'Bone-smashing' trend which has people hitting their faces with a hammer is taking over social media

James Moorhouse
2026-02-18T20:05:11.199Z
Community

Unsurprisingly, medical experts don't recommend it

The internet is rife with bad ideas, but a new bone-smashing technique inspired by a 'lookmaxxer' might just take the biscuit.

If you're fortunate enough to be well clear of any 'manosphere' content on social media, you might not have heard of 20-year-old content creator Clavicular.

While Andrew Tate and his buddies preach about the best (or worst) ways to attract a woman, Clavicular takes things one step further by encouraging his followers to 'improve' their own attractiveness by hitting themselves in the face with a hammer.

Most folks would think about going to the gym, eating better or learning another language as a way of making themselves a better person, and therefore a more attractive proposition for whoever it is they're trying to win over, but Clavicular seems to think that unorthodox 'looksmaxxing' is the best way to go about it (it isn't).

The controversial creator claims to 'ascend' his followers (Instagram)

Since breaking onto the scene thanks to controversial content, which includes regular use of the 'n-word', the young influencer, whose real name is Braden Peters, has managed to associate himself with pretty much all of the worst male role models on the internet.

He was spotted singing along to Kanye West's controversial song 'Heil Hitler' in a nightclub alongside Andrew Tate, as well as white nationalist Nick Fuentes, a self-confessed woman hater who also recently admitted to being a virgin.

Clavicular is fully committed to becoming as handsome as possible, which even landed him a New York modelling gig, and that apparently involves hitting himself with a hammer, supposedly as a way of 'ascending' and achieving a more chiselled appearance.

He says in a Kick video: "My mom used to take these [hammers] away because I was always bone-smashing with a hammer. She had to hide them."

In another Kick video, he can be heard telling a bemused police officer: "Do you guys know about bone-smashing? It's according to Wolff's Law, so when you break down a bone it grows back stronger. So I'm trying to grow my cheekbones."

Wolff's Law, if you were wondering, is a theory from 19th-century German surgeon Julius Wolff, who thought bones become stronger when exposed to stress.

As modern medicine has advanced, doctors have learnt there are actually a number of different reasons why bones change, WebMD explains.

Wolff's Law is often applied to show that weight lifting can help strengthen bones as well as build muscle, and that controlled stress to bones can help heal them after breaks under medical supervision.

But this doesn't mean hitting your face with a hammer will give you better cheekbones.

This is not going to make you better looking (Kick/Clavicular)

Dr Bruce Y. Lee wrote for Forbes in 2023: "There’s a big difference between the mechanical force on your bones that comes from walking or lifting weights in an appropriate manner versus the force from a blow from a blunt object."

He explained that apart from the fact that hitting your bones with a hammer is going to hurt like hell, there's absolutely no guarantee that your bones will heal in the way that you might be intending, and you're also likely to either fracture or break them after hitting them enough, and having a broken jaw is a surefire way to make yourself less attractive.

It's also worth noting that our face is filled with soft tissue, and hitting the wrong area could lead to bruising, bleeding and lesions, which may also have a high chance of becoming infected.

While online incels might suggest that bettering your personality is 'jestermaxxing', which is ridiculous in itself, let me reassure you that reading a book is going to have far more benefits than hitting yourself with a hammer.

LADbible has contacted Clavicular for comment.