When Nihilism Goes Viral: The Rise of Algorithm-First Influencers

47% of Gen Z has encountered extremist content online, but what happens when the extremists stop hiding in dark corners and start collaborating with each other in Miami nightclubs?

Meet Clavicular, a young livestreamer who embodies a disturbing new breed of internet celebrity. He's hit his face with hammers to reshape his jaw, documented steroid use for "hollow cheeks," and livestreamed running someone over with his Cybertruck on Christmas Eve. Most remarkably, he's parlayed this self-destruction into collaborations with major manosphere figures like Andrew Tate and white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

Their recent viral moment—dancing in a Miami club to Kanye West's "Heil Hitler"—represents more than shock value. It signals the emergence of what internet researcher Aidan Walker calls "algorithmic ideology"—a worldview where content performance trumps all traditional values, including basic human decency.

The Looksmaxxing Pipeline

Clavicular emerged from the "looksmaxxing" community, an online subculture obsessed with extreme physical modification to achieve perceived attractiveness. Members hit themselves with hammers to create "microfractures" that supposedly reshape facial bones, practice "mewing" (jaw exercises), and document their "ascension" from "virgin" to "Chad" status.

This isn't typical fitness culture. Looksmaxxers operate under a nihilistic philosophy: appearance is the only metric that matters in human relations. Everything else—career, education, personality—is considered a "cope" or delusion. The community has 15-year roots in anonymous imageboards, overlapping with incel forums where young men share stories of familial abuse, unemployment, and social rejection.

Walker, who has studied these communities extensively, notes a crucial pattern: "A lot of these men who are into this stuff are marginalized. They're disabled, neurodivergent, come from poor backgrounds or familial abuse. The content is about that marginalization."

The looksmaxxing community offers acceptance through shared extremism, but Clavicular represents something new—a figure who's successfully bridged niche internet subcultures with mainstream social media platforms.

The Fuentes Factor

Nick Fuentes, born in 1998, represents the "elder Zoomer" approach to online extremism. The white nationalist commentator built his following through the "Groyper War" of 2019, where his followers would infiltrate conservative events and push speakers like Charlie Kirk toward explicitly racist positions.

Fuentes maintains institutional ambitions—he recently celebrated securing a gold investment sponsorship previously held by mainstream conservative Mark Levin, viewing it as proof he's "beaten the Boomers" to become the new face of the conservative movement. His Groypers (named after a distorted Pepe meme) number around 100,000 on Telegram, forming what Walker describes as a "freak brotherhood" where saying racial slurs serves as gang initiation.

But Fuentes still operates within traditional power frameworks. He craves mainstream recognition, appears on Tucker Carlson's show, and forces Republican figures to either disavow or tacitly endorse him. He represents "nihilism by disillusionment"—someone who remembers when gatekeepers existed and defined himself in opposition to them.

Algorithm-First Ideology

Clavicular represents something more unsettling: "nihilism by default." Born into an era where Donald Trump has dominated American politics since his political consciousness began, Clavicular has never experienced functional institutions or meaningful gatekeepers.

During a recent livestream with Fuentes, this generational divide became apparent. While Fuentes discussed his political project and institutional goals, Clavicular seemed completely uninterested. His political endorsements follow pure aesthetic logic—he supported Gavin Newsom over J.D. Vance because "Newsom is a 6'3" Chad and Vance is fat and ugly."

This represents what Walker calls "algorithmic ideology"—a worldview where content performance metrics replace traditional belief systems. Clavicular recently stated on stream: "All I think about is content. I literally only think about content."

The implications extend beyond individual creators. Walker argues that Clavicular's very existence "proves the gatekeepers are gone." His rise demonstrates that "weird, sleazebag, disaffected, angry young men" face no institutional barriers to building massive platforms.

The Miami Moment

The viral Miami club video crystallizes these dynamics. Fuentes, Clavicular, Andrew Tate, and others didn't accidentally end up dancing to "Heil Hitler"—they played the song in their limo beforehand, planning maximum shock value. The moment served dual purposes: generating algorithmic engagement through outrage and demonstrating that they "can get away with it."

Walker notes the symbolic importance: "This is the one thing that liberals would say you can't get away with. And just by doing that—having the video go everywhere on X—they've said, 'Hey, we got away with it.'"

The collaboration also highlights how fringe figures now operate as an interconnected ecosystem. Rather than isolated extremists, they function like mainstream influencer networks—cross-promoting, collaborating, and amplifying each other's reach.

Beyond the Fringe

These figures may seem dismissible as internet curiosities, but their influence increasingly bleeds into real-world policy. Nick Shirley, a 23-year-old YouTuber whose debunked claims about Somali-American daycare fraud went viral, saw his content used by the Trump administration to justify ICE raids in Minneapolis.

The pattern reflects broader changes in conservative media ecosystems. After Charlie Kirk's recent death, J.D. Vance took his podcasting chair. The Department of Homeland Security posts memes that mirror far-right online culture. Ted Cruz appears with Tucker Carlson, who platforms figures like Fuentes.

Walker argues this represents "Groyperfication within the government"—many young conservative staffers were "the kids on 4chan" 10-15 years ago. The nihilistic online culture that produced these influencers now shapes institutional power.

The Sustainability Question

The attention economy that enables these figures also threatens their longevity. The constant pressure to escalate—say more shocking things, perform more extreme acts, break more taboos—creates an unsustainable trajectory.

Walker predicts a dark endpoint: "It goes to death. Both for them personally, and then probably for social media, the internet, the country. There's no image of the future. It's just this race to the bottom."

Yet even as individual creators burn out, the culture they've normalized persists and evolves. Each generation of nihilistic influencers pushes boundaries further, making previously unthinkable content seem mainstream.

The phenomenon also reveals how traditional metrics of influence—subscriber counts, mainstream media coverage—may miss the real story. These creators cultivate "zealous followers" and "devotees" rather than casual audiences. A smaller but more committed fanbase can wield disproportionate influence, especially when algorithmic systems reward engagement over quality.