By Harper Cleves
CW: misogyny, racism, self-harm, body dysmorphia
The year 2026 has been ‘epic’ in the most disastrous and devastating of ways: ongoing genocide in Palestine; the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro; a release of millions of pages of the Epstein files, which implicates swathes of the global elite; ICE raids and occupations in the US and the murder of protesters by the same; Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and Cuba; the continued roll back of trans rights; US and Zionist war on Iran – all before we entered the third month of the year. Adding to this list the rise of ‘Looksmaxxing’ and its chief advocate, manosphere influencer “Clavicular” seems as ridiculous as it is troubling. And yet we can’t underestimate the role of this latest iteration of the broader anti-feminist manosphere backlash.
The origins of looksmaxxing
Looksmaxxing arises from the incel branch of the manosphere universe. Incels, or ‘involuntary celibates,’ believe that women are ‘hypergamous’ or evolutionarily compelled to be attracted to men of a higher status. They see the ‘sexual marketplace’ as brutally hierarchical, and that women place the highest importance on looks when choosing sexual or romantic partners. Incels are also fixated on what they refer to as the 80:20 theory, which holds that the top 20% of the most attractive men enjoy 80% of the sex within our society.
Incels have created a whole vernacular to describe the supposed physical shortcomings that they have decided are the barriers to their attaining their “right to sex” with women – or “foids” as they refer to them – a derogatory, dehumanising portmanteau of “female android.” Some of the so-called physical shortcomings that incels believe are barriers to them having sexual relationships are the following: ‘heightcels’ (unacceptably short), ‘gingercels’ (too redheaded), ‘baldcels’ (irreversibly bald), ‘skullcels’ (poor facial bone structure), or even ‘wristcels’ (with a wrist circumference of 6.5 inches or less), on top of a series of racist ones which posit that being non-white is inherently unattractive to women. It has never occurred to them, it would seem, that it is their feelings of entitlement to women’s bodies that act as the most fundamental block to them having genuine connections with women.
Incels tend to “black pill,” a reference to the film The Matrix, in which Neo is given the choice of two pills; a ‘blue pill’ which is a return to the previous state of ignorance, or a ‘red pill,’ which will allow him to see the machinations of his world with new eyes. The ‘black pill’ represents a kind acceptance of your lot in life, but an attempt to reject the apparent ‘injustice’ you’ve been dealt as an ‘undesirable man.’ For most, this means consciously opting out of romantic love. But in a growing number of horrifying cases, it has also inspired men to enact violent retribution on women. In 2014, for instance, Elliot Rodgers, a student at the University of California at Santa Barbara was active on incel forums, writing an angry manifesto decrying the fickleness of women who denied him sex before shooting fellow students at a sorority house and taking his own life. While on the surface incels may be laughable, the misogynistic ideology at the heart of their self pity and insecurity is deadly.
Looksmaxxers, like incels, accept the logic of the sexual marketplace and the hierarchy of male attractiveness that incels also abide by. They also see sex from women as a right and a status symbol. But rather than ‘black pilling’ and accepting their fate as incels or betacucks (men who pathetically accept abuse or mistreatment from women), they try to change their lot in life. For this reason Clavicular (real name, Braden Peters), the most well-known looksmaxxing influencer, describes his content as being focused on self-improvement. Peters apparently started looksmaxxing at age 14, ordering testosterone, steroids, fat-dissolving injections – all in an effort to “mog” (derived from ‘amog’ – alpha male of the group) other men and ‘ascend’ from his incel status.
The impossible ‘masculine ideal’
Looksmaxxing goes beyond a gym routine and dieting plan, a subculture of the internet that can be toxic and deeply damaging in its own right. Looksmaxxing techniques are often ridiculed as they are so extreme they are nearly funny. Unfortunately, however, they are also deeply damaging and dangerous to those, especially young boys, who would take them at face value. There are ‘softmaxxing’ methods, which are relatively harmless. For instance, many looksmaxxers talk about ‘mewing’ – a way of placing your tongue in your mouth that is supposed to help establish a more defined jawline. There is then ‘hardmaxxing’ – this might involve hitting your face with a hammer to achieve the desired bone structure, consuming meth amphetamine to reduce your appetite, or steroid abuse – all of which Clavicular claims to have participated in himself. According to Peters, at age 20 he is infertile because of years of steroid abuse. He has also said he would like to get rhinoplasty, a double chin surgery, and a very dangerous leg lengthening surgery. Needless to say, such cosmetic surgeries would only be accessible to someone like Peters, who makes $100k a week on the streaming service Kick.
Is it trolling or is it just 2026?
Many suggest that Clavicular is engaging in some elaborate trolling exercise given the extremity of the methods he proposed in his looksmaxxing content. This very well may be the case. Watching videos of him does feel like watching some poorly written adaptation of a young adult dystopia novel. And yet, one could be forgiven for taking Clavicular at face value in 2026. When the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, walks on stage with a giant chainsaw to raucous applause, treats reproduction like a sport, and was exposed for pathetically begging convicted serial child abuser and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to invite him to a party, the idea that toxic masculinity would genuinely express itself in the figure of someone like Clavicular is not beyond the realm of reason. Why wouldn’t a self-made 20-year-old Ken doll referring to his own sex life as ‘slaymaxxing’ not be a part of a 2026 bingo card?
‘Framemogged’ and fascist
In fact, Clavicular has been claimed by far-right politicos who are the co-thinkers of people like Trump and Musk, and with good reason. He was infamously seen with fascist personality Nick Fuentes and fellow manosphere influencer and accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate chanting to Ye’s racist track ‘Heil Hitler’ in a Miami club. A Rolling Stone article exposed the racism inherent to Clavicular’s paid ‘self-improvement’ course, which seems to be chiefly pursued by boys in their teens and men in their early 20s. In this he refers to people of colour as those who got the “short end of the phenotype stick” and gives advice on how to lighten skin colour in his ‘godly colouring’ routine. Being white, it seems, is inherent to ‘mogging.’
