The Manosphere Breaks Containment

Galaxy Brain

The Atlantic

Technology

4.5 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2026

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this week’s “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel takes listeners deep into the internet’s fever swamps to examine how figures who once would’ve stayed on the fringes now dominate mainstream feeds. The episode charts the rise of Clavicular, a young livestreamer who’s gone from an absurdist curiosity to a fixture in the manosphere and its adjacent right-wing influencer culture. Using Clavicular as a lens—his extreme body modification, relentless self-documentation, and a willingness to do anything for attention—Charlie discusses the rise of nihilistic Zoomer influencers. Then he’s joined by the internet-culture researcher Aidan Walker, who helps situate Clavicular alongside figures such as Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate, revealing how the “looksmaxxing” movement collides with grievance politics and an anti-political, “algorithm-first” ideology. Together they explore what happens when the gatekeepers are gone, and when nihilism becomes a default way for budding attention hijackers to build an audience. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know, their very existence is proof of something not working.
0:03.0	And so in a way their project is to exist, to be seen, to be popular.
0:07.0	You know, that's why he's going to, you know, go off and inject his girlfriend on stream.
0:11.0	You know, that's why he's going to say the N word on stream.
0:13.0	That's why he's going to read the humiliating text from his father on stream.
0:17.0	You know, it's a total commitment to that project.
0:29.6	I'm Charlie Worsell, staff writer at the Atlantic, and this is Galaxy Brain, a show where today we are going to expose ourselves to a lot of really awful internet content so that you don't have to.
0:35.6	We are really going to plumb the depths of the online fever swamps here.
0:40.5	Or maybe it's more appropriate to say that the characters from the depths of the online fever
0:45.8	swamps moved up in a rather concerning way from the fringes all the way into popular culture.
0:52.3	Over the past few months, a very young
0:55.0	live streamer named Clavicular has risen out of obscurity and become part of a stable of Manosphere
1:01.5	influencers and right-wing online figures. Now, if you're a normal person who is not chronically
1:07.3	online, you probably don't have the faintest idea who clavicular is, and I'm sorry
1:12.3	to ruin that for you, but bear with me. Pretty much everything about clavicular is preposterous.
1:19.2	One of his first brushes with internet fame was when this photo of him went viral on Reddit. He
1:24.2	was flexing in the mirror, and it was taken by this old disinterested lady.
1:28.4	In December, he made headlines for live streaming on Christmas Eve while apparently running a man over with his cyber truck.
1:34.9	In interviews, he's claimed he's hit his face repeatedly with a hammer to crack his jaw and sculpt it.
1:40.4	He said he's done methamphetamines to get hollow cheeks. He seemingly takes all kinds of steroids and meticulously documents all of it.
1:47.6	Clivicular is a looks maxer, and that's part of this online subculture that is obsessed with going to extreme lengths to achieve a chiseled face notion of perfection.
1:58.1	It's an online community that's gained a fair amount of notoriety in recent years,
	...

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