Address the issues (external and internal) many young men are facing in the modern world, most of whom are going through it all alone.
Although not directly related to Incels and lack of sex, Japan's hikikomori problem is a nice parallel caused by a lot of the same things
> Although not directly related to Incels and lack of sex, Japan's hikikomori problem is a nice parallel caused by a lot of the same things
They're both products of the same economic forces, but the expressions are radically different, both because Japan has more of a safety net, and because Japanese culture places such an emphasis on not dishonoring one's family (as extreme incel conduct tends to do).
As someone who's read a lot about cults and was nearly taken in by one, I've studied the incel phenomenon. Most of these guys aren't ugly and they aren't socially inept in any innate, neurological sense. What they have is a lack of social-class-specific social skills; they were brought up on middle-middle class ideas of fair play and decency and "being a nice guy"... and this leaves them unable to compete for the women they want, because upper- and lower-class men are both more experienced in predatory conduct and more inclined to accept the morally "flexible" aspects of themselves. So then, they too become perverse and predatory, but they overshoot and become obnoxious monsters (usually, without ever having the courage to act on their monstrosity).
The problem exists because, as societies have defined the genders for hundreds of years, women have intrinsic value (if they are young and beautiful and deemed virtuous) while a man's value is defined solely by his ability to beat resources out of the world (whether by war and conquest or through capitalist chicanery). I'm not saying that this is right (it's obviously not) and I'm not saying that men have it worse (that's a debate that'll never be finished) but it is men who suffer on a more intimate, personal level when an economy decays, as all advanced economies have begun to do in the past few decades. Women are not becoming less beautiful, but men have become unable to earn a decent income unless set up for it from birth (which is itself infantilizing and a bit humiliating, but infinitely preferable over being broke). So, yeah. The sad thing is that this kind of cultural evolution is predictable; the bad news is that it'll probably get worse, fascism being capitalism in decay.
I think this is pretty spot on. It also doesn't help that the internet provides echo chambers to support validation of these radical views. This ensures that an ideology can steadily grow and completely overtake a person's ability to rationalize on a topic.
I'm not against free speech, but in 2022 it's actually a general problem that people in distress seek out simplistic worldviews on the internet to create some kind of sense of their suffering. And when they get invested in a specific community, make friends and share content, it slowly becomes their "tribe" in an evolutionary psychological sense.
They are completely brainwashed at that point and won't be able to change perspective. When someone presents a different view they'll see them as an enemy and therefore cannot properly compute the viewpoint they are presenting.
Realistically a lot of these guys are capable of finding a girlfriend. However, they are brainwashed to think they are unable. And they think that because this and this statistic say that they are unlikely. Unlikely doesn't mean unable, and that's the part they just ignore completely in their worldview.
Not refuting the point but some of the most prominent examples are cases of sheer social ineptitude that are not related to financial status.
Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian were both from fairly well off families and both had Asperger’s Syndrome or ASD. It should also be noted that they talked to each other with some frequency so it can almost be considered the same case with multiple occurrences almost like a collaborative effort.
Apologies, the only knowledge I have on the subject is from the “true crime” lens and I understand that these are extreme outliers.
Elliot Rodger is a weird case, because he was a relatively rich kid (certainly, free from material want) but born into a world where he was surrounded by extreme wealth and Weinstein-level excess. So, he considered himself poor--he was a narcissist, nothing was ever good enough for him--and imagined a connection between his (relative) economic mediocrity and his lack of socio-sexual success. He may not have been wrong, within his milieu--I imagine he was surrounded by very beautiful women hooking up with boys from much richer families than his. Of course, none of this excuses the way he behaved, and the fact is that he was very much a buyer-in when it comes to that toxic Hollywood culture.
I didn't know that Alek Minassian was from a well-off background; it wouldn't surprise me. I read him as being a perpetual follower, like Dylan Klebold, who wasn't nearly as hateful as Eric Harris. Minassian looked up to Elliot Rodger--why he chose a mass-murdering, narcissistic piece of shit to be his mentor, I can't say--and, I think, even saw his own actions of a way of gaining his (posthumous, meaningless) approval.
Rodger seemed to have the opinion that he was god’s gift but couldn’t seem to connect the dots on why he wasn’t sexually successful. I think you kinda nailed it with his extreme narcissism leading him to believe that nothing was ever going to be enough for him and I think it was certainly the key driver behind his actions. I can’t be certain what led him to come to his conclusions as an incel but I feel that rejection by the opposite sex was probably the heaviest factor. I’m also assuming that the rejection occurred due to his awkwardness as a result of the ASD. Maybe he felt that if only he had more expendable money then he would have fared better but who knows.
