2026: Year of the MOG

On Clavicular and the lure of secular rules of life

A week ago, I thought that the word “mog” was just a silly little acronym I came up with for “man of God” after my friend Ashley coined WOG as short for “woman of God.”

And then I read Eddie LaRow’s exposé on “Gen Z Men and the Spectacle of Status.”

Gen Z Men and the Spectacle of Status

LaRow begins his essay by defining the word in question:

mog

verb | MAWG

To look or perform far better than someone else

He then goes on to introduce his audience to a young man named Braden Peters whom the internet has recently come to know as “Clavicular.” Clavicular, I discovered, is the most prolific online advocate of the trend known as “looksmaxxing.” In a recent interview with conservative political commentator Michael Knowles, Clavicular described looksmaxxing as “the furthest extent that you can take self-improvement.”

His sit-down with Knowles generated many a viral clip in the days that followed—not least of which was the one where he describes famous actress Sydney Sweeney as “malformed” due to her “extremely recessed upper maxilla.” My personal favourite, however, was the one where he explains why he would not vote for Republican vice president JD Vance over Gavin Newsom — California’s Democratic governor — despite aligning much more closely with the Republican on a policy level.

In case you missed it, Clavicular prefers Newsom to Vance “because JD Vance is subhuman and Gavin Newsom mogs.” In other words, Newsom looks significantly better than Vance; therefore, Newsom is worthier than Vance. As difficult as it is to believe, this take really does encapsulate the simplicity of Clavicular’s worldview.

In response to a Knowles question about the endgame of looksmaxxing, he announced: “I am someone who just wants to mog, essentially.” For him, looksmaxxing represents the most logical path towards “better overall quality of life”—an opinion he attributes to the psychological phenomenon known as the “halo effect.”

I actually remember learning about the halo effect in a communication class I took in my final year of university. According to a slide I found from the lecture entitled “Social Attraction: What Draws Us Towards Others?” the halo effect is defined thusly:

The more we perceive someone beautiful (to us), the more likely we assume them to be successful, sociable, popular, intelligent, sexually warm & competent.

Perhaps Clavicular is on to something.

After all, Socrates did famously state that “it is a shame for a person to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which their body is capable.” I remember the way my mind lit up when I first heard this quote as a third-year in university. It eventually became the theme of my post-breakup gym arc as I pursued my own version of looksmaxxing.¹

I may not fall asleep to More Plates More Dates YouTube videos on a nightly basis like I used to but my drive for self-improvement is alive and well. The only reason I did not settle on a New Year’s resolution for 2026 is because I had already compiled a list of goals on my Notes app last October which I had set out to achieve by October of this year. Standouts from the list include:

• Daily prayer and scripture reading

• Substantial body of work wrt Substack

• $$$

• 2 Plate Bench

I had never really questioned my desire to improve myself until I saw a Substack note from Griffin Gooch on my way home from work last week.

“The only area worth trying to outdo someone else is in honoring others?” I asked myself. It sounded a little bit extreme. Of course I want to honor others better this year than I ever have. But what is wrong with wanting to ascend in other areas of life—even ones which may not necessarily carry with them a net benefit for anyone other than myself? Gooch’s take was quite the contrast from Clavicular’s advice:

For young men to succeed, they need to put themselves at the forefront… men are doing worse than they ever have in almost every metric, and the only way to overcome that is focusing on oneself to the maximum [and] doing whatever it takes to ascend.

As I sought to reconcile these two warring worldviews over the past week, I remembered a conversation I had last summer with my local church’s resident philosopher, the legendary Mark Daley. I had asked Mark to tell me about the dissertation he wrote for his doctorate in philosophy and was marked — no pun intended — by his answer.

When I asked him for a brief refresher on Sunday, he explained that the essence of his work “was to reflect on our moral ontology, that is, the unseen cultural demand that most drives us toward the good.” He argued that “since the age of individualism, we have become transactional in our dealings—willing to perform whatever ritual in order to lay hold of a promised reward.” He described this “moral command” as “effectively an enslavement to self-concern.”

Thus, he proposed a shift away “from self concern in the face of cultural standards that compel us to rise, improve, ascend, better (to become more than we are).” Drawing on the works of French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and American theologian Walter Brueggeman, he then asserted that

The scripture tells us we are complete and fully alive as we are (Christ in us, the hope of glory), and so rather than seeking to be more, we experience our wholeness when the life in us is imparted to The Other.

In the words of Christ Himself, “the greatest among you will be your servant” (Matthew 23:11). And then again: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted” (v.12).

Perhaps, then, those resolutions which are rooted in the desire to self-exalt ought to be discarded in favor of resolutions — new year’s or otherwise — which are focused on serving other human beings. Perhaps this is how one becomes a Man (or Woman) Of God, if not a mogger.

1. Clavicular’s own dad was, incidentally, a pro bodybuilder at one point. A looksmaxxer in his own right.