In the column Straight Nonsense, columnist Moises Mendez II takes a queer eye to the insanity of straight culture.
I chose to be an internet culture reporter because I've always loved being on the internet, critically thinking about and talking with influencers, and analyzing trends. Though with the good comes the ugly, and that comes in the form of right-wing freaks like Clavicular. He's been climbing the ranks of relevance for a while after he closed out Elena Velez’s show during New York Fashion Week and was featured in The New York Times and GQ, discussing his rise to viral fame.
He's a name I'd hear in the periphery. I truly only started paying attention to him after he was seen in a video with a group of right-wing freaks like Andrew and Tristan Tate, Nick Fuentes, Sneako, Myron Gaines, and Justin Waller in a Miami nightclub singing along to Ye's song, "Heil Hitler," an incredibly offensive and deeply anti-semitic song. If it wasn't clear by the names of the people he decides to surround himself with, Clavicular, whose real name is Braden Peters, is a misogynist, right-wing loser.
For the uninitiated, Peters went from being an unknown content creator to the face of the "looksmaxxing" community in just a few months. The term "looksmaxxing" refers to the right-wing, incel scheme to make oneself the ideal peak male form to increase one's chances with women. According to the interview with GQ, he "claims to have smashed his face with a hammer to make bones regrow sharper, smoked meth to curb his appetite, and performed 'dick-ups' by placing weights on his penis to maximize girth and erection strength."
He goes on to say that he started injecting himself with testosterone at 14 (sans parental or medical consultation), which he thinks led him to becoming infertile. It's unclear whether he actually is. But the one thing to note about Peters's content is his proclivity for doing and saying the most infuriating things on the more leniently moderated livestream platform Kick to get a reaction out of people, like saying slurs, making denigrating comments about women's bodies, and allegedly hitting someone with his Cybertruck and then saying that he hopes they died (though, as GQ reports, no charges were filed).
The Miami incident is just one of many examples of his absurdist content. Not to mention, he repeatedly uses the n-word, seemingly injected a 17-year-old girl (allegedly his girlfriend) with "cosmetic peptides," and was arrested for possession of drugs. I feel the same way I do about Peters that I do about Tate. Someone needs to cover him so people understand the kind of content millions of young, impressionable people are watching. Influencers aren't just some listless title; these people, no matter their moral standings, have influence. They can convince the thousands of people watching their streams to do and say almost whatever they want.
That's why these people can't go unchecked, and we can't bury our heads in the sand, pretending like they don't exist. That also means there shouldn't ever be articles or interviews done with these figures. The whole conceit of journalism is to hold the powerful to account, and that comes in many forms, including talking with these insidious content creators and showing the world who they really are. But a profile of someone isn't always an endorsement of the subject, and GQ did a great job of getting to the root of Clavicular's appeal and why he has a dangerous platform.
If you want to learn more about the world of "looksmaxxing" and the darker corners of the incel internet, I urge you to read the GQ story before writing it off as "platforming," because nothing about it makes Peters look good, not in any sense of the word.
Moises Mendez II is a staff writer at Out magazine. Follow him on Instagram @moisesfenty.
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