Saturday, February 2, 2019
The Misogyny Subculture: Incels (Part 2)
INCELS! Where do I begin?
As I began to map the manner which I would lay out this series, I initially thought I would save the incel posts for last. Incels are the most interesting, intriguing and fascinating arm of this subculture. Thus, they (in a totally perverse and disturbing way) deserve to be the finale of this series.
But, then I realized they should be discussed first. Incels are the heartbeat, such as it is, of this movement. While it certainly can be said they are the culmination of misogyny and anti-feminism radicalization, it is their ideology that permeates throughout the entire subculture.
Perhaps, the other misogyny groups are not as virulent as the incels but they certainly are as dogmatic and that dogma comes from the incels.
So, who exactly are the incels?
In the introductory post I provided a brief and admittedly lacking overview. Here I will go into more detail and provide much more context.
As described in the previous post, incels stands for "involuntarily celibate". It is a group of men (primarily white heterosexual men) who are either virgins or who have gone an extended time period without having sex or a serious relationship. This lack of intimacy and sex is exclusively involuntary. And, according to incel ideology, the incels' lack of sex is directly due to women being shallow and having unreasonable expectations, which causes them to not overlook "regular" guys' flaws, and only go after genetically and/or financially superior men. Oh, and the root cause of women's "unreasonable expectations" and the incels' inability to get laid is........FEMINISM. Surprised by that, aren't you?
Before we go deep into the nuances of incels' ideology and structure, which is something I will do in the next blog, allow me to provide a brief history of the culture's beginnings. The term "incel" was actually created by a Canadian college student named "Alana" in 1993. She started a website for men and women who were having issues in the dating scene.
Somewhere along the line in the late 1990s and early 2000s the term was co-opted. The initial co-opting focused on the struggles of socially awkward men (mainly young men/teenagers) ability to date and/or have sex. Forums began popping up online for these guys to go into to voice their concerns, frustrations and problems.
Well, as with most things online, nefarious actors got involved and began preying on these guys. As the 2010s approached, there began to be a radicalization. Instead of simply focusing on how to improve these dudes' social awkwardness or encourage them to improve themselves or accentuate their positives there began to be a fomenting of resentment and anger. Wallowing in self-pity and depression became a way of life.
With the encouragement of these nefarious inciters and each other the anger, resentment, and self-loathing was turned from being something largely introspective into an outward aggression against women-essentially all women. Instead of self-hate these guys began transforming that hate into blatantly malignant sexism and misogyny. Women became the enemy and feminism began being seen as the nexus of evil.
This malignancy began bubbling underneath the surface. Although sexism and misogyny are commonplace in society this vitriolic more intense misogynistic, anti-feminist subculture was being cultivated underground and in the fever swamps of the internet.
It targeted primarily teenage boys and young men. Chat rooms and forums littered the internet providing a safe place for these incels to go and freely espouse their disdain for women and feminism.
The thing was it went largely unnoticed. Sure, these dudes would pop up on Twitter and Facebook spewing all sorts of venom and hateful rhetoric toward women but they were blown off as "internet trolls".
Reddit became a hotspot for incels. The incel subreddit was one of the more populated and toxic forums on Reddit. In fact, it became so toxic that Reddit was forced to shut it down. However, the incels went around that by creating a new forum with a new name.
In the next blog I will go into the nuances and intricacies of the incel ideology. To be able to fully grasp who these guys are and what shapes them you must understand their worldview and what comprises it.
Yes, it is resentment of women and detest for feminism, but it is a bit more complex than that. They have created an entire language and platform to buoy their ideology. Of course, make no mistake the foundation for their existence and their world view is hatred of women and blaming women for every one of their problems.
For the most part incels are seen as harmless. Most people see them as pathetic. But, they can be very dangerous. While most of the time their rhetoric is just vapid inane bullshit spewed online, there have been times it has provided real world consequences.
Back in 2014 Elliot Rodger killed six people and shot 14 more in a mass shooting near the University of California-Santa Barbara campus. Rodger also died during the shooting. A 144 page manifesto Rodger wrote was discovered. In the manifesto Rodger detailed his utter disdain for women largely stemming from his perceived inability to get women to have sex with him. He said he wanted to kill as many women as possible.
After the mass shooting and until this day incels hold Rodger in high esteem and consider him a hero. Many incels believe Elliot Rodger performed a community service (of sorts) and should be immortalized for "having the guts to do what is necessary and right".
Other incidents perpetrated by incels include a guy in Toronto driving his car into a crowd back in 2016 and the guy who shot six people killing two at a yoga studio in Tallahassee just months ago. Numerous other incidents have taken place over the last 10 years or so that have elements of incel ideology.
Yet, the mainstream media and the public at large continue to mostly ignore this subculture. And, even worse, in the Rodger murders along with many of the other incidents the media (I suspect unwittingly) play into the incel ideology by quasi blaming women for not giving these guys some ass. Absolutely astounding.
Here's the thing, this misogyny subculture is real and it's malignant. Incels are a group to be taken seriously.
I realize I may be working a bit backwards here. But, I wanted to provide a history. The nuances of Incels' ideology is important and key to understanding them.
In the next blog I will go into detail regarding the different factions within the community. I will also explain their rather disturbing fatalistic philosophies that entail how a guy like Elliot Rodger was radicalized and why there a plethora more like him milling about in the streets.
