Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | May 1, 2026
I wish I were surprised to read the news that Braden Eric Peters, the 20-year-old online streamer and incel-adjacent looksmaxxer influencer known as Clavicular, was being sued for battery by a woman. I wish I could tell you that I felt even a modicum of shock at the reports alleging that he injected an 18-year-old young woman with drugs on a livestream and assaulted her while she was underage. Alas, everything about this story has felt like something to expect from the moment we were introduced to this loser. What do you mean that a man who promotes misogyny and toxic masculinity through the lens of a perennially online self-help guru for young boys was accused of this?
We’ve joked before that everything we’ve learned about Clavicular has been against our will, but it does speak to the remarkable speed with which the press orchestrated his rise to power, all in the name of “concern” over the corrosive force of the manosphere. This guy who isn’t old enough to legally drink in the USA was suddenly the focus of endless numbers of profiles, interviews, and think-pieces. He was bragging about judging women’s value based on their bone structure and being infertile due to testosterone use, and it was being elevated to the level of serious discourse. Gavin Newsom talked proudly about knowing who he was through his sons. There was a creeping push to make this deeply unserious but callous figure seem mainstream, or at the very least be positioned as the go-to expert on an objectionable issue that many are desperate to spin as acceptable. That none of these people seemed aware of how doomed this idea was from the beginning speaks to the powers of keeping your mogged face in the sand.
The thing about being a scammer is that, to be successful in your endeavours, you have to be in on your own joke. You have to have a degree of awareness about what you’re selling, and how it’s a fraud. Yes, you can believe the core tenets of your scam, but you can’t be blinded by them. The worst figures of the manosphere all certainly adhere to their vile misogyny but I guarantee that a solid percentage of them know that they have to foster fearmongering and outright lies to hook their target audience and sell them their rotten wares. But Clavicular? He’s his own biggest mark and it shows. This is a man - barely - who 100% committed to the lie of toxic masculinity and drug-induced self-improvement. He has no doubts that what he is doing works. His presentation of himself as Exhibit A of looksmaxxing’s brilliance is totally earnest. That’s what makes it so compelling to watch, and such an inevitable tragedy in the making.
That commitment is why he was chosen to be elevated to the nightmarish status of looksmaxxing spokesperson, the Sham-Wow guy of face-smashing. Mitchell Sutherland, his publicist, has made his name on controversial and outright dumb clients, from the harmless fads (Caroline Calloway) to the tediously crazy (Candace Owens.) Sutherland was notoriously sacked from his old job at Vice after it was revealed he was in contact with one-time shock jock and harassment specialist Milo Yiannopolous, encouraging him to bully “that fat feminist” Lindy West. Since then, he’s taken on an attitude of “bad publicity is the best publicity,” defending Owens as the First Lady of France sues her for defamation and bragging on TERF-headed podcasts of his media savvy.
He chose Clavicular not out of some altruistic desire to bring attention to a talented young man. Indeed, it’s fascinating how utterly uncharismatic and camera-ready this chump is. Sutherland wanted the most attention-grabbing, corrosive, woman-hating figure he could find who was vaguely photogenic, and who could be moulded into a provocateur to cash in on the prevalence of the manosphere in our daily lives. It was working for a bit. This dude got Clavicular runway gigs and a few softball interviews. But even he couldn’t control a runaway train, and after an on-camera overdose, Sutherland “regretfully” chose to drop his hot new client. Misogyny and encouraging teenage boys to take black market testosterone was okay. Being an addict was where Sutherland drew the line.
Since then, the stumble down the rabbit hole for Clavicular has only gotten darker and more upsetting to watch. He looks miserable in every shot, from live-streams where he pretends to be a player by kissing multiple women to the already infamous 60 Minutes Australia interview where he came close to sobbing and walked out after being asked the most mundane questions. Any vague sense of legitimacy he may have accrued from those mainstream gigs has evaporated. He’s been banned from YouTube. Now, he’s an accused sex criminal. He attracts attention in the same way drunks who sh*t themselves in public do. It’s unpleasant, even if your most morbid instincts encourage you to take a peek, just to see how much worse things are going to get. And things will get worse.
For all of the faux-naivety that has surrounded much of the coverage of the manosphere and the commodification of toxic masculinity, there’s also an undeniable hunger for more. It’s an easy source of clicks, a convenient tie to wider issues, and, frankly, a good way to legitimize a lot of rotten ideas. I don’t think creeps like Clalvicular should have been ignored. As we’ve seen from some corners, good journalism matters in dismantling the lies they sell, especially in this time where the highest office in the land is dominated by men who hate women. But most of the coverage of this man-child has been lazy, irresponsible, and outright encouraging of his nastiest tendencies. There’s a pseudo-ironic elevating of his buzz-word heavy rambling that not-so-subtly legitimizes it through a cheap lens of “report all sides without commentary and call it neutrality.” There’s always been money in hating women and this is no different. There’s also good cash in watching someone suffer.
Clavicular is a 20-year-old side-show freak with no allies. While many may want to see the ideas he represents succeeds, nobody wants the man himself to win. It’s funnier to see him hurtle into a depressing cavalcade of live-streamed humiliations that leave him knocking on death’s door. While I don’t doubt he has his fair share of earnest fans, it’s tough to deny the sense that a lot of people watching him crumble are doing so for the fun of it. The best case scenario is that Braden’s family intervene, get him out of the spotlight, and help him to move on to a more satisfying adult life. The worst case… well, that’s the one that’ll get more clicks, and really, isn’t that why the media, his publicist, and all these platforms eagerly elevated him in the first place?