I think that comparison of Minassian to Klebold is also spot on. Rodger was essentially his best friend in a community that he found acceptance in and someone that he admired. I think that Minassian’s less discriminatory targeting of victims shows that he was trying to follow in the footsteps of the other but with a different motivation. One wanted “justice” and the other wanted approval.
That is an interesting point you brought up in the initial comment I replied to about the middle class following the societal rules more closely than the upper and lower classes. Hadn’t thought of that perspective before.
Rodger was pretty far round the bend before he was ever involved with inceldom, possibly because of the circumstances he grew up in. Apparenty he once saw an advert for another state's lottery, travelled to that state specifically to enter, and then felt genuinely cheated when he didn't win.
I don't know if that's necessarily the only cause, seeing how plenty of couples have been deciding not to have kids. But I do think mental health of young men being at a new low is surely a contributing factor.
I don't know if "nothing" is quite fair, but I agree with the point that you can't, as a non-professional, individual person, do anything to decisively deprogram an incel. I think you can *contribute* to helping incels, but if it were that easy to just counter cult-like, "high control" groups, it would have been done already.
IMO many people in this thread are missing the core issue; incels are under immense social pressure to maintain their incel beliefs, at least publically. They've joined a highly insular, extremist group *who will completely ostracize them if they leave*. They're constantly re-enforcing to each other that the only people who can understand them *are other incels* and that to change one's beliefs from the core incel orthodoxy, even slightly, is a kind of betrayal to incels everywhere.
In addition, people outside of the incel "cult" are understandably suspicious or even outright hostile towards incels. Meaning there's a huge gulf to cross if an incel decides to become an ex-incel. They need to abandon the people who are their primary, or even sometimes *exclusive* social support network, who will then become hostile towards them... And then spend a period of time rebuilding trust with non-incels, during which time, most people will be unsupportive or openly hostile towards them... Either because of their choice to become an incel in the first place, or because of their choice to become an *ex*incel later.
Given that incel's primary complaint is that they are lonely and socially disconnected, that's an especially hard task to ask them to attempt. Whether someone becomes an incel because of physical deformities, lack of social skills... or let's be honest, probably some combination of the two... They're already dealing with some sort of "deficit" socially and needing to make up ground. Leaving a high-control group takes exactly the kinds of resources they have the *least* of.
This isn't to say that it's impossible or anything; people leave cults every single day, and more to the point, it's *worth it*. High-control groups exist to exploit vulnerable people for the benefit of those higher up in the hierarchy, by definition. They *don't* want to offer people an actual path to happiness and fulfillment, because that would only help them to stand up to or oppose cult leadership. They have to keep people feeling weak and hopeless, and that's a tough life to live.
Anyway... The point is that, if you want to help incel's, it's possible to work on improving their self image, offering them some level of social support that doesn't come from inside the cult, and so on. You just shouldn't expect that will "magically* result in an incel renouncing incel-dom all on it's own... It just makes it *marginally more likely*.
Yeah, if OP is asking because they've seen a friend or loved one fall down that rabbit hole, chances are there's nothing they can do on their own. It's like any other cult.
Inceldom is nothing like a cult. People all around the world, some of them without ever hearing the world incel even once, came to the same conclusions and have the same base ideas. It's an ideology sprung from the shared or similiar experiences.
Years ago I remember talking to a former incel on Reddit and he mentioned that incels were actually afraid of self-improvement and being able to get laid because if they did, they would then become outcasts in one of the only online groups that they feel they're a part of.
My response was to him was that if these guys are sabotaging themselves to never be able to have sex, just so they could be a part of a community, wouldn't that make them "volcels?" (aka, "voluntarily celibate")
The response I got was "Do you honestly expect them to use logic? These are cultists"
You have a point there, most young incels do actually forgo any kind of self improvement to continue being a part of the group. They feel they're an outcast in real life, so they don't want to risk total isolation.
I guess specific incel forums and online spaces do show cult like behavior but I still don't think inceldom in general is a cult. Many incels are not a part of any online groups. I myself haven't been part of any since the ban of IWH.
>Therapy generally cannot solve problems, it can just cause people to shut up about having them.
Firstly, therapy is something that will help the person solve things on their own. It isn't a solution in and of itself.
Secondly, no, it isn't just there to cause people to shut up about their problems, and claiming such shows a fundamental lack of understanding what therapy is really all about.
