Clavicular Before and After: What the Photos Actually Show

LadBible and UniladTech both ran pieces in early 2026 featuring before-and-after photos of Braden Eric Peters, online as Clavicular, under framing that aligned the visible transformation with his bonesmashing routine. (LadBible, UniladTech) The pieces produced viral engagement and reinforced the implicit causal claim, hammer, then jaw. This piece walks through what the photos actually show, what the most plausible contributing factors are, and why the single-cause attribution to bonesmashing is structurally misleading.

What the photo pair looks like

The before photos circulated in 2026 coverage typically show a younger Peters with:

• Higher facial fat percentage producing a rounder cheek and chin contour
• Less visible mandibular angle (the jaw “corner” at the angle of the mandible)
• Different hair, grooming, and styling baseline
• Amateur photography, phone-shot, indoor lighting, casual angles

The after photos (his current 2024–2026 public-facing image) typically show:

• Lower body fat percentage with visible mandibular angle and jaw definition
• Sharper visible cheekbones
• Hair styled in the “looksmaxxing” aesthetic, short on the sides, longer on top, often dyed or highlighted in a specific way
• Professional photography or carefully composed phone shots with filters
• Adult facial maturation, the natural shift in facial proportions from late adolescence to early twenties

The visual change is real. The question is what produced it.

The five plausible contributors

Each independently meaningful, and the visible change is most plausibly a combination of all five.

1. Body fat percentage. The single largest contributor to visible jawline definition in most men is body fat. At 20–25% body fat, the mandibular angle is mostly invisible regardless of underlying bone structure; at 8–12% body fat, the underlying structure becomes visible. Peters’s adult photos show meaningfully lower body fat than the before photos. Weight management alone, without any other intervention, accounts for a substantial portion of the apparent change.

2. Natural facial maturation. Men’s facial proportions continue to shift through the early twenties. The brow ridge becomes more prominent, the face elongates slightly, jaw width can increase modestly with masticatory development. The before photos appear to be of mid-teen Peters; the after photos are of adult-bone-mature Peters. Some of the change is just being older.

3. Grooming, styling, and presentation. The looksmaxxing-aesthetic haircut (short sides, textured top), facial hair grooming, eyebrow shaping, skin care, dental work or whitening, and clothing all move perceived attractiveness measurably. Most before/after comparisons in the influencer cohort show substantial improvement in these variables. The contribution is real but invisible as “grooming changed” because the framing centers on the bone structure.

4. Possible cosmetic procedures. The looksmaxxing influencer cohort routinely uses cosmetic procedures without disclosure. The most likely procedures to produce the visible change in Peters’s case:

• Masseter Botox. Reduces masseter muscle bulk, sharpening the jaw angle. Common in this aesthetic. Reversible (Botox wears off in 3–4 months); not usually disclosed.
• Chin filler or genioplasty. Improves chin projection. Filler is reversible; genioplasty is surgical and permanent.
• Buccal fat removal. Removes cheek fat pads, hollowing the cheeks for the gaunt aesthetic. Surgical and permanent.
• Submental liposuction. Under-chin fat removal, sharper neck angle.

None of these are publicly confirmed in Peters’s case. The looksmaxxing brand value depends on the framing that the visible transformation came from the lifestyle being marketed, not from procedures. Non-disclosure is the norm.

5. Photography and filters. Modern smartphone cameras and social-media filters routinely sharpen jawlines, reduce nose width, smooth skin, brighten eyes, and adjust facial proportions. The contribution is non-trivial and routinely understated. Apples-to-apples comparison would require unfiltered photos in similar lighting at similar angles; this standard is rarely met in viral before/after comparisons.

The actual causal picture is probably some combination of all five. Attempting to attribute the change to any single intervention, bonesmashing, mewing, supplements, or anything else, without controlling for the others is structurally unsupported by the evidence.