As an outgrowth of the incel movement, looksmaxxing is, unsurprisingly, deeply misogynistic. While on its surface, it’s about having as much sex as possible with women, in practice, Clavicular seems largely ambivalent about the actual act of sex, confessing that knowing he could have sex with a woman is often better than actually having intercourse. The deed itself, according to Peters “is going to gain me nothing.” As is the case with so many manosphere content creators, women are not seen as living, breathing human beings whose love and affection they hope to earn and enjoy, but rather they are status symbols; trophies to show off in order to earn the respect and envy of other men.
And while on the surface Clavicular eschews politics, referring to it as ‘jestermaxxing’ or a waste of time, it would be a mistake to divorce looksmaxxing from the broader web of far-right politics. To prove his lack of official political affiliation, Peters said he would vote for potential Democratic presidential candidate Gavin Newsom over Vice President JD Vance in the next election. Newsom, apparently, ‘framemogs’ Vance, i.e. is more attractive and so therefore more worthy of respect. Even so you cannot separate the misogynistic, racist, and deeply hierarchical and superficial ideology of looksmaxxing from fascistic politics. Last month, the X account for the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering posted an image of a grinning soldier with the caption “Low cortisol. Lethalitymaxxing.” ‘Mogging’ isn’t just about being taller, or having a sharper jawline – it represents a fundamental dominance. It is imperialist invasion and war; macho dominance over women and queer people; white supremacy over people of colour; the dominance of the wealthy over the poor.
It’s not Clavicular, its capitalism (but it’s also Clavicular)
Looksmaxxing is totally consistent with the far-right cultural norms being pushed from the top in 2026. In a world in which Donald Trump and the machinery of an increasingly fascistic US imperialism seek global dominance, the ideal person is white, Christian, male, sculpted, rich, sexually dominant, and aggressive. They are also, crucially, anti-intellectual, something Clavicular seems to prize – hence his insistence that looks determine his political opinions. He told podcaster Adam Friedland he has never heard of Bruce Springsteen, he doesn’t do anything for fun, and can only sometimes make himself watch a movie.
It suits the establishment for young men to be uncurious, pliable, and striving constantly for an unattainable macho ideal. And yet a culture in which young men and boys are taught to strive for dominance and status over satisfaction, emotional connection, and personal fulfillment is one which is deeply harmful to them and others in their lives. Boys as young as 13 are reporting being exposed to looksmaxxing content – and the reality is that it’s likely reaching children much younger, infecting them with racism and misogyny, but also a deep self-loathing and potentially debilitating body image issues.
Andrew Tate infamously asked “where’s your bugatti?” to emphasize his wealth and, by extension, male supremacy. Last month, Nick Fuentes ranted about “women being sent to the gulags first” because women are more likely to empathize with Black Lives Matter, poverty and queer rights. Tate and Fuentes are simply ‘mogging’ in other forms – and isn’t this assertion of dominance, of ‘alpha male’ status, baked into the very logic of capitalism itself – an ideology where accumulating wealth for a few at the top is prioritised above all else?
A socialist feminist alternative
While the dissatisfaction and malaise in society, paired with a culture of ascension and white male dominance, will lead many young men and boys to believe they will only achieve success and fulfilment by striving for the masculine ideal, these same factors, plus a reaction to the rise in misogyny, is pushing more young women towards feminist ideas. A 2025 Ipsos survey across 30 countries showed that 52% of Gen Z women identify as feminists, the first time the majority of women of any generation has described themselves as such. If these young women plus their cothinkers across genders and ages were to take to the streets en masse, as we’ve begun to see the stirrings of in recent years, they could change attitudes, presenting an alternative to the dead-end of ‘looksmaxxing’ and ‘mogging,’ a society built on cooperation, gender and racial equality, and socialist feminist change.
And let’s be clear – there are young men already rejecting the hyper misogynistic, far-right ideology that is being pushed on their generation. It’s true that recent surveys demonstrate that Gen Z men are embracing misogyny more than previous generations – with the 2026 Ipsos survey showing that they are twice as likely as their baby boomer counterparts to agree with the statement ‘wives should obey their husbands’ – something undoubtedly attributable in large measure to the manosphere content being pushed from above by the broligarchy tech CEOs and their co-thinkers in far-right political movements and governments around the world. And yet, there are also young men, no doubt influenced by the women and queer folk in their lives, that are actively rejecting these macho, destructive impulses. For instance, at the recent protest at UCD in opposition to rape culture and in solidarity with survivor-victims who have been severely mistreated and retraumatised by the institution, it was notable how many men were present.
We stand to win over even more young men, and people from all generations, if we take these ideas to the streets and build a movement. Social movements against oppression give us glimpses into how society could be; supplanting the profoundly undemocratic and repressive ideas of the hierarchical and divisive system of capitalism, and showing the potential of cooperation; pointing to the real sources of our suffering in the capitalist class who profit from our labour; and in celebrating the individuality and creativity that so often flourishes in a struggle for liberation. Even some of those young men currently consuming looksmaxxing content, and espousing misogynistic and racist ideas today, can be won to such an alternative and broken from these toxic ideas.. As Angela Davis said, “In the process of struggling together, we learn how to glimpse new possibilities that otherwise would have never become apparent to us.” New possibilities is exactly what we need, leaving ‘jestermaxxers’ like Clavicular and his macho, fascistic co-thinkers, to be laughable fixtures in the next generations’ history books.
