The "incel" sub-culture

[Georgy07]

The thing is that a lot of people try to link incel subculture to the rise of conservatism on the internet. Instead of doing like we would do with, for example, islamic terrorism and avoid to link it to islam in general, a lot of people are trying to make it seem like Incel's are the tip of the iceberg of something a lot worse than that.

So it becomes very difficult to discuss about these issues without risking a lot... because there's a lot of men who have genuine issues with mainstream feminism and liberal left that could be expressed without falling into violence, but mainstream ''thinking'' tends to demonize everything that is not on the same page as it is.

Criticizing feminism is assimilated to hating all women and wanting to kill them which is totally absurd and absolutely disgusting.

Quand la misogynie devient du terrorisme

Le 24 février dernier, une attaque dans un salon de massage érotique à Toronto a causé la mort d’une femme et blessé deux autres personnes. L’attaque en question vient d’être requalifiée par le Service de police de Toronto et la Gendarmerie royale du Canada d’acte terroriste, qui aurait été...

www.lapresse.ca

PS: I am, personnally completely and definitely against any form of misoginy. Incels are, in my opinion, pathetic and clearly have mental issues.

 

[Vera.Reis]

The only connection I ever hear between sex work and incels, and this obviously comes from people who aren't sex workers and clearly (or hopefully) do not see sex worker - are the ones who say to send incels to sex workers. These people are dangerous and it is so scary to see these comments on social media sometimes! Like no, please do not send men who hate me to see me, please.

Honestly, I know ugly and broke guys that still manage to get laid, these aren't their issues. It is that they feel less than or "beta" as if there is a right and wrong way to be a man and that not having certain characteristics makes you less of a man - this is absolutely not true, but it is these beliefs that we call toxic masculinity, it has nothing to do with actual masculinity, it is something else that attempts to masquerade as masculinity and causes a lot of problems.

 

[EagerBeaver]

I do not see Incels as a "culture" or "political movement", they are just guys with mental health issues/social anxiety disorders who have chosen to blame others for their own problems.

 

[Vera.Reis]

I think this a bit beyond "blaming others" if you have never surfed 4chan or seen the really vile shit these men say about women then maybe you do not understand. I will not chop this up to a metal health issues, most people with metal health issues are not violent sociopaths with fantasies of rape and murder. I will agree they are not a culture, but they are definitely a political movement and their behavior has political implications.

 

[chowzilla]

losers who never faced adversity that get smashed by society cuz they can't handle the pressure. They get older, impatient and depending on how many loser friends they find, which will determine their sanity. The lower the sanity, the more prone they are to act out.
its not a race, culture, generation or political movement, its a breed.
- chowzilla, May 28th, 2020. [opinion level: grain of salt]

 

[EagerBeaver]

Elliott Rodger the so called "Godfather" of this "movement", (1) had no politics whatsoever, just a long history of his social anxiety issues for which his rich parents threw him at shrinks and hoped he would adjust, (2) was biracial (Asian-Caucasian) and not a white neo-Nazi and (3) clearly from his "Retribution" video is just a garden variety sicko who in the 1960s would have been put into a mental hospital. But we don't have mental hospitals any more except for the criminally insane, which is exactly where Elliott would have gone if he did not kill himself.

Calling incels a political movement dignifies it in a way that is not warranted or deserved. I believe it is just media spin. Rape and murder fantasy shit has always existed on the internet since the internet was invented. These fantasies did not get born/invented when the Incel "movement" supposedly began. They were always on the dark web and before that were elsewhere.

 

[Black_Star1986]

The personality type is self confident, charming, great sense of humour, making people feel at ease, a bad boy vibe.

 

[jmioffe]

Elliott Rodger the so called "Godfather" of this "movement", (1) had no politics whatsoever, just a long history of his social anxiety issues for which his rich parents threw him at shrinks and hoped he would adjust, (2) was biracial (Asian-Caucasian) and not a white neo-Nazi

Actually, this movement goes back a lot earlier than Eliot Rodger! The term incel was born in Toronto, in the early 90s, under much more benign circumstances, as a term for lonely people, but attracted these angry types eventually.

