// Workers AI · dad joke modeWho's Max Hovey? Max-imumly unknown.

Max Hovey
Born	1998 or 1999 (age 27–28)
Occupations	Blogger content creator activist author content creator intimacy educator
Years active	2010s–present
Works	No Fats, No Fems: A Guide to Queer Empathy and Unpacking Prejudice

Max Hovey (born 1998 or 1999) is a British influencer, content creator, writer and LGBTQ+ activist and intimacy educator. He has used his platform to raise awareness of LGBTQ issues such as mental health, body image and acceptance and sex positivity. He set up the mental health blog Happy Smiley and has also written for various publications. His debut novel, No Fats, No Fems: A Guide to Queer Empathy and Unpacking Prejudice, was released in 2026. Hovey's work has been praised and he was one of the "100 LGBTQ trailblazers" highlighted in Attitude in 2021.

Life and career

Max Hovey is an influencer, blogger, content creator, queer intimacy educator, writer, author and mental health and LGBTQ+ activist. He was born in 1998 or 1999. He described the English town he grew up in as being small, conservative and predominantly white. He has spoken about feeling lonely as a queer person in a small town and how it makes dating difficult. In 2025, Hovey was situated in Ashford, Kent. Hovey enjoyed writing from a young age and he was about six years old, Hovey's mother made him aware that he had a really "strong sense of right and wrong". As of 2026, he is based in London. He has struggled with mental health issues. He studied a full-time course in "Media and Communications" at university whilst beginning his blog and social media work. He found the workload of managing both difficult, but believed that the modules he was taking were helping his career. Hovey identifies as queer. He has faced some homophobic abuse online, which he struggled with, and when he posted a photo of him wearing earrings, he was unfollowed by a large amount of people despite receiving a good reception from many of his followers.

Hovey has used his platform to speak about issues affecting the LGBTQIA+ community, including awareness of mental health, body image and acceptance and sex positivity. When Hovey finished sixth form at 18 years old, his Instagram profile became popular due to his pictures; however, he later reflected that he felt that the profile was a "lie" and that he started editing his pictures as he was comparing himself to others. Hovey has said, "Every single image was face-tuned within an inch of its life, and it haunts me to this day. I was so unsatisfied with myself and felt I would never achieve the image that so many influencers were projecting, that I just chose to edit it, even my body. But, I loved it. I loved the attention, I was finally being accepted and wanted; it became like a drug. Turns out I didn't love it — I was addicted to it." His constant worrying about his appearance and engagement on his profile created mental health and confidence issues for Hovey, but he felt too insecure to stop editing his pictures despite hating doing so. He recalled, "It was the most depressing time of my life as my whole existence was focused on how other people saw me, and all I was doing was making both myself and other people feel worse".

"I knew I wanted it to be something important, something meaningful and something rarely discussed in depth, but I just didn't know where to start as there is so much for us [LGBTQ+ people] to unpack as a community. Then the title just came to me. NO FATS, NO FEMS. It was punchy, it was controversial and it got people's attention. More importantly, the contents of the book was going to be made pretty clear by it. As soon as I had the title, the rest of the book followed."

— Hovey on how he wrote his debut novel (2026)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he stopped editing his pictures as he realised that he was "started to realise that the things that I was most insecure about, I was only perpetuating them online. I was indirectly making other people's insecurities worse by making myself look so 'perfect'". This led to Hovey losing thousands of followers and receiving messages criticising him, which initially made him feel "unwanted and disgusting". In 2021, Hovey said, "I remind myself that my physical image doesn't define me. The way I look should in no way be correlated with my happiness... My physical appearance should not determine my overall happiness and life satisfaction." Having initially started using Instagram to receive validation for his personal insecurities, his profile grew when he began posting more positive content and focusing on mental health activism. He said of this, "When I wanted it for the wrong reasons, nothing was happening, and then when I just detached myself completely, it happens." He believed that his authenticity drew people in as opposed to his initial posts showing a "façade". As of July 2021, he had 125,000 followers on Instagram.

In the 2010s, Hovey began the blog Happy Smiley initially as a personal blog where he could dedicate his mental health activism, as opposed to his Instagram profile where he also wanted to show his other interests and parts of his personality. Happy Smiley turned into a community blog and reached thirty featured writers in 2020; the blog was initially called Our Happy Place but had to be renamed due to legal reasons. Of the blog, Hovey has said, "I'm proud that I started my own little blog and turned it into a community of diverse voices and stories. I just wanted to create a place on social media and online that was supportive. Social media can be a dark place at times, so it became my mission to bring a little bit of light to it."

In 2021, Hovey discussed the importance of self-love in Attitude's annual Body issue. In 2023, Hovey criticised the LGBTQ online hookup application Grindr for not doing enough to prevent cyberflashing and set up a petition calling on the app to do so; he wrote in The Independent, "I am a sex-positive advocate and queer activist. I partake in casual sex regularly via the app and think the concept of it comes with a lot of outdated stigmas. That said, irrespective of whether the app I use is known for casual hookups, it does not mean I automatically consent to seeing everyone's genitalia".