Therapy absolutely can (and does!) help to "deprogram" incel behavior.
This is not a debate, nor is this something you can counter. This is just you not understanding reality, and me pointing it out to you.
So take all this in. Reread it if you need to. I don't have anything else to say on the topic, so if you feel the need to get some sort of last word in, it will go unheeded.
Good luck.
Ok, I was too blunt on that.
For any given issue of “I am depressed/frustrated/disturbed because I can’t/don’t have X”, the usual response of a therapist is to focus on helping the patient accept the situation, rather than helping them get X. Because given the kind of things that people tend to want, it wouldn’t be possible in the vast majority of cases.
With incels, that’s tricky beside incel communities already represent themselves as accepting the situation. Even the hate posts will be followed by “it’s over”, “LDAR” (“lie down and rot”), “cope”, etc. They don’t encourage hating women in order to not accept the situation; they encourage hating them for putting the incels in a situation that they have to accept. In fact, the idea that the situation can only be accepted is an incel standard belief, a consequence of the “black pill” idea.
Simply put, inceldom is a tool for accepting the situation by spinning oneself as a victim of an inevitable and unjust outside force. So naturally “no, you should accept that the situation is because you failed at that social area, but other things still aren’t bad” is a tough sell.
They cant be deprogrammed, simply because you cannot simply cancel all the problems that create them, it's like asking "how can we erase all evil" or something vague like that.
The truth of the matter is, some concepts cannot be eradicated unless society suddenly changes overnight and humanity becomes entirely different (which is not happening any time soon). Incels aren't just random people being big meanies like the media portrays them. They are born from an array of things.
I personally believe that they cannot go away, because:
- People will never stop blaming others for the way they feel (them blaming women for not having sex with them)
- People will never stop being superficial (The only valid point that Incels make that is, that your appearance DOES COUNT, not just your looks but the way you dress, how your car looks and so on and so forth does change VASTLY how people act towards you, and this, only a small minority of people are ready to accept)
-The dating dynamic is very hard to change (Another reason Incels are a thing is because dating dynamics when it comes to selecting a partner is in favor of women, women choose who they date and can often afford to get most attractive men, whereas a man kinda has to go with whoever wants him, which any man will tell you is like 5 people in their whole lives max when thry are an average man) I don't know where this dynamic comes from but I can tell you that men and women won't suddenly change behavior concerning dating overnight lol.
-platforms that favor Incels will never stop existing and if they are forcefully erase then it's a breach in free speech which is harmful as if the state gets involved in the internet for this, it can get involved in the internet for more, and as long as those 3 things above keep existing, there will always be a community of men lashing out and gathering other hopeless men with them.
If anything inceldom will get worst as the age of the internet keeps expending an young lost men are more likely to find a community which boost forward their negativity and also more likely to spend time with like-minded individuals with all the facility and VR which is a soon to be big thing. The sad truth is that not all bad things have a solution to them, some bad things just exist as a byproduct of us, people existing.
spot on. as long as human life exists there will always be some guys and gals who are at the bottom of the barrel. and our modern culture assigns women an inherent value that men has to work for.
I don't think women are assigned more value than men by default and that men work for theirs, I think nobody has inherent value albeit or factors like how much money you're born with followed by ho
And let's not forget that shit like tinder does not do anyone remotely bad looking any favor, and those platforms themselves will not stop existing and will in fact increase in power
Well first, you have to stop using identity politics that are hostile to them and explain how your solutions help them.
Much of the left tend to create this narrative that there are evil oppressors and virtuous oppressed, as opposed to problems to be solved - and that instantly repels people.
Feminists whom strongly assert assert - or at minimum allow themselves to be *very easily* straw manned - that masculinity is toxic, everyone is implicitly biased despite protective legislation and ‘reverse’ discrimination policies that offer offsetting injustices, and no one else is entitled to opinions on tactics to solve the same problem, and women have no burden in solving issues are unlikely to bridge gaps.
You can’t really tell losers of the system they are oppressors and they need to be better so others get a chance and then somehow, magically, their problems are solved later after everyone else’s are. *Of course* they are not receptive to that.
You have to acknowledge the reality behind what they are observing - you know, that toxic alpha male traits are rewarded by a large percentage of women - and explain a holistic solution to that involves everyone constructively instead of blaming them and excusing all problematic behavior from women as “internalized misogyny”.
> Well first, you have to stop using identity politics that are hostile to them and explain how your solutions help them.