See: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76h59o

And the incel movement was arguably underway decades before Eliot Rodger, with the 1989 massacre of 14 women at Montreal’s Polytechnique school.

Eliot Rodger definitely was motivated by some racialized anxieties that can be chalked up to having a white father and an Asian mother. He called himself a "beautiful Eurasian," hated his Asian side and lusted after blonde girls.

He had six victims. Three were Asian men, his roommates. He stabbed them all to death -- they all suffered dozens of wounds, one of them was stabbed 94 times. That's a very personal and hateful way to kill someone. Two of his victims were sorority girls, who he shot.

 

[jmioffe]

Yeah, I've read a lot of this stuff and I think you might have a point.

I always thought millennials and younger were making much ado about nothing with these sorts of protestations.

But I also thought that (presumably older) folks' "just be confident" advice was delusional.

I guess that makes sense. Generationally, I'm too old to be a millennial and too young to be a boomer.

I guess it just keeps getting worse then.

And I thought, well, at least the constraints on P4P get less strict as you get younger. More millennial women are doing OnlyFans accounts and possibly more. Millennial guys can just get over the issue of women having more choice by paying for it.

But then I think, the younger men are especially fucked because a lot fewer of them also have decent paying jobs or savings.

I usually try to refrain from getting into arguments on here, but there are too many hot boomer takes on this thread. Understand that the dating/courtship culture has changed drastically over the last decade with advent of social media. Not like back in the day when you met women through your social circle - school, college, church etc. I mean people still meet that way but it is being increasingly supplanted by dating apps which are terribly stacked against men. Now, when you approach a woman, you are not only competing with other prospective males within her social circle but also potentially hundreds of guys she may have matched with on her online dating profile. Just a have a look at some of these findings:

1. Guys, unless you are really hot you are probably better off not wasting your time on Tinder (Tinder economy is more unequal than 95% of global economies with top 20% of men competing for 78% of women).
2. In online dating, even the most attractive men barely receive as many messages as the most unattractive women.
3. 15% of men, receive 50% of all likes given out by women (hinge).
4. Based on self-reports by 1038 Belgian Tinder users, the odds of having casual sexual relationships with another Tinder user were 172% higher for women (Timmermans 2018)
5. Many more interesting studies you can find on this subreddit.
6. Woman tries tinder as a male.

The disparities shown in studies exist, albeit lower, even after accounting for the difference between male and female population on these apps. I am not agreeing with the incels here nor trying to excuse them, but some of the comments on this thread are straight up dismissive without taking the dating culture among zoomers/millennials into context. I'm a millennial guy, i know how tough dating was back in college. I can only imagine what's it like now.

The amount of men under 30 not having sex has nearly tripled in the past decade


View attachment 3430
28% of men are involuntarily celibate, that's more than 1 in 4. We'd rather blame them and repeat platitudes (be confident, be funny, put yourself out there) than try and figure out underlying issues which may be leading to this.

 

[EagerBeaver]

without taking the dating culture among zoomers/millennials into context. I'm a millennial guy, i know how tough dating was back in college. I can only imagine what's it like now

Social adaptation - whether it is to dating rituals or feeding behaviors- is part of the evolutionary process. We see this, for example, in the differences between Coyotes and Wolves. Coyotes are called the kings of adaptation, because although they are native to prairies, they have adapted to live in urban environments, suburban areas, forests, meadows and prairies. They have adapted to the presence of people, because where people are is often where they can find food. Wolves, however, are skittish, tend to stick to forest cover and avoid people if at all possible. For these reasons, the Coyote flourishes through a wide swath of North American real estate, whereas the skittish Wolf has a very, very limited range of North America in which he feels comfortable.

