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Welcome to The Manthropologist, a column by Charlie Sosnick about the Internet and the male mind.
Last week, Clavicular hosted a man named Master on his Kick stream. He cut an unusual figure for a show about looksmaxxing: He is heavy-set, has imperfect teeth, and wears glasses. He wore a slightly-too-large, baby blue polo shirt with a stain on it. In other words, he looked normal.
For much of the stream, in which Clavicular and Master read forum posts, drove around, and got dinner with friends, Clavicular spoke to Master with some degree of reverence. Clavicular joked that Master had stolen his girlfriend earlier that day. When a viewer asked “Why does Master mog you?” Clavicular answered, “He’s Master, bro.”
Master is the creator of two forums: He started incels.is in 2017, after the r/incels subreddit was banned. Today it is one of the most active extant communities for self-identified involuntarily celibate men. In 2018, he created looksmax.org, now the most popular forum for looksmaxxers, after looksmaxxing discussion outgrew the incels forum. (Looksmaxxing was largely created on incel forums. The PSL rating system used by looksmaxxers to evaluate their faces is an acronym for three of them: PUAHate, SlutHate, and Lookism.) For his service to the community, Master is considered something of a legend.
When Master created these forums, he could not have imagined that looksmaxxing would ever be a household word, with world-famous influencers promoting it and magazine articles discussing it. For most of its existence, particularly before the rise of short-form video, looksmaxxing operated under Fight Club rules. When Master and Clavicular hang out, we are seeing the past and future of inceldom together. In a way, they each represent a competing vision for the future of incels, looksmaxxing, and masculinity.
If your mental picture of an incel is a bitter, teenaged, right-wing mass shooter, a reputation which took hold after a spate of deadly attacks by self-proclaimed incels in the 2010s, then Master might be a surprising avatar for the community. He is 32, mild-mannered and Black. Master has used his leadership role to defend incels from some of those stereotypes. In 2019, he wrote a forum post responding to a Vox article about incels, which he felt mischaracterized the community and portrayed them like “terrorists.” “We all wish we didn’t end up here, but I guess someone has to be at the bottom,” he wrote. “Many of us are of different backgrounds, ethnicity, political leanings, and are from many parts of the world, but we all understand that we’re fucked in the dating world and it’s women and society’s fault for that.”
When Master wrote that, Clavicular was about 13 years old, just one year before he started looksmaxxing. Clavicular has never called himself an incel. Why would he? He gets laid. Clavicular infamously walked out of a 60 Minutes Australia interview when asked about the incel origins of looksmaxxing. “I’m not linked to that group in any way,” he responded. “Looksmaxxing is self-improvement, right? So it’s about potentially even ascending out of that category.”
During the stream, Clavicular reiterated that opinion to Master: “I almost consider lookmaxxing as, like, the antithesis of incel culture because it’s about escaping celibacy. You’re trying to ascend to be able to get girls, live a normal life, be a social person.”
When Master and Clavicular talk, we are seeing the entire arc of incel culture and looksmaxxing together. Master was in charge of the hardcore, secretive forums where this all began. Clavicular is the face of pop-looksmaxxing, casino-sponsored livestreaming, and monetized influencing. Master had to defend his forum from “hitpieces.” Clavicular gets a profile in the New York Times. Master has still never had sex. Clavicular has a girlfriend. Master created his forum so lonely men could commiserate over their lot in life. Clavicular encourages them to be captains of their fates.
In Clavicular, the rest of us see a frighteningly dysmorphic young man, whose lifestyle is damaging his health and getting him into legal trouble. But to looksmaxxers, many of whom are too young to know the origins of their lifestyle, they see the most ascended looksmaxxer ever, anointed by Master himself. To them, that ascension is why he is getting rich and famous. All of the surgeries and injections are why he can “get girls, live a normal life, be a social person.” The normie says Clavicular should stop looksmaxxing and be normal. The looksmaxxer says he looksmaxxes so he can be normal. He’s living proof of his own philosophy. And maybe, if true incels like Master just embraced the technique they invented, they could save themselves.
During the stream, Clavicular brought Master to dinner with women he’d met at the club. Before they left, he asked Master how he gets ready before a night out. He recommended that Master up his dose of minoxidil and use a micro-needling device for his hairline. He asked to see him without his glasses, then told him he should “contact-maxx.” Clavicular encouraged him to try the weight-loss drug retatrutide and shared his own experience with it. When they met up with the girls, Master seemed nervous. But Clavicular encouraged him, talked him up, and asked the girls if they had any single friends his age. For one night, the student had become the master.
