Horrifying Results as Man Exercises Only One Single Muscle

In a grotesque twist to the online trend of

In a grotesque twist to the online trend of "looksmaxxing," a term referring to male incels looking to maximize their own physical attractiveness, a TikTok user has spent over 160 days working out just a single trapezius muscle.

In daily update videos, the college student, who goes by the fitting online handle TheCrookedMon, showed off the results of his unorthodox "looks minimizing" strategy: a massively imbalanced shoulder muscle diagonally — and unsettlingly — stretching from the left side of his head to his left shoulder.

Why? Besides a modicum of internet clout, we're still not entirely sure.

To get his very particular gains, TheCrookedMon did daily shrugs on his left side only, using a variety of objects, including a dog, a backpack, and a pack of drinks at the grocery store.

Instead of cheering him on, commenters appeared largely concerned for his health.

"Bro you proved your point," one user wrote, with a crying emoji.

"Bro stop please," another comment reads.

Others were more impressed.

"This is literally the biggest flex I've ever seen," one user wrote.

There’s a kid who has only trained one trap for most of a year and it’s one of the most autistic things I’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/3d0GRbZPKi

— Bill Coyne (@MiloAgonistes) April 11, 2025

The trend became so big, it spawned an entire memecoin, dubbed $TRAPMAN. According to DexScreener, the coin spiked to a value of $0.00003649 — yes, you read that decimal point correctly — when it launched on April 13. Unsurprisingly, the dubious asset crashed almost immediately, wiping out most of its value.

The jury is still out on whether TheCrookedMon could be damaging his body, but chances are he'll be fine in the long run. Researchers have found that primarily focusing on training just one side of the body could still have plenty of benefits for the other side.

It's a particularly pertinent reality for those recovering from an injury or missing part of their body. Research has shown that training just one side could even build muscle mass in an unused, injured limb through the triggering of neural pathways, a phenomenon referred to as the "cross-training effect" or "cross-education."

However, that doesn't mean we condone the kind of eyebrow-raising workout regimen TheCrookedMon chose for himself — there are far better ways to design a unilateral training plan.

In a tongue-in-cheek April 2 video, he attempted to explain why he intentionally sacrificed his looks.

"I was scrolling TikToks in my Ferrari, and I kept getting these looksmaxxing TikToks," he said. "And they were like, 'Do this, do that, you'll look more attractive, you'll get more women."

"And it's like, people have that problem?" he added. "I've the opposite problem. I get so many DMs I don't even have time to get through them all."

"If I have the opposite problem, then I need the opposite solution," TheCrookedMon argued.

Worse things are on the horizon: Over the past month, TheCrookedMan has now started working out just his right leg.

More on the incel community: A Google-Backed AI Startup Is Hosting Chatbots Modeled After Real-Life School Shooters — and Their Victims

The post Horrifying Results as Man Exercises Only One Single Muscle appeared first on Futurism.

Read more here:
Horrifying Results as Man Exercises Only One Single Muscle

China Is Hosting The World’s First Foot Race Between Humans and Robots

In the race to build the best humanoid robots, China is literally ahead of the pack as it prepares for the world's first human-robot race.

Track Stars

In the race to build the best humanoid robots, China is quite literally ahead of the pack.

As the South China Morning Post reports, the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area — or E-Town — is hosting 12,000 humans and humanoid robots from more than 20 companies in a half-marathon race this April.

The race will be roughly 13 miles, and robotic competitors both cannot have wheels and must stand between 1.5 and 6.5 feet tall. In a statement, E-Town added that "competing robots must have a humanoid appearance and mechanical structure capable of bipedal walking or running movements."

Though this seems to be the world's first race explicitly pitting bipedal humans against robots, it won't be the first time a humanoid robot has taken part in a Chinese atheletic competition.

Last fall, a bipedal robot called Tiangong — not to be confused with China's space station of the same name, which translates to "heavenly palace" — jumped into Beijing's Yizhaung half-marathon towards its end. Though it only ran about 100 meters and wasn't particularly fast, the robot got a medal because it crossed the finish line (a participation trophy if we've ever heard of one).

