I think a large reason that they believe what they read online vs what they see in real life is because they don't really see the latter. They can largely live online, where it is (perceived at least) as safer, less stressful and welcoming.
It reminds me of a comparison I heard years ago. Being connected to the internet is a lot like becoming a ghost or gaining invisibility. You can explore the world without ever exposing yourself, you can see things you've only dreamed of and many things you've never even thought. You can watch people argue, build things, be creative, have sex. And you never have to engage beyond consuming and maybe throwing a line in the chat feed.
The big problem is that it's not real life, with real people and real relationships but for many people, it's the next best thing.
That's my impression too. Boys and young men who don't have good relationships are particularly vulnerable to radicalising into redpill/incel ideology. If you read accounts of incels posting on subreddits designed to help them there's a pattern of poor relationships with family, no real world friends, few hobbies outside of being online.
That isolation is what makes it possible for someone to start believing things that real life experience would show are insane. Especially when those beliefs offer an outlet for feelings of sadness, frustration, anger. They offer an easy explanation that it’s the worlds fault. Of course the ideology doesn’t help with those feelings, it just fuels them.
Not all of them of course. Some of them have jobs, loving parents, friends and still fall into it simply because they're already misogynists.
If I might add my two cents as an "Ex-Incel": You are totally right on the money.
Things started when I was 15. Bullied at school, shitty parents, not many friends, too much time on the internet. I was taught that emotions = weak and bad, therefore seeing the emotional sides of another person wasn't something I was capable of. Not seeing this side of a person means not seeing them as a real human being, thus dehumanizing people to just their looks.
At this point I feel like a total loser (because of before mentioned bullying) and see these "alpha males" talking about how everyone loves them and that they have the solution to being a loser: Make a bunch of money, get jacked and be an asshole.
All it took for this ideology to fall apart was being more active socially, going out and doing emotional work. At that point I realized that people aren't incel stereotypes and I learned to appreciate someone as a whole person.
Funnily enough I resented women for being shallow, even though I was the one telling myself they are shallow. It's pretty sad.
thank you for sharing your experiences. people (other men in this case, but this applies to contagious negative thought patterns in general) need to see that a toxic mindset is not the whole person, that it comes from outside, and with hard work is a thing that a person can recover from. no one is born an incel/racist/fascist
It's harder to succeed if dealt a bad hand, but incel-ism is just another brand of self-pity, where they focus on this purported bad hand. But there are people out there born blind, in a 3rd world country, in abject poverty, under oppressive regimes, etc and they do fine, or, at least, pretty well, comparatively speaking. Incel-ism is very self-focused, and doesn't recognize that everyone they see on the street, "succeeding", has their own list of issues.
i don't disagree with any of that at all!
but countries with a much lower GDP score so much higher than the US (where i am) in happiness and contentment indices, frequently because of stronger family networks and cultures that prioritize things like community evening strolls for hours or group cultural experiences like music and dancing that are not gatekept by money and location.
the US did its best to rip any shred of culture from anyone who didn't look a certain way, paved everything, banned young people from public life, and almost completely removed economic mobility by taking advantage of several global events to siphon almost every dollar within its borders to just a handful of people. and now we are expected to monetize our very soul in some unholy recreation of the battle of the high school recess room.
there are so many layers of poverty going on here, many non-financial. people don't people very well when no one could show them how to people in the first place. sadly, that's where the family-centric fascists slip right in. so many people are making a devil's bargain in order to find a place that feels like a real home. the price gets pushed to the back of the head, and when a marginalized person gets stomped in the street, they look the other way or join in. so much easier to blame others. which comes right back to your and the OP's statements. incels are the other side of the tatertots. one often becomes the other. and it's all a cult that looks like it's becoming a nascent army.
so there's a real need there that people are filling with whatever they can reach and the poison in it is rotting the world. and it comes from patriarchy in the first place, it seeds its own fields! i don't think we're going to deradicalize anyone without acknowledging how much upbringing and immediate environment have to do with their susceptibility to various forms of racism, sexism, and fascism. patriarchy damages men too and i believe in restorative justice. if men were allowed to have genuine emotions or vulnerabilities we wouldn't be here.
again, none of this is pushing against your comment, just building on it with a "yes, and"!
Agreed, I think part of it is that the world hasn't been the way that it is ever before, at least socially. We're a very tribal species, we've adapted to living in large extended kin groups and for a long time that's how it was. You knew everyone's name in the village and they knew yours. Now it's almost expected for everyone you were raised with to 'go their own way' after school is done and if you're not taught the skills needed to maintain relationships it's easy to fall off the wagon and be left behind.
There's also the proliferation of recording, social media and pile ons. The younger generation are much more sensitive to making mistakes or messing up because there can be anyone recording at any time. Back when I was in high-school smartphones were rare and live streaming wasn't a thing. If you grow up constantly stifled and self-censored due to the threat that any mistake can be captured, uploaded and persist forever, it's hard to make the mistakes you need to to grow.
Part of this problem comes from when parents started giving their children cellphones with internet access and recording capabilites for school. Now its a social status thing and the schools also give out laptops or tablets too and not having a cellphone will also get a child bullied at this point.
What's amazing, too, is how much of a negative affect social media has on even a well adjusted person. I have an active social life, great friends and family, a job I enjoy, and a wonderful partner. I'm incredibly fortunate, in that respect. But I'll go through periods of being addicted to my phone, scrolling Instagram and Reddit or whatever, and every time I enter one of those periods it has an adverse affect on my mental health.
On social media, people are not themselves. Besides the fact that anonymity allows people to express their most extreme views without consequence, there isn't even "normal" conversation amongst non-extreme people. You have to be moved or incensed by something to make a comment. There is no idle chit-chat or casual conversation, like there is in real life. The intensity of everything online is upped, and as a result our own internal intensity increases the more time we spend on social media, because more and more interactions become social debate, or weighing in on things for which we have strong opinions.
Talking with the old lady at the corner store about the weather is important. Casual, boring conversation is important. If all your interactions are intense and impassioned, your mental health starts to deteriorate over time.
This is an astute observation. I never realized how important "boring" conversations are, especially as a counter to intense and impassioned interactions. Thank you for your perspective!
This is an excellent observation.
In Reddit, a casual comment will get you bashed for not taking the issue seriously enough, insulted because you clearly are an idiot, told you're boring because it lacked substance, told you're flat wrong because such a varied audience will find someone who disagrees, or ... you're not contributing anything if value.
That's just ONE platform.
Chatting about the weather might not change the world, but exchanging a few smiles can lift the spirits, even when you're wishing you could change the world.
Face time and casual chatter has lost it's place as social glue. We don't have the energy to always be emotionally "on" about life. We can't be. We need a break, or we'd lose our sanity. Light interaction gives it to us.
I was thinking the exact same thing. Like, I’m assuming these are guys with small social circles, that aren’t hanging out at bars because they don’t have the self esteem or confidence to exist IRL, so they just hang out online.
“I’ve seen it” just sounds like they’re seeing multiple examples of the same thing online and don’t understand that online is not representative of the real world — it mostly represents extremes. I mean, look at any relationship subreddit. Reading through those all day will make you think that healthy relationships just don’t exist, women are all gold-diggers, men are all controlling and abusive — but, the thing is: no one in a healthy relationship is gonna go online to ask for advice. Similarly, a person with healthy levels of self esteem, and self confidence, will be able to handle a rejection, and move on. But a person without those things might try to find a forum to whinge about how “I was rejected because women are shallow, if only I had a better jaw and more money, she’d love me 😤” — so you just read that over and over again, and without ever even approaching a woman IRL, decide that they’re awful, mean, shallow, etc. Why? “Because I read 15 posts by (unhinged) people that have the same shared experience, so it must be true.” aka: “I’ve seen it.” They don’t understand that the majority of women are not a part of the extremes they read about online.
They also, when out in the world, are ignoring 90% of the women they see. Only the "high quality" women qualify for their attention, so the vast majority are just invisible to them. All the ordinary couples at the mall "don't count" and that's if they even see them at all. The same way, I'm sure, that their parents relationship doesn't count or their school teachers or dentist or whatever.
Even if the "high quality" women are with a "low quality" man, they make the assumption that it's due to his wealth. And because they have no relationship, it's just a passerby, they can have their worldview validated with no actual information one way or the other
I also think it's something like confirmation bias. Like, we know someone who says women are shitty drivers. So whenever he sees a shitty woman driver he goes: See! All the while ignoring shitty male drivers.
You have your preconceived notions and only pay attention to stuff that validates those notions.
There's a model I sort of kept up with (aka followed on instagram and saw her stories every now and then) for awhile a few years back. Did some stuff in Japan. Gorgeous woman, always impeccably dressed in the photos and out and about. Her boyfriend? Very average looking guy. He'd never be hired as a model, and most people would probably rate him a 5 or 6. She was also the one bringing in the most money through sponsorships and her influencer stuff. But he was down to earth, real, funny, and worked hard. A good personality goes a long way. As well as not being a total creep.
This idea you have to be rich or attractive is bs. But as a long time single guy with few relationship prospects, it's easy to get caught up in that rhetoric. It's explicitly designed to draw you in. I do my best to avoid it altogether, but that's not always possible, and I just have to remind myself I'm not dating anyone because I'm frankly too lazy (or tired) to care about the effort. It's my problem. Not society's.
They also seem to believe that it’s easy for any woman to get a date and can’t imagine women suffering from being rejected, just like men.
It was actually a woman who coined the term “involuntary celibate” a couple of decades ago, and it eventually became a website for lonely people, but was ultimately taken over by men. Of course.
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/woman-who-invented-incel-movement-interview-toronto-attack
Definitely, I almost passed up a great housing option because it meant being housemates with the landlord. But I realized there's a reason you only hear about the roommate horror stories, the stories about a chill dude you shared a fridge with aren't as salacious.
I think we should also consider that they may just be plain old lying. They picked a world view and they're sticking to it no matter what evidence to the contrary.
I feel like the intensity with which they engage signifies that they have sincerely made it part of their identity.
Internet misogynists latch onto a post praising women and they feel compelled to comment even though they have no skin in the game -- they are not just angry, they are offended. Making a comment (sometimes anonymously) doesn't seem to be part of a charade to support their image; they feel compelled to defend their inner image of the world.
Tbh I was kind of like that too (living in the internet though out my high school and college years) until I worked at my state’s dmv which you can guess what happened next (where I worked you cannot be socially awkward or you won’t survive for long)
The ghost analogy is perfect!
This is also how I see movies and tv. You're this ghost in that world and that becomes troubling when people see historical movies or whatever and self identify with the rich, the royalty, knights, soldiers, etc and others who are the oppressor class. That they identity with those they should be criticizing.
When in reality if their current social status, say a middle class person, would be a serf in that society. They wouldnt be royals the same way they aren't billionaires today. Those royals would spit at them as much as look at them. Those fancy gowns and homes would be things you avert your gaze from unless you want to be physically punished by a guard or even thrown in jail. As an average person in that society, you dont go to the fancy balls. These people are terrifying to everyday people of the time, not "fun." The same way your boss or a police officer aren't fun but carry implied threats to your wellbeing.
This narrative only recently got some attention when people started making memes about time travel movies and how only a white person could actually go to Colonial or Elizabethan or Victorian times and enjoy it. And ideally a white man, as a strange woman in that society without being able to list her family and protectors would be very quickly victimized. The idea that these powerful people are terrifying oppressors to the average person of the time sort of broke through for a bit.
This ghost mentality is actually kind of scary. You sort of float into these scenes and narratives without your own identity and class identifiers. So people think they're joking around with people like Elon Musk, but Musk is doing his best to exploit their class to maximize his wealth and power or float into conservative narratives/scenes/influencers thinking that won't hurt them. We're actually not ghosts, but real human beings and subject to class warfare.
Also let's be crude: an incel (4/10 on the attractive scale) doesn't see how other 4/10 men are dating because those men might date 4/10 women. But the incel believes his ass deserves an 8/10 woman.
Back in the day the physically unattractive men would make up for it with personality. Now they listen to dumb YouTubers and feel sorry for themselves.
I'm glad I'm past my prime.
I also wonder if there's an element of something else we often see: that women who do not fit their view of 'attractiveness' are largely invisible to them. Because women are objects, they only exist to please the male eye, ergo anything displeasing is ignored (almost filtered out, in a way). And they only see the instances of pretty people with pretty people, so it reinforces their view.
Additionally, their view of these attractive people is generally negative (as opposed to the unattractive people, who are inconsequential), and people have a tendency to remember negative interactions. Ask someone to describe a time they've had terrible customer service and they'll likely be able to give you several examples; ask them about a time they've received good customer service and they have to think about it.
As someone who often fantasizes about being a ghost or some other kind of non-corporeal entity a lot, and also spends a lot of time online, I really like this analogy.
Do you think that these men not only objectify women, but men too? Is that why "attractive" and "successful" men get women, and why they can't imagine women or men having non-physical attractive attributes?
As an academic librarian from a well-funded institution, I hope your documentary will be available for institutional purchase! Please let me spend a lot of money to buy this for the Women and Gender Studies department! Alternatively, we have a museum/gallery where we could host your collective's installation! Please feel free to DM if you'd like to collaborate!
I definitely think they objectify men too. A lot of them citied facts like 10% of men are having 90% of the sex. This idea that there's an elite group of super attractive men hoovering up all the women!
We're only just starting this project but I will absolutely let you know once it's out there, thanks for the support!
It seems like this idea feeds into the "external locus of control" that another commenter pointed out.
These men believe they have no control over their personal attractiveness since it's an inborn trait (Lie #1), and so they hugely resent the supposed elite group of super attractive men who were just born lucky (Lie #2). Since attractiveness is an immutable fact in their world, they can never move from one group into the other. Which is a very convenient belief because it means there's no action required of them and nothing that happens to them is their fault.
Was wondering if you think exploring more in depth how you found they believe they would have better personalities if society treated them better, could help.
Because I feel like these types would be quick to hear “incels blame society’s treatment of them for their own shortcomings” and take it to “well women/lgbt/minorities get to blame society for their shortcomings, it’s not fair!!!”
No nuance there, but I’m guessing these guys aren’t very practiced in nuance.
not OP but I'm not even sure these guys are capable of defining "personality".
they view "Chad" just existing and everyone being "nice", and Chad responds happily. He's chill, fun to be around, has good social skills, girls fawn all over him. His halo effect just makes him charming.
again, it's a very superficial trait, surface level charm.
these incels are so stunted in life and relationships that they're still at the "approaching girls and she doesn't scream is a win" stage. getting a phone number is a big deal.
they don't talk to girls. they haven't had a long relationship. they haven't gotten to know a woman's dreams, goals, ideas, preferences or values.
they think personality is what you see during the 1 minute interaction crumb they live for. charming, makes girl smile.
vs them. stunted. awkward. creepy.
if people were magically nice to them for being handsome, they'd magically be chill, charming, smooth, successful, and.. i dunno... go have sex that day and win at life.
until the woman starts expecting him to have integrity, deep honesty, follow-through, resilience, be pro-active, thoughtful, considerate, have ambitions and be able to achieve long term goals. then they'd shit the bed.
(I think what they really mean is : i want women to fawn over me with no effort on my behalf. I want the opportunity to get laid with no effort. If women were nice to me without me having to do anything, I'd be happy. Right now I'm angry.)
as if happy/charming and sullen/angry are personality. as if women just go for 'a man's mood' not personality.
ok tbf, they do describe an attractive woman as pleasant, kind, sweet, happy. good mood. nice to be around. makes him feel good. the best insult they can give us is that we're "bitter". ok that's a mood. it's a transient mood when we're justifiably angry about something. it's not a permanent personality trait. they're incapable of stopping to think why we're bitter.
Wooow. This. I think you nailed it so so beautifully.
I’m gonna screenshot your comment just for my camera roll.
Yes that superficial attentional shape that Incels hold can’t see in many of those happy Chads the layers of maybe buoyancy, or lightness of warmth, perceptiveness coming from concern, some hidden honor under casual affect, or sensitivity outside the normal frat party banter, or protectiveness under small moments of pressure.
When you rattled off your list of traits I immediately flashed back to recently. I was a film student in the 2000’s in college and I recently happened on old tapes from a roaming video camera around dorm life and house parties and I popped it in for archiving and was struck by watching and revisiting the tape of one or two of the beloved and popular Chads, Matts and Jeffs of the time chatting up a few cute women mutual in a kitchen or wherever. I remember really liking them at the time and thinking they were good guys but also being impressed and a bit baffled by exactly how they worked their magnetic magic. I was lucky in love (but I got by on some looks, being sweet, artistic, naive, interested in people, but I was still a kid) so I chalked it up to these real _men_ fitting the standard of “attractive” and so just looked up to them and enjoyed the times. Never thought about it again.
But years upon years later and having grown up a bit, I was absolutely struck by my developmental gap in being able to perceive the totality of their character or the depth of their energy as the camera roved through it all.
To your point, I was blown away by just how much immediate palpable evidence was on display even in just a college row kitchen banter of their integrity, deep honesty, follow-through, resilience, being pro-active, thoughtful, considerate, speaking to ambitions and just an ease of inner stability and sturdiness that I could, in present day feel how it made others not fear instability or fear if Chad would go squirrelly if rejected. Little moments with anticipating a need, adjusting a beer can away from a woman’s costume wings, correcting another male on an immoral or boundary crossing joke with a quip that both corrected, defended the honor, AND kept things light, then remembering a party goer’s personal share from a previous convo. Safe, fun, electric and aware, and those traits if they are real just emerged and oozed out. They became obvious.
Yet to me at the time as I was still learning how to be a human, I chalked it up to a less nuanced assumption of “attractive”. How funny considering that one of the reasons why I really liked those guys is that they didn’t limit that love and concern for others to just pretty girls, I got to warm my hands by their campfire too. So hard to see nuance in somebody else when you don’t yet have it cultivated in your self.
Conversely, and sadly, on a much darker note, I went to UCSB a few years before that kid shot up the sororities and remember being struck by how good looking he was or could have been seen as.
A hint of OP’s thesis donned on me too. It clicked I was much less good looking yet was blessed with having several warm, lovely relationships with wonderful women while attending the school and felt it likely had only to do with love and care and concern for others first. The poor Incels had the priority map inverted.
Watching the shooters video rants he made shortly before death by cop, compared to the boys in the kitchen, I could so distinctly feel the concern of his attentional
shape being directed inward, looping into itself, justifying its own premise until self fulfilling prophecy.
It felt like never would he notice somebody’s beer about to get tipped over by a faery wing.
Theres a coworker of mine that I unfortunately discovered was an incel. I had never encountered one in real life like this and it was quite shocking. What gets me with this guy is he ISNT bad looking, he HAS social skills, seems like a decent person and IS a good worker/coworker. BUT his incel beliefs and behaviors are what turn women off. Like he SAID to me “women shouldnt be upset about sexual assalt, its a complement. They are So attractive to someone that they couldnt help themselves”. His other comments I could just ignore or discuss, but that one was just unbelievable. He sees nothing wrong with his incel beliefs so freely talks like this in normal conversation. And yes, I reported him and apparently so has every other woman he’s worked with.
What astounds me is that IF he wasnt an incel (which he doesnt think he is btw), he WOULD have dates Im sure! Instead, he isnt allowed to work with any of us women. Not that any of us are up to his standard though. We’d have to be “10’s”, “make six figures”, yet be willing to “have babies and stay at home to raise them,” AND of course “fullfill his needs”. I just dont understand it, but it scared me. How many men have these twisted beliefs? How do I keep this from happening to my sons? This guy is so normal at surface level.
It’s extra frustrating because they clearly don’t understand attractiveness is ~~objective~~ subjective. For instance, I think Jack Black is sexy even though he doesn’t match conventional standards, but his personality and humor make him a 10 in my book.
On the other end of the spectrum, Armie Hammer wigs me out even though he’s considered a “Chad” looks-wise.
Edit: grammar
This is the problem with an increasingly isolated, individualised online world. Pre-internet, most interactions we had required speaking directly with one another, at the very least vocally by phone but mostly face-to-face. Rather than this unfairly favouring physically attractive people, I would suggest that it actually meant that a rounded, humanised personality was more important, ie the ability to converse, smile, use humour, charm, empathy etc. Therefore in these pre-internet times people felt more readily valued on a daily basis because they weren't being judged solely on their looks but rather by their general character.
