The internet has many weird corners, places most of us never venture to. I’ve long been fascinated by online subcultures, why they exist and what kind of people are part of them. From Usenet groups and forums, to fandoms and cults. Today we’ll be taking a look at a rather infamous group known simply as Incels.
The word Incel is a combination of the term “involuntary celibates”, used because the self-identifying members of this group feel that society doesn’t allow them to find a sexual or romantic partner, hence the involuntary part. Another way of putting it, taken from the Intro to Incel post on Incels.me, they can’t have sex despite wanting to, and will never find a partner for either validation (am I the only one who finds that idea alarming?), love or acceptance. They describe this state as “inceldom”, where they are constantly rejected by the objects of their desire. I think that’s definitely something important to take note of, in that their view of the world has become so warped that they generally stop viewing other people as people, but we’ll explore that thought more later on.
It’s also important to point out that there is no one voice in the incel community, no one truth per se. It’s a group of misguided individuals who are all trying to figure out the exact same problem that they all share, which I guess could be said about a lot of online communities. As with many communities, there are various different types of incels including (but not limited to):
There are a couple of other terms I feel like we should get out of the way first, and that’s Chads, Staceys and Beckys. Let’s start with Staceys, who are hyper-feminine, attractive, and unattainable who only date Chads. Chads are the muscular, popular men who sleep with all the women and then there’s Beckys who are the “average” women. There’s also the terms “femoids” or “FHOs (Female Humanoid Organism)”, which really highlights these guy’s twisted world perspective.
There are opposing ideas regarding incels, in that the majority of outsiders view them as just wanting sex (I think the kids call it thirsty these days) but many claim it is the validation, acceptance and love that they are after, although yes, some sex would be nice too. The community is also divided as to whether members have to be virgins or not, but many agree it’s fine, just don’t brag about it and you won’t achieve “Truecel” status. The intro post on Incels.me gives a slightly uncomfortable example of a boy who was essentially sexually abused as a kid, but who grows up never having had a romantic relationship or consensual sex, then they are accepted into the fold. There is just so much in that statement that makes me uncomfortable, but we’ve come this far, let’s continue.
So far, without explicitly stating so, we have really only been talking about the male incels, but the origins of this group might be a little surprising. These days many think of incels as typically white heterosexual males, but the very first incel community was started by a Canadian student who only went by her first name of Alana. Yes, that’s right, the founding member of the incel community was in fact female. It was in 1993 when she created a website called “Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project”, so that she could discuss her sexual inactivity with others. The site was used for several years by members of both genders, to discuss and share their experiences (or lack thereof) when it came to trying to find romantic partners. In 1997, Alana started a mailing list called INVCEL which was later shortened to just incel. Alana herself realised that she was in fact queer, and handed the website over to a stranger, and so the subculture was born.
In more recent years, discussions in incel communities are often characterised by extreme resentment, misanthropy, self-loathing, self-pity, misogyny, racism and an apparent entitlement to sex. Some even go so far as to promote violence against sexually active people, with there being at least four mass murders in North America as a result of incels. There is no better example of one of these incel members doing just that than the all-mighty turd in the punchbowl, Elliot Rodger.
For this section, I've included a little music for you to listen to while reading, so hit that play button on the video. I won’t be showing his face or going into too much detail about this manchild, as I agree with those who don’t want the worship of these damaged individuals to continue. On the 23rd May 2014, in Isla Vista in California, 22 year-old incel Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured fourteen others near the campus of the University of California, before killing himself inside his vehicle. This was to be his “Day of Retribution”, which he outlined in his manifesto and a YouTube video titled “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution”. In the video and manifesto, he explained that he wanted to punish women for rejecting him and that he envied sexually active men and wanted to punish them for being sexually active.
His retribution began with him killing his three roommates, shooting three girls outside of a sorority house, killing two, shot and killed a male student and then injured other pedestrians with his car before finally turning the gun on himself.
In his manifesto, he went into great detail about his childhood, family conflicts, inability and frustration over finding a girlfriend, his contempt for couples and his hatred of all women. When Alana, the original founder of the incel movement, heard about the 2014 Isla Vista killings, and in particular the way many members of the incel community glorified Elliot Rodger, she wrote “Like a scientist who invented something that ended up being a weapon of war, I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it.”
