Clipping Viral Social Videos Has Become Big Business

At the beginning of the year, few people knew who Clavicular was. By February, the 19-year-old looksmaxxing (young men who maximize their physical appearance, sometimes through extreme measures) influencer was everywhere, scoring profiles in the New York Times and GQ, walking the runway during New York Fashion Week, inspiring waves of thinkpieces and getting lampooned by “Saturday Night Live.”

From the outside, Clavicular’s rise to popularity felt like a fluke, the result of an online...