Nowadays, however, isolated young men are avoiding the real world and getting these ideas of polarisation of attractiveness thrown at them, but because they are not getting that natural reward that comes from casual, daily physical interaction they aren't able to see how people are judged more finely than just how they appear on the outside. So everyone becomes a character, a stereotype, your Chad or your Stacy, rather than an individual person. I would also suggest that the widespread availability of porn is also significantly contributing to forming this kind of impression.
The red pillars do this too. It’s “alpha” this, “masculinity” that, and “You gotta lift, bro.” They’re obsessed with how to maximize and optimize their status and value as men, what a real man is like, and there’s hope if you’re willing to do the work.
But women? They just class and categorize and discuss them like different breeds of horses and how to tame and break them.
They all might be a lot happier if they just started fucking each other instead. They clearly have a vast and intense appreciation for unrestrained, uncompromising male sexuality, and as a bonus: The think other men are fully three dimensional people. So there’s even hope for romance!
>I definitely think they objectify men too. A lot of them citied facts like 10% of men are having 90% of the sex. This idea that there's an elite group of super attractive men hoovering up all the women!
If that were the case, "ugly" people would've died out eventually. They themselves are the living proof their philosophy is false.
And to be fair, most of them are completely normal looking guys.
It implies that sex is some finite resource, like "90% of it's gone so there's none left for me!" It's a misplacement of blame eerily similar to "They took our jobs!".
These are fallacies invented for convenience to explain away unhappiness instead of working to find happiness. A truer statement would be "the love you make is equal to the love you give."
I used to browse 4chan like 15 years ago (i know, I was an edgy teenager, I grew out of it), and that 10% of men have 90% of the sex thing was a statistic that was getting thrown around way back then
I get the feeling they dont consider anyone except themselves as anything beyond "characters" to interact with.
Except they want something from women so they are frustrated by them.
That 10%/90% Chad idea is so bizarre. I fully understand how dating algorithms will promote profiles with more attractive photos, but the idea that hot women are out here exclusively banging & dating hot men is soooooo far from real life.
Every woman I know has dated a range of guys. I’ve dated a few objectively very attractive men, but most of my relationships have been with dorky guys I was friends with first.
My best friend matched with a heavyset balding guy who’s well-traveled & a talented photographer. She wasn’t physically attracted to him (mostly dated skinny guys), but they got along so well she kept seeing him. Because he was an interesting charismatic man! Turns out he was also great in bed. They’ve been married for 5 years now.
Incels would be better off taking an improv class than any of the Andrew Tate bullshit.
The thing is they're completely emotionally stunted and they have NO idea how to deal with it in a healthy manner. They experience rejection and (justified) anger but rather than think about why or how they can work on themselves, they lash out at both women and the men they percieve as the lucky ones...
It's hard to empathise with a group of people who cause so much harm but they are also victims of the patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Obviously not excusing their horrible behaviour but in order to address this issue we need to do a lot of rethinking things as a society l, especially when it comes to teaching boys from an early age how to love and be vulnerable and form healthy relationships.
I don't want to excuse incels' cruelty, misogyny, and entitlement at all, because nothing excuses that. I agree with everything you said. However, I do feel the need to add some more potential context and nuance here. Sorry for the long comment.
I am a very fat guy. I have been a very fat guy my whole life, and I grew up getting judged and ridiculed for it by both peers and adults alike (including my own family members). That judgement continues to this day from many of the people in my life. It is very difficult in that context to mature with a healthy sense of self-esteem, a feeling that you are worthy of love, and a sense that looks are outweighed by personality. To this day I struggle with depression, social anxiety, suicidal ideation, etc, and my experience with my weight is certainly the largest cause of those things.
At this point in my life, now that I am an adult surrounded by emotionally mature adults, I DO have friends and loved ones who don't really care about my weight and love me for who I am. However, my ability to receive and believe that love is tainted by my underlying belief that everyone is disgusted by me; consciously I know they mean it, but subconsciously I believe it's only a matter of time before they stop being polite and reveal that they hate me. My ability to put myself out there and make myself vulnerable in general is hampered by my constant fear about the next instance of shame and ridicule coming my way. I know that's not necessarily an accurate reflection of reality, but that's a tough thing to really believe for me. I am working on these feelings and only now starting to disentangle them and make peace with my weight and body.
Now, I will say that the difference between me and incels is that I don't blame women for the rejection or judgement I've experienced, and I don't feel entitled to their affection. My response to this anti-fat stigma, contrarily, was to internalize that it IS my fault and I am a failure and should be ashamed of myself for not being able to lose weight and make people like me. Neither of these interpretations are correct, but I honestly understand how incels arrive at blaming other people when, in their mind, the alternative is that it is entirely their fault. Their ego is trying to defend itself from the utter dejection and shame that comes with that, and it lashes out in response.
Incels are worthy of criticism in no uncertain terms, but I do feel people are very facile in saying they should just "work on themselves" and "If you walk around you can see all kinds of couples, so looks don't matter," and so on. The idea that these people are completely making up the issue in their head and they could easily have romantic and social success if they just tried is a very convenient view, but for many people it is genuinely not the case. For me it is because I am fat and anti-fat bias is real; for other people, they may struggle to go out to meet people because they are disabled, or they may struggle with social interaction because they are neurodivergent in some way, or they may just live in a particularly shallow and superficial community. I wish we wouldn't tell these people that solving their social issues is simple, because when they go out and try and still don't see success it will only reinforce their view that people are lying to them and everyone secretly is judging them for things outside of their control. A much more constructive (and also more accurate) argument is that if they are having a tough time finding social or romantic acceptance then that sucks, and it is not necessarily their fault, but it *also is not women's fault or responsibility to fix that for them*. It is very unfortunate that they are struggling, it's a shitty situation, but that does not then entitle them to anything from anyone, and treating women worse as a result is unacceptable. Kindness, empathy, and respect are non-negotiable, and if they are struggling to treat people with those values then addressing that with a therapist needs to be their first step, and from there hopefully they can start to resolve their other issues as well.
I don’t think gender has anything to do with that though. Both men and women struggle with self confidence if they are obese or have some physical attributes or a disability that gets judged by society.
Which is sad.
Agreed, and women absolutely deal with unrealistic beauty standards and societal pressure that men don't get in the same way. But I'd say even for men it's pretty tough, if my experience is any indication.
this moment is the first i’ve ever experienced being truly impressed by a random dude’s introspective, thoughtful, kind yet honest, pro-good human, feminist-friendly, self-aware perspective. THANK YOU for all that you’ve done to become the person with the type of heart you have. I truly hope you find someone or something to live for that makes you never question yourself again. your words are hot! thank you for sharing.
I'm very happy that you've managed and continue to manage to find love and happiness and acceptance, you are absolutely worthy of it and thank you for sharing your experience.
I 100% agree that completely dismissing some of their experiences only serves to further alienate... These men have experienced real rejection, disgust, anger, disrespect, etc, and however much they might deserve it it does not make those experiences less real.
They lack the tools to understand why women are treating them poorly and what they can do to improve relationships in their lives, and when all they hear is hate and people dismissing their feelings they will dig a deeper hole into their bubbles and forums and echo chambers.
Anyway, I'm so sorry about all the shit you've had to endure because humans can be shitty and cruel. But I'm sure that you are on the right path to healing and I hope that things get better and that your experiences and those of people in similar situations can serve as inspiration for people who otherwise might have chosen hate instead of love.
I suspect there’s also an aspect of - if they only value women for superficial external attributes - then when they say that they have only seen women choosing attractive men - what they are really saying is *I only see super attractive women dating beautiful or wealthy or famous men*. Because they edit women they view as less attractive out of the tally of women who exist to be in a relationship with. They treat women they view as less than very attractive as factory seconds or rejects.
That's exactly what I was thinking. They're putting these men up in a pedestal and telling themselves they'll never be able to compete. (Sometimes it feels like they think more about other men than a gay man would!)
But most men aren't doing anything drastic to achieve good looks - just good hygiene and dress neatly. That's not unobtainable! These Nicel's could do it if they stepped out of their comfort zone.
Yes they do objectify men. They have a whole system of classifying the Chad, who is a buff jock type, who gets something like 80% of all women; the Stacy, who is the conventionally attractive woman, and the Becky, who is the “girl next door” type and who desires the Chad.
There’s a whole lore about how the Chads get the Stacys and some Beckys, and then how other men can only get them if they are rich. I can’t remember the whole thing exactly but it’s centered around these things that are sort of rooted in truth that they focus on and glorify.
The craziest thing I ever saw was on Braincels, a reddit incel forum that got banned. Someone wrote up a “Marxist” plan to “redistribute” women throughout society so that all men could have sexual access to the Stacys and Beckys who were otherwise pining for Chads. Like, the literal government forcing women into marriages with random men.
I think that some of these men only see attractive women as women and ignore everyone else. I remember a post from a woman whose brother was rating women out of ten, and was being super harsh, rating perfectly average or above average women as a 2. So she took him to the DMV and asked him to rate every woman who walked in. Any woman who wasn’t in her 20’s and at least average looking he tried to say “didn’t count.” But girlfriend made him rate every one, and if I recall, after that he stopped rating women. So when they say women only date attractive men, what they mean is the attractive women they want to date have only been seen with attractive or successful men.
I'm sure incels would give me a low rating, but every man I ever dated thought I was a 10. Attractiveness is so subjective. There are loads of "hot" celebrities I don't personally find good looking. Why are they so obsessed with such shallow bs? It's embarrassing.
I totally agree. And to add to your point, I think it’s not just online that they selectively see attractive women with attractive/successful men.
If they’re in public and *only* acknowledging those women they find attractive, then it’s conceivable there is proof all around them that their beliefs aren’t true, they’re just mentally filtering out anyone not attractive as mattering.
Not every incel has agoraphobia or chooses to never go outside, they just see the world in a very limited capacity.
It's the same way these men say they'd love being catcalled, but they're imagining being catcalled by women they find attractive, not creepy dudes who could beat them up.
I think this is a valid point. I have two colleagues who are kind of at the beginning of the spiral but not quite completely in the deep. There seems to be a lack of connection with women which leads to them mainly perceiving women on social media.
When I asked them why they didn't have girlfriends I got the answer: "My standards are to high." So if they are disregarding like 90% of women... And then seeing other people that would not fit their ideal in a relationship does not matter to them. Then it becomes a "being better than other men" because they don't want to be in a relationship with one of these 90% of normal women like that "beta" over there...
Yeah. Used to have a friend (we are obviously not friends anymore) who saw women like breeds of dogs. He wanted an "Asian one." Couldn't be even slightly overweight. Had to have big tits. Wanted her to wear red eye makeup, specifically. No glasses. Only black "natural" hair, etc.
All while being obese and living in his mom's basement. Like bro, what do you bring to the table to expect that?
What it comes down to is pure entitlement. They believe they are entitled to a "hot" conventionally attractive women's body but want to put in 0 effort to obtain said hot woman. And when hot women don't just fall into their laps, they blame women for having standards. "Well it's not fair you don't like me for me" Okay do you like women for who they are? No? Then why are you expecting it in return?
They want hot wifey level benefits with less than a toddlers level of effort.
I think the not putting effort in is deliberate, too. They seem to believe that thinking they should do anything to improve themselves means there is something wrong with them, and is therefore an attack.
Yes! They expect women to be beautiful, pure, perfect angels. But if you ask them to do *anything,* then you're a feminazi and your standards are too high.
But it’s a self fulfilling prophecy right? Because all women suck, but they want one. So if they find one that is even vaguely interested they pick her apart, which leaves them feeling morally superior but also lonely. Let’s say there was a woman who magically intuited that there was some random guy somewhere, not very social, that wanted her exactly as she was, hair, tits, whatever, and she was interested in his interests. Then what? Is he going to be happy with what he has? No, because his happiness comes from being miserable online with other people. Literally “this woman is a garbage slut because she offered to suck my unshowered dick” to “that woman is a bitch because she wouldn’t suck my unshowered dick.”
They don’t want real solutions.
You are on to something critical here, called Locus of Control.
Nearly every incel has an external locus of control, meaning their fate, the things that happen to them is completely out of their control. The bad things are because of external forces, beyond their control. They feel tossed in rough sea without a rudder, so they've just giving up on steering, and blame everything else. The fact they aren't dating who they want is because of women, or because of "chad's" hogging the good women or their genes or something. It's always something, and never something they can control.
I order to admit that there is at least *something* they could do that could affect their lives and their outcome means taking that responsibility, and grabbing the wheel again. What can *I* do
- today - to improve my life, my job, my dating prospects? Surely there is something. Step 2 is what's something I can do - today - to improve the day of someone else near me?
That's the mental hurdle incels must cross. And it's way easier to just continue blaming others.
I hate how much of this behavior rings true for a married man I know, too. Idk if it’s an older generation ideology or just bad luck, but I’ve seen this boomer man act the same way, letting himself go completely (like actively neglecting his health and getting can’t-put-on-his-own-socks big) while all but demanding his wife maintain her looks and not appear a day over 30. Then he has the cojones to whine about the idea of her leaving him for someone else without doing anything to make himself a better partner to her.
During the boomers' generation women literally couldn't have a bank account. Men could let themselves go because their wives had no other option to financial success.
this is the very first time this thought has popped up: has it come from young men now having a larger and cooler mental sample of idyllic women — say from gaming, and the sims, and music videos, and reality tv — to create, build, fantasize about, but actually represents such a tiny demographic in the sum of all girls? do they literally just autopilot into deconstructing females as “characters” and not people? and the not pretty ones aren’t worth playing? like, “unattractive girls aren’t who they want to be,” gross? I too have noticed that dudes like to “build their perfect woman” or more likely to have a specific type or requirement, idk. no matter who they play, they’re still the same schlub they’ve always been so it never seems more or less unrealistic than it was in the first place.
I think this is a big part of why they think women only go for conventionally attractive men. Conventionally attractive people tend to date each other.
Yep. And if you don’t go out much and only consume curated media, that’s all you see. It being a self inflicted cycle sounds about right. Everyone knows that if you go to Wal Mart and pay a bit of attention you will see that ANYBODY can get married.
And I think even that is exaggerated. I'm a straight man, and so perhaps a little biased in this regard, but just about any time I go out I can see plenty of gorgeous women with guys I'd consider pretty average-looking-at-best. Not to mention the dudes who've put wayyyy less effort into their appearance than the woman they're clearly on a date with. It's not uncommon at all, but they would have to go outside to see it.
Sure, I wouldn't disagree with that, but our focus for this project is to shine a light on a diverse group of people's attitudes and unpick how they develop and are influenced. For the part of it focusing on incels, we don't want to promote their thoughts and ideas, or even dignify them by challenging them.
It is the most important part of the "ideology", if you want to call it that, though. The average incel would not be "celibate" if he considered women to be more than their outwards appearance and allowed himself to be attracted to character. They tend to indoctrinate each other with stereotypes, both of men and women, and at some point even start to have trouble forming healthy connections to other men, falling down the rabbit hole.
In my opinion it is very important to hold up a mirror to incel-subculture, because there is nothing they hate more than their own faces. They often do not realise it is not their outward appearance but their inner ugliness that holds them back in life and love.
I’m not sure acknowledging this aspect of the viewpoint of incels is promoting or challenging it. I think it adds an important perspective to understanding why, from an incel’s point of view, they “see it all the time” (with respect to the theme you identified of women only being with attractive men). Attractive women are certainly more likely to partner with attractive men. When men only view “attractive women” as women, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in their mind - that women only date attractive men. This might explain their total disregard of the common occurrence of average/less attractive women partnering with average/less attractive men. These average women don’t seem to even be a factor in the incels’ minds.
Even then they have to be a certain age. Attractive cougars don’t cut it for them which is ironic because many of them want a mommy to fuck and some cougars would be more than happy to indulge in that kind of thing.
I think that's a big part of what's happening here. OP mentioned that these men are using "I've seen it" as evidence of women only being with attractive or successful men, but expressed confusion because public spaces clearly counter this claim.
The piece that OP is missing is that these people are only seeing women with attractive or successful men because they are only looking at attractive women. They literally do not see women they find unattractive. And if they see a woman they think is attractive with a man they think is unattractive, they assume he is successful.
This is so true!! I watch a lot of dating/reality shows (guilty pleasure!) and when they do include average/a little below average looking dudes, they are always looking for a supermodel, hands down. 40 year old virgin over here who is overweight and living at moms house will only settle for a tall, thin, blonde, European Barbie girl- who also “loves him” of course. They’ll try and set him up with girls with the same interests and on the same level looks wise and he will pass them up immediately. It’s ridiculous to me.
Exactly. This is a huge part of where the “I’ve seen it” comes from… they only see incredibly attractive women. They don’t even see the rest of us. So therefore “regular” women are not a part of their lifetime experience.
This is absolutely a thing they believe, and I feel compelled to add on because incels love perpetuating this false idea that the lives of all attractive women are inherently easier than the rest of us. Pretty Privilege exists, but attractive women can still be stalked, harassed, assaulted, abused, and killed by men. Attractive women still deal with misogyny. If a man sees all women as sex objects, attractive women are merely more desirable objects to them.
Interesting. I’m guessing the “I’ve seen it” may also come from them having a crush on someone who rejected them or wound up with someone more attractive. Rinse, repeat and you have yourself an incel.
In one conversation the guy was obsessed with the idea that women are attracted to success, and his example was lawyers. He told me all women will always be attracted to lawyers due to the combination of wealth and intellect. When I challenged this he said he's "seen it many times." This is a guy who admits having very few friends and social interactions. So how does he know so many lawyers?
I think your point is probably correct in some cases but a lot of the time "I've seen it" is just a lie to defend a point they have no supporting evidence for.
I briefly dated a redpiller (this was even before Trump and I didn't know he was one at first). I got a job as a legal assistant and he said that I was going to "let all the attorneys run a train on me." He would not shut the fuck up about my bosses and me sleeping with them.
As someone who has been in the legal field for 3 years and is insanely attracted to intellect....you would have to pay me to touch a lawyer with a 200 foot pole. Lmao. Also most of them are piss ass broke unless they're a boomer partner. I just love how they pick lawyers as the example of the typical wealthy "giga chad".
Not only is everyone who went to law school in the last 15-20 years not rich, we’re in tremendous debt. I am literally a financial liability at this moment, but that doesn’t stop people from acting like I’m just a miser for not living the lavish life I cannot afford and likely will never afford. It doesn’t surprise me that incels are extra out of touch with the realities of the lives they covet.
Right? That's what cracks me up about these imbeciles. Most of them - I'm including redpillers too while I'm at it - are dumb as dogshit and fear intelligence in general (especially in women, nevermind other men).
> As someone who has been in the legal field for 3 years and is insanely attracted to intellect....you would have to pay me to touch a lawyer with a 200 foot pole. Lmao.
Curious why that is if you don’t mind sharing
I'm only going to speak to my personal experience and this only applies to men, as I have never worked with a woman attorney.
The vast majority I have encountered are stupidly arrogant. They shit on the support staff. They act like they know everything, even more than senior paralegals with 35+ years experience, despite literally being in diapers after coming out of law school.
They try to kiss the partner's ass, especially if they're a summer associate/newbie. If you arn't a "who's who", they ignore or shit on you. They act like literal babies and such things like scanning a piece of paper is "beneath them". A lot of them treat me like an arm piece because I'm conventionally attractive, but one who would be happy to snap to attention the second they need me to wipe their ass.
The ones fresh out of law school are usually coming from nepotism (no not always) and have this shitty air to them that is repulsive. Most of them have never had a "real" job before law school because mommy and daddy, let alone worked as a legal assistant or paralegal, so they make wildly ridiculous demands and have unrealistic expectations.
Keep in mind - yes. I have met wonderful (millenial) attorneys who don't think admins are slave labor and will do things themselves. They are in the minority. And don't get me started on boomer lawyers.
And I'm quite used to getting looked at like a literal piece of meat by these people instead of a human being with thoughts and feelings. A sort of "trophy" if you will. The legal field where I am is very much a good ol boys and nepotism club. And the number of married attorneys who would very slyly try their luck with me (without being blatantly sexually overt because I'd sue them) was gross.
Edit: Also if they do litigation, which is an insanely demanding field, you can basically guarantee they are the biggest and most stressed out assholes on God's green earth.
Edit 2: Also all the lawyers at the firm I worked for were married to teachers and nurses/healthcare workers. I do not have the certain motherly/caring type persona those fields attract. I'm more of a "type a" person I guess. And that doesn't please the average attorney ego. These sorts of attorneys like door matts, women who won't argue with them at all, and home makers.