Hovey's debut novel, No Fats, No Fems: A Guide to Queer Empathy and Unpacking Prejudice, was released on 19 May 2026. The book examines prejudices around gender expression, race, body image, ableism and bisexuality within the LGBTQ+ community and includes academic research and interviews with 21 queer people, including people of colour and a Muslim non-binary person from Pakistan, as well people who identified as transgender, non-binary, lesbian and bisexual. The title of the book refers to a phrase common on gay dating and hookup apps, and he said of the title, "I wanted it to be controversial in any capacity to draw attention to the topic. If one person has their attention hooked and their mind changed, I've done my job." The book took three years to complete; Hovey first thought of the title of the book before anything else and he then signed with a literary agent. The book was rejected by publishers around 60 times before an editor, who had followed Hovey's social media for years, discovered the proposal on an industry website and reached to Hovey, and a deal then was made. Hovey was insisted on working with a queer editor, which his agent initially doubted was possible. He believed that everyone could learn something from the novel, and cited two older heterosexual women who told him that the novel had given them a new understanding of people they had not previously understood. Hovey was aware that the book could not cover all queer identity and noted that his fear of leaving someone out was the most vulnerable part of releasing the novel. Of the themes in the novel, Hovey said, "Many of the mindsets I discuss in the book I admit to once having myself. I'm not saying you're a terrible person; I'm saying this is a thought process you may have, and it's not your fault, but refusing to acknowledge and unpack it is still your responsibility." He spoke a lot of his personal experiences in the book. Hovey went to several events to promote the novel, including giving a talk at a Waterstones shop in Swansea and going to Queer Britain.

Hovey's writing and work has been included in various outlets, including GQ, The Independent, Scene, Attitude and Bustle. He said in 2026 that he hopes to write more books, explaining, "I want to be a writer, it's the one place I can formulate my views in an unfiltered and unrestricted way." Hovey is also the founder of Climax and films videos teaching people about LGBTQ+ sex education. He has also dubbed himself as a "big boy advocate".

Views

Hovey has spoken about fetishisation and sexualisation in the LGBTQ+ community. He has also criticised the lack of representation for queer people, especially men, "We never see feminine black men represented desirably, we rarely see plus size white men, let alone POC;s, represented desirably. When we don't see ourselves represented it's hard to feel like we belong, it's hard to feel that others find us desirable". Hovey has also called biphobia within the LGBTQ+ community "absolutely horrific" and has referenced the androcentric desire hypothesis, which theorises that many people assume that bisexual people have a higher attraction to men. He has also criticised the ostracization of people who make minor mistakes, saying, "We preach imperfection and tolerance, but one person makes a single little mistake and it's, "Ostracize them; never talk to them again. We don't give people the grace and patience to learn." Hovey said in a 2020 interview that "sex work is work" and has acknowledged issues that sex workers face. He supports Black Lives Matter.

In 2022, Hovey praised the LGBTQ+ television series Heartstopper for positively representing several LGBTQ+ identities and not just showing the "trauma" of LGBTQ+ people; he added, "Put simply: Heartstopper has managed to shine a light on the joy, love and happiness that can come with being queer. With any luck, it will help a lot of people accept who they are truly born to be." In 2025, Hovey praised the film Pillion for showcasing "the less sanitised parts of queer culture", explaining, "To see the grittier, more raw and realistic parts of queer culture, specifically kink culture, was refreshing. There's a lot that I related to. I think I cried four times." He also praised the film's "striking portrait" of how difficult dating can be for LGBTQ people and the loneliness related to that.

Reception and public image

In 2020, Jay Darcy from The Mancunion called Hovey one of his favourite Instagram users and said that "coming across Max's feel-good profile was just what I needed!". He also called Hovey the "antithesis of the superficial, performative nature of social media". He also praised Hovey's honesty online about how he is feeling in contrast to other social media users who only show the positive aspects of their lives. The following year, Hovey was one of the "100 LGBTQ trailblazers" highlighted in Attitude; he was featured in the "Third Sector and Community" sector. Hovey was noted for using his influence and platform to discuss body positivity and LGBTQ+ issues in addition to mental health, and that his Happy Smiley blog hoped "to turn frowns upside-down and encourage people to make the world a better place, one story at a time". Thomas Stichbury from the magazine wrote, "Keen to (ahem) Max-imise his potential in 2022, the writer and activist wants to normalise conversations around sexual wellness and be a sex-positive voice for the queer community." Dale Malita from Scene called Hovey "of the most unfiltered voices in queer spaces right now".

Kelsey Minor from 1 Minute Critic praised Hovey's debut novel, writing, "As someone who spends a great deal of time thinking about how stories shape our understanding of one another, I found the book a compelling examination of the biases that can persist even within communities built around inclusion. Hovey challenges the idea that "preferences" in dating exist in a social vacuum. He asks readers to consider how cultural conditioning shapes attraction and whether exclusionary preferences can reinforce broader systems of prejudice." Minor opined that the book succeeded due to combining "social commentary with practical empathy", and she believed that the book was released at a "charged moment" due to a recent study showing that 85% of LGBTQ+ people of colour had faced race-based sexual discrimination online. She added, "Hovey's debut is a frank, empathetic reckoning with the biases queer communities perpetuate against their own. Uncomfortable where it needs to be, and generous where it counts". Malita from Scene wrote of the novel "It's part manifesto, part reality check, taking on the exclusion, bias and internalised issues that still exist in queer communities and asking what it would really take to do better."

Bibliography

• No Fats, No Fems: A Guide to Queer Empathy and Unpacking Prejudice (2026)