Online influencer Braden Peters, aka Clavicular, uses ‘bone smashing’ and illegal drugs to maximise his looks. Photo / @clavicular0, Instagram
What does it take to become United States President?
Besides leadership skills and a strong vision for the future of America, height helps. As does being a man.
But for a growing number of young men, it might be as straightforward as looks.
“How are you fat and expect to lead a country?” asked Clavicular, a prominent internet streamer, in a widely shared interview criticising JD Vance, the Vice-President and front-runner to succeed US President Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for 2028.
Comparing the relative merits of Vance with Gavin Newsom, the 19-year-old Clavicular, whose real name is Braden Peters, said that the California Governor was a “liar” and a “degenerate”, but he said he would vote for the Democrat “100 times over”, purely based on looks.
“JD Vance is subhuman, and Gavin Newsom mogs,” Peters told the Daily Wire, using internet slang meaning to outshine someone.
“[Vance]’s got a very short total facial width-to-height ratio, he’s obese, very recessed side profile, whereas Newsom is like [a] six-foot-three ‘chad’.”
Peters, known as “Clav” to his followers, is a “looks-maxing” influencer – part of an online community of mostly young men who go to extreme lengths to transform themselves into what they deem to be the ideal male physique, known as “Chads” in the slang of the “incel” [involuntary celibate] online community.
Adherents adopt an inscrutable code to define their physical characteristics, from IPDs (interpupillary distance, the gap between the eyes) to canthal tilt (the angles of the eyes), with “hunter eyes” (those tilted slightly downwards) viewed as the most desirable.
Some opt for “softmaxxing”, which involves tweaks such as hair styling, skincare routines, exercise regimes and makeup touch-ups – such as a subtle touch of eyeliner pencil to contour the jaw.
More extreme practitioners go under the knife or have botox shots and jaw-alignment surgery, in what is known as “hardmaxxing”.
Peters has 111,000 followers on the streaming service Kick and 690,000 on TikTok, where millions of young, impressionable viewers tune in for his videos where he engages in dangerous – and at times illegal – behaviour in order to improve his looks.
To achieve his muscle-bound, chiselled-jaw appearance, the online streamer swears by bone-smashing: hitting oneself in the face with either a fist or a hammer in an effort to increase jawbone definition.
He also allegedly takes crystal meth to stay skinny and has discussed the drug’s use for staying slim on his channel.
In November, he made headlines after he live-streamed himself injecting fat-dissolving peptides into the cheek of his then-girlfriend.
Such DIY procedures carry significant risks and can result in nerve damage, skin deformities, and tissue death.
His social media has an online sign-up page where followers can sign up to the “Clavicular system”, which he calls a “data-driven framework using experimental methods to surpass genetic potential”.
He was catapulted into the political realm last month when his alarming escapades caught the attention of Nick Fuentes, a fellow right-wing provocateur, who recently made headlines when he appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast.
Fuentes, 27, a holocaust denier and white supremacist, backed Peters’ assessment of the presidential candidates, calling Newsom “handsome” and Vance a “fat subhuman”.
Responding to Peters’ rise to fame, Fuentes, a self-confessed virgin who heads up an online white supremacist community known as “groypers”, added that Peters is a “total Chad”.
Casting the streamer as his protege, Fuentes, who frequently uses racist, derogatory language in his videos, labelled himself a “philosopher” and Peters a “warrior”.
“It’s like I prefigured the white ass n***** going hard as f***,” Fuentes said, an offensive internet meme term for white men being “hardcore”.
“I’m like Nietzsche … the coming of the overman,” he continued.
Fuentes and Peters are not alone in their support for Newsom, thanks to his looks and hatred for Vance.
Sneako, another Kick streamer with 57,000 followers, also said he would vote Democrat over Vance, calling the Vice-President “disgusting” and using a racial slur to refer to his wife, Usha.
On the other hand, he christened Newsom a “total Chad” with an “aryan, caucasian wife”.
“I am voting for Gavin Newsom simply because he mogs,” said the 27-year-old, whose real name is Nicolas Balinthazy.
It would be easy to dismiss their abhorrent views as those of an unpleasant, online fringe.
Together, they form a primordial soup of internet pathologies: body dysmorphia, repugnant offensiveness and a worldview warped by nihilistic hyper-individualism.
But they also represent a growing number of young American men, following in the footsteps of Andrew Tate, who prize looks and masculinity, achieved through hyper-masculinity, above all else.
“There is a culture of ‘looks-ism’ that is part of a visceral online subculture that plays well with an angry disillusioned and increasingly estranged segment of young males,” said Brian Levin, founding director of Centre for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University.
“This is a snapshot of how imagery has become part of our subculture through the online sphere, which is increasingly becoming the means of social engagement for young, angry and alienated people.”
Looks have always been part of presidential politics throughout the modern era.
Radio listeners famously thought Richard Nixon had beaten Robert F. Kennedy in 1960’s first ever presidential debate, while television viewers felt the Republican had been undone by his “five o’clock shadow”.
Joe Biden’s physical frailty was viewed by many as a proxy for mental infirmity. For Trump, arguably the most image-obsessed president of all, it’s a daily preoccupation.
The President goes to great lengths to smear his larger opponents for their looks, repeatedly calling Chris Christie, the former New Jersey Governor, a “fat pig” and jousting with JB Pritzker, the Illinois Governor, whom he has labelled a “big, fat slob”.
He often brags about having “aced” medical tests and chastises anyone who depicts him in an unflattering light. Time Magazine apparently felt compelled to change its cover photo of the President after he deemed one showing loose skin on his neck to be a “super bad picture”.
Vance’s weight loss is said to have played into Trump’s decision to select him as his running mate, with the President repeatedly praising him as “one handsome son of a b****”.
Amid an online furore about Vance’s looks following Peters’ interview, Newsom’s online-savvy press office shared an old, beardless photo of the Vice-President on X. “Huge impact moment,” Peters responded to the post.
According to Levin, “in a world that is disjointed and appears unstable and cacophonous, people often revert back to visceral kinds of things like looks in politics”.
David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s chief strategist, once said that presidential campaigns are like MRIs for the soul.
For a growing online fringe, a candidate’s BMI may be the deciding factor.
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