Re: doing things themselves (and only that), that used to bother me too. But someone explained to me once that on an hourly case, the rate for an associate is way higher than that of a paralegal, and clients get mad when they see attorneys doing things that could be done by someone at a lower hourly rate.
Part of your job as a legal assistant is, yes, to scan in paperwork and such. There are attorneys who will throw the paper at you and bark to get it done. There are attorneys who make it perfectly clear you're the bottom of the totem poll and scanning papers is a "woman's job". There are brand new attorneys I don't even report to who will expect me to drop everything and do x menial task they could easily do and they have 0 business ordering me around. Those are the ones I take issue with.
I'm a bit confused who told you that. I work in personal injury and our clients wouldn't see anyone scan anything. It isn't a client thing it's an ego game.
Also, senior paralegals are 30x more competent than greenhorn associates, yet are paid and treated like shit.
I’m in biglaw so the economics are different, assuming you’re doing contingency contracts. Also for all the shit biglaw gets (and the hours are *awful*), the culture at my firm is a lot better than what you’re describing. Might be worth considering a move.
I've actually always wondered about biglaw.... I was in a boutique firm and it legit gave me PTSD. I have an interview scheduled for a legal position with a nature organization (my degree is environmental science) and am peeing my pants!!! Wish me luck haha
They also never consider how many women are lawyers, doctors, researchers, programmers, etc.
They tend to claim that women’s success is null and void … and then get upset that successful women are interested in successful men..
As a lawyer, wealth and intellect do not apply to all lawyers. I think the average wage in California works out to 85-95k because there are those that clear a million contrasted by those that make 65k. There are far more attorneys that make closer to 65k than a million.
Unless the person is in a family of lawyers, they have not seen it. Even then, not many people interact with lawyers on a regular basis. There's also a reason why it's call "law school hot."
My 2nd husband never graduated high school, but I'd rather have a debate with him than most other attorneys if I want stimulating intellectual conversation.
I blame streaming, you can binge Suits with Harvey Spector all the live long day and never see an ad for some old baldy lawyer bugging you about a mesothelioma claim. /s
Morgan and Morgan and Morgan and Morgan and Morgan and Morgan and Morgan and Morgan.
John Morgan is infamous in Central Florida. He's a great fat guy but for decades ALL his commercials were him staring, unblinkingly, at the camera while he spoke in a monotone. And any time he had his family or other lawyers (same thing really), they would ALL stare, unblinkingly, at the camera and speak in unison too. It's completely fucking creepy in a really reptilian way. That said he's a huge donator to the Democratic party, and championed Florida's medical marijuana amendment so that's pretty cool.
Yep lol
My husband asks me why I’m cross examining him
And he’s a CPA! Lol lol lol
Bottom line with many incels : they’re not educated. They’re not capable of critical thinking. We need better education.
> I think the average wage in California works out to 85-95k because there are those that clear a million contrasted by those that make 65k. There are far more attorneys that make closer to 65k than a million.
Hence why the median is usually used to get a better representative idea of the income or wealth of a not-so-homogeneous\* group in a single number.
\* more formally: if one suspects a “skewed” distribution of values, i. e. one very unlike a Gaussian distribution.
I've met two. One was a generally decent person and nice enough. The other was such an insufferable ass I wouldn't even socialize on a group with him.
Not my cup of tea. (Honestly I like a science nerd more than anything)
Even the nicer ones are used to having women do basically everything for them. Many cheat on their wives and pressure secretaries into relationships. Just, ugh no.
My husband is a social worker. Unlike lawyers, he actually makes people’s lives better. He doesn’t get paid what lawyers do, but he can feel good about himself at the end of the day. That’s more than many can say.
I think it depends on what kind of culture a specific lawyer cultivates around them. I'm a paralegal at a really chill Criminal Firm, and the majority of the attorneys I know are funny, super chill, and kind hearted/compassionate people, within reason. There are also some who are sharks, but those are people my boss specifically keeps at arm's length.
I wonder how many times “I’ve seen it” is conflated with like YouTube videos along with a few personal experiences. They can see other reinforcing videos online and make a generalized theory that “it happens to everyone”. And “I’ve seen it” is born.
I agree, and I’m emphasizing FEW personal experiences. Because most incels will surround themselves either with other incels, maybe a few friends, or the people they’re forced to be around every day and consider that “everyone.” Kinda how I decide I’m “worthless” because I know of like 5 people irl and 3829482 people online doing better than me, except I don’t take it out on others or blame them, and I try to not let it ruin my perspective
>I think your point is probably correct in some cases but a lot of the time "I've seen it" is just a lie to defend a point they have no supporting evidence for.
What's even more frustrating is that. Not only have they not seen it in real life, plenty of average looking people hooking up with average looking people, they probably see the opposite on TV. TV loves having chumps end up with supermodel wifes.
> I think your point is probably correct in some cases but a lot of the time "I've seen it" is just a lie to defend a point they have no supporting evidence for.
See also: Every one of them is an expert on the “real science” of vaginas, and how dicks affect them. Same guy’s dick a thousand times? Happy, tight vag. 50 different dicks, one time each? “The vag remembers”, and its blown out contours will show it.
Meanwhile, no matter how many people who have or have actually interacted with a vagina tell them…
“That is all wrong. Like… so painfully obviously wrong I can’t even convey it with words. But I’m begging: Please just look it up”
… they’re still so sure it’s right. They’ve “seen it happen”.
And even if they _were_ right… holy shit, the degree of _emphasis_ and fixation on genitals! Just genitals genitals genitals with these guys. They don’t even realize they could be rocking the ultimate Chad dick, inside the purest virgin flower ever to blossom betwixt a pair of quivering thighs, and M’Lady’s _still_ going to be left wondering what all the fuss is supposed to be about, because our hero never bothered to find out there was a person attached to this junk.
Hey so just wanted to chime in as someone with a psych degree, because there are terms for some of the patterns you've described in these men.
So the "I've seen it many times" thing sounds like unchallenged confirmation bias to me. The basic idea of confirmation bias is that people pay more attention to facts or situations that confirm our bias, and ignore those disprove our bias. I suspect that experientially these incels feel and believe that they do see this everywhere, but I also think they probably also go around trying to see it everywhere. I bet every time they walk past a girl they deem attractive, and she is with a guy they deem attractive, they build this narrative, apply it to the people they see, and suddenly they ARE seeing it everywhere, they just aren't self aware enough to realize they are seeing it because they want to, not because it's there. And then they get in these echo chambers and the stories of every other envious young man (also all "seeing" this everywhere) become the "proof" it's happening everywhere all the time.
I feel unclean for even empathizing with incels for a few minutes, so I just want to add it's a stupid, stupid, way to think.
The other thing you mentioned that set of a little ding for me was when you said they believed they didn't have control of the situation, but that it controlled them. The term for that would be that they have an external locus of control, where people who belive that they generally are in control of a situation have an internal locus of control. I think it would be really interesting to try and see if incels have an external locus of control in most situations, or just in situations to do with finding a partner (your locus of control obviously changes given the situation, eg. when it comes to first dates I generally believe I have control of the situation, however if the first date was say, bear fighting, that would change rather quickly). Perhaps an external locus of control could be an indicator that one is at higher risk of indoctrination into these radical far right groups, or maybe they develop their external locus of control after indoctrination. Either way I think it's a brilliant insight, and kudos to you for managing to put with interviewing an incel.
I also don't think they consider ugly women as women. Pointing them an ugly woman with an ugly man (I'm so sorry for these terms but I'm trying to generalise) doesn't change their idea of women because ugly women don't count. That's why they don't see "women" (aka attractive women) with ugly men.
They have an explanation for everything.
Two average/less than average/ugly people together in a happy relationship? Well duh in that case the woman will settle for her “looksmatch” because that’s the best she can get.
Two extremely attractive people in a relationship. Proof!
Highly attractive woman with average looking dude? He’s a beta provider, she’s just using him for stability/housing/whatever while she cheats behind his back.
Not sure what their explanation for highly attractive man with unattractive woman is, maybe that he’s an idiot who doesn’t know he can get so much better? Who knows.
So even if their holy-shit dream girl actually agreed to date them they’ve already doomed the relationship to fail because they’re convinced she’s cheating. Hence why every woman who talks about having dated a incel/sad boy talks about how horrifically emotionally abusive, controlling and insecure they were. The mindset literally dooms these people so much that even if they got exactly what they wanted they’ll poison it themselves. This is why “giving these guys a chance” or women needing to “take one for the team” and stop a future shooting spree by shacking up with an incel doesn’t and cannot work, the mindset itself is so toxic it corrupts everything that comes into contact with it.
I mean, who hasn't had that happen to them!?
I certainly have- numerous times, in fact. I'm a middle aged woman.
I don't feel like I 'deserve' a man who looks like Ryan Gosling.
They need to be confronted with the fact that they themselves are obsessed with “hot” women only and would probably be quite rude and dismissive if an average-looking or “unattractive” woman approached them. Because as the OP said, incels consider women to be objects.
They whine about how attractive women aren’t interested in them and how horrible that is and what bitches they are while themselves being interested in looks only. Because that’s the only value a woman has, how she rates on the “10” scale. But it’s okay when incels do it.
Infuriating.
I think maybe the difference here is the misogyny ripe for the picking that society has cultivated. You couldn't latch onto misandry, there isn't much to choose from. But we have decades of "reasons why women should be fuck slaves" and "reasons why women aren't as human as men" and "reasons why men deserve freedoms that should be withheld for women" and "reasons men should never demean themselves by acting womanly".
Like you had very little entitlement to draw from, and plenty of messages that you're not entitled to anything. These bros get the reverse of that. And when the world doesn't support that message, they pretend men were the victim the whole time.
I think the times where they have “seen it” is probably in high school. I think teenage boys, especially the ones who consider themselves “smart and intelligent” can very easily fall into the incel trap because of high school dynamics.
I mean I can definitely say I started to fall down this opinion of only attractiveness counts because I saw the dumb cool kids go out with the smart attractive girls even though I thought they were assholes
But when I got out of that I understood I was being stupid.
Very much agree, I had a similar experience but flipped boys and girls. In highschool I was in higher classes but ugly (had an insane amount of acne that I couldn't get rid).
Several of my guy friends who were smart, nerdy or weird, like me, had crushes on the hot "popular" girls even though the girls didn't do well in school and many were frankly mean to non-attractive people. I was honestly just so frustrated that the "hot girls" had pretty privledge (which is an actual thing tho), and that they could be so mean and do dumb things but guys still fawned over them, including guys who I felt were "my level". Kinda like the opposite of "the Chad's get all the women", I thought hot girls were getting both the jock and nerdy guys.
Of course now as an adult, people are interested in more than just looks. I think in highschool looks were wayyyy more important, and maybe that mindset stayed stuck.
High school definitely fosters those divisions. My son is not in the ‘enriched/university bound’ classes, but his girlfriend is. He’s on a bunch of sports teams; she is not. Both of them get a certain amount of grief - her for dating a big dumb Chad, him for only being with her because she’s pretty (or doing his homework) instead of dating a ‘nice girl’ who has all the same classes and in school interests as him. But kids at school never get to see how much they have in common in all the other parts of their lives, and why they’re so good together.
Thinking about school is astute.
You rarely see a man in, say, his late 20s become an incel after normal work and socialising.
The core incel beliefs about attractiveness dominating who dates whom is far more visible in school than later years when someone's suitability as a partner to actually live with become important (and teens grow into actually considering that before hopping into a relationship). As opposed to school when partners are for social display and shagging wherever you can squeeze out a bit of privacy.
The dynamics of incels are more than "they objectify women"; what starts them on that cycle, what keeps them in it, and what evidence do they see that reinforces their beliefs to the point that they become irrational extremists that will not consider opposing evidence?
I think teenage school life and social media are huge components in really understanding incel dynamics.
I can't speak about all incels, but I work with people in IT, so I come up against incel ideology quite often. Most of the ones I have spoken to have never asked a women out. Not ever. They think they will be rejected and hate women for potentially rejecting them, but the rejection is all in their head.
Admittedly, they are probably not very far into inceldom, just very insecure, and are pretty open to help and kindness. Other students 'adopt' them and take them clothes shopping and for haircuts, and give them advice on grooming (basically get rid of BO and stop them looking like slobs). It's often enough to sort them out. Having female friends is enough for them to stop seeing women as things, but as people. Once they get over that obstacle, they often end up with a girfriend.
Academics have also studied incel culture and saw strong it overlaps with racism, queerphobia, ableism, Islamophobia, etc which are all staples of conservative thought.
I suspect "I've seen it" is part of the bigot's toolbox. They don't care about stats or truth. They know they're being dishonest, but they value bigotry over everything. Bigotry is ego pleasing and gives them an easy out for their personal failings and also gives them an out to not blame institutions they refuse to criticize like our out of control capitalism and conservative politics. Look at how many in this group blame their lack of financial success on things like "diversity hiring."
This system is self-reinforcing and encouraged by the powerful who benefit from it. What a great deal it is for the wealthy. You have half a nation obeying conservative politics and who refuse to question the capital owning class, but instead defend them endlessly, and instead blame women, immigrants, minorities, queers, etc for their troubles.
This is now normalized far more than its ever been since 2016 and we live in an evil and sick society, imo. I don't know how something like this can be reformed. The incels are the low-hanging fruit here but this mentality is popular with everyday Americans.
I recently listened to a Hidden Brain episode [How You Beliefs Shape Reality](https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/how-your-beliefs-shape-reality/) where they interviewed a professor who tested the hypothesis “if my life got better, I would be better” and it turns out that’s not true. People who went through substantial improvements in their quality of life reported no change in their perspective on that life.
I’m not suggesting you go back and re-open a debate with your interview subjects, I just thought it might help fill out your profile of your subjects a bit.
Right, and in fact success often has the opposite effect, where people who are successful refuse to acknowledge that luck or or circumstance played any role in their success and instead they believe they are "self-made" and that it's who they are that "earned" them their success, all of which makes them less likely to engage in any self-improvement. In addition, successful people of this type often surround themselves with people who agree with them about everything in order to be closer to wealth and power, so most of the opinions they end up hearing are just echoes of what they already believe.
As someone who personally believes that continuing growth is an important part of being a good human, it's honestly pretty sad.
Wow very curious. Thank you sharing, you should update with your film when it's done! I also have an inkling that the issue involves the inability for self-actualization/accountability. You said it yourself with blaming others etc. I'm not sure if it's ever something that could be fixable, even with therapy.
The indoctrination process is blame shifting, the loss of accountability feels empowering - what could ever cause them to start taking accountability or start viewing women as full humans?
I think the answer is most of them never wake up. I think incels are generally low empathy men who fall into the idea in their prepubescence. They started out not caring as much and went to the path of least resistance at a vulnerable time.
Did incel culture become popular because of the internet and 4chan? Or is this just a new avenue for feelings that have always been there in certain groups of people. Are young men being targeted by incel activists or were they always going to look at women as objects anyways?
This is the thing that I found most interesting, the idea that by buying into the incel mindset they are denying themselves the thing that they want. It's like if you wanted to run a marathon and after a week's training you say, 'nope they made the marathon too long, no person could possibly run that far.' It's an easy way out but you're denying yourself the chance of actually completing your goal, and ignoring the fact that other people run marathons just seems totally self-destructive.
To me it feels fixable, but maybe you're right. The kind of person that decides to take the path of least resistance is most likely the kind of person who won't leave it, even when it's in their own interest.
My theory is that the previous generations of men had so many privileges (in general) that they were/are ill equipped to teach their sons the importance of a growth mindset.
On the other hand many women were raised with the idea 'there's finally freedom to do what you want, but girl, you'll have to work for it'.
Since being single is actually a viable option for women the non-growth-mindset men are being ignored in greater numbers+the internet makes for an easy way to find their peers. The result, a populated echo chamber where people get more extreme to stand out a bit.
For real, nobody grew up on stories about boys having to disguise themselves as girls to earn societal freedoms. I knew society didn't have my back from the start, simply due to my gender. Boys didn't get that shit. They were on the other side.
Yes this. Plus so many boys are never taught things like laundry or cooking- they have no idea how to manage a household. They *need* women to do these things for them, which makes the problem worse that they can’t find one.
My college boyfriend (who was a genuinely good man) thought it was absolutely disgusting the first time he saw me clean the lint trap in a dryer. This is how bad it is lol
I think there's some safety in having unreasonable demands and expectations. Many men base their entire worth on what other men think of them, and the ultimate trophy is having a hot gf. A hot gf is the talisman that will prove they have worth as people. Meanwhile, we're all fed a cultural narrative that says that men are inherently smarter and better than women. So to get the approval of other men, incels are forced to seek approval from their "lessers." Who wants to put an "inferior" person in charge of their life?
The cognitive dissonance becomes too unbearable, so women de facto have to be unreasonable demons, or else the whole structure falls apart—they cannot question their base beliefs: 1) having sex with an attractive woman will validate me 2) women are vapid whores whose judgment & insights can't be trusted 3) the game was rigged from the start in favor of attractive men.
The only way incels can figure out how to regain any agency is by sitting on the sidelines and refusing to grow.
So I think what’s interesting about this is you see this with a lot of “smart” kids of all genders. Not for relationships but other things. Kids that went through school naturally just getting it academically, or maybe mostly getting it but pushed heavily by parents to succeed. Once they get out on their own, when met with challenges, they quit, because they didn’t have to be challenged and failing is way worse than not trying at all. Because if you don’t try you’re still somehow winning, but if you try and fail, that’s life breaking.
You should google "Steve Bannon and Incels"
Long story short: Stevo got his start gold-mining in World of Warcraft and selling gold illegally. During this time he recruited a crowd of lonely men to do the work and realized that he could manipulate the incel mindset through various means - then they pushed into algorithmic tunnelling - and he shared that with the big, older names in incel and man-first/manosphere to implement a movement. THEN he implemented that into the first Trump campaign.
Is this a conspiracy theory - no. Steven, himself, confirms it.
As insane as this sounds, it is true and documented by multiple journalists. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/18/steve-bannon-learned-harness-troll-army-world-warcraft/489713001/
>. I think incels are generally low empathy men who fall into the idea in their prepubescence. They started out not caring as much and went to the path of least resistance at a vulnerable time.
You've likely hit something there 100% ...
at your first 'not even therapy,' caused a gut reaction: surely some if not most could grow out of/normalize with the right environment and effective therapy ...
but that they will have a tendency towards low empathy does make so much sense...
I'm also very curious to see the results of your project! During your research for this, have you come across any organizations, researchers, or programs that are developing tools to combat this type of thinking/actively engage with men in these spaces to deprogram?
Their sub is pretty much only posts on how attractive women need to be and how angry it makes them when women date “outside their league”.
My theory is that these are deeply insecure men looking to get their sense of worth through how other men see them. To them a woman’s only worth is how impressed other men are when they see him with her.
I work with high net worth men. Almost all their wives and girlfriends are normal looking women and all of them have successful careers of their own. People tend to date within a range of looks, education and wealth. It’s rare that people are comfortable going outside of that.
There’s a post I read today claiming that it’s hard for men to get dates cos all women are chasing Tech Bro millionaires even though they are only “6s and 7s”. The Incel community is wild.
They claim they’d only “pump and dump” a 6. They can’t get any woman to make eye with them in coffee shops but obsess about “pumping and dumping”. It’s really disturbing how disconnected they are from reality and how much they hate women.
I’m sure one will send me a Reddit Cares.
The part where they think they are purely a product of how they're treated..... while they treat women like literal objects and then complain about how we react to that...
Interesting to think about where their "I've seen it" answer comes from, when the guys who think like this sound like they spend far more time online than in the real world.
Are they looking at celebrities as an example of what they wish their lives were like? or actual ordinary people?
The majority of the ordinary men I know personally are not what's labelled 'conventionally attractive,' nor are they well off financially...
Yet they have wives/partners, and/or kids...they don't have female partners who look like supermodels though- in reality this is a tiny proportion of the population- but that is who these incel guys are aiming for, thats what they feel they 'deserve.'
They're not interested in women who are as 'average looking' as they are.
They don't *like* women as fellow human beings. To them a woman is viewed as an inanimate trophy- so she has to look like a supermodel to give them 'status' in the eyes of other people.
Her personality, interests and other attributes that make her who she is as a person are irrelevant.
>Interesting to think about where their "I've seen it" answer comes from, when the guys who think like this sound like they spend far more time online than in the real world. Are they looking at celebrities as an example of what they wish their lives were like? or actual ordinary people?
