Forget looksmaxxing. We’ve moved onto deathmaxxing

May 15, 2026 — 7:00pm

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I’ve never felt more alive than when I’ve been closest to death.

Skydiving or nosediving in an aerobatic plane, drinking champagne like it’s a not a group one carcinogen or eating the rice that’s been left out on the bench for two days. I get the thrill of taking a risk: we all have our vices.

I was lucky enough to have a grandfather who smoked a lot. He also had a condition called viking claw, which locked his nicotine-stained fingers into a claw shape perfect for his next cig. The only times I recall him without a cigarette in his hand, he had popped it in his mouth so he could use his crusty, yellow claws to toss a salad.

I vowed never to smoke. Cigarettes were not sexy or thrilling. They were gross, reeked and were sullying the salad that looked delicious just moments ago.

Can the meat-only ‘carnivore diet’ really be good for your health?

Rates of smoking have been declining for decades (less than one in 10 Australians smoke) but, recently, it has snuck back onto our screens, the covers of our magazines and into music videos. Of the top films released in 2023, 41 per cent contained tobacco, compared to 35 per cent in 2022.

Never mind that smoking is responsible for the deaths of 66 Australians per day.

“Think of a Greyhound bus between Sydney and Melbourne crashing and all the inhabitants dying,” says Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin, chief executive of the Public Health Association of Australia. “It happens every day as a result of smoking.”

Smoking has become a shorthand aesthetic for rebellion and authenticity, alienation and erotic........

© The Age