The influencer recently gained notoriety for partying with Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes — but his following was already growing

Braden Peters, better known as Clavicular, is rapidly solidifying himself as a premier figure in the world of “looksmaxxing,” an online male subculture devoted to optimizing physical appearance. Looksmaxxing content has exploded on TikTok and short-form platforms in recent years, often peddled by influencers hawking supplements or paid programs to young men desperate to change their appearance. Like other looksmaxxers, Clavicular advocates the most punitive methods of self-improvement. He’s endorsed bone-smashing, the application of blunt force to one’s jaw in hopes of achieving a more chiseled appearance. He has also announced plans to undergo double jaw surgery, rhinoplasty, and facial implants in a single operation, all in pursuit of “ascending,” internet speak for a dramatic glow-up.

I’m the director of Young Men Research Project, an organization that studies political and social trends among U.S. men aged 18 to 29 through opinion polling and analysis. We track the digital ecosystem where this demographic spends its time and recently co-authored a report on young men’s online world. In this broader ecosystem, we find that looksmaxxing is closely linked with the manosphere, a loose network of online communities and individuals hostile to feminism and advocating for men’s supremacy. This network has burst into the public consciousness in recent years, exemplified by content creators like Tate and Fuentes. Clavicular is the newest and perhaps most chiseled face of this movement.

Clavicular went viral after a recent interview with The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles, where the young influencer predicted that Gavin Newsom would win a head-to-head matchup with JD Vance in 2028, not because of policy, but because Newsom is the superior “mogger” (in looksmaxxing parlance, to “mog” is to sexually outclass). He has announced plans to speak with Piers Morgan and, last weekend, livestreamed with Fuentes and Sneako, the alt-right streamer who went viral in 2018 for asking white people if they’d say racial slurs for a dollar. Clavicular’s social following has surged following his conversation with Knowles, appearances on popular podcasts like Raw Talk and Fresh&Fit, and his viral stunt apparently running over a man in his Tesla Cybertruck during a livestream. 

His fixation on optimization is inseparable from aggressive sexism, believing that perfecting one’s looks will lead to unbridled sexual prowess. Unlike many other manosphere figures, however, Clavicular goes to great lengths to steer clear of current events. Politics, he believes, is a distraction from self-improvement, which he views as the true path to acquiring success and privilege. Those eager to learn his tips and tricks can join his online academy, Clavicular’s Clan, a “private community” offering “detailed guides that will guaranteed ascend you.” 

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Curious to discover the true path to ascension, I pulled out my credit card and paid the $49 admission fee. What I saw should frighten us all.

Most users appeared to be in their late teens and early twenties, scattered across Western countries, though not exclusively. Unsurprisingly, I did not encounter a single person identifying as a woman.

The discussion board was lively, populated by posts about supplements, medical advice, and users begging for brutally honest photo reviews (“Am I cooked” was a regular conversation starter). Similar to online incel forums such as incels.is, most responses were coldly pragmatic, affirming posters’ self-assessments while trumpeting an array of supplements and injections. Most comments appeared sincere, though select users were clearly leveraging the forum to market their own services.

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I saw people claiming to be 17-year-olds asking how to increase penis size. Supposed 16-year-olds advised by other members to start bonesmashing. Users asking how to fake ADHD so doctors can prescribe them select medications. Others vented about parents uncovering their hidden stashes of supplements. 

Clavicular’s curriculum revolves around different strategies for “maxxing” jawlines, hairlines, and even height. Modules are packed with biochemical diagrams used to defend his recommended products and regimens. In one section, he offers curt consolation to “ethnic[s]” who got the “short end of the phenotype stick,” urging them to stop whining and follow his “godly coloring” routine. Like other manosphere influencers, he legitimates his methods through cherry-picking scientific research; when discussing fashion, he cites Evolutionary Psychology, a textbook from 2016.

Then there’s the advice on women.

After coaching followers on the perfect lighting, angles, and how to “not sound autistic,” Clavicular offers step-by-step scenarios for escalating physical contact on the dance floor through nonconsensual means: “No resistance? Inch closer until your erection is her problem.” Next, he says, “Guide her hand to your dick. If she strokes, bathroom or Uber.”

Universities, in Clavicular’s telling, are not places of learning but hunting grounds. “This is the most target-rich environment you’ll ever be in,” he says. “Dozens of slayables in a five-minute radius, zero real world consequences.” He maps college campuses into zones — where to approach women, where not to — and advises his young male apostles which organizations to join. “Join a feminist [magazine] club to subtly dominate intellectually,” he says. “Your presence should be unsettling in a good way.” The finish line is simple: getting the woman back to your dorm. “The second she crosses the doorframe, her internal monologue has already rationalized the implication.” (When asked for comment on whether these dating techniques veer into sexual coersion, Clavicular responded in a public tweet: “Im getting emails from all these media platforms, who the fuck is rolling stone magazine LOL,” he wrote. “Tired of these washed outlets trying to clout chase.”) 

To date, Clavicular has hewed to the well-worn playbook of the manosphere. Say outlandish things. Get attention. Be mainstreamed through more traditional media figures like Knowles or Morgan, where each party benefits from the outrage and resulting clicks. Leverage your new platform to spread your larger ideology. From there, entrench yourself in the larger ecosystem, streaming alongside other manosphere leaders, benefitting from the cross-pollinating audiences.

In these respects, Clavicular is yet another opportunistic salesman rewarded by an algorithmic architecture that incentivizes the most eye-grabbing content. It’s easy to dismiss figures like him as extreme outliers — voices that no reasonable person can take seriously. 

But he’s tapped into a deeper well of frustration that opens the door to such grotesque solutions. In May 2025, Young Men Research Project surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,000 young men. Sixty percent agreed that women today hold “too many expectations about how men should act in relationships.” Many think they’d have to change too much about themselves to make a serious relationship work. When Clavicular proudly endorses the idea that appearance is deterministic, he’s tapping into a deeper sense of confusion and alienation with dangerous implications for the women targeted by this ideology, and the men heeding the brutal advice.

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Most romantically dejected young men aren’t dishing out money for Clavicular’s online academy or striking themselves with a hammer. But this demographic is looking for guidance on dating, muscle-building, self-improvement, and all too often finding it in the wrong places. In the absence of healthier alternatives — models who meet vulnerability and self-loathing with compassion, not contempt — Clavicular won’t be the last to monetize young men’s despair and sell it as salvation. 

Looking at this community, one sees a generation of self-conscious, vulnerable young men learning to punish their bodies in the most extreme ways, framing women not as people but objects to “slay.” These young men perceive the path to romantic success as so narrow, so unforgiving, that these extreme forms of self-improvement are the natural cost of being a modern man. This bitterness and vulnerability create the fertile ground for the most chronically online and isolated individuals to buy into grievance and extreme prescriptions, these step-by-step guides that normalize sexual coercion and self-punishment alike. This is the gateway from insecurity to hatred, from frustration to bonesmashing. All for just $49 a month.