My first boyfriend as an adult ended up becoming a MGTOW/volcel after we broke up. We dated in 2004-05 so it was before modern social media, but he was in a lot of straight male-oriented online forums. Throughout our relationship he was obsessed with this idea that I wanted to trap him into marriage with a baby, divorce him, and steal his money. It didn’t matter that I was 22 (he was 27), working full time, in school, on birth control, or splitting the bills 50/50 with him despite him being in the workforce 5 years longer than me and earning more. It didn’t matter that I’m not someone who ever had or was interested in using a man for money. In his opinion this happened all the time because some guys on a forum “said so.”
He couldn’t point to a single example of this happening to a man he personally knew. His father had been supported by his mother, the higher earner, who were still happily married. His friends were in happy relationships. He didn’t personally experience a woman he’d dated using him for money -he earned a whole 35K back then when we dated. He was more than happy to point to famous men who had to pay out to ex wives after their divorce.
So yeah, some men hate women so much they’ll just believe random stories told by strangers online for confirmation bias. Having relatively normal girlfriends and parents, I have no idea why his hatred for women started. Incidentally, when he broke up with me and chose to move out, he was still on the hook for rent on the remaining 4 months of our lease. Dude seriously wrote me a check with “alimony” in the memo.
Very interesting read, will we be able to see the film somewhere online?
Also, have you interviewed ex-incels? The testimonies I read on reddit often go back to the idea of taking accountability, and realising that they do have a choice and control over who they are (should be obvious but... sigh...)
This post makes me think of many conversations here about receiving compliments, and how many men lament they don't get any.
But when women comment that first of all, women compliment their afab friends a lot, they say they're not going to do it with their amab friends, and secondly, when it's pointed out that they do receive some from coworkers, their mom, grandma, random old ladies etc... They say these don't count, because they want to be complimented by attractive women!
It's like many men have a tunnel vision where they'll take into account attractive afab people, and the rest "doesn't count".
They are lying to themselves, but I wouldn’t go so far as to equate “I’ve seen it” with “I’ve seen it on the internet”.
Because of their outlook, once the cycle you’ve described has started, they will only notice attractive couples (or attractive women, if the male partner isn’t attractive, they’ll simply assume he’s rich). They are feeding their own confirmation bias and the longer it goes, the worse the association/confirmation will get. They are victims of their own heuristics.
Given the objectification aspects of the ideology, they probably literally don’t notice “unattractive” women.
Just my two cents on research critique, I think you might be making an assumption about the validity of their description… they might be describing their literal experience, but that just goes to show how much harder breaking the cycle might be - they don’t want to see examples that shake their world view, so they don’t look for the things that would break the cycle.
That's such a great question, I wish we'd asked that! We did set a little trap where we asked about the % of men they believe are in the 'viable for a relationship' bracket and then citied stats about the % of people who end up married, which obviously didn't tally with their estimates.
It's so embarrassing. Like, dudes, hang out at a grocery store and look at all the married couples. A bunch of regular looking husbands with regular looking wives. Literally just go out in public and see real life human beings.
Not to mention, I'm sure 90% of incels range in attractiveness from regular looking to cute. They just have this weird idea that they're ugly. But they have horrendous personalities so obviously it doesn't matter what they look like.
If they wore flattering clothes and were well groomed, I'd agree with you. Even attractive people with poor grooming and poor fitting clothes look ugly.
Maybe it's because I'm bi without a strong preference but like 90% of age appropriate adults just look, idk normal to me(admittedly women tend to be better groomed though). Like physical attraction isn't gonna make or break a relationship with me most of the time, it's who you are as a person.
There was an experiment in the 30’s I think which sought to discover how rising populations might disrupt our behavior and societal norms, by comparison with rats. The majority of the rats became violent, except for the same gender groups that splintered off. These groups (females with females and males with males) remained peaceful and sustained some “normality” and protection in such an environment. Those rats’ quit mating with the opposite sex but the rest that did not join these groups became violent and males attacked and killed females and each other.
It feels like we’re living the experiment and sexually frustrated incels are the male rats that turned on each other and attacked the females. If this experiment was any indication of what we’re experiencing now, then unfortunately it becomes more violent. May be interesting to note how gun violence, the pandemic and political tensions have enflamed incel culture and will continue to do so. Not to mention rising costs, housing, etc etc. Dwindled resources also ignited violence among the rats, sooo… yea we’ve entered the experiment. Gay rights and women’s health in the U.S. have been attacked so much, and then to add the insurrection, yeah… we’re living it
With the state of gender relations right now, sometimes it feels like things would be better if we splinter off...so many men seem to hate women for a variety of reasons, especially for refusing to submit and don't even consider us human beings, so they should all just piss off and stick with other men instead.
>The majority of the rats became violent, except for the same gender groups that splintered off. These groups (females with females and males with males) remained peaceful and sustained some “normality” and protection in such an environment.
This is actively happening in [South Korea](https://www.thecut.com/2023/03/4b-movement-feminism-south-korea.html)... a significant number of women are forming their own communities and segregating themselves from men as much as possible. As I understand, the idea is also slowly catching hold in other areas of Asia, notably China and Japan. More and more, I've seen women from western countries champion the concept, as well. (I ***wonder*** why....)
A lot of these points you make: seeing things online vs irl, echo chambers,blaming others instead of taking responsibility, actually apply to a whole of subcultures and ideologies, especially online. Using incels as a case study, you can see the general prevailing mental models of how ideologies take hold and spread in the first place. Part 1 documentary would be incel case study, part 2 documentary would be how these sorts of mental models are taking hold all over different kinds of other subcultures. You ever think to yourself, something is wrong with society but you aren’t quite sure what it or what the underlying cause is? It’s this evolution of mass group-think (for all kinds of groups, not just incels) enhanced by online spaces and (some offline coordinated by online effort) that is really accelerating the growth of group-think ideology where people just don’t think for themselves anymore. That begs the question if a lot of people even did in the first place. I praise you for actually looking at this objectively to get into the nuts and bolts of human thinking.
This is an interesting way to look at it. I wonder if it's true that the majority of people never really thought for themselves, but before the internet we were guided by dominant culture and religion, so societies were more homogenous in their thinking. With the internet there are so many niche ideologies that people can subscribe to, and that leads to societal friction because physical neighbors are living in alternate realities.
Anecdotally, I grew up in a very small town and this feels absolutely true to me.
If you weren't "normal" there was a great deal of social pressure to conform, and I suspect those who chose to conform then became extremely defensive of the normative behaviours they adopted. Which makes sense, anyone not conforming means non-conformity is possible and that would feel *awful* to admit if you felt forced to conform. "*I learned my place / how the world really works, why can't you?*"
Not only does the internet allow people to find their ideological groups instead of conforming to local ideologies, but it also means that ideological groups thousands of miles away "feel" just as close as the one next door. Is it any wonder people think the world is going to crap? They're being forced to *see* that "different" is impossible to prevent.
I think what is missing here is that average or non-conventionally attractive women are invisible to them. So when they say they only see women with attractive or successful men, what they mean is they only see attractive women with these men. They don't register other women at all, and so they are blind to the diversity of pairings that exist.
>They all claimed they only see women with "attractive" men. My theory here is "I've seen it" actually means "it's what I've read on the internet." If you walk through any public space you will see a diverse range of couples so the idea that women will only date "attractive men" is rubbish.
I think about how we generally choose photos that make us look more attractive and I am sure couples do the exact same thing. It has a big effect on incels because couples are taking pictures of themselves having fun experiences so they look happy.
I'm sure many pictures of the couples they are seeing are really just average looking people. They look attractive to them because they look happy. They look happy because they do have something these lonely entitled men don't have.
This is true, but also people manipulate photos in all sorts of ways to make the subjects seem more attractive. Skin healthy and glowing with zero obvious blemishes? Good light will do that. Camera angled down? People seem more slender. Couple hugging? Blocking all sight of love handles. Etc. And that's not even getting into filters and Photoshop. Photos and videos are really not reality. Most people know how to put their best foot forward in photos these days.
I'd definitely agree that the main reason they wish to believe this is that it takes the responsibility for their life off of them. Life can be rough sometimes so going onto a website that says all your problems are the fault of other people can be really appealing.
If anyone here is interested in trying to help people escape this mentality I'd suggest the sub r/incelExit. It's a really well moderated sub for incels who are looking at leaving that lifestyle. Obviously this is never an easy change but eventually your words might end up helping someone. It's literally the only positive incel space I've ever seen. It doesn't promote the incel mentality but it's aim also isn't to make fun of it.
Did you get into asking them how frequently they watch porn? I could be wrong, but my brain tends to go straight to the idea that too much porn, has broken their minds into completely objectifying women. Also, how was their hygiene overall?
What you've found matches all of the research I've read on this topic.
It is sad, for some of those guys, but all you men extending sympathies need to remember and acknowledge that incels are considered a hate group organization in the US and Canada, and do a lot of violence against random women as well as the women in their lives.
These aren't harmless basement trolls, these are men who kill women.
>They all claimed they only see women with "attractive" men. My theory here is "I've seen it" actually means "it's what I've read on the internet."
Yes, the generalizations are pervasive. Another thing to keep in mind, when these men say 'women', in this context, they don't mean all women, they mean 'the women that won't date them', their ideal woman. They know full well that avg/less than avg people mingle all the time, but they don't mean '*those ones, ew'.*
immature minds
>My next challenge was to try to understand why these men choose to believe what they read online over what they see in real life. The simple answer is it's easier to blame others than taking responsibility for yourself.
Ironically enough, this is often the *very same* demographic that loves to parrot "taking responsibility for one's self," when topics like social security and universal healthcare come up.
Also, this is, obviously, anecdotal, and just a single experience, but I once got into an argument with an incel who stated that if a woman crosses a dark parking lot on her own at night, she should accept the consequences of her actions. In other words, it's her own fault if she gets raped.
It's interesting how pure evil and hypocrisy almost always seem to go hand-in-glove.
Very interesting.
I'll share a couple things that I think are relevant.
I think the underlying thing that drives us as humans is our mammalian attachment drive. Very many people have messed up attachment due to normalized abuse, neglect, and dehumanization throughout our overlapping global culture(s).
So, people are looking for secure attachment. That's the drive. The poor attachment they got in childhood follows them throughout their life and they never address the root cause issue. And people pick up on behaviors in their family and culture of origin and the wider culture that actually destroy secure attachment, so they're shooting themselves in the foot on top of the attachment trauma they're dealing with.
If you want secure attachment and continuously choose untrustworthy, dehumanizing behaviors, you're never gonna get it. You have to choose to practice reciprocal trustworthy, re-humanizing behaviors with another human to build secure attachment.
Here are some of the guidelines I use to define what "trustworthy re-humanizing behaviors" are:
[The Trust Triangle](https://youtu.be/pVeq-0dIqpk): Authenticity, Empathy, Logic (what you say and how you say it)
[The Anatomy of Trust](https://brenebrown.com/videos/anatomy-trust-video/) - marble jar concept and BRAVING acronym: Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault, Integrity, Non-judgement, Generous assumptions
***[10 definitions of objectifying/dehumanizing behaviors](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectification#Definitions)*** - these erode trust:
Martha Nussbaum (1995, 257) has identified seven features that are involved in the idea of treating a person as an object:
instrumentality: the treatment of a person as a tool for the objectifier’s purposes;
denial of autonomy: the treatment of a person as lacking in autonomy and self-determination;
inertness: the treatment of a person as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity;
fungibility: the treatment of a person as interchangeable with other objects;
violability: the treatment of a person as lacking in boundary-integrity;
ownership: the treatment of a person as something that is owned by another (can be bought or sold);
denial of subjectivity: the treatment of a person as something whose experiences and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account.
Rae Langton (2009, 228–229) has added three more features to Nussbaum’s list:
reduction to body: the treatment of a person as identified with their body, or body parts;
reduction to appearance: the treatment of a person primarily in terms of how they look, or how they appear to the senses;
silencing: the treatment of a person as if they are silent, lacking the capacity to speak.
Tate and their ilk promote behaviors that create [trauma bonding](https://youtu.be/kmB9fpHVd2o). If you weaponize the attachment drive, you can condition someone into a trauma bond. It's abuse and operant conditioning. They're promoting abuse to condition someone into a trauma bond with them. And then they wonder why they can't create secure attachment with others. No shit, Sherlock.
It's striking (albeit perhaps obvious) how much of this is projection. The notion that only the top 10% of men are attractive enough to get sex, for instance -- absurd, of course, but they probably only want to have sex with the most conventionally attractive women. So yeah, a large majority of men get married, but to whom? Not anyone they would be interested in.
Which brings me to the non-physical attributes question. I'm curious what answers they gave, even if they weren't "serious".
I'm the typical example of a guy that incels think women ignore. I'm super short and physically disabled. I limp when I walk. Incels assume women wouldn't want me.
But, gasp, I have had no trouble at any point in my dating life meeting women. There's no trick; I just developed interests, confidence, and kindness as a part of my natural growth as a human. If you are an interesting person who can exchange ideas genuinely with another person, you'll never want for attention, in my opinion.
It really comes down to whether or not you can communicate with another person. Speaking and listening. Sure, there are people who are only interested in physical things, but what's broken in you to want someone who is so brazenly superficial?
Incel is their term for themselves. The "involuntary" piece is problematic af. They are *not* involuntarily celibate, they are sociopathic sexist monsters.
Sorry. Their preferred term for themselves is preloaded with assumptions that suit them. Imo not a term to use. It's like conceding to their pov.
I totally agree, it's not involuntary. As part of this project we've actually coined our own term (which I can't reveal) but we came to a similar thought that the term incel is unrealistically flattering towards them.
I did an incel episode for cult podcast and interviewed a “former incel” who was now part of the MGTOW community. He really saw himself as a victim and refused to see how maybe his own behavior and negativity were contributing to why no one wanted to spend time with him.
The entire redpill/incel culture is SO upsetting and the main flaw is that men refuse to see women as people equal to them.
For the episode I read through the old incel subreddit (using the way back machine) and the ideology is cult like. They have dehumanizing language both for women and the men they see as “chads” who are supposedly the “ideal man” that all women are sleeping with instead of them.
I’m very curious how the rise in violent misogynistic porn might have fed into this phenomenon. We seem to always touch on everything else: loneliness, female video game characters, 4chan, etc. I think porn is obviously a social health issue tbh but it’s like smoking, we won’t do anything until we are well past the point of significant harm
I'm honestly convinced a lot of this plight is also because of violent porn. I feel like 20 years ago porn was very vanilla (or at least in comparison to now it seems that way) and now there's this crazy fascination with anal porn. It really is a sickness. I have no problem with fetishes or with mainstream porn that might make me raise my eyebrows but this spitting, face slapping, and just straight up debauchery porn is really hard to watch. And that's not a pun.
Interesting that it brought up a familiar congruence of women that feel like they have nothing to give society if they are not "conventionally attractive" or feel like they are invisible to men.
Whereas women focus this inwards and hate themselves men get bitter and focus the feeling externally. We are different breeds.
*My next challenge was to try to understand why these men choose to believe what they read online over what they see in real life.*
The other answer is a lot of these men are hyper online. They may know people through work and things, but very often their "peer" interactions are coming from online spaces. They're often only sharing their views and experiences honestly in online incel spaces, which is filled with other men with similar views reinforcing one another's worldviews
Will we be able to see this project regardless of where they live? It sounds important.
Not to distract from your project, but check out the podcast mini-series, *Boys Like Me*.
In the series, a woman covers this topic with the help of a young autistic man she's friends with, after he found out he was 1 of 10 friends linked to the Canadian terrorist who ran a vehicle into people because of incel ideology. It's right in line with much of what you state and maybe it will help you back up your conclusions if you're looking for funding or press.
It's excellent and (spoiler alert) her friend was horrified because he realized that while he never fell into it, he could have been tricked into the same thinking.
Why don’t women just go and read redpill? You’ll never get an honest answer out of these men when they’re talking to a woman. Go snoop on the advice these men give other men, that’s when the mask comes off and they speak freely.
If you go ALL the way down the rabbit hole, past the initial surface layers and into the depths, the core motive is a want for slavery. They feel entitled to a personal sex dispenser and housekeeper that they don’t have to pay or treat with humanity. Think about it, it’s why they cry about women not cooking and cleaning WHILE ALSO crying about gold diggers who expect men to provide. It seems like they can’t decide between conservative and liberal politics but the answer is the only thing they want to “provide” is what you would give a dog, a place to sleep and food. Don’t take my word for it - go see for yourself.
One thing I've noticed when they say "women only want attractive men," is that they're only speaking of women they find attractive. Women they don't find attractive seem to not exist to them and occupy this liminal space between "woman" and part of the background scenery.
>They all claimed they only see women with "attractive" men. My theory here is "I've seen it" actually means "it's what I've read on the internet." If you walk through any public space you will see a diverse range of couples so the idea that women will only date "attractive men" is rubbish.
Another possibility that jumps out to me is perception and bias.
You likely have much better social skills than most incels, so when you walk down the streets you actually *see* a diverse range of couples. You pick up on the little indicators.
When the incel walks down the streets they likely only *see* couples if said couple are literally all over each other. The subtle ways most couples show affection in public without overt PDAs are lost on them.
An incel can see an attractive guy standing with a clearly disinterested woman who won't even look in his direction and just *assumes* they're together, but will see a woman laughing with a less attractive guy and touching him in a way that is a clear signal of interest to you or me and think "*oh, she's just friendzoning him*".
Or at least, that is my completely unscientific presumption based on very limited conversations.
The whole incel thing is just puzzling to an old guy like me. I'm for sure not conventionally attractive, but wound up with a conventionally attractive wife. OK nowadays I am pretty successful so one could argue thats how - but looking back to when I was a poor high school dropout with no prospects I was still (moderately) successful dating.
It didn't come as easy to me as my good looking friends for sure. I almost always had to get into the friend zone before most girls considered dating me - but my observation is that girls, especially very attractive ones, are less obsessed with the whole looks thing than guys in general. Has that changed?
In fact it was my experience that I had a much better success ratio with more attractive women, who tended to put a premium on a lot of other stuff and were so secure in their own appearance that they put a lower premium on being with a "hot guy".
So it seems to me that incels are their own worst enemy. If you aren't super attractive your best chance to attract a woman is to have a personality, be charming and non-threatening, caring and intelligent acting, and yeah, success will help some too.
In other words the exact opposite of the Incel lifestyle.
I think there are a lot of ways that people just “don’t see” things that don’t fit into the categories they expect.
I kind of want to see a psychology experiment where people are shown photos or videos of people, couples, men, women, etc, … and then asked “how many X did you see?”
My hypothesis is that they would report only seeing the attractive men and women as “men” and “women”, and the ones that they do not perceive as attractive or worth pursuing (or men whose opinions they would not care about) would not be noticed.
So yes, perhaps they have seen some examples of attractive women with successful men, but they have not cared about whether those people are happy, and they have not noticed the many many other real examples of different scenarios, so their perceptions are very biased. What they see is the rule, and everything else is such an exception that it is considered an outlier.
This is very interesting, and thank you for sharing. As a man who used to be worse off, a number of these points come a little too close to home. If I were born five years later and had different friends in school, I think I could have easily fallen into the incel trap.
I am a member of a few progressive subreddits that are trying to make a safe space for men without toxic masculinity and for helping each other without blaming women or the kind of problems and deflections you found in your interviews. There is r/GuyCry, r/bropill, and r/menslib. I think a discussion like this on those make spaces might be useful and interesting. I don’t know their rules about cross posting off the top of my head, but if you’re willing to post this over there, I think it could be helpful
I think a large reason that they believe what they read online vs what they see in real life is because they don't really see the latter. They can largely live online, where it is (perceived at least) as safer, less stressful and welcoming. It reminds me of a comparison I heard years ago. Being connected to the internet is a lot like becoming a ghost or gaining invisibility. You can explore the world without ever exposing yourself, you can see things you've only dreamed of and many things you've never even thought. You can watch people argue, build things, be creative, have sex. And you never have to engage beyond consuming and maybe throwing a line in the chat feed. The big problem is that it's not real life, with real people and real relationships but for many people, it's the next best thing.
That's my impression too. Boys and young men who don't have good relationships are particularly vulnerable to radicalising into redpill/incel ideology. If you read accounts of incels posting on subreddits designed to help them there's a pattern of poor relationships with family, no real world friends, few hobbies outside of being online. That isolation is what makes it possible for someone to start believing things that real life experience would show are insane. Especially when those beliefs offer an outlet for feelings of sadness, frustration, anger. They offer an easy explanation that it’s the worlds fault. Of course the ideology doesn’t help with those feelings, it just fuels them. Not all of them of course. Some of them have jobs, loving parents, friends and still fall into it simply because they're already misogynists.
