The Manosphere & Looksmaxxing

The manosphere is booming. And “looksmaxxer”, 20-year-old Braden Eric Peters, known online as “Clavicular” is taking up more space than ever. Peters has spent years sculpting and surgically altering his face and body to maximise his sex appeal.

On a recent “Impaulsive” podcast episode with fellow manosphere heavyweight, Jake Paul, the pair were discussing how good-looking other men were. After all, appearance is everything when the world is totally online.

“What would you rank Timothée Chalamet?”

Peters responded: “Around 6.25 … 6.5.” He went on to assess Chalamet’s “sexual market value”. “Pretty high. He’s only gonna get girls on birth control though,” he added, before going on to explain that this is a bad thing because “women with higher oestrogen … are attracted to, like, more masculine faces.” and explain why highly masculine faces are more attractive to women.

Clavicular has spent years surgically altering his face and body. He advocates “bonesmashing” – hitting one’s face with a hammer to change its shape. He told the New York Times he suspects he’s sterile after years of self-administered testosterone injections.

Welcome to the world your son is already navigating.

Most parents have never heard of looksmaxxing. But their sons have. The forums, the YouTube channels, and the TikTok rabbit holes are vast, and they reach boys at ever younger ages despite the government’s social media minimum age legislation. In research I drew on for my book Boys, I described studies where academics and journalists created accounts with male-identified profiles and monitored what the algorithm sent them. In some instances, the accounts were fed manosphere-adjacent content within 23 minutes. After a few hours, three quarters of recommendations were classified as harmful. This was despite the accounts not liking, sharing, or commenting on anything!

As hard as it is to believe after reading that, looksmaxxing sits at the milder end of that unhealthy manosphere ecosystem. It’s not Andrew Tate, Myron Gaines, or HSTikkytokky. But it flows from the same stream. Jordan Peterson, Scott Galloway, or Chris Williamson also sit in the manosphere – as men talking to boys and men online. They encourage their audience of boys and men to do hard things, make something of themselves, and take responsibility. This is great. But taken to the extremes of those on the periphery of the manosphere is just plain wrong – and dangerous. And note – ththose ideas would stay on the periphery except for algorithms that endlessly amplify extremes in an attention economy that rewards the outrageous and the bizarre.

The boys drawn to this aren’t stupid, and they aren’t broken. They’re responding to real pressures.

They want to be strong. They want to be noticed. They want to feel significant. They want to look, sound, and feel… manly. And they think this is the way to get there.

But you don’t build healthy, strong young men from the outside in. You build them from the inside out. Right now, it’s Code Red. Too many boys are not feeling strong.

Data shows boys and men are falling behind in education. They’re more likely to be unemployed, more likely to die by suicide, more likely to live at home into their thirties. Dating apps and social media platforms filter on appearance before anything else; before kindness, humour, character, or competence even get a look-in. When a young man sees that looks matter enormously in his actual lived experience, and the adults around him say “just be yourself,” he senses the gap between those two realities. And when he’s not thriving, he believes the screen.

Character development is the slow, unglamorous work of growing up. That work doesn’t happen in a vacuum – it happens in our homes. It happens in relationships, and parents are the most important relationship a boy has.

A few things that actually help:

First, name the world he’s in. If your son is online – and he is – he’s already encountered this content. Don’t wait for a crisis to have the conversation. Ask what he’s watching, who he admires, what he thinks makes a man worth respecting. Listen more than you lecture.

Second, understand what’s underneath it. If your son is interested in looksmaxxing or the unhealthy edges of the manosphere more generally, don’t just react to the surface. Ask yourself what need is driving it. Is he lonely? Does he feel incompetent? Is he searching for a sense of identity and purpose? Those questions lead somewhere useful. “Stop watching that rubbish” doesn’t.

Third, offer a better model of strength. The manosphere is filling a vacuum. Boys are hungry for a definition of masculinity that feels real and achievable – one that isn’t just sensitivity or femininity rebranded, but also isn’t dominance and denigration.

My definition – and the definition I think should be drip fed into the brains of every male in the country morning and night until they get it is this: Healthy masculinity is seen in the boy or man who helps the people around him feel safer and stronger. That’s the definition I developed in my work, and it’s one boys can actually use.

Last, and most important, be the relationship that competes with the algorithm. You can’t out-produce the content machine. But you can be present, interested, and consistent. Research is clear that a strong parental relationship is one of the most protective factors against harmful online influence.

The boy hitting himself in the face with a hammer isn’t looking for a better jawline. He’s looking for a place to belong and a reason to believe he’s worth something. That’s a conversation parents can have – and it’s one that matters far more than any TikTok post or podcast can reach.

Boys: Building Strong Young Men from the Inside Out by Justin Coulson is available now.

Little Joeys

with Mrs Gannon