What the hammer did not do

Three reasons the bonesmashing routine is not in the credible causal chain for the visible change.

Mechanism. Blunt-force trauma does not produce the kind of remodeling the framework claims. Facial bone responds to acute trauma with fracture, hematoma, callus formation, and remodeling that follows the injury pattern rather than the aesthetic intent. Wolff’s Law describes adaptation to sustained mechanical loading, not adaptation to hammer blows. We cover the full mechanism in is bonesmashing dangerous.

Timing. Peters has said on Impaulsive that the hammer routine was a teenage practice, at 14 or 15. The visible transformation between the before photos and the adult photos spans the late-teen to early-twenties window. Most of the visible change occurred years after the hammer practice ended. Even if bonesmashing had any structural effect (it doesn’t, per the mechanism above), the timing argument requires it to have produced a change visible five or more years later, while the alternative explanations (weight loss, maturation, grooming, possible procedures) align with the actual photo timeline.

Counterfactual. The simpler explanation, a teenager who lost weight, grew up, learned to dress and groom, and possibly got Botox and chin filler, accounts for the photo evidence without invoking a practice that surgeons say doesn’t work. Occam applies.

The structural problem with before/After format

Before/after photo comparisons are intuitively powerful and routinely uncontrolled. Three reasons they make single-cause attribution look credible when it isn’t.

No counterfactual. The format compares one timepoint to another and implies that the intervention being marketed caused the difference. There is no “what would have happened without the intervention” image, the natural-maturation, weight-loss, grooming, and procedure contributions are invisible in the format.

Selection bias. The before photos are selected to maximize the apparent change. Phone-shot, unflattering lighting, awkward angles, higher body fat moment, weaker grooming, vs. the after photos selected to do the opposite. The format favors the most dramatic comparison, not the most representative.

Filter and styling differential. Even with sincere intent, the photographic standards routinely differ between before and after. The before photo is amateur; the after photo is professional or carefully filtered. The “different person” effect is amplified by the technical differential.

The looksmaxxing influencer economy runs on this format because it works. The format produces the viral engagement that builds the audience that drives the income. The fact that the implied causal claims are mostly unsupported does not affect the engagement; it just affects whether viewers who replicate the routines get the same results. They mostly do not.

What a young man can actually replicate

If the before/after pair is the inspiration:

Replicable parts:

• Weight management to 10–15% body fat. The single highest-ROI variable for visible facial definition.
• Grooming, styling, and hair improvements. Reliable, accessible, reversible.
• Skin care basics, sunscreen, moisturizer, occasional retinoid. Real returns over months to years.
• Dental work, straightening, whitening, for confidence and visible smile improvement.
• Photography skills, better lighting, better angles, knowing how to be photographed.

Limited or non-replicable:

• Underlying bone structure (genetic).
• The specific facial proportions that distinguish top-decile attractiveness on the PSL framework.
• Maturational timing (you cannot speed up facial development).

Requires money and adult judgment:

• Cosmetic procedures, where indicated and discussed with a board-certified provider.

Should not be replicated:

• The bonesmashing routine. Does not work. Causes real harm. See is bonesmashing dangerous for the full mechanism.
• Adolescent steroid or TRT use. See the TRT at 14 piece for why.
• Polydrug experimentation. See the pentastack piece.
• Unlicensed cosmetic injections. See the Aqualyx piece.

The bottom line

The before/after photos are real and the change is real, but the causal story attached to them in the viral framing is structurally false. The hammer routine did not produce the jawline; weight management, natural maturation, grooming, and possibly cosmetic procedures did. Most of the change is replicable through methods that do not require hospital admissions. The chaos-content layer in the Clavicular catalog is not what produced the visible image. The boring stuff did.

Sources: LadBible, Streamer Bone Smashing Looksmaxxing Trend Before After, UniladTech, Looksmaxing Streamer Bone Smashing Warning, Wikipedia, Clavicular (influencer).