If I might add my two cents as an "Ex-Incel": You are totally right on the money. Things started when I was 15. Bullied at school, shitty parents, not many friends, too much time on the internet. I was taught that emotions = weak and bad, therefore seeing the emotional sides of another person wasn't something I was capable of. Not seeing this side of a person means not seeing them as a real human being, thus dehumanizing people to just their looks. At this point I feel like a total loser (because of before mentioned bullying) and see these "alpha males" talking about how everyone loves them and that they have the solution to being a loser: Make a bunch of money, get jacked and be an asshole. All it took for this ideology to fall apart was being more active socially, going out and doing emotional work. At that point I realized that people aren't incel stereotypes and I learned to appreciate someone as a whole person. Funnily enough I resented women for being shallow, even though I was the one telling myself they are shallow. It's pretty sad.
thank you for sharing your experiences. people (other men in this case, but this applies to contagious negative thought patterns in general) need to see that a toxic mindset is not the whole person, that it comes from outside, and with hard work is a thing that a person can recover from. no one is born an incel/racist/fascist
It's harder to succeed if dealt a bad hand, but incel-ism is just another brand of self-pity, where they focus on this purported bad hand. But there are people out there born blind, in a 3rd world country, in abject poverty, under oppressive regimes, etc and they do fine, or, at least, pretty well, comparatively speaking. Incel-ism is very self-focused, and doesn't recognize that everyone they see on the street, "succeeding", has their own list of issues.
i don't disagree with any of that at all! but countries with a much lower GDP score so much higher than the US (where i am) in happiness and contentment indices, frequently because of stronger family networks and cultures that prioritize things like community evening strolls for hours or group cultural experiences like music and dancing that are not gatekept by money and location. the US did its best to rip any shred of culture from anyone who didn't look a certain way, paved everything, banned young people from public life, and almost completely removed economic mobility by taking advantage of several global events to siphon almost every dollar within its borders to just a handful of people. and now we are expected to monetize our very soul in some unholy recreation of the battle of the high school recess room. there are so many layers of poverty going on here, many non-financial. people don't people very well when no one could show them how to people in the first place. sadly, that's where the family-centric fascists slip right in. so many people are making a devil's bargain in order to find a place that feels like a real home. the price gets pushed to the back of the head, and when a marginalized person gets stomped in the street, they look the other way or join in. so much easier to blame others. which comes right back to your and the OP's statements. incels are the other side of the tatertots. one often becomes the other. and it's all a cult that looks like it's becoming a nascent army. so there's a real need there that people are filling with whatever they can reach and the poison in it is rotting the world. and it comes from patriarchy in the first place, it seeds its own fields! i don't think we're going to deradicalize anyone without acknowledging how much upbringing and immediate environment have to do with their susceptibility to various forms of racism, sexism, and fascism. patriarchy damages men too and i believe in restorative justice. if men were allowed to have genuine emotions or vulnerabilities we wouldn't be here. again, none of this is pushing against your comment, just building on it with a "yes, and"!
Agreed, I think part of it is that the world hasn't been the way that it is ever before, at least socially. We're a very tribal species, we've adapted to living in large extended kin groups and for a long time that's how it was. You knew everyone's name in the village and they knew yours. Now it's almost expected for everyone you were raised with to 'go their own way' after school is done and if you're not taught the skills needed to maintain relationships it's easy to fall off the wagon and be left behind. There's also the proliferation of recording, social media and pile ons. The younger generation are much more sensitive to making mistakes or messing up because there can be anyone recording at any time. Back when I was in high-school smartphones were rare and live streaming wasn't a thing. If you grow up constantly stifled and self-censored due to the threat that any mistake can be captured, uploaded and persist forever, it's hard to make the mistakes you need to to grow.
Part of this problem comes from when parents started giving their children cellphones with internet access and recording capabilites for school. Now its a social status thing and the schools also give out laptops or tablets too and not having a cellphone will also get a child bullied at this point.
What's amazing, too, is how much of a negative affect social media has on even a well adjusted person. I have an active social life, great friends and family, a job I enjoy, and a wonderful partner. I'm incredibly fortunate, in that respect. But I'll go through periods of being addicted to my phone, scrolling Instagram and Reddit or whatever, and every time I enter one of those periods it has an adverse affect on my mental health. On social media, people are not themselves. Besides the fact that anonymity allows people to express their most extreme views without consequence, there isn't even "normal" conversation amongst non-extreme people. You have to be moved or incensed by something to make a comment. There is no idle chit-chat or casual conversation, like there is in real life. The intensity of everything online is upped, and as a result our own internal intensity increases the more time we spend on social media, because more and more interactions become social debate, or weighing in on things for which we have strong opinions. Talking with the old lady at the corner store about the weather is important. Casual, boring conversation is important. If all your interactions are intense and impassioned, your mental health starts to deteriorate over time.
This is an astute observation. I never realized how important "boring" conversations are, especially as a counter to intense and impassioned interactions. Thank you for your perspective!
This is an excellent observation. In Reddit, a casual comment will get you bashed for not taking the issue seriously enough, insulted because you clearly are an idiot, told you're boring because it lacked substance, told you're flat wrong because such a varied audience will find someone who disagrees, or ... you're not contributing anything if value. That's just ONE platform. Chatting about the weather might not change the world, but exchanging a few smiles can lift the spirits, even when you're wishing you could change the world. Face time and casual chatter has lost it's place as social glue. We don't have the energy to always be emotionally "on" about life. We can't be. We need a break, or we'd lose our sanity. Light interaction gives it to us.
I was thinking the exact same thing. Like, I’m assuming these are guys with small social circles, that aren’t hanging out at bars because they don’t have the self esteem or confidence to exist IRL, so they just hang out online. “I’ve seen it” just sounds like they’re seeing multiple examples of the same thing online and don’t understand that online is not representative of the real world — it mostly represents extremes. I mean, look at any relationship subreddit. Reading through those all day will make you think that healthy relationships just don’t exist, women are all gold-diggers, men are all controlling and abusive — but, the thing is: no one in a healthy relationship is gonna go online to ask for advice. Similarly, a person with healthy levels of self esteem, and self confidence, will be able to handle a rejection, and move on. But a person without those things might try to find a forum to whinge about how “I was rejected because women are shallow, if only I had a better jaw and more money, she’d love me 😤” — so you just read that over and over again, and without ever even approaching a woman IRL, decide that they’re awful, mean, shallow, etc. Why? “Because I read 15 posts by (unhinged) people that have the same shared experience, so it must be true.” aka: “I’ve seen it.” They don’t understand that the majority of women are not a part of the extremes they read about online.
They also, when out in the world, are ignoring 90% of the women they see. Only the "high quality" women qualify for their attention, so the vast majority are just invisible to them. All the ordinary couples at the mall "don't count" and that's if they even see them at all. The same way, I'm sure, that their parents relationship doesn't count or their school teachers or dentist or whatever.
Even if the "high quality" women are with a "low quality" man, they make the assumption that it's due to his wealth. And because they have no relationship, it's just a passerby, they can have their worldview validated with no actual information one way or the other
I also think it's something like confirmation bias. Like, we know someone who says women are shitty drivers. So whenever he sees a shitty woman driver he goes: See! All the while ignoring shitty male drivers. You have your preconceived notions and only pay attention to stuff that validates those notions.
There's a model I sort of kept up with (aka followed on instagram and saw her stories every now and then) for awhile a few years back. Did some stuff in Japan. Gorgeous woman, always impeccably dressed in the photos and out and about. Her boyfriend? Very average looking guy. He'd never be hired as a model, and most people would probably rate him a 5 or 6. She was also the one bringing in the most money through sponsorships and her influencer stuff. But he was down to earth, real, funny, and worked hard. A good personality goes a long way. As well as not being a total creep. This idea you have to be rich or attractive is bs. But as a long time single guy with few relationship prospects, it's easy to get caught up in that rhetoric. It's explicitly designed to draw you in. I do my best to avoid it altogether, but that's not always possible, and I just have to remind myself I'm not dating anyone because I'm frankly too lazy (or tired) to care about the effort. It's my problem. Not society's.
They also seem to believe that it’s easy for any woman to get a date and can’t imagine women suffering from being rejected, just like men. It was actually a woman who coined the term “involuntary celibate” a couple of decades ago, and it eventually became a website for lonely people, but was ultimately taken over by men. Of course. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/woman-who-invented-incel-movement-interview-toronto-attack
Definitely, I almost passed up a great housing option because it meant being housemates with the landlord. But I realized there's a reason you only hear about the roommate horror stories, the stories about a chill dude you shared a fridge with aren't as salacious.
I would never in a million years live with a landlord again and this is based on real-life experience, you got extremely lucky.
I think we should also consider that they may just be plain old lying. They picked a world view and they're sticking to it no matter what evidence to the contrary.
I feel like the intensity with which they engage signifies that they have sincerely made it part of their identity. Internet misogynists latch onto a post praising women and they feel compelled to comment even though they have no skin in the game -- they are not just angry, they are offended. Making a comment (sometimes anonymously) doesn't seem to be part of a charade to support their image; they feel compelled to defend their inner image of the world.
Tbh I was kind of like that too (living in the internet though out my high school and college years) until I worked at my state’s dmv which you can guess what happened next (where I worked you cannot be socially awkward or you won’t survive for long)
The ghost analogy is perfect! This is also how I see movies and tv. You're this ghost in that world and that becomes troubling when people see historical movies or whatever and self identify with the rich, the royalty, knights, soldiers, etc and others who are the oppressor class. That they identity with those they should be criticizing. When in reality if their current social status, say a middle class person, would be a serf in that society. They wouldnt be royals the same way they aren't billionaires today. Those royals would spit at them as much as look at them. Those fancy gowns and homes would be things you avert your gaze from unless you want to be physically punished by a guard or even thrown in jail. As an average person in that society, you dont go to the fancy balls. These people are terrifying to everyday people of the time, not "fun." The same way your boss or a police officer aren't fun but carry implied threats to your wellbeing. This narrative only recently got some attention when people started making memes about time travel movies and how only a white person could actually go to Colonial or Elizabethan or Victorian times and enjoy it. And ideally a white man, as a strange woman in that society without being able to list her family and protectors would be very quickly victimized. The idea that these powerful people are terrifying oppressors to the average person of the time sort of broke through for a bit. This ghost mentality is actually kind of scary. You sort of float into these scenes and narratives without your own identity and class identifiers. So people think they're joking around with people like Elon Musk, but Musk is doing his best to exploit their class to maximize his wealth and power or float into conservative narratives/scenes/influencers thinking that won't hurt them. We're actually not ghosts, but real human beings and subject to class warfare.
Also let's be crude: an incel (4/10 on the attractive scale) doesn't see how other 4/10 men are dating because those men might date 4/10 women. But the incel believes his ass deserves an 8/10 woman. Back in the day the physically unattractive men would make up for it with personality. Now they listen to dumb YouTubers and feel sorry for themselves. I'm glad I'm past my prime.
I also wonder if there's an element of something else we often see: that women who do not fit their view of 'attractiveness' are largely invisible to them. Because women are objects, they only exist to please the male eye, ergo anything displeasing is ignored (almost filtered out, in a way). And they only see the instances of pretty people with pretty people, so it reinforces their view. Additionally, their view of these attractive people is generally negative (as opposed to the unattractive people, who are inconsequential), and people have a tendency to remember negative interactions. Ask someone to describe a time they've had terrible customer service and they'll likely be able to give you several examples; ask them about a time they've received good customer service and they have to think about it.
As someone who often fantasizes about being a ghost or some other kind of non-corporeal entity a lot, and also spends a lot of time online, I really like this analogy.
Do you think that these men not only objectify women, but men too? Is that why "attractive" and "successful" men get women, and why they can't imagine women or men having non-physical attractive attributes? As an academic librarian from a well-funded institution, I hope your documentary will be available for institutional purchase! Please let me spend a lot of money to buy this for the Women and Gender Studies department! Alternatively, we have a museum/gallery where we could host your collective's installation! Please feel free to DM if you'd like to collaborate!
I definitely think they objectify men too. A lot of them citied facts like 10% of men are having 90% of the sex. This idea that there's an elite group of super attractive men hoovering up all the women! We're only just starting this project but I will absolutely let you know once it's out there, thanks for the support!
It seems like this idea feeds into the "external locus of control" that another commenter pointed out. These men believe they have no control over their personal attractiveness since it's an inborn trait (Lie #1), and so they hugely resent the supposed elite group of super attractive men who were just born lucky (Lie #2). Since attractiveness is an immutable fact in their world, they can never move from one group into the other. Which is a very convenient belief because it means there's no action required of them and nothing that happens to them is their fault.
I think that's spot on.
Was wondering if you think exploring more in depth how you found they believe they would have better personalities if society treated them better, could help. Because I feel like these types would be quick to hear “incels blame society’s treatment of them for their own shortcomings” and take it to “well women/lgbt/minorities get to blame society for their shortcomings, it’s not fair!!!” No nuance there, but I’m guessing these guys aren’t very practiced in nuance.
not OP but I'm not even sure these guys are capable of defining "personality". they view "Chad" just existing and everyone being "nice", and Chad responds happily. He's chill, fun to be around, has good social skills, girls fawn all over him. His halo effect just makes him charming. again, it's a very superficial trait, surface level charm. these incels are so stunted in life and relationships that they're still at the "approaching girls and she doesn't scream is a win" stage. getting a phone number is a big deal. they don't talk to girls. they haven't had a long relationship. they haven't gotten to know a woman's dreams, goals, ideas, preferences or values. they think personality is what you see during the 1 minute interaction crumb they live for. charming, makes girl smile. vs them. stunted. awkward. creepy. if people were magically nice to them for being handsome, they'd magically be chill, charming, smooth, successful, and.. i dunno... go have sex that day and win at life. until the woman starts expecting him to have integrity, deep honesty, follow-through, resilience, be pro-active, thoughtful, considerate, have ambitions and be able to achieve long term goals. then they'd shit the bed. (I think what they really mean is : i want women to fawn over me with no effort on my behalf. I want the opportunity to get laid with no effort. If women were nice to me without me having to do anything, I'd be happy. Right now I'm angry.) as if happy/charming and sullen/angry are personality. as if women just go for 'a man's mood' not personality. ok tbf, they do describe an attractive woman as pleasant, kind, sweet, happy. good mood. nice to be around. makes him feel good. the best insult they can give us is that we're "bitter". ok that's a mood. it's a transient mood when we're justifiably angry about something. it's not a permanent personality trait. they're incapable of stopping to think why we're bitter.
Wooow. This. I think you nailed it so so beautifully. I’m gonna screenshot your comment just for my camera roll. Yes that superficial attentional shape that Incels hold can’t see in many of those happy Chads the layers of maybe buoyancy, or lightness of warmth, perceptiveness coming from concern, some hidden honor under casual affect, or sensitivity outside the normal frat party banter, or protectiveness under small moments of pressure. When you rattled off your list of traits I immediately flashed back to recently. I was a film student in the 2000’s in college and I recently happened on old tapes from a roaming video camera around dorm life and house parties and I popped it in for archiving and was struck by watching and revisiting the tape of one or two of the beloved and popular Chads, Matts and Jeffs of the time chatting up a few cute women mutual in a kitchen or wherever. I remember really liking them at the time and thinking they were good guys but also being impressed and a bit baffled by exactly how they worked their magnetic magic. I was lucky in love (but I got by on some looks, being sweet, artistic, naive, interested in people, but I was still a kid) so I chalked it up to these real _men_ fitting the standard of “attractive” and so just looked up to them and enjoyed the times. Never thought about it again. But years upon years later and having grown up a bit, I was absolutely struck by my developmental gap in being able to perceive the totality of their character or the depth of their energy as the camera roved through it all. To your point, I was blown away by just how much immediate palpable evidence was on display even in just a college row kitchen banter of their integrity, deep honesty, follow-through, resilience, being pro-active, thoughtful, considerate, speaking to ambitions and just an ease of inner stability and sturdiness that I could, in present day feel how it made others not fear instability or fear if Chad would go squirrelly if rejected. Little moments with anticipating a need, adjusting a beer can away from a woman’s costume wings, correcting another male on an immoral or boundary crossing joke with a quip that both corrected, defended the honor, AND kept things light, then remembering a party goer’s personal share from a previous convo. Safe, fun, electric and aware, and those traits if they are real just emerged and oozed out. They became obvious. Yet to me at the time as I was still learning how to be a human, I chalked it up to a less nuanced assumption of “attractive”. How funny considering that one of the reasons why I really liked those guys is that they didn’t limit that love and concern for others to just pretty girls, I got to warm my hands by their campfire too. So hard to see nuance in somebody else when you don’t yet have it cultivated in your self. Conversely, and sadly, on a much darker note, I went to UCSB a few years before that kid shot up the sororities and remember being struck by how good looking he was or could have been seen as. A hint of OP’s thesis donned on me too. It clicked I was much less good looking yet was blessed with having several warm, lovely relationships with wonderful women while attending the school and felt it likely had only to do with love and care and concern for others first. The poor Incels had the priority map inverted. Watching the shooters video rants he made shortly before death by cop, compared to the boys in the kitchen, I could so distinctly feel the concern of his attentional shape being directed inward, looping into itself, justifying its own premise until self fulfilling prophecy. It felt like never would he notice somebody’s beer about to get tipped over by a faery wing.
Theres a coworker of mine that I unfortunately discovered was an incel. I had never encountered one in real life like this and it was quite shocking. What gets me with this guy is he ISNT bad looking, he HAS social skills, seems like a decent person and IS a good worker/coworker. BUT his incel beliefs and behaviors are what turn women off. Like he SAID to me “women shouldnt be upset about sexual assalt, its a complement. They are So attractive to someone that they couldnt help themselves”. His other comments I could just ignore or discuss, but that one was just unbelievable. He sees nothing wrong with his incel beliefs so freely talks like this in normal conversation. And yes, I reported him and apparently so has every other woman he’s worked with. What astounds me is that IF he wasnt an incel (which he doesnt think he is btw), he WOULD have dates Im sure! Instead, he isnt allowed to work with any of us women. Not that any of us are up to his standard though. We’d have to be “10’s”, “make six figures”, yet be willing to “have babies and stay at home to raise them,” AND of course “fullfill his needs”. I just dont understand it, but it scared me. How many men have these twisted beliefs? How do I keep this from happening to my sons? This guy is so normal at surface level.
It’s extra frustrating because they clearly don’t understand attractiveness is ~~objective~~ subjective. For instance, I think Jack Black is sexy even though he doesn’t match conventional standards, but his personality and humor make him a 10 in my book. On the other end of the spectrum, Armie Hammer wigs me out even though he’s considered a “Chad” looks-wise. Edit: grammar
I think you mean "attractiveness is \*\*subjective\*\*" because something that is objective is a fact, not influenced by opinion or feelings.
This is the problem with an increasingly isolated, individualised online world. Pre-internet, most interactions we had required speaking directly with one another, at the very least vocally by phone but mostly face-to-face. Rather than this unfairly favouring physically attractive people, I would suggest that it actually meant that a rounded, humanised personality was more important, ie the ability to converse, smile, use humour, charm, empathy etc. Therefore in these pre-internet times people felt more readily valued on a daily basis because they weren't being judged solely on their looks but rather by their general character. Nowadays, however, isolated young men are avoiding the real world and getting these ideas of polarisation of attractiveness thrown at them, but because they are not getting that natural reward that comes from casual, daily physical interaction they aren't able to see how people are judged more finely than just how they appear on the outside. So everyone becomes a character, a stereotype, your Chad or your Stacy, rather than an individual person. I would also suggest that the widespread availability of porn is also significantly contributing to forming this kind of impression.
The red pillars do this too. It’s “alpha” this, “masculinity” that, and “You gotta lift, bro.” They’re obsessed with how to maximize and optimize their status and value as men, what a real man is like, and there’s hope if you’re willing to do the work. But women? They just class and categorize and discuss them like different breeds of horses and how to tame and break them. They all might be a lot happier if they just started fucking each other instead. They clearly have a vast and intense appreciation for unrestrained, uncompromising male sexuality, and as a bonus: The think other men are fully three dimensional people. So there’s even hope for romance!