The modern man, like the Coyote, is adaptable to dating websites, and develops the social skills necessary to present himself and communicate with women. In this model, the Incels are being left behind by evolution, as not adaptable, much like the various species of Wolf that have failed to adapt. You could view them as left behind by the process of evolution, and lashing out at their impending extinction.

It's interesting to note that scientists believe that all species of domestic dogs descended from a species of gray wolf that was unusually social and intelligent and gravitated towards humans because of shared interests in food and hunting. The dogs brought the superior senses to the table- the senses of smell and hearing- while humans brought weapons to the table, and all of these skills were used in the hunt for food, with the spoils of the hunt being shared. This eventually led to the modern species of dog we all know and love, while their very distant cousins, the rest of the grey wolf population, remained aloof from man, and resultantly foraged on their own, increasingly smaller turf.

We see again the lessons of evolution with these Incels who lack the skills to adapt and survive.

 

[jmioffe]

I doubt they were sorority girls. He tried going to a sorority house but wasn't allowed to enter.IIRC, his remaining victims were in a convenience store.

Elliot Rodger's victims were sorority girls. So basically, his victims did reflect his worldview, and weren't just random:

Santa Barbara Shooter: 2 Sorority Sisters Revealed Among Dead

Two beautiful sorority sisters, Veronica Weiss and Katie Cooper, have been identified as victims of the massacre by Elliot Rodger, the 22 year-old son of ‘Hunger Games’ assistant direct…

hollywoodlife.com

 

[Sir William]

This is the most interesting thread I ever read on MERB.

Men focus way too much on stereotypes regarding physical attributes; height, hair, body build, beauty... It’s called the « phénomène de l’enclos » they pretty much think that what their friends say, what they see in movies and shows is without doubt the only way it should be. This phenomena is everywhere even among escorts. Most escorts and even women believe that men prefer women with large breasts and blonde hair. Same stereotypes when it comes to social status, car, income... It’s really easy to focus on any stereotype and give up.

What woman are most interested in is how you make them feel. They are emotional junkies.

Without going into a dissertation on the subject and I could very easily write a book on this. All you need to do is « act as if » you are confident, « act as if » you are certain that you will be able to give her the best sex she ever had... Just be honest and don’t lie.

Congratulations Halloween Mike on doing what a lot of people don’t do in life: taking charge and responsibilities of your previous actions and moving forward towards self improvement.

With all the ressources available in our era of information and self improvement programs made on dating by authors like David Deangelo to name just one involountary celibacy or incel does not exist. These men have volountarely given up.

Like anything in life we are not born with dating skills. A lot have learned and succeeded through trial & error and persistance. Others are still not really comfortable and kind of get along. Some have just given up through mainly one fear that is very strong - the fear of failure. Unfortunately the only way to learn is to fail...

It’s easier to come up with a whole bunch of excuses, theories and movements then it is to take responsibilities, take charge, learn, fail, restart and change.

 

[jilpale]

It's hard to meet single women for dating/relationships as a male if you use online methods. Offline methods, you need to be plugged into some sort of community to have opportunities to meet people. Even very attractive men will do poorly on dating websites. I know because I'm one, get non stop attention when I go out, but zero dates so I use agencies lol.

 

[Sir William]

It's hard to meet single women for dating/relationships as a male if you use online methods. Offline methods, you need to be plugged into some sort of community to have opportunities to meet people. Even very attractive men will do poorly on dating websites. I know because I'm one, get non stop attention when I go out, but zero dates so I use agencies lol.

Dating websites and social media is a total waste of time to successfully meet women. The ratio investment of time according to results is mediocre. It seems convenient to shop around on the net for women in our cocooning stay at home mentality.

The only dating website that I had some results with is Match. Paying websites for all members is the only way to go for online dating where members including women have to pay to read and send messages. I had to use techniques that I learned from the online dating training from David Deangelo and other online dating gurus to get very lean results and replies. The ratio investment of time versus results is mediocre and not worth the effort.