Incels and inceldom became so notorious and had acquired such a negative image by now, that the Southern Poverty Law Center described the subculture as “part of the online male supremacist ecosystem” and that it is a member of their list of hate groups. In November 2017, Reddit made the unusual move (for them at least) of banning the incel subreddit for violating a newly introduced policy of banning “content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people.” Plenty of other webhosts and forums have taken a similar stance on the community, but not all incels are like this, with there being many online groups who oppose the hate. Alana also started a new group called “Love not Anger”, which she hopes to use to help lonely people find compatible and respectful love, instead of being stuck in what is essentially a hate loop.
Even the more moderate groups these days do not think that females can be incel, due to it being “vastly easier for a female to get validation and sex than a male in today’s society.” They also believe that homosexual men have it easier than their heterosexual counterparts.
In the incel communities, they have this idea that they've rejected both the red and blue pills, and instead they've taken the black pill. This concept is based on “The Matrix”, where Morpheus offers Neo one of two pills;
“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.”
In regards to inceldom, the red pill is an ideology based on trying to win the game of seduction and interactions in general, implying there are a set of rules and methods that an individual can use to maximise their odds. The black pill ideology is that the game is rigged from the start, where the attractive Chads and Staceys are more desirable to society as a whole because of the importance of looks over personality. Conversely, they see the blue pill as the ideology of “it’s what’s inside that counts”, and that being yourself is the best way to conduct yourself in life.
I’m sure to most of us, the problems with thinking like this are very apparent. We live in a society where reciprocity is the key, I scratch your back, you scratch mine kind of thing. There are unwritten, unspoken rules to society that we all agree to abide to. It’s about finding balance between the internal and external, but as we all know by now, people like the simplest solution and the ones that reinforce their pre-existing beliefs. Any subculture or group who uses the blue pill/red pill metaphor is usually only interested in reinforcing their negative perception of the world, and I take it to be a warning sign. Be wary of those who peddle in “truth”.
Back to the topic at hand though, so how does taking the so-called black-pill alter your world view? Well, as we’ve previously mentioned these groups are often associated with strong feelings of resentment, misogyny and misanthropy. This can be seen in some of their beliefs and statements, such as the commonly held view that men are “owed” sex by women. This can even go as far as them endorsing violence towards women and couples in general.
Personally, I think the real elephant in the room here is mental health and social development. As someone on the Autistic Spectrum, I think it would be fair to speculate that members of the incel subculture would have a statistically significantly higher rate of, at the very least autistic traits, if not Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I can both sympathise and empathise with their feelings of isolation and even resentment to a degree, but when we surround ourselves with enablers and those who reinforce our already held notions, reality can and most likely will become warped. The fact that this group has only increased it’s member size over the years is another sign of how damaging modern society can be. We should be entering a modern renaissance, but instead find ourselves in the time of misinformation and narcissism.
Whoa, that went on much longer than I intended, and if you made this far thank you so very much for reading. I really hope you enjoyed this little peek down the rabbit hole into a somewhat misunderstand, but entirely misguided subculture. What did you make of this? Have any thoughts or feelings on the topic of inceldom? Let me know down in the comments section and I'll see you there. As always, make sure to follow me for the latest Internet, Pop Culture and Technology updates. I'll be dropping the Cryptocurrency from my profile description as there are already so many amazing Steemians writing on the topic, that I don't feel I can really add anything anymore. It's a good thing though, as I'll be focusing more on topics like this that I find endlessly fascinating, and I hope you get as much of a kick out of them as I do. Until next time, thanks for reading and be good to each other!
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Sources:
Incels on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel)
‘Raw hatred’: why the 'incel' movement targets and terrorises women on The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/raw-hatred-why-incel-movement-targets-terrorises-women)
Incels.me - Involuntary Celibate (https://incels.me/)
Image by Septimiu on Pixabay (CC0 Creative Commons) (https://pixabay.com/en/desktop-people-human-hand-man-3170198/)