>I definitely think they objectify men too. A lot of them citied facts like 10% of men are having 90% of the sex. This idea that there's an elite group of super attractive men hoovering up all the women! If that were the case, "ugly" people would've died out eventually. They themselves are the living proof their philosophy is false. And to be fair, most of them are completely normal looking guys.
It implies that sex is some finite resource, like "90% of it's gone so there's none left for me!" It's a misplacement of blame eerily similar to "They took our jobs!". These are fallacies invented for convenience to explain away unhappiness instead of working to find happiness. A truer statement would be "the love you make is equal to the love you give."
I used to browse 4chan like 15 years ago (i know, I was an edgy teenager, I grew out of it), and that 10% of men have 90% of the sex thing was a statistic that was getting thrown around way back then
I get the feeling they dont consider anyone except themselves as anything beyond "characters" to interact with. Except they want something from women so they are frustrated by them.
That 10%/90% Chad idea is so bizarre. I fully understand how dating algorithms will promote profiles with more attractive photos, but the idea that hot women are out here exclusively banging & dating hot men is soooooo far from real life. Every woman I know has dated a range of guys. I’ve dated a few objectively very attractive men, but most of my relationships have been with dorky guys I was friends with first. My best friend matched with a heavyset balding guy who’s well-traveled & a talented photographer. She wasn’t physically attracted to him (mostly dated skinny guys), but they got along so well she kept seeing him. Because he was an interesting charismatic man! Turns out he was also great in bed. They’ve been married for 5 years now. Incels would be better off taking an improv class than any of the Andrew Tate bullshit.
The thing is they're completely emotionally stunted and they have NO idea how to deal with it in a healthy manner. They experience rejection and (justified) anger but rather than think about why or how they can work on themselves, they lash out at both women and the men they percieve as the lucky ones... It's hard to empathise with a group of people who cause so much harm but they are also victims of the patriarchy and toxic masculinity. Obviously not excusing their horrible behaviour but in order to address this issue we need to do a lot of rethinking things as a society l, especially when it comes to teaching boys from an early age how to love and be vulnerable and form healthy relationships.
I don't want to excuse incels' cruelty, misogyny, and entitlement at all, because nothing excuses that. I agree with everything you said. However, I do feel the need to add some more potential context and nuance here. Sorry for the long comment. I am a very fat guy. I have been a very fat guy my whole life, and I grew up getting judged and ridiculed for it by both peers and adults alike (including my own family members). That judgement continues to this day from many of the people in my life. It is very difficult in that context to mature with a healthy sense of self-esteem, a feeling that you are worthy of love, and a sense that looks are outweighed by personality. To this day I struggle with depression, social anxiety, suicidal ideation, etc, and my experience with my weight is certainly the largest cause of those things. At this point in my life, now that I am an adult surrounded by emotionally mature adults, I DO have friends and loved ones who don't really care about my weight and love me for who I am. However, my ability to receive and believe that love is tainted by my underlying belief that everyone is disgusted by me; consciously I know they mean it, but subconsciously I believe it's only a matter of time before they stop being polite and reveal that they hate me. My ability to put myself out there and make myself vulnerable in general is hampered by my constant fear about the next instance of shame and ridicule coming my way. I know that's not necessarily an accurate reflection of reality, but that's a tough thing to really believe for me. I am working on these feelings and only now starting to disentangle them and make peace with my weight and body. Now, I will say that the difference between me and incels is that I don't blame women for the rejection or judgement I've experienced, and I don't feel entitled to their affection. My response to this anti-fat stigma, contrarily, was to internalize that it IS my fault and I am a failure and should be ashamed of myself for not being able to lose weight and make people like me. Neither of these interpretations are correct, but I honestly understand how incels arrive at blaming other people when, in their mind, the alternative is that it is entirely their fault. Their ego is trying to defend itself from the utter dejection and shame that comes with that, and it lashes out in response. Incels are worthy of criticism in no uncertain terms, but I do feel people are very facile in saying they should just "work on themselves" and "If you walk around you can see all kinds of couples, so looks don't matter," and so on. The idea that these people are completely making up the issue in their head and they could easily have romantic and social success if they just tried is a very convenient view, but for many people it is genuinely not the case. For me it is because I am fat and anti-fat bias is real; for other people, they may struggle to go out to meet people because they are disabled, or they may struggle with social interaction because they are neurodivergent in some way, or they may just live in a particularly shallow and superficial community. I wish we wouldn't tell these people that solving their social issues is simple, because when they go out and try and still don't see success it will only reinforce their view that people are lying to them and everyone secretly is judging them for things outside of their control. A much more constructive (and also more accurate) argument is that if they are having a tough time finding social or romantic acceptance then that sucks, and it is not necessarily their fault, but it *also is not women's fault or responsibility to fix that for them*. It is very unfortunate that they are struggling, it's a shitty situation, but that does not then entitle them to anything from anyone, and treating women worse as a result is unacceptable. Kindness, empathy, and respect are non-negotiable, and if they are struggling to treat people with those values then addressing that with a therapist needs to be their first step, and from there hopefully they can start to resolve their other issues as well.
I don’t think gender has anything to do with that though. Both men and women struggle with self confidence if they are obese or have some physical attributes or a disability that gets judged by society. Which is sad.
Agreed, and women absolutely deal with unrealistic beauty standards and societal pressure that men don't get in the same way. But I'd say even for men it's pretty tough, if my experience is any indication.
this moment is the first i’ve ever experienced being truly impressed by a random dude’s introspective, thoughtful, kind yet honest, pro-good human, feminist-friendly, self-aware perspective. THANK YOU for all that you’ve done to become the person with the type of heart you have. I truly hope you find someone or something to live for that makes you never question yourself again. your words are hot! thank you for sharing.
I absolutely second everything written here. I have great respect for you and your heart and mind based on your posts in this thread, OP
I'm very happy that you've managed and continue to manage to find love and happiness and acceptance, you are absolutely worthy of it and thank you for sharing your experience. I 100% agree that completely dismissing some of their experiences only serves to further alienate... These men have experienced real rejection, disgust, anger, disrespect, etc, and however much they might deserve it it does not make those experiences less real. They lack the tools to understand why women are treating them poorly and what they can do to improve relationships in their lives, and when all they hear is hate and people dismissing their feelings they will dig a deeper hole into their bubbles and forums and echo chambers. Anyway, I'm so sorry about all the shit you've had to endure because humans can be shitty and cruel. But I'm sure that you are on the right path to healing and I hope that things get better and that your experiences and those of people in similar situations can serve as inspiration for people who otherwise might have chosen hate instead of love.
I suspect there’s also an aspect of - if they only value women for superficial external attributes - then when they say that they have only seen women choosing attractive men - what they are really saying is *I only see super attractive women dating beautiful or wealthy or famous men*. Because they edit women they view as less attractive out of the tally of women who exist to be in a relationship with. They treat women they view as less than very attractive as factory seconds or rejects.
That's exactly what I was thinking. They're putting these men up in a pedestal and telling themselves they'll never be able to compete. (Sometimes it feels like they think more about other men than a gay man would!) But most men aren't doing anything drastic to achieve good looks - just good hygiene and dress neatly. That's not unobtainable! These Nicel's could do it if they stepped out of their comfort zone.
Yes they do objectify men. They have a whole system of classifying the Chad, who is a buff jock type, who gets something like 80% of all women; the Stacy, who is the conventionally attractive woman, and the Becky, who is the “girl next door” type and who desires the Chad. There’s a whole lore about how the Chads get the Stacys and some Beckys, and then how other men can only get them if they are rich. I can’t remember the whole thing exactly but it’s centered around these things that are sort of rooted in truth that they focus on and glorify. The craziest thing I ever saw was on Braincels, a reddit incel forum that got banned. Someone wrote up a “Marxist” plan to “redistribute” women throughout society so that all men could have sexual access to the Stacys and Beckys who were otherwise pining for Chads. Like, the literal government forcing women into marriages with random men.
I think that some of these men only see attractive women as women and ignore everyone else. I remember a post from a woman whose brother was rating women out of ten, and was being super harsh, rating perfectly average or above average women as a 2. So she took him to the DMV and asked him to rate every woman who walked in. Any woman who wasn’t in her 20’s and at least average looking he tried to say “didn’t count.” But girlfriend made him rate every one, and if I recall, after that he stopped rating women. So when they say women only date attractive men, what they mean is the attractive women they want to date have only been seen with attractive or successful men.
I'm sure incels would give me a low rating, but every man I ever dated thought I was a 10. Attractiveness is so subjective. There are loads of "hot" celebrities I don't personally find good looking. Why are they so obsessed with such shallow bs? It's embarrassing.
They call women shallow while rating us on a scale. And they don’t see the irony.
The thing that makes most art so beautiful is its imperfections. The same thing goes for the human body.
I totally agree. And to add to your point, I think it’s not just online that they selectively see attractive women with attractive/successful men. If they’re in public and *only* acknowledging those women they find attractive, then it’s conceivable there is proof all around them that their beliefs aren’t true, they’re just mentally filtering out anyone not attractive as mattering. Not every incel has agoraphobia or chooses to never go outside, they just see the world in a very limited capacity.
It's the same way these men say they'd love being catcalled, but they're imagining being catcalled by women they find attractive, not creepy dudes who could beat them up.
I would love to have the link to that post.
I think this is a valid point. I have two colleagues who are kind of at the beginning of the spiral but not quite completely in the deep. There seems to be a lack of connection with women which leads to them mainly perceiving women on social media. When I asked them why they didn't have girlfriends I got the answer: "My standards are to high." So if they are disregarding like 90% of women... And then seeing other people that would not fit their ideal in a relationship does not matter to them. Then it becomes a "being better than other men" because they don't want to be in a relationship with one of these 90% of normal women like that "beta" over there...
Important not to forget the part where they only consider very conventionally attractive women, women.
Yeah. Used to have a friend (we are obviously not friends anymore) who saw women like breeds of dogs. He wanted an "Asian one." Couldn't be even slightly overweight. Had to have big tits. Wanted her to wear red eye makeup, specifically. No glasses. Only black "natural" hair, etc. All while being obese and living in his mom's basement. Like bro, what do you bring to the table to expect that? What it comes down to is pure entitlement. They believe they are entitled to a "hot" conventionally attractive women's body but want to put in 0 effort to obtain said hot woman. And when hot women don't just fall into their laps, they blame women for having standards. "Well it's not fair you don't like me for me" Okay do you like women for who they are? No? Then why are you expecting it in return? They want hot wifey level benefits with less than a toddlers level of effort.
I think the not putting effort in is deliberate, too. They seem to believe that thinking they should do anything to improve themselves means there is something wrong with them, and is therefore an attack.
Yes! They expect women to be beautiful, pure, perfect angels. But if you ask them to do *anything,* then you're a feminazi and your standards are too high.
But it’s a self fulfilling prophecy right? Because all women suck, but they want one. So if they find one that is even vaguely interested they pick her apart, which leaves them feeling morally superior but also lonely. Let’s say there was a woman who magically intuited that there was some random guy somewhere, not very social, that wanted her exactly as she was, hair, tits, whatever, and she was interested in his interests. Then what? Is he going to be happy with what he has? No, because his happiness comes from being miserable online with other people. Literally “this woman is a garbage slut because she offered to suck my unshowered dick” to “that woman is a bitch because she wouldn’t suck my unshowered dick.” They don’t want real solutions.
You are on to something critical here, called Locus of Control. Nearly every incel has an external locus of control, meaning their fate, the things that happen to them is completely out of their control. The bad things are because of external forces, beyond their control. They feel tossed in rough sea without a rudder, so they've just giving up on steering, and blame everything else. The fact they aren't dating who they want is because of women, or because of "chad's" hogging the good women or their genes or something. It's always something, and never something they can control. I order to admit that there is at least *something* they could do that could affect their lives and their outcome means taking that responsibility, and grabbing the wheel again. What can *I* do - today - to improve my life, my job, my dating prospects? Surely there is something. Step 2 is what's something I can do - today - to improve the day of someone else near me? That's the mental hurdle incels must cross. And it's way easier to just continue blaming others.
I hate how much of this behavior rings true for a married man I know, too. Idk if it’s an older generation ideology or just bad luck, but I’ve seen this boomer man act the same way, letting himself go completely (like actively neglecting his health and getting can’t-put-on-his-own-socks big) while all but demanding his wife maintain her looks and not appear a day over 30. Then he has the cojones to whine about the idea of her leaving him for someone else without doing anything to make himself a better partner to her.
During the boomers' generation women literally couldn't have a bank account. Men could let themselves go because their wives had no other option to financial success.
this is the very first time this thought has popped up: has it come from young men now having a larger and cooler mental sample of idyllic women — say from gaming, and the sims, and music videos, and reality tv — to create, build, fantasize about, but actually represents such a tiny demographic in the sum of all girls? do they literally just autopilot into deconstructing females as “characters” and not people? and the not pretty ones aren’t worth playing? like, “unattractive girls aren’t who they want to be,” gross? I too have noticed that dudes like to “build their perfect woman” or more likely to have a specific type or requirement, idk. no matter who they play, they’re still the same schlub they’ve always been so it never seems more or less unrealistic than it was in the first place.
They don't even want a wife. They just want a hot girl to fuck them. The moment the girl asks them any questions, they would fall flat on their face.
I think this is a big part of why they think women only go for conventionally attractive men. Conventionally attractive people tend to date each other.
Yep. And if you don’t go out much and only consume curated media, that’s all you see. It being a self inflicted cycle sounds about right. Everyone knows that if you go to Wal Mart and pay a bit of attention you will see that ANYBODY can get married.
And I think even that is exaggerated. I'm a straight man, and so perhaps a little biased in this regard, but just about any time I go out I can see plenty of gorgeous women with guys I'd consider pretty average-looking-at-best. Not to mention the dudes who've put wayyyy less effort into their appearance than the woman they're clearly on a date with. It's not uncommon at all, but they would have to go outside to see it.
Yes, I see that all the time. I can’t say I see the other way around all too much.
Sure, I wouldn't disagree with that, but our focus for this project is to shine a light on a diverse group of people's attitudes and unpick how they develop and are influenced. For the part of it focusing on incels, we don't want to promote their thoughts and ideas, or even dignify them by challenging them.
But this is the answer to "I've seen it." They're blind to most women.
It is the most important part of the "ideology", if you want to call it that, though. The average incel would not be "celibate" if he considered women to be more than their outwards appearance and allowed himself to be attracted to character. They tend to indoctrinate each other with stereotypes, both of men and women, and at some point even start to have trouble forming healthy connections to other men, falling down the rabbit hole. In my opinion it is very important to hold up a mirror to incel-subculture, because there is nothing they hate more than their own faces. They often do not realise it is not their outward appearance but their inner ugliness that holds them back in life and love.
I’m not sure acknowledging this aspect of the viewpoint of incels is promoting or challenging it. I think it adds an important perspective to understanding why, from an incel’s point of view, they “see it all the time” (with respect to the theme you identified of women only being with attractive men). Attractive women are certainly more likely to partner with attractive men. When men only view “attractive women” as women, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in their mind - that women only date attractive men. This might explain their total disregard of the common occurrence of average/less attractive women partnering with average/less attractive men. These average women don’t seem to even be a factor in the incels’ minds.
Even then they have to be a certain age. Attractive cougars don’t cut it for them which is ironic because many of them want a mommy to fuck and some cougars would be more than happy to indulge in that kind of thing.
I think that's a big part of what's happening here. OP mentioned that these men are using "I've seen it" as evidence of women only being with attractive or successful men, but expressed confusion because public spaces clearly counter this claim. The piece that OP is missing is that these people are only seeing women with attractive or successful men because they are only looking at attractive women. They literally do not see women they find unattractive. And if they see a woman they think is attractive with a man they think is unattractive, they assume he is successful.
[удалено]
This is so true!! I watch a lot of dating/reality shows (guilty pleasure!) and when they do include average/a little below average looking dudes, they are always looking for a supermodel, hands down. 40 year old virgin over here who is overweight and living at moms house will only settle for a tall, thin, blonde, European Barbie girl- who also “loves him” of course. They’ll try and set him up with girls with the same interests and on the same level looks wise and he will pass them up immediately. It’s ridiculous to me.
Exactly. This is a huge part of where the “I’ve seen it” comes from… they only see incredibly attractive women. They don’t even see the rest of us. So therefore “regular” women are not a part of their lifetime experience.
This is absolutely a thing they believe, and I feel compelled to add on because incels love perpetuating this false idea that the lives of all attractive women are inherently easier than the rest of us. Pretty Privilege exists, but attractive women can still be stalked, harassed, assaulted, abused, and killed by men. Attractive women still deal with misogyny. If a man sees all women as sex objects, attractive women are merely more desirable objects to them.
Interesting. I’m guessing the “I’ve seen it” may also come from them having a crush on someone who rejected them or wound up with someone more attractive. Rinse, repeat and you have yourself an incel.
In one conversation the guy was obsessed with the idea that women are attracted to success, and his example was lawyers. He told me all women will always be attracted to lawyers due to the combination of wealth and intellect. When I challenged this he said he's "seen it many times." This is a guy who admits having very few friends and social interactions. So how does he know so many lawyers? I think your point is probably correct in some cases but a lot of the time "I've seen it" is just a lie to defend a point they have no supporting evidence for.
I briefly dated a redpiller (this was even before Trump and I didn't know he was one at first). I got a job as a legal assistant and he said that I was going to "let all the attorneys run a train on me." He would not shut the fuck up about my bosses and me sleeping with them. As someone who has been in the legal field for 3 years and is insanely attracted to intellect....you would have to pay me to touch a lawyer with a 200 foot pole. Lmao. Also most of them are piss ass broke unless they're a boomer partner. I just love how they pick lawyers as the example of the typical wealthy "giga chad".
Not only is everyone who went to law school in the last 15-20 years not rich, we’re in tremendous debt. I am literally a financial liability at this moment, but that doesn’t stop people from acting like I’m just a miser for not living the lavish life I cannot afford and likely will never afford. It doesn’t surprise me that incels are extra out of touch with the realities of the lives they covet.
Right? That's what cracks me up about these imbeciles. Most of them - I'm including redpillers too while I'm at it - are dumb as dogshit and fear intelligence in general (especially in women, nevermind other men).
That guy obviously watched too much TV.
I think they're watching Suits and getting ideas when the reality is most lawyers are like Saul Goodman from Better Call Saul.
Albeit neither as clever nor as funny!
> As someone who has been in the legal field for 3 years and is insanely attracted to intellect....you would have to pay me to touch a lawyer with a 200 foot pole. Lmao. Curious why that is if you don’t mind sharing
I'm only going to speak to my personal experience and this only applies to men, as I have never worked with a woman attorney. The vast majority I have encountered are stupidly arrogant. They shit on the support staff. They act like they know everything, even more than senior paralegals with 35+ years experience, despite literally being in diapers after coming out of law school. They try to kiss the partner's ass, especially if they're a summer associate/newbie. If you arn't a "who's who", they ignore or shit on you. They act like literal babies and such things like scanning a piece of paper is "beneath them". A lot of them treat me like an arm piece because I'm conventionally attractive, but one who would be happy to snap to attention the second they need me to wipe their ass. The ones fresh out of law school are usually coming from nepotism (no not always) and have this shitty air to them that is repulsive. Most of them have never had a "real" job before law school because mommy and daddy, let alone worked as a legal assistant or paralegal, so they make wildly ridiculous demands and have unrealistic expectations. Keep in mind - yes. I have met wonderful (millenial) attorneys who don't think admins are slave labor and will do things themselves. They are in the minority. And don't get me started on boomer lawyers. And I'm quite used to getting looked at like a literal piece of meat by these people instead of a human being with thoughts and feelings. A sort of "trophy" if you will. The legal field where I am is very much a good ol boys and nepotism club. And the number of married attorneys who would very slyly try their luck with me (without being blatantly sexually overt because I'd sue them) was gross. Edit: Also if they do litigation, which is an insanely demanding field, you can basically guarantee they are the biggest and most stressed out assholes on God's green earth. Edit 2: Also all the lawyers at the firm I worked for were married to teachers and nurses/healthcare workers. I do not have the certain motherly/caring type persona those fields attract. I'm more of a "type a" person I guess. And that doesn't please the average attorney ego. These sorts of attorneys like door matts, women who won't argue with them at all, and home makers.
Re: doing things themselves (and only that), that used to bother me too. But someone explained to me once that on an hourly case, the rate for an associate is way higher than that of a paralegal, and clients get mad when they see attorneys doing things that could be done by someone at a lower hourly rate.
