Part of the allure of comedy, at least in Aristotle’s view, is that it’s “the ludicrous being merely a subdivision of the ugly.” It’s interesting, then, that we might derive comedy from someone so physically beautiful. Clavicular, AKA Braden Peters, the 20-year-old appearance-obsessed looksmaxxer, is an exceptionally handsome young man, by his own design. He’s risen to prominence in the last few months for the extreme lengths he’s taken to improve his appearance, all while documenting it for a livestreamed audience. All the bone-smashing, testosterone-injecting, meth-inhaling — it seems to have paid off because he is, in fact, beautiful.
Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live dove into the subdivision of the ugly by way of beauty— parodying Clavicular and his universe of ultra-buff characters by having cast member Sarah Sherman dress up as one. With a jaw prosthetic, two Adam’s apples and some massive faux muscles, she became Chad Maxxington, a “looksmaxxing” character who said things like “I’m absolutely framemogging you into oblivion right now.”
It was a skit that, much like the rest of SNL, was a little stupid, a little over-the-top, and yet still managed to capture some of the truth of the current moment. “You’re sitting there jestergooning like a sub-human betacuck,” Maxxington told Colin Jost. It documented the absurdity of looksmaxxers and their incomprehensible new language, exposing the pursuit of beauty as something ugly, something ludicrous.
Watching a clip of the show on his livestream, Clavicular was visibly upset. In his mind, he seems to think his beauty has earned him some sort of privileged status—untouchable, a king amongst peasants. His behavior has backed this up: he livestreamed himself apparently hitting someone with his Tesla Cybertruck, could be seen mouthing the words to Ye’s antisemitic song “Heil Hitler” during an infamous night out with manosphere influencers like Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes, and frequently uses slurs. Apparently, he’s above decency. He isn’t totally wrong about his privileged status, but he’s a bit misinformed. Clavicular does have a privileged status, but for all his efforts, Clavicular is not a king: he is but a jester.
In medieval courts, a jester was somewhat of a respected role. There is something called “jester’s privilege,” or a commonly held assumption that the jester was allowed to mock and criticize those in authority when no one else safely could. Clavicular, if he wanted, could have this privilege. He could be as handsome as he is and still mock the world that made him.
Instead, Clavicular fails to grasp the absurdity of his own premise. Like any loathsome character, he drinks his own Kool-Aid. He is invested in the normalization of bone-breaking, meth-smoking attempts to reach peak physical beauty. He believes that flirting with addiction and death are but small prices to pay for a perfectly symmetrical face. He considers himself a self-made man. He is unwilling to contend with the fact that he is both Dr. Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s monster. Maybe his attitude is partially the result of everyone else’s insecurities and unwillingness to go to the lengths he has. Or, more likely, Clavicular has revealed himself to be an insecure, superficial asshole, and there’s no amount of beauty to compensate for that.
The irony, of course, is that his world is already obsessed with the concept of the jester. “Jestermaxxing” (and we’re so sorry we have to explain this) is another word spawned from Clavicular’s lexicon, referring to the practice of being funny and entertaining to women when becoming more handsome isn’t an option. The term is often used ironically, highlighting the absurdity of the language used by the world of looksmaxxers, even among looksmaxxers themselves. Early in Clavicular’s mainstream virality in January, for example, when a clip of him dancing at a club with the caption “Clavicular just cracked the code: JESTERMAXXING at the club is officially the new meta” went viral on its own. Not long after, Clavicular started getting press coverage, brought to the mainstream, in part, for playing the jester.
While some have adopted the term in a positive light, Clavicular continues to use “jester” in a pejorative sense. As his profile in The New York Times stated, “Of late, Clavicular has begun to refer to all politics as ‘jester’ — an insult in the looksmaxxing community that refers to a foolish waste of time.”
And that’s the tragedy of it all, that Clavicular does not realize there could be honor in being a jester. He consistently makes the mistake of thinking that his public image—like his personal appearance— is something he fundamentally can control, can tweak and augment to his desired outcome much as he has his appearance.
Instead, Clavicular wants his beauty to save him. For now, it’s only made him a joke.