Looksmaxxer Clavicular hospitalised with suspected overdose in Miami

Internet personality and “looksmaxxer” Clavicular has been hospitalised in Miami, due to a suspected overdose during a broadcast on Australian streaming platform Kick.

The 20-year-old influencer was filmed rubbing his eyes and holding his hands behind his head during a stream from a Miami nightclub, alongside fellow looksmaxxer “Androgenic”, who is Australian.

Clavicular, whose real name is Braden Peters, is the figurehead of the movement dedicated to improving one’s physical appearance by unusual means that include micro-dosing methamphetamines, steroid and testosterone use, and smashing facial bones with a hammer or other tools. Peters has allegedly done some, but not all of those practices.

His hospitalisation was first reported by TMZ, which obtained audio of the emergency services callout in which a dispatcher states that there has been a suspected “20-year-old male overdose”, and was confirmed by CBS News.

In the livestream, Androgenic asked Peters “how f---ed up are you?” and repeatedly asked if he wanted an “addy”, or Adderall.

Users have since posted videos of Peters’ recent behaviour on social media, where he has milllions of followers, alongside footage appearing to show him being carried out of the nightclub and down stairs.

Curtin University professor of internet studies Tama Leaver said Peters existed at the intersection of a range of movements that had resulted in his quick rise to fame. Enabled by American societal and political change and influencer culture, Leaver said Peters embodied the “manosphere”.

“I think there’s a good proportion of his audience that are just bemused ... and another proportion that take it absolutely seriously,” he said. For those people, Leaver said, Peters’ example could be “incredibly damaging”.

Leaver said that, while there was an argument that boys in their young teens should never be exposed to the kind of content that Clavicular produces, the teen social media ban was not a panacea.

“Clavicular had a profile in The Atlantic. The movement has reached a mainstream media saturation point, and even if you’re not on social media, it’s being talked about and normalised,” he said.

Peters made headlines earlier this week by walking out of an interview with 60 Minutes Australia (which shares an owner in Nine with this masthead), after a series of questions from correspondent Adam Hegarty on his relationship to incels and fellow influencer Andrew Tate, who is facing serious criminal charges.

Two weeks earlier, Peters was arrested in Florida on battery charges, accused of instigating a fight between two women and then posting a video of it on social media. Sources close to the influencer told TMZ he did not instigate the fight, and accused the complainant of seeking to gain fame by association. Peters was subsequently released on a $US1000 bond and the matter remains before the courts.

Kick, co-founded by crypto casino billionaire Edward Craven, is the second-largest live-streaming platform in the world. It has grown in popularity and become known for its gambling, violent and sexually suggestive content, as its more established rival, Amazon-owned Twitch, has put a tighter leash on those topics.

Last year, 46-year-old Frenchman Raphael Graven died during a livestream on Kick, after appearing to be struck, choked, shocked, suffocated and shot with a paintball gun. He had been performing humiliating chores and stunts for more than a week as part of a violent marathon stream.

Kick has been contacted for comment.

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