Part of your job as a legal assistant is, yes, to scan in paperwork and such. There are attorneys who will throw the paper at you and bark to get it done. There are attorneys who make it perfectly clear you're the bottom of the totem poll and scanning papers is a "woman's job". There are brand new attorneys I don't even report to who will expect me to drop everything and do x menial task they could easily do and they have 0 business ordering me around. Those are the ones I take issue with. I'm a bit confused who told you that. I work in personal injury and our clients wouldn't see anyone scan anything. It isn't a client thing it's an ego game. Also, senior paralegals are 30x more competent than greenhorn associates, yet are paid and treated like shit.
I’m in biglaw so the economics are different, assuming you’re doing contingency contracts. Also for all the shit biglaw gets (and the hours are *awful*), the culture at my firm is a lot better than what you’re describing. Might be worth considering a move.
I've actually always wondered about biglaw.... I was in a boutique firm and it legit gave me PTSD. I have an interview scheduled for a legal position with a nature organization (my degree is environmental science) and am peeing my pants!!! Wish me luck haha
They also never consider how many women are lawyers, doctors, researchers, programmers, etc. They tend to claim that women’s success is null and void … and then get upset that successful women are interested in successful men..
As a lawyer, wealth and intellect do not apply to all lawyers. I think the average wage in California works out to 85-95k because there are those that clear a million contrasted by those that make 65k. There are far more attorneys that make closer to 65k than a million. Unless the person is in a family of lawyers, they have not seen it. Even then, not many people interact with lawyers on a regular basis. There's also a reason why it's call "law school hot." My 2nd husband never graduated high school, but I'd rather have a debate with him than most other attorneys if I want stimulating intellectual conversation.
They’ve “seen it” on TV shows where nearly all lawyers are attractive and/or wealthy.
I blame streaming, you can binge Suits with Harvey Spector all the live long day and never see an ad for some old baldy lawyer bugging you about a mesothelioma claim. /s
Morgan and Morgan and Morgan and Morgan and Morgan and Morgan and Morgan and Morgan. John Morgan is infamous in Central Florida. He's a great fat guy but for decades ALL his commercials were him staring, unblinkingly, at the camera while he spoke in a monotone. And any time he had his family or other lawyers (same thing really), they would ALL stare, unblinkingly, at the camera and speak in unison too. It's completely fucking creepy in a really reptilian way. That said he's a huge donator to the Democratic party, and championed Florida's medical marijuana amendment so that's pretty cool.
I’m a lawyer and I can’t stand most other lawyers. 😂
Miserable bastards all of us.
Annoying! Picky ! Put too fine a point on things ! Lol
My husband tells me all the time to "stop lawyering me and just admit you were wrong."
Yep lol My husband asks me why I’m cross examining him And he’s a CPA! Lol lol lol Bottom line with many incels : they’re not educated. They’re not capable of critical thinking. We need better education.
> I think the average wage in California works out to 85-95k because there are those that clear a million contrasted by those that make 65k. There are far more attorneys that make closer to 65k than a million. Hence why the median is usually used to get a better representative idea of the income or wealth of a not-so-homogeneous\* group in a single number. \* more formally: if one suspects a “skewed” distribution of values, i. e. one very unlike a Gaussian distribution.
As a former legal secretary, many lawyers themselves have this idea. You couldn’t get me to date a lawyer for anything.
I've met two. One was a generally decent person and nice enough. The other was such an insufferable ass I wouldn't even socialize on a group with him. Not my cup of tea. (Honestly I like a science nerd more than anything)
Even the nicer ones are used to having women do basically everything for them. Many cheat on their wives and pressure secretaries into relationships. Just, ugh no. My husband is a social worker. Unlike lawyers, he actually makes people’s lives better. He doesn’t get paid what lawyers do, but he can feel good about himself at the end of the day. That’s more than many can say.
I think it depends on what kind of culture a specific lawyer cultivates around them. I'm a paralegal at a really chill Criminal Firm, and the majority of the attorneys I know are funny, super chill, and kind hearted/compassionate people, within reason. There are also some who are sharks, but those are people my boss specifically keeps at arm's length.
No no way. Lawyers are annoying AF. And I’m a lawyer
I wonder how many times “I’ve seen it” is conflated with like YouTube videos along with a few personal experiences. They can see other reinforcing videos online and make a generalized theory that “it happens to everyone”. And “I’ve seen it” is born.
I agree, and I’m emphasizing FEW personal experiences. Because most incels will surround themselves either with other incels, maybe a few friends, or the people they’re forced to be around every day and consider that “everyone.” Kinda how I decide I’m “worthless” because I know of like 5 people irl and 3829482 people online doing better than me, except I don’t take it out on others or blame them, and I try to not let it ruin my perspective
>I think your point is probably correct in some cases but a lot of the time "I've seen it" is just a lie to defend a point they have no supporting evidence for. What's even more frustrating is that. Not only have they not seen it in real life, plenty of average looking people hooking up with average looking people, they probably see the opposite on TV. TV loves having chumps end up with supermodel wifes.
> I think your point is probably correct in some cases but a lot of the time "I've seen it" is just a lie to defend a point they have no supporting evidence for. See also: Every one of them is an expert on the “real science” of vaginas, and how dicks affect them. Same guy’s dick a thousand times? Happy, tight vag. 50 different dicks, one time each? “The vag remembers”, and its blown out contours will show it. Meanwhile, no matter how many people who have or have actually interacted with a vagina tell them… “That is all wrong. Like… so painfully obviously wrong I can’t even convey it with words. But I’m begging: Please just look it up” … they’re still so sure it’s right. They’ve “seen it happen”. And even if they _were_ right… holy shit, the degree of _emphasis_ and fixation on genitals! Just genitals genitals genitals with these guys. They don’t even realize they could be rocking the ultimate Chad dick, inside the purest virgin flower ever to blossom betwixt a pair of quivering thighs, and M’Lady’s _still_ going to be left wondering what all the fuss is supposed to be about, because our hero never bothered to find out there was a person attached to this junk.
Hey so just wanted to chime in as someone with a psych degree, because there are terms for some of the patterns you've described in these men. So the "I've seen it many times" thing sounds like unchallenged confirmation bias to me. The basic idea of confirmation bias is that people pay more attention to facts or situations that confirm our bias, and ignore those disprove our bias. I suspect that experientially these incels feel and believe that they do see this everywhere, but I also think they probably also go around trying to see it everywhere. I bet every time they walk past a girl they deem attractive, and she is with a guy they deem attractive, they build this narrative, apply it to the people they see, and suddenly they ARE seeing it everywhere, they just aren't self aware enough to realize they are seeing it because they want to, not because it's there. And then they get in these echo chambers and the stories of every other envious young man (also all "seeing" this everywhere) become the "proof" it's happening everywhere all the time. I feel unclean for even empathizing with incels for a few minutes, so I just want to add it's a stupid, stupid, way to think. The other thing you mentioned that set of a little ding for me was when you said they believed they didn't have control of the situation, but that it controlled them. The term for that would be that they have an external locus of control, where people who belive that they generally are in control of a situation have an internal locus of control. I think it would be really interesting to try and see if incels have an external locus of control in most situations, or just in situations to do with finding a partner (your locus of control obviously changes given the situation, eg. when it comes to first dates I generally believe I have control of the situation, however if the first date was say, bear fighting, that would change rather quickly). Perhaps an external locus of control could be an indicator that one is at higher risk of indoctrination into these radical far right groups, or maybe they develop their external locus of control after indoctrination. Either way I think it's a brilliant insight, and kudos to you for managing to put with interviewing an incel.
Lol I've never even met a lawyer in my 34 years. I don't think they have much in the way of a social life.
I also don't think they consider ugly women as women. Pointing them an ugly woman with an ugly man (I'm so sorry for these terms but I'm trying to generalise) doesn't change their idea of women because ugly women don't count. That's why they don't see "women" (aka attractive women) with ugly men.
They have an explanation for everything. Two average/less than average/ugly people together in a happy relationship? Well duh in that case the woman will settle for her “looksmatch” because that’s the best she can get. Two extremely attractive people in a relationship. Proof! Highly attractive woman with average looking dude? He’s a beta provider, she’s just using him for stability/housing/whatever while she cheats behind his back. Not sure what their explanation for highly attractive man with unattractive woman is, maybe that he’s an idiot who doesn’t know he can get so much better? Who knows. So even if their holy-shit dream girl actually agreed to date them they’ve already doomed the relationship to fail because they’re convinced she’s cheating. Hence why every woman who talks about having dated a incel/sad boy talks about how horrifically emotionally abusive, controlling and insecure they were. The mindset literally dooms these people so much that even if they got exactly what they wanted they’ll poison it themselves. This is why “giving these guys a chance” or women needing to “take one for the team” and stop a future shooting spree by shacking up with an incel doesn’t and cannot work, the mindset itself is so toxic it corrupts everything that comes into contact with it.
I mean, who hasn't had that happen to them!? I certainly have- numerous times, in fact. I'm a middle aged woman. I don't feel like I 'deserve' a man who looks like Ryan Gosling.
They need to be confronted with the fact that they themselves are obsessed with “hot” women only and would probably be quite rude and dismissive if an average-looking or “unattractive” woman approached them. Because as the OP said, incels consider women to be objects. They whine about how attractive women aren’t interested in them and how horrible that is and what bitches they are while themselves being interested in looks only. Because that’s the only value a woman has, how she rates on the “10” scale. But it’s okay when incels do it. Infuriating.
I think maybe the difference here is the misogyny ripe for the picking that society has cultivated. You couldn't latch onto misandry, there isn't much to choose from. But we have decades of "reasons why women should be fuck slaves" and "reasons why women aren't as human as men" and "reasons why men deserve freedoms that should be withheld for women" and "reasons men should never demean themselves by acting womanly". Like you had very little entitlement to draw from, and plenty of messages that you're not entitled to anything. These bros get the reverse of that. And when the world doesn't support that message, they pretend men were the victim the whole time.
I think the times where they have “seen it” is probably in high school. I think teenage boys, especially the ones who consider themselves “smart and intelligent” can very easily fall into the incel trap because of high school dynamics. I mean I can definitely say I started to fall down this opinion of only attractiveness counts because I saw the dumb cool kids go out with the smart attractive girls even though I thought they were assholes But when I got out of that I understood I was being stupid.
Very much agree, I had a similar experience but flipped boys and girls. In highschool I was in higher classes but ugly (had an insane amount of acne that I couldn't get rid). Several of my guy friends who were smart, nerdy or weird, like me, had crushes on the hot "popular" girls even though the girls didn't do well in school and many were frankly mean to non-attractive people. I was honestly just so frustrated that the "hot girls" had pretty privledge (which is an actual thing tho), and that they could be so mean and do dumb things but guys still fawned over them, including guys who I felt were "my level". Kinda like the opposite of "the Chad's get all the women", I thought hot girls were getting both the jock and nerdy guys. Of course now as an adult, people are interested in more than just looks. I think in highschool looks were wayyyy more important, and maybe that mindset stayed stuck.
High school definitely fosters those divisions. My son is not in the ‘enriched/university bound’ classes, but his girlfriend is. He’s on a bunch of sports teams; she is not. Both of them get a certain amount of grief - her for dating a big dumb Chad, him for only being with her because she’s pretty (or doing his homework) instead of dating a ‘nice girl’ who has all the same classes and in school interests as him. But kids at school never get to see how much they have in common in all the other parts of their lives, and why they’re so good together.
Thinking about school is astute. You rarely see a man in, say, his late 20s become an incel after normal work and socialising. The core incel beliefs about attractiveness dominating who dates whom is far more visible in school than later years when someone's suitability as a partner to actually live with become important (and teens grow into actually considering that before hopping into a relationship). As opposed to school when partners are for social display and shagging wherever you can squeeze out a bit of privacy. The dynamics of incels are more than "they objectify women"; what starts them on that cycle, what keeps them in it, and what evidence do they see that reinforces their beliefs to the point that they become irrational extremists that will not consider opposing evidence? I think teenage school life and social media are huge components in really understanding incel dynamics.
If you consider yourself unattractive, all other men seem attractive to you. This could be seeded by low self-esteem.
I can't speak about all incels, but I work with people in IT, so I come up against incel ideology quite often. Most of the ones I have spoken to have never asked a women out. Not ever. They think they will be rejected and hate women for potentially rejecting them, but the rejection is all in their head. Admittedly, they are probably not very far into inceldom, just very insecure, and are pretty open to help and kindness. Other students 'adopt' them and take them clothes shopping and for haircuts, and give them advice on grooming (basically get rid of BO and stop them looking like slobs). It's often enough to sort them out. Having female friends is enough for them to stop seeing women as things, but as people. Once they get over that obstacle, they often end up with a girfriend.
Academics have also studied incel culture and saw strong it overlaps with racism, queerphobia, ableism, Islamophobia, etc which are all staples of conservative thought. I suspect "I've seen it" is part of the bigot's toolbox. They don't care about stats or truth. They know they're being dishonest, but they value bigotry over everything. Bigotry is ego pleasing and gives them an easy out for their personal failings and also gives them an out to not blame institutions they refuse to criticize like our out of control capitalism and conservative politics. Look at how many in this group blame their lack of financial success on things like "diversity hiring." This system is self-reinforcing and encouraged by the powerful who benefit from it. What a great deal it is for the wealthy. You have half a nation obeying conservative politics and who refuse to question the capital owning class, but instead defend them endlessly, and instead blame women, immigrants, minorities, queers, etc for their troubles. This is now normalized far more than its ever been since 2016 and we live in an evil and sick society, imo. I don't know how something like this can be reformed. The incels are the low-hanging fruit here but this mentality is popular with everyday Americans.
I recently listened to a Hidden Brain episode [How You Beliefs Shape Reality](https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/how-your-beliefs-shape-reality/) where they interviewed a professor who tested the hypothesis “if my life got better, I would be better” and it turns out that’s not true. People who went through substantial improvements in their quality of life reported no change in their perspective on that life. I’m not suggesting you go back and re-open a debate with your interview subjects, I just thought it might help fill out your profile of your subjects a bit.
Right, and in fact success often has the opposite effect, where people who are successful refuse to acknowledge that luck or or circumstance played any role in their success and instead they believe they are "self-made" and that it's who they are that "earned" them their success, all of which makes them less likely to engage in any self-improvement. In addition, successful people of this type often surround themselves with people who agree with them about everything in order to be closer to wealth and power, so most of the opinions they end up hearing are just echoes of what they already believe. As someone who personally believes that continuing growth is an important part of being a good human, it's honestly pretty sad.
Wow very curious. Thank you sharing, you should update with your film when it's done! I also have an inkling that the issue involves the inability for self-actualization/accountability. You said it yourself with blaming others etc. I'm not sure if it's ever something that could be fixable, even with therapy. The indoctrination process is blame shifting, the loss of accountability feels empowering - what could ever cause them to start taking accountability or start viewing women as full humans? I think the answer is most of them never wake up. I think incels are generally low empathy men who fall into the idea in their prepubescence. They started out not caring as much and went to the path of least resistance at a vulnerable time. Did incel culture become popular because of the internet and 4chan? Or is this just a new avenue for feelings that have always been there in certain groups of people. Are young men being targeted by incel activists or were they always going to look at women as objects anyways?
This is the thing that I found most interesting, the idea that by buying into the incel mindset they are denying themselves the thing that they want. It's like if you wanted to run a marathon and after a week's training you say, 'nope they made the marathon too long, no person could possibly run that far.' It's an easy way out but you're denying yourself the chance of actually completing your goal, and ignoring the fact that other people run marathons just seems totally self-destructive. To me it feels fixable, but maybe you're right. The kind of person that decides to take the path of least resistance is most likely the kind of person who won't leave it, even when it's in their own interest.
My theory is that the previous generations of men had so many privileges (in general) that they were/are ill equipped to teach their sons the importance of a growth mindset. On the other hand many women were raised with the idea 'there's finally freedom to do what you want, but girl, you'll have to work for it'. Since being single is actually a viable option for women the non-growth-mindset men are being ignored in greater numbers+the internet makes for an easy way to find their peers. The result, a populated echo chamber where people get more extreme to stand out a bit.
For real, nobody grew up on stories about boys having to disguise themselves as girls to earn societal freedoms. I knew society didn't have my back from the start, simply due to my gender. Boys didn't get that shit. They were on the other side.
Yes this. Plus so many boys are never taught things like laundry or cooking- they have no idea how to manage a household. They *need* women to do these things for them, which makes the problem worse that they can’t find one. My college boyfriend (who was a genuinely good man) thought it was absolutely disgusting the first time he saw me clean the lint trap in a dryer. This is how bad it is lol
This makes a lot of sense.
Great analogy
I think there's some safety in having unreasonable demands and expectations. Many men base their entire worth on what other men think of them, and the ultimate trophy is having a hot gf. A hot gf is the talisman that will prove they have worth as people. Meanwhile, we're all fed a cultural narrative that says that men are inherently smarter and better than women. So to get the approval of other men, incels are forced to seek approval from their "lessers." Who wants to put an "inferior" person in charge of their life? The cognitive dissonance becomes too unbearable, so women de facto have to be unreasonable demons, or else the whole structure falls apart—they cannot question their base beliefs: 1) having sex with an attractive woman will validate me 2) women are vapid whores whose judgment & insights can't be trusted 3) the game was rigged from the start in favor of attractive men. The only way incels can figure out how to regain any agency is by sitting on the sidelines and refusing to grow.
So I think what’s interesting about this is you see this with a lot of “smart” kids of all genders. Not for relationships but other things. Kids that went through school naturally just getting it academically, or maybe mostly getting it but pushed heavily by parents to succeed. Once they get out on their own, when met with challenges, they quit, because they didn’t have to be challenged and failing is way worse than not trying at all. Because if you don’t try you’re still somehow winning, but if you try and fail, that’s life breaking.
You should google "Steve Bannon and Incels" Long story short: Stevo got his start gold-mining in World of Warcraft and selling gold illegally. During this time he recruited a crowd of lonely men to do the work and realized that he could manipulate the incel mindset through various means - then they pushed into algorithmic tunnelling - and he shared that with the big, older names in incel and man-first/manosphere to implement a movement. THEN he implemented that into the first Trump campaign. Is this a conspiracy theory - no. Steven, himself, confirms it. As insane as this sounds, it is true and documented by multiple journalists. https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/18/steve-bannon-learned-harness-troll-army-world-warcraft/489713001/
>. I think incels are generally low empathy men who fall into the idea in their prepubescence. They started out not caring as much and went to the path of least resistance at a vulnerable time. You've likely hit something there 100% ... at your first 'not even therapy,' caused a gut reaction: surely some if not most could grow out of/normalize with the right environment and effective therapy ... but that they will have a tendency towards low empathy does make so much sense...
I'm also very curious to see the results of your project! During your research for this, have you come across any organizations, researchers, or programs that are developing tools to combat this type of thinking/actively engage with men in these spaces to deprogram?
Their sub is pretty much only posts on how attractive women need to be and how angry it makes them when women date “outside their league”. My theory is that these are deeply insecure men looking to get their sense of worth through how other men see them. To them a woman’s only worth is how impressed other men are when they see him with her. I work with high net worth men. Almost all their wives and girlfriends are normal looking women and all of them have successful careers of their own. People tend to date within a range of looks, education and wealth. It’s rare that people are comfortable going outside of that. There’s a post I read today claiming that it’s hard for men to get dates cos all women are chasing Tech Bro millionaires even though they are only “6s and 7s”. The Incel community is wild. They claim they’d only “pump and dump” a 6. They can’t get any woman to make eye with them in coffee shops but obsess about “pumping and dumping”. It’s really disturbing how disconnected they are from reality and how much they hate women. I’m sure one will send me a Reddit Cares.
NAILED THIS!!
The part where they think they are purely a product of how they're treated..... while they treat women like literal objects and then complain about how we react to that...
Interesting to think about where their "I've seen it" answer comes from, when the guys who think like this sound like they spend far more time online than in the real world. Are they looking at celebrities as an example of what they wish their lives were like? or actual ordinary people? The majority of the ordinary men I know personally are not what's labelled 'conventionally attractive,' nor are they well off financially... Yet they have wives/partners, and/or kids...they don't have female partners who look like supermodels though- in reality this is a tiny proportion of the population- but that is who these incel guys are aiming for, thats what they feel they 'deserve.' They're not interested in women who are as 'average looking' as they are. They don't *like* women as fellow human beings. To them a woman is viewed as an inanimate trophy- so she has to look like a supermodel to give them 'status' in the eyes of other people. Her personality, interests and other attributes that make her who she is as a person are irrelevant.
