Videos of the influencer Clavicular are inescapable online. Social media is awash with clips of his sharp-featured face and muscular body – the result of a "looksmaxxing” regimen that can include testosterone injections and even tapping his face with a hammer.
Clavicular, 20, whose real name is Braden Peters, is relatively new to the influencer life. But after just about a year posting on his main accounts online, the "manosphere” figure has been the subject of profiles in the New York Times, the Atlantic, GQ, the Guardian and 60 Minutes Australia. Between March and April, 70,000 clips of his content have been viewed 2.2 billion times across short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, according to data posted to X by a marketing firm he works with.
Clavicular amassed such fame without a large, dedicated following. Instead, his name rocketed to the top of social-media feeds due to modern marketing techniques bankrolled by Kick, the site where he is paid to livestream, according to an interview with Anthony Fujiwara, who runs a company, Clipping, that promotes Clavicular’s content online. Kick is a subsidiary of Australian media firm Easygo Entertainment, which owns the multi-billion-dollar offshore crypto casino Stake, which Clavicular promotes in his Kick livestreams.
Fewer than one million people follow Clavicular on each of his social media accounts, making him just a "mid-tier” influencer, according to Reed Duchscher, chief executive officer of talent management firm Night Media. Across platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X Clavicular has a combined audience of less than 1.7 million. For comparison, dancer and social media star Charli D’Amelio has 212.3 million. The virtual YouTuber Ironmouse, a pink-haired anime character who livestreams on Twitch, has 3.6 million.
YouTube removed two of Clavicular’s channels last week, saying posts about using performance-enhancing drugs violate its policies regarding promoting illegal or regulated goods or services. (Clavicular said on X that his team got no warning and "worked hard to ensure” they followed YouTube’s terms.)
The reach of Clavicular’s posts, Duchscher said, is "manufactured and paid-for.” Clavicular and Kick didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The influencer reaches a wider audience than his follower counts suggest thanks to 1,600 Clipping contractors boosting video clips of his content, according to data posted to X by Clipping. The contractors are paid by Clipping, which receives money from Kick, where Clavicular earns much of his income from filming himself for hundreds of hours every month, according to Fujiwara. Those contractors, called "clippers,” earn income plucking potentially viral moments from those long Kick livestreams and scattering them across social media.
Clipping is a new line of work tailored to changes in social media platforms that reward short videos online, and where anyone with the right clip can see traction with an audience.
"In the case of Clavicular, we take advantage of every single social media algorithm so he’s unavoidable,” said Fujiwara. Clipping’s contractors receive a couple hundred dollars for every million views amassed on a short clip of an influencer posted to TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts, Fujiwara said in an October interview.
One brief moment from an eight-hour Kick stream can get 100 million views on Instagram, Fujiwara said. Last month, 93% of the 1,737 "clippers” working on Clipping’s Kick marketing campaign made videos for Clavicular, according to data shared by Clipping in a post on X, suggesting Clavicular is the biggest beneficiary of Kick’s clipping efforts. Some Clipping clients pay a subscription fee of US$2,500 (RM9,925) to US$10,000 (RM39,704) a month, or sometimes more, Fujiwara said in the interview.
Under a screenshot of the data, Clavicular commented, "Viewmaxed.” His website links to Clipping’s Discord channel and offers the chance to "get paid to clip.”
Kick’s clipping campaigns are designed to bring viewers onto the platform, which acts as a marketing vehicle for the offshore crypto casino Stake, a February Bloomberg Businessweek investigation found. (Stake and Kick co-founder Ed Craven had said the two companies are separate.) Stake relies on influencers like Clavicular to spread word about its business, which brought in an estimated US$18bil (RM71.46bil) in deposits last year.
Headquartered in Australia but incorporated in Curacao, Stake is currently being sued in several US jurisdictions for allegedly operating an illegal gambling business in the US through its Stake.us social casino. Stake, through Kick, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The company has said it rejects allegations related to the California suit and has argued that the claims in other class-action cases are meritless.
Controversy has followed Kick since its founding in 2022 after rival livestreaming site Twitch, owned by Amazon, banned crypto gambling livestreams. Kick has faced backlash on social media for showcasing shocking content, including the death of a French livestreamer after ten days of "torture,” and several apparent physical assaults. (Some of the people who committed the apparent assaults were later suspended or banned. A Kick spokesperson told the BBC that the company is saddened by the livestreamer’s death and its guidelines are "designed to protect creators.)
Clavicular’s behaviour has also inspired news articles describing a recent overdose, his arrest on a battery charge, shooting a dead alligator and more. Those news articles often prominently reference Kick, either in the text or video clips of Clavicular.
The phenomenon around Clavicular shows how marketers today can take advantage of the type of content that social media algorithms reward, said Sarah Kreps, the director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy institute. Sites spread content that users might engage with longer than usual because it’s confusing or shocking, she said. "Polarising videos drive engagement, and engagement drives financial dividends.”
Average viewership on Kick has grown 238% over the last two years, according to data from Streams Charts. But forcing someone into the spotlight doesn’t guarantee fandom. Although clips of his content have flooded the zone, just about 6200 people watch Clavicular’s Kick streams live on average, putting him in 46th place when it comes to viewership.
His content may be high-engagement enough to pause on while scrolling, but not inspiring enough to subscribe to long-term, according to Cornell’s Kreps.
"Outrage travels further than affinity,” she said. – Bloomberg
