I don’t love berry flavored desserts (I’m much more of a chocolate kind of gal). However, after my feed became flooded with people trying this new latte, I felt compelled to recreate the flavors of the original cake, but in a smaller and more shareable way. To me, making an entire cake is usually not worth it unless it’s for an event like a birthday party. There’s always too many leftovers. So, I set out to make little shareable cakes with all the same berry Chantilly flavors: a light, yellow sponge cake, a Chantilly frosting, and fresh berries (NOT frozen).

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