‘They’re just live experiments’: the dark and deadly world of looksmaxxing

A disturbing new docuseries delves deep into a world where men are pushing their bodies to the extreme – and some of them are dying for it

If you’ve heard the term looksmaxxing – the manospheric pursuit of male aesthetic beauty via steroids, peptides, cosmetic surgery and total commitment – you probably know the name Clavicular. With more than 2 million followers and a cluster of mainstream media profiles, the 20-year-old streamer born Braden Peters has become the chiseled face of a once fringe movement to achieve algorithmically defined good looks by any means necessary, from daily methamphetamines to breaking your jaw with a hammer. Clavicular has courted attention for a nihilistic worldview expressed in blunt, idiosyncratic argot: “hardmaxxing”, “bone smashing”, anything to increase your “SMV” (sexual market value).