Social media Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook are poor ways to meet women. My girlfriends use social media and free dating sites to get social proof. It’s all about the number of followers they have on social media and messages that they receive on dating sites. It makes them feel good.

The ratio men to women on dating sites is ridiculous. Women receive an absurd amount of messages. For a lot of women that are seriously looking for someone it turns them into princesses with unrealistic expectations of the perfect man. Or women get on dating sites and meet someone right away in the first day or she stays on several sites for years as I have seen a lot.

The most useless application that I ever tried is Tinder. Same results for all my friends. When I went to Thailand in February it worked like a charm when you eliminate the ladyboys or transgender and working women. In any case a decent looking older man in Thailand is a rockstar without having to pay. In Montreal Tinder is useless.

Conventional ways for meeting women is a better time investment whatever your goals are. I have great results meeting women in conventional ways.

 

[jilpale]

When I was living in US, the best way to meet women was parks, grocery stores and Walmart.
Down to earth nice women.
Montreal, I don't know where to find my type, down to earth, submissive, monogamous, believe in happily ever after romantic BS.
Very hard to find Online because women are mislead into thinking it's easy to shop around and get guys so fast and easy.
Therefore, they have very little to offer to their man, when they do get in a relationship. This is what leads some men into incel.

 

[EagerBeaver]

I just got through reading "Fair Warning", the most recent novel by Michael Connelly (who wrote the Bosch novels) which discusses the dark web markets created by incels. Specifically the plot involves a hack into the data of a company that does genetic tracing and genealogy searches through DNA. These companies are not regulated by the FDA and sell the data collected anonymously to labs for law enforcement agencies. The genealogy search customers believe that their DNA data is anonymous, but a hacker and his DNA Expert cohort, Elliot Roger incel types who were college classmates, are able to access their data because the DNA Expert works for a lab for LE that purchases the anonymous DNA samples. They first isolate the customers who have the gene that creates risky behavior in females , the risky behavior being sexual promiscuity and substance abuse. They then use info from a hack staged through access to the Genealogy company.'s database to identify the risky behavior DNA donors. Next, they start a website on the dark web that sells the identities of these women to incels lurking on the dark web. One of their incel customers has homicidal fantasies and acts upon those fantasies with the "risky behavior" women,, whose identities he purchases for $500.

This character is identified only as The Shrike, his internet handle, so named because he internally decapitates his female victims like the bird of the same name does to its prey.

Although a novel, Connelly presents this plot as entirely conceivable.The issues discussed are incel subculture, privacy rights, internet security, the perception of government regulation where none exists, and his usual police procedural stuff - the relationship of media and law enforcement and between local and federal LE.

The book does not involve the Bosch character but instead his alternative protagonist, journalist Jack McEvoy.

Very well done. Could be the basis for a movie.

 

[adeci]

I just want to get it out there that I think the messaging today is a little too "sex-positive". we are told everywhere that it's healthy natural, even necessary to have sex weekly, daily, etc. With this in the back of my mind I feel every day inadequate with no partner and no sex on the horizon. Will there ever be a cheerleader saying it's ok and natural, maybe even necessary to NOT have sex daily?

 

[EagerBeaver]

adeci I think you are looking for that messaging more than it's really there, because I am not seeing it. Or else you are very young. There are no excuses for incelism.

 

[curly]

I just want to get it out there that I think the messaging today is a little too "sex-positive". we are told everywhere that it's healthy natural, even necessary to have sex weekly, daily, etc. With this in the back of my mind I feel every day inadequate with no partner and no sex on the horizon. Will there ever be a cheerleader saying it's ok and natural, maybe even necessary to NOT have sex daily?

What? You are not having sex daily?

 

[adeci]

I think you're right the emphasis is mostly in my head, but then as if to prove my point the recommendation for frustrated life is always sugar babies, etc. I guess this is the new way. I quit my LTR to try to become a better parent thinking I would have support from family, friends, engage in "wholesome" activities and "meaningful relationships" but I must be stuck in the past. -sigh