Natalie Kitroeff

I mean, they're owning it.

Right.

I mean, it seems basically impossible to ignore the danger of a movement or a lifestyle that tells its followers to, you know, do all of these extreme interventions to make themselves acceptable, basically.

But just talk for a minute about the potential dangers of this.

I mean, you know, Clavicular, it should be noted, is an influencer.

Part of his job is to say outrageous things, scandalizing things to really draw attention.

I mean, that's how he makes money.

And so in one way, you can see what he's doing is the result of a kind of manufactured effort to

by publicists, by a very online guy, to get clicks, to get likes.

On the other, a lot of people are listening to him.

And I have to wonder about the message they're receiving.

No, I mean, for young boys who are looking at this stuff, absorbing it, learning these techniques, you can see how harmful it could be to be internalizing these unrealistic images of beauty.

Broadly, Joe, what should we make of the fact that clavicular, someone who espouses these views of the world, of people's value in the world, has become so popular and so influential right now?

You know, this whole time I've been thinking that by buying into his worldview, by reducing everything to numbers, there is this other loss.

Which is that you miss out on everything that is messy and complicated and sometimes not perfectly polished or manicured about beauty.

And for that matter, about physical attraction, about closeness.

with someone, love, relationships.

The humanity in that is often about the imperfections in it, not the exact distance between the pupils of your partner.

Well Joe, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Today's episode was produced by Luke Vander Ploeg with help from Tina Antolini and Alex Barron.