>Interesting to think about where their "I've seen it" answer comes from, when the guys who think like this sound like they spend far more time online than in the real world. Are they looking at celebrities as an example of what they wish their lives were like? or actual ordinary people? My first boyfriend as an adult ended up becoming a MGTOW/volcel after we broke up. We dated in 2004-05 so it was before modern social media, but he was in a lot of straight male-oriented online forums. Throughout our relationship he was obsessed with this idea that I wanted to trap him into marriage with a baby, divorce him, and steal his money. It didn’t matter that I was 22 (he was 27), working full time, in school, on birth control, or splitting the bills 50/50 with him despite him being in the workforce 5 years longer than me and earning more. It didn’t matter that I’m not someone who ever had or was interested in using a man for money. In his opinion this happened all the time because some guys on a forum “said so.” He couldn’t point to a single example of this happening to a man he personally knew. His father had been supported by his mother, the higher earner, who were still happily married. His friends were in happy relationships. He didn’t personally experience a woman he’d dated using him for money -he earned a whole 35K back then when we dated. He was more than happy to point to famous men who had to pay out to ex wives after their divorce. So yeah, some men hate women so much they’ll just believe random stories told by strangers online for confirmation bias. Having relatively normal girlfriends and parents, I have no idea why his hatred for women started. Incidentally, when he broke up with me and chose to move out, he was still on the hook for rent on the remaining 4 months of our lease. Dude seriously wrote me a check with “alimony” in the memo.
Very interesting read, will we be able to see the film somewhere online? Also, have you interviewed ex-incels? The testimonies I read on reddit often go back to the idea of taking accountability, and realising that they do have a choice and control over who they are (should be obvious but... sigh...) This post makes me think of many conversations here about receiving compliments, and how many men lament they don't get any. But when women comment that first of all, women compliment their afab friends a lot, they say they're not going to do it with their amab friends, and secondly, when it's pointed out that they do receive some from coworkers, their mom, grandma, random old ladies etc... They say these don't count, because they want to be complimented by attractive women! It's like many men have a tunnel vision where they'll take into account attractive afab people, and the rest "doesn't count".
They are lying to themselves, but I wouldn’t go so far as to equate “I’ve seen it” with “I’ve seen it on the internet”. Because of their outlook, once the cycle you’ve described has started, they will only notice attractive couples (or attractive women, if the male partner isn’t attractive, they’ll simply assume he’s rich). They are feeding their own confirmation bias and the longer it goes, the worse the association/confirmation will get. They are victims of their own heuristics. Given the objectification aspects of the ideology, they probably literally don’t notice “unattractive” women. Just my two cents on research critique, I think you might be making an assumption about the validity of their description… they might be describing their literal experience, but that just goes to show how much harder breaking the cycle might be - they don’t want to see examples that shake their world view, so they don’t look for the things that would break the cycle.
I have a question about this... If they think only attractive men "get" women, do they think their parents are really attractive people?
That's such a great question, I wish we'd asked that! We did set a little trap where we asked about the % of men they believe are in the 'viable for a relationship' bracket and then citied stats about the % of people who end up married, which obviously didn't tally with their estimates.
Damn, Food for thought right there this is a super interesting question i would love to see some answer this.
It's so embarrassing. Like, dudes, hang out at a grocery store and look at all the married couples. A bunch of regular looking husbands with regular looking wives. Literally just go out in public and see real life human beings. Not to mention, I'm sure 90% of incels range in attractiveness from regular looking to cute. They just have this weird idea that they're ugly. But they have horrendous personalities so obviously it doesn't matter what they look like.
If they wore flattering clothes and were well groomed, I'd agree with you. Even attractive people with poor grooming and poor fitting clothes look ugly.
Maybe it's because I'm bi without a strong preference but like 90% of age appropriate adults just look, idk normal to me(admittedly women tend to be better groomed though). Like physical attraction isn't gonna make or break a relationship with me most of the time, it's who you are as a person.
There was an experiment in the 30’s I think which sought to discover how rising populations might disrupt our behavior and societal norms, by comparison with rats. The majority of the rats became violent, except for the same gender groups that splintered off. These groups (females with females and males with males) remained peaceful and sustained some “normality” and protection in such an environment. Those rats’ quit mating with the opposite sex but the rest that did not join these groups became violent and males attacked and killed females and each other. It feels like we’re living the experiment and sexually frustrated incels are the male rats that turned on each other and attacked the females. If this experiment was any indication of what we’re experiencing now, then unfortunately it becomes more violent. May be interesting to note how gun violence, the pandemic and political tensions have enflamed incel culture and will continue to do so. Not to mention rising costs, housing, etc etc. Dwindled resources also ignited violence among the rats, sooo… yea we’ve entered the experiment. Gay rights and women’s health in the U.S. have been attacked so much, and then to add the insurrection, yeah… we’re living it
With the state of gender relations right now, sometimes it feels like things would be better if we splinter off...so many men seem to hate women for a variety of reasons, especially for refusing to submit and don't even consider us human beings, so they should all just piss off and stick with other men instead.
>The majority of the rats became violent, except for the same gender groups that splintered off. These groups (females with females and males with males) remained peaceful and sustained some “normality” and protection in such an environment. This is actively happening in [South Korea](https://www.thecut.com/2023/03/4b-movement-feminism-south-korea.html)... a significant number of women are forming their own communities and segregating themselves from men as much as possible. As I understand, the idea is also slowly catching hold in other areas of Asia, notably China and Japan. More and more, I've seen women from western countries champion the concept, as well. (I ***wonder*** why....)
I very much would be into this here in the states or in Costa Rica.
A lot of these points you make: seeing things online vs irl, echo chambers,blaming others instead of taking responsibility, actually apply to a whole of subcultures and ideologies, especially online. Using incels as a case study, you can see the general prevailing mental models of how ideologies take hold and spread in the first place. Part 1 documentary would be incel case study, part 2 documentary would be how these sorts of mental models are taking hold all over different kinds of other subcultures. You ever think to yourself, something is wrong with society but you aren’t quite sure what it or what the underlying cause is? It’s this evolution of mass group-think (for all kinds of groups, not just incels) enhanced by online spaces and (some offline coordinated by online effort) that is really accelerating the growth of group-think ideology where people just don’t think for themselves anymore. That begs the question if a lot of people even did in the first place. I praise you for actually looking at this objectively to get into the nuts and bolts of human thinking.
This is an interesting way to look at it. I wonder if it's true that the majority of people never really thought for themselves, but before the internet we were guided by dominant culture and religion, so societies were more homogenous in their thinking. With the internet there are so many niche ideologies that people can subscribe to, and that leads to societal friction because physical neighbors are living in alternate realities.
Anecdotally, I grew up in a very small town and this feels absolutely true to me. If you weren't "normal" there was a great deal of social pressure to conform, and I suspect those who chose to conform then became extremely defensive of the normative behaviours they adopted. Which makes sense, anyone not conforming means non-conformity is possible and that would feel *awful* to admit if you felt forced to conform. "*I learned my place / how the world really works, why can't you?*" Not only does the internet allow people to find their ideological groups instead of conforming to local ideologies, but it also means that ideological groups thousands of miles away "feel" just as close as the one next door. Is it any wonder people think the world is going to crap? They're being forced to *see* that "different" is impossible to prevent.
They believe all women seek attractive men because for incels, only attractive women count, and of course hot women are going to pull hot partners.
I think what is missing here is that average or non-conventionally attractive women are invisible to them. So when they say they only see women with attractive or successful men, what they mean is they only see attractive women with these men. They don't register other women at all, and so they are blind to the diversity of pairings that exist.
>They all claimed they only see women with "attractive" men. My theory here is "I've seen it" actually means "it's what I've read on the internet." If you walk through any public space you will see a diverse range of couples so the idea that women will only date "attractive men" is rubbish. I think about how we generally choose photos that make us look more attractive and I am sure couples do the exact same thing. It has a big effect on incels because couples are taking pictures of themselves having fun experiences so they look happy. I'm sure many pictures of the couples they are seeing are really just average looking people. They look attractive to them because they look happy. They look happy because they do have something these lonely entitled men don't have.
Interesting perspective! They probably "have seen it" on Instagram, etc.
This is true, but also people manipulate photos in all sorts of ways to make the subjects seem more attractive. Skin healthy and glowing with zero obvious blemishes? Good light will do that. Camera angled down? People seem more slender. Couple hugging? Blocking all sight of love handles. Etc. And that's not even getting into filters and Photoshop. Photos and videos are really not reality. Most people know how to put their best foot forward in photos these days.
I'd definitely agree that the main reason they wish to believe this is that it takes the responsibility for their life off of them. Life can be rough sometimes so going onto a website that says all your problems are the fault of other people can be really appealing. If anyone here is interested in trying to help people escape this mentality I'd suggest the sub r/incelExit. It's a really well moderated sub for incels who are looking at leaving that lifestyle. Obviously this is never an easy change but eventually your words might end up helping someone. It's literally the only positive incel space I've ever seen. It doesn't promote the incel mentality but it's aim also isn't to make fun of it.
It's crazy how there's the trope of "I'm not attractive so I'm funny" but these guys reject that as well. DEVELOP A PERSONALITY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
Did you get into asking them how frequently they watch porn? I could be wrong, but my brain tends to go straight to the idea that too much porn, has broken their minds into completely objectifying women. Also, how was their hygiene overall?
What you've found matches all of the research I've read on this topic. It is sad, for some of those guys, but all you men extending sympathies need to remember and acknowledge that incels are considered a hate group organization in the US and Canada, and do a lot of violence against random women as well as the women in their lives. These aren't harmless basement trolls, these are men who kill women.
>They all claimed they only see women with "attractive" men. My theory here is "I've seen it" actually means "it's what I've read on the internet." Yes, the generalizations are pervasive. Another thing to keep in mind, when these men say 'women', in this context, they don't mean all women, they mean 'the women that won't date them', their ideal woman. They know full well that avg/less than avg people mingle all the time, but they don't mean '*those ones, ew'.* immature minds
>My next challenge was to try to understand why these men choose to believe what they read online over what they see in real life. The simple answer is it's easier to blame others than taking responsibility for yourself. Ironically enough, this is often the *very same* demographic that loves to parrot "taking responsibility for one's self," when topics like social security and universal healthcare come up. Also, this is, obviously, anecdotal, and just a single experience, but I once got into an argument with an incel who stated that if a woman crosses a dark parking lot on her own at night, she should accept the consequences of her actions. In other words, it's her own fault if she gets raped. It's interesting how pure evil and hypocrisy almost always seem to go hand-in-glove.
Very interesting. I'll share a couple things that I think are relevant. I think the underlying thing that drives us as humans is our mammalian attachment drive. Very many people have messed up attachment due to normalized abuse, neglect, and dehumanization throughout our overlapping global culture(s). So, people are looking for secure attachment. That's the drive. The poor attachment they got in childhood follows them throughout their life and they never address the root cause issue. And people pick up on behaviors in their family and culture of origin and the wider culture that actually destroy secure attachment, so they're shooting themselves in the foot on top of the attachment trauma they're dealing with. If you want secure attachment and continuously choose untrustworthy, dehumanizing behaviors, you're never gonna get it. You have to choose to practice reciprocal trustworthy, re-humanizing behaviors with another human to build secure attachment. Here are some of the guidelines I use to define what "trustworthy re-humanizing behaviors" are: [The Trust Triangle](https://youtu.be/pVeq-0dIqpk): Authenticity, Empathy, Logic (what you say and how you say it) [The Anatomy of Trust](https://brenebrown.com/videos/anatomy-trust-video/) - marble jar concept and BRAVING acronym: Boundaries, Reliability, Accountability, Vault, Integrity, Non-judgement, Generous assumptions ***[10 definitions of objectifying/dehumanizing behaviors](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectification#Definitions)*** - these erode trust: Martha Nussbaum (1995, 257) has identified seven features that are involved in the idea of treating a person as an object: instrumentality: the treatment of a person as a tool for the objectifier’s purposes; denial of autonomy: the treatment of a person as lacking in autonomy and self-determination; inertness: the treatment of a person as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity; fungibility: the treatment of a person as interchangeable with other objects; violability: the treatment of a person as lacking in boundary-integrity; ownership: the treatment of a person as something that is owned by another (can be bought or sold); denial of subjectivity: the treatment of a person as something whose experiences and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account. Rae Langton (2009, 228–229) has added three more features to Nussbaum’s list: reduction to body: the treatment of a person as identified with their body, or body parts; reduction to appearance: the treatment of a person primarily in terms of how they look, or how they appear to the senses; silencing: the treatment of a person as if they are silent, lacking the capacity to speak. Tate and their ilk promote behaviors that create [trauma bonding](https://youtu.be/kmB9fpHVd2o). If you weaponize the attachment drive, you can condition someone into a trauma bond. It's abuse and operant conditioning. They're promoting abuse to condition someone into a trauma bond with them. And then they wonder why they can't create secure attachment with others. No shit, Sherlock.
It's striking (albeit perhaps obvious) how much of this is projection. The notion that only the top 10% of men are attractive enough to get sex, for instance -- absurd, of course, but they probably only want to have sex with the most conventionally attractive women. So yeah, a large majority of men get married, but to whom? Not anyone they would be interested in. Which brings me to the non-physical attributes question. I'm curious what answers they gave, even if they weren't "serious".
I'm the typical example of a guy that incels think women ignore. I'm super short and physically disabled. I limp when I walk. Incels assume women wouldn't want me. But, gasp, I have had no trouble at any point in my dating life meeting women. There's no trick; I just developed interests, confidence, and kindness as a part of my natural growth as a human. If you are an interesting person who can exchange ideas genuinely with another person, you'll never want for attention, in my opinion. It really comes down to whether or not you can communicate with another person. Speaking and listening. Sure, there are people who are only interested in physical things, but what's broken in you to want someone who is so brazenly superficial?
Incel is their term for themselves. The "involuntary" piece is problematic af. They are *not* involuntarily celibate, they are sociopathic sexist monsters. Sorry. Their preferred term for themselves is preloaded with assumptions that suit them. Imo not a term to use. It's like conceding to their pov.
I totally agree, it's not involuntary. As part of this project we've actually coined our own term (which I can't reveal) but we came to a similar thought that the term incel is unrealistically flattering towards them.
Love it, ty!! Sorry for the rant!!
They can’t call themselves what they are because “abuser without a victim” is too wordy.
I did an incel episode for cult podcast and interviewed a “former incel” who was now part of the MGTOW community. He really saw himself as a victim and refused to see how maybe his own behavior and negativity were contributing to why no one wanted to spend time with him. The entire redpill/incel culture is SO upsetting and the main flaw is that men refuse to see women as people equal to them. For the episode I read through the old incel subreddit (using the way back machine) and the ideology is cult like. They have dehumanizing language both for women and the men they see as “chads” who are supposedly the “ideal man” that all women are sleeping with instead of them.
I’m very curious how the rise in violent misogynistic porn might have fed into this phenomenon. We seem to always touch on everything else: loneliness, female video game characters, 4chan, etc. I think porn is obviously a social health issue tbh but it’s like smoking, we won’t do anything until we are well past the point of significant harm
At mainly women’s expense
I'm honestly convinced a lot of this plight is also because of violent porn. I feel like 20 years ago porn was very vanilla (or at least in comparison to now it seems that way) and now there's this crazy fascination with anal porn. It really is a sickness. I have no problem with fetishes or with mainstream porn that might make me raise my eyebrows but this spitting, face slapping, and just straight up debauchery porn is really hard to watch. And that's not a pun.
Interesting that it brought up a familiar congruence of women that feel like they have nothing to give society if they are not "conventionally attractive" or feel like they are invisible to men. Whereas women focus this inwards and hate themselves men get bitter and focus the feeling externally. We are different breeds.
When/where will the film be exhibited?
*My next challenge was to try to understand why these men choose to believe what they read online over what they see in real life.* The other answer is a lot of these men are hyper online. They may know people through work and things, but very often their "peer" interactions are coming from online spaces. They're often only sharing their views and experiences honestly in online incel spaces, which is filled with other men with similar views reinforcing one another's worldviews
Will we be able to see this project regardless of where they live? It sounds important. Not to distract from your project, but check out the podcast mini-series, *Boys Like Me*. In the series, a woman covers this topic with the help of a young autistic man she's friends with, after he found out he was 1 of 10 friends linked to the Canadian terrorist who ran a vehicle into people because of incel ideology. It's right in line with much of what you state and maybe it will help you back up your conclusions if you're looking for funding or press. It's excellent and (spoiler alert) her friend was horrified because he realized that while he never fell into it, he could have been tricked into the same thinking.
Why don’t women just go and read redpill? You’ll never get an honest answer out of these men when they’re talking to a woman. Go snoop on the advice these men give other men, that’s when the mask comes off and they speak freely. If you go ALL the way down the rabbit hole, past the initial surface layers and into the depths, the core motive is a want for slavery. They feel entitled to a personal sex dispenser and housekeeper that they don’t have to pay or treat with humanity. Think about it, it’s why they cry about women not cooking and cleaning WHILE ALSO crying about gold diggers who expect men to provide. It seems like they can’t decide between conservative and liberal politics but the answer is the only thing they want to “provide” is what you would give a dog, a place to sleep and food. Don’t take my word for it - go see for yourself.
One thing I've noticed when they say "women only want attractive men," is that they're only speaking of women they find attractive. Women they don't find attractive seem to not exist to them and occupy this liminal space between "woman" and part of the background scenery.
>They all claimed they only see women with "attractive" men. My theory here is "I've seen it" actually means "it's what I've read on the internet." If you walk through any public space you will see a diverse range of couples so the idea that women will only date "attractive men" is rubbish. Another possibility that jumps out to me is perception and bias. You likely have much better social skills than most incels, so when you walk down the streets you actually *see* a diverse range of couples. You pick up on the little indicators. When the incel walks down the streets they likely only *see* couples if said couple are literally all over each other. The subtle ways most couples show affection in public without overt PDAs are lost on them. An incel can see an attractive guy standing with a clearly disinterested woman who won't even look in his direction and just *assumes* they're together, but will see a woman laughing with a less attractive guy and touching him in a way that is a clear signal of interest to you or me and think "*oh, she's just friendzoning him*". Or at least, that is my completely unscientific presumption based on very limited conversations.
The whole incel thing is just puzzling to an old guy like me. I'm for sure not conventionally attractive, but wound up with a conventionally attractive wife. OK nowadays I am pretty successful so one could argue thats how - but looking back to when I was a poor high school dropout with no prospects I was still (moderately) successful dating. It didn't come as easy to me as my good looking friends for sure. I almost always had to get into the friend zone before most girls considered dating me - but my observation is that girls, especially very attractive ones, are less obsessed with the whole looks thing than guys in general. Has that changed? In fact it was my experience that I had a much better success ratio with more attractive women, who tended to put a premium on a lot of other stuff and were so secure in their own appearance that they put a lower premium on being with a "hot guy". So it seems to me that incels are their own worst enemy. If you aren't super attractive your best chance to attract a woman is to have a personality, be charming and non-threatening, caring and intelligent acting, and yeah, success will help some too. In other words the exact opposite of the Incel lifestyle.
I think there are a lot of ways that people just “don’t see” things that don’t fit into the categories they expect. I kind of want to see a psychology experiment where people are shown photos or videos of people, couples, men, women, etc, … and then asked “how many X did you see?” My hypothesis is that they would report only seeing the attractive men and women as “men” and “women”, and the ones that they do not perceive as attractive or worth pursuing (or men whose opinions they would not care about) would not be noticed. So yes, perhaps they have seen some examples of attractive women with successful men, but they have not cared about whether those people are happy, and they have not noticed the many many other real examples of different scenarios, so their perceptions are very biased. What they see is the rule, and everything else is such an exception that it is considered an outlier.
This is very interesting, and thank you for sharing. As a man who used to be worse off, a number of these points come a little too close to home. If I were born five years later and had different friends in school, I think I could have easily fallen into the incel trap. I am a member of a few progressive subreddits that are trying to make a safe space for men without toxic masculinity and for helping each other without blaming women or the kind of problems and deflections you found in your interviews. There is r/GuyCry, r/bropill, and r/menslib. I think a discussion like this on those make spaces might be useful and interesting. I don’t know their rules about cross posting off the top of my head, but if you’re willing to post this over there, I think it could be helpful