Does mewing work?

If you haven’t heard of “mewing” then count yourself lucky because you’re not missing much. “Mewing'' is a trend that recently went viral on TikTok. Essentially, it’s a type of facial exercise that allegedly reshapes your jawline to get rid of a double chin. If done correctly and often, it could also, again allegedly, lengthen your mandible and create more chiseled features.?

If this sounds like snake oil to you, you’re right. It’s likely total bunk. And it even gets a little darker than just bunk, but more on that soon.

Check out our YouTube video on Mewing!

How Mewing Started

Even though it seems to have manifested itself out of nowhere in the last few years, mewing actually started in the 1970’s by a British orthodontist named John Mew, who was born in 1928 and went to dental school in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. He started having his patients perform exercises with their jaws to correct things like overbites and underbites, and built contraptions to wear like retainers designed to widen their jaws and train them into different “posture” for their mouths (sometimes with a sharp hook that stabbed your tongue if you dropped it to the bottom of your mouth).

If you stop reading here you might think, “okay, sounds maybe legit, I’ll try mewing.” But don’t stop reading.

John Mew actually had his license revoked by the NHS for providing inappropriate treatment, and was formally reprimanded by the General Dental Council for his misleading advertising for treatments that “denigrated orthodontics and falsely alleged that the GDC had accepted the truth of Mr Mew's report.” His son Mike has taken his father’s ideas of “orthotropics” (an alternative to orthodontic medicine that most orthodontics frown upon and is shunned from medical science) much further.?

Mike Mew pushes the idea of mewing religiously and was expelled from the British Orthodontic Society for misconduct after a 6 year old girl treated by him developed mouth ulcers and a severely altered jaw, and a 6 year old boy’s treatment resulted in “seizure-like episodes.”

Sadly, in the last few years some internet influencers have been pushing “mewing” as the latest beauty craze, and the bulk of its cult-like following are in one of the darkest corners of the internet: incel culture, which is a male supremacist hate group.

John and Mike Mew have long espoused beliefs that a more square jaw is the definition of superiority, masculinity, and a more handsome feature in men especially. They believe that more ancient faces in humans had stronger-looking angles in their mandibles and that modern society and diet has rounded our jawlines, making us ugly.?

Also John Mew is, at the time of this writing, still living at the age of 96, and has built himself a reproduction medieval castle in South East England with an actual moat around it. Just wanted to mention that.

Before and After Photos of Mewing

But if you look around the internet there are COUNTLESS before and after photos of people (mostly teenage boys because they’re preyed upon by the “manosphere” to become “alpha males” with a more squared jaw) who have changed their jawline through mewing.?

And damn, it’s really hard not to believe something with a before and after photo. I myself am not immune to them and have fallen for many ads with before and after photos for skin creams that make pores disappear, hair that grows 2 feet in 2 months, and wrinkle cream that erases undereye wrinkles in 90 seconds. If I saved all the money I spent on that crap and invested it in crypto I could probably buy a small boat, anchor it far enough away from shore so no one can hear me, and cry uncontrollably over my wrinkles and sagging jawline, which TikTok tells me make me unworthy of public appearance.

In other words, don’t trust before and after photos. They’re usually photoshopped at worst and misleading at best.

I can make my own before and after photos right here– check it out:

Mewing is Good for Photos

Mewing is the act of pushing the back of your tongue to the roof of your mouth. That small motion is going to flex whatever muscle holds your tongue in place from the relaxed position at the bottom of your mouth into a flexed position at the top, and some of the meat in that area that hangs below your jawline is going to go upwards, making it look like there’s less of it.?

Mewing is temporary. It’s not an exercise to permanently change the shape of your face. But it is a tool in photography to minimize a double chin while you’re having your photo taken. For some people, the change is subtle, but for others who have more “flexibility” in that muscle, it’s quite dramatic. Hence the dramatic before and after photos.

Should I Start Mewing?

If you want to “mew” to change the shape of your face, no. Absolutely not. It will do nothing at best and give you headaches, jaw pain, and TMJ problems at worst. But one quick mew while having your photo taken is just fine. It might minimize the appearance of a double chin during a photo shoot.

Give it a try in front of a mirror first, so you can see if you’re able to get a big enough change in your face shape, and practice it a little bit to get used to the feeling. If it’s too unnatural and you find that your facial expression changes too much and you look like you’re straining, then you’ll be sacrificing a natural smile for a smaller chin in the photo.

In conclusion, if it looks like snake oil and smells like snake oil, then it’s probably snake oil. Mewing is bunk. It’s basically the new Tide Pods Challenge for toxic masculinity.