As I began to map the manner which I would lay out this series, I initially thought I would save the incel posts for last. Incels are the most interesting, intriguing and fascinating arm of this subculture. Thus, they (in a totally perverse and disturbing way) deserve to be the finale of this series.
But, then I realized they should be discussed first. Incels are the heartbeat, such as it is, of this movement. While it certainly can be said they are the culmination of misogyny and anti-feminism radicalization, it is their ideology that permeates throughout the entire subculture.
Perhaps, the other misogyny groups are not as virulent as the incels but they certainly are as dogmatic and that dogma comes from the incels.
So, who exactly are the incels?
In the introductory post I provided a brief and admittedly lacking overview. Here I will go into more detail and provide much more context.
As described in the previous post, incels stands for "involuntarily celibate". It is a group of men (primarily white heterosexual men) who are either virgins or who have gone an extended time period without having sex or a serious relationship. This lack of intimacy and sex is exclusively involuntary. And, according to incel ideology, the incels' lack of sex is directly due to women being shallow and having unreasonable expectations, which causes them to not overlook "regular" guys' flaws, and only go after genetically and/or financially superior men. Oh, and the root cause of women's "unreasonable expectations" and the incels' inability to get laid is........FEMINISM. Surprised by that, aren't you?
Before we go deep into the nuances of incels' ideology and structure, which is something I will do in the next blog, allow me to provide a brief history of the culture's beginnings. The term "incel" was actually created by a Canadian college student named "Alana" in 1993. She started a website for men and women who were having issues in the dating scene.
Somewhere along the line in the late 1990s and early 2000s the term was co-opted. The initial co-opting focused on the struggles of socially awkward men (mainly young men/teenagers) ability to date and/or have sex. Forums began popping up online for these guys to go into to voice their concerns, frustrations and problems.
Well, as with most things online, nefarious actors got involved and began preying on these guys. As the 2010s approached, there began to be a radicalization. Instead of simply focusing on how to improve these dudes' social awkwardness or encourage them to improve themselves or accentuate their positives there began to be a fomenting of resentment and anger. Wallowing in self-pity and depression became a way of life.
With the encouragement of these nefarious inciters and each other the anger, resentment, and self-loathing was turned from being something largely introspective into an outward aggression against women-essentially all women. Instead of self-hate these guys began transforming that hate into blatantly malignant sexism and misogyny. Women became the enemy and feminism began being seen as the nexus of evil.
This malignancy began bubbling underneath the surface. Although sexism and misogyny are commonplace in society this vitriolic more intense misogynistic, anti-feminist subculture was being cultivated underground and in the fever swamps of the internet.
It targeted primarily teenage boys and young men. Chat rooms and forums littered the internet providing a safe place for these incels to go and freely espouse their disdain for women and feminism.
The thing was it went largely unnoticed. Sure, these dudes would pop up on Twitter and Facebook spewing all sorts of venom and hateful rhetoric toward women but they were blown off as "internet trolls".
Reddit became a hotspot for incels. The incel subreddit was one of the more populated and toxic forums on Reddit. In fact, it became so toxic that Reddit was forced to shut it down. However, the incels went around that by creating a new forum with a new name.
In the next blog I will go into the nuances and intricacies of the incel ideology. To be able to fully grasp who these guys are and what shapes them you must understand their worldview and what comprises it.
Yes, it is resentment of women and detest for feminism, but it is a bit more complex than that. They have created an entire language and platform to buoy their ideology. Of course, make no mistake the foundation for their existence and their world view is hatred of women and blaming women for every one of their problems.
For the most part incels are seen as harmless. Most people see them as pathetic. But, they can be very dangerous. While most of the time their rhetoric is just vapid inane bullshit spewed online, there have been times it has provided real world consequences.
Back in 2014 Elliot Rodger killed six people and shot 14 more in a mass shooting near the University of California-Santa Barbara campus. Rodger also died during the shooting. A 144 page manifesto Rodger wrote was discovered. In the manifesto Rodger detailed his utter disdain for women largely stemming from his perceived inability to get women to have sex with him. He said he wanted to kill as many women as possible.
After the mass shooting and until this day incels hold Rodger in high esteem and consider him a hero. Many incels believe Elliot Rodger performed a community service (of sorts) and should be immortalized for "having the guts to do what is necessary and right".
Other incidents perpetrated by incels include a guy in Toronto driving his car into a crowd back in 2016 and the guy who shot six people killing two at a yoga studio in Tallahassee just months ago. Numerous other incidents have taken place over the last 10 years or so that have elements of incel ideology.
Yet, the mainstream media and the public at large continue to mostly ignore this subculture. And, even worse, in the Rodger murders along with many of the other incidents the media (I suspect unwittingly) play into the incel ideology by quasi blaming women for not giving these guys some ass. Absolutely astounding.
Here's the thing, this misogyny subculture is real and it's malignant. Incels are a group to be taken seriously.
I realize I may be working a bit backwards here. But, I wanted to provide a history. The nuances of Incels' ideology is important and key to understanding them.
In the next blog I will go into detail regarding the different factions within the community. I will also explain their rather disturbing fatalistic philosophies that entail how a guy like Elliot Rodger was radicalized and why there a plethora more like him milling about in the streets.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)