At the Beijing Yizhuang Half #Marathon on the morning of Nov. 10, the #Beijing humanoid #robot "Tiangong" entered the racecourse and crossed the finish line alongside the runners. #funinbeijing pic.twitter.com/DQM1zjxneK

— Beijing Daily (@DailyBeijing) November 10, 2024

Dog Gone It

Just a few week after Tiangong's surprise marathon debut, the the RAIBO2 robodog competed in a full marathon weeks later in South Korea. Though the adorable quadruped was significantly faster than Tiangong, it still took nearly four hours and 20 minutes to run the 26.2 mile race — nearly double the time of the human winner, who clocked in at around two hours and 36 minutes.

Because it's neither Chinese nor bidepal, RAIBO2 will unfortunately not be involved in the E-Town half-marathon. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, however, Tiangong will be one of the participants and will purportedly be capable of running 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) per hour by the time the race rolls around.

That same agency also reported that later this year, in August, Beijing will be hosting an all-robot sporting event that not only features track and field races, but also football — unclear on whether the outlet is using the American or European definition — and "comprehensive skills and other application scenarios."

Though we can't known how fast these running robots will be until we actually watch them, we can't wait to watch.

More on unique robots: Inventor Builds Six Robot Copies of Himself, Uses One to Give Speeches and Take Questions From Audience

The post China Is Hosting The World’s First Foot Race Between Humans and Robots appeared first on Futurism.

See the original post:
China Is Hosting The World’s First Foot Race Between Humans and Robots

Startup Mocked for Charging $5,000 to "Edit" Book Manuscripts Using AI

Startup company Spines wants to publish 8,000 books in 2025 by using AI. Before that can happen, Spines should stop embarrassing itself.

Let Him Book

A startup called Spines apparently wants to use AI to edit and publish 8,000 books in 2025 — though no word on whether they'll be any good.

There are several issues with the premise. First, AI is a notoriously untalented wordsmith. It will undoubtedly struggle with the myriad tasks Spines assigns to it, including "proofreads, cover designs, formats, publishes, and... distributing your book in just a couple of weeks," according to the venture's website

Oh, and then there's the issue of Spines embarrassing itself publicly. 

"A great example of how no one can find actual uses for LLMs that aren't scams for grifts," short story writer Lincoln Michel wrote of the flap on X-formerly-Twitter. "Quite literally the LAST thing publishing needs is... AI regurgitations."

Author Rowan Coleman agreed.

"The people behind Spines AI publishing are spineLESS," Coleman posted on the same site. "They don’t care about books, don’t care about art, don’t care about the instinctive human talent it takes to write, edit and produce a book. They want the magic, without the work."

Feral Page

Spines CEO and cofounder Yehuda Niv told The Bookseller, a UK book business magazine, that Spines had already published seven "bestsellers." But when Spines was pressed to provide sales numbers, a company representative claimed the "data is private and belongs to the author." Hm, suspicious. 

Niv also promised The Bookseller that Spines "isn't self-publishing, is not a traditional publisher and is not a vanity publisher." That's despite the fact that Spines' website, which sells publishing plans from between $1,500 to $4,400, advertises to customers who are clearly looking to team up with an inexpensive vanity publisher.

"I sent my book to 17 different publishers and got rejected every time, and vanity publishers quoted me between $11,000 to $17,000," said on Spines' website the author of Spines' "Biological Transcendence and the Tao: An Exposé on the Potential to Alleviate Disease and Ageing and the Considerations of Age-Old Wisdom," which doesn't currently have a single Amazon review. "With Spines, I got my book published in less than 30 days!" 

Hm, interesting. That testimonial makes Spines sound an awful lot like a vanity publisher.

AI startups love to reinvent the wheel and claim it's never been done before. Like an ed tech startup founder who used AI to cover for her run-of-the-mill embezzlement, or a Finnish AI company which put a high tech twist on the common practice of exploiting incarcerated workers. 

Will it work for books? We'll be watching.

More on AI: Character.AI Is Hosting Pro-Anorexia Chatbots That Encourage Young People to Engage in Disordered Eating

The post Startup Mocked for Charging $5,000 to "Edit" Book Manuscripts Using AI appeared first on Futurism.

Read the original:
Startup Mocked for Charging $5,000 to "Edit" Book Manuscripts Using AI