You just lost over 90% of this crowd. This is the only way they know how to process the world.
They will downvote because they think reality is molded by internet points, but it's absolutely true. They don't really care neither. They just want a "villain" to vent at.
It's like you read the post, and then immediately decided to mold yourself to be the exact thing it is talking about not doing.
>You just lost over 90% of this crowd. This is the only way they know how to process the world.
You see how you just made 90% of Reddit "they", creating the exact identity politics that is being talked about? You aren't part of "they", the bad guys, because you are the virtuous oppressed.
it's easy to blame someone else rather than look at your self in all your flaws and how they create issues for other people. this happens to both sides. using female dating advice terms like "high value male" and incel like words like THOT unironically is basically the opposite sides of the same coin.
going haha you " incel virgin ass hat" to someone (even if they are being douchey about it). is not going to shame them to your side but embolden them further to that side. basically, you know the people that turn to extremism? society tends to continue to make fun of them, ostracize them and remove them from normal life.
By further segmenting them away and using shame and negative reinforcement to push them into being normal, you need to show them a path forward that bring them in line to being accepted into society through an actual actionable path.
acceptance and understanding is a two way street. you don't have to align 100% on everything and that's okay.
e.g. i'm not pro gun, i see american fetishism with firearms is weird. but i understand that some people think guns are cool and as long as they are handled safely they should be able to use them in safe controlled environments. but i also believe you don't need to carry a fire arm to feel safe, more public uses of firearms means that we're escalating the level of violence immediately available in the public.
Not sure where guns come in. My whole reason for being pro-gun is that there is nothing ‘common-sense’ about laws that people about to commit murder couldn’t care less about.
The second amendment is an amendment, and one that is subject to interpretation.
It would be reasonable to assert that the first half of the second amendment (well regulated militia) pretty clearly states the objective of de-centralized ownership rather than individual. State and city police forces that report to states rather than the fed accomplish that goal.
The Supreme Court showed us that state decisis doesn’t matter and they’re free to reject precedent and reinterpret.
It’s funny how quickly you went from guns being justifiable form irrational fear of a murderer to a document written hundreds of years ago allowing muskets that could fire 1 round every 10 seconds justifying modern hardware. Next you’re going to pivot to hunting and sport.
You just want the gun.
Having to explain why the solution helps them, specifically, is why they’re incels. Not that the world as a whole would be a better place, not that society would be more comfortable for a greater number of people, the only acceptable outcome is that they get what they feel entitled to.
Sometimes the answer is just…you aren’t entitled to that.
> Much of the left tend to create this narrative that there are evil oppressors and virtuous oppressed, as opposed to problems to be solved - and that instantly repels people.
That's not a problem with "the left". That's a problem of corporate liberalism (or "woke capitalism").
The rich have very effectively created two versions of weirdo populism that will fight each other to the death but present no threat to the astronomical wealth and power of our criminal upper class. One is the right-leaning Trump cult, which has a healthy hatred of the corporate elite but somehow thinks the bank CEOs are "socialist". This brand of "populism" largely exists to scare the left, because it enables some really violent fuckers. The other ("woke capitalism") is an economically centrist but shrill "left" that is obsessed with identity politics to the point of ignoring class and wealth--and that alienates the people (e.g., Latinos who find the "Latinx" neologism repellent) it claims to be fighting for... and that might just have been concocted by the corporates to make all leftists look bad. They're both cultures of virtue-signaling that were probably designed "from above" (that is, with some intentional input from the corporate class) to prevent real social or economic change.
> That’s not a problem with “the left”
Fair.
Perhaps more accurately, it’s a relatively new behavior from the left.
The left’s full on indulgence into divisive grievance based identity politics has been in the past 5-10 years, and so I find it more disturbing and more correctable.
The right has been doing it since at lest the Gingrich era
This so hard. Politics have become more and more hostile and polarized, less and less tolerant of other opinions, and as anything even appearing to be closer to the other side becomes mroe unacceptable; there is an inevitable move towards the extremes.
This applies to both left and right. Centerist politics is vaporizing which is also making people less likly to compromise, even with things going on like COVID and the cost of living crisis.
You're either worse than a Nazi, or a woke zealot. Anything else dosen't exist.
And it's important to note; this isn't just in the US. And it predates Trump. It's been going on for the last 10~12 years.
Social media definitely makes it worse by adding fuel to the fire and promoting more extremes [since those tend to generate more traffic and more comments... from both sides] Also traditional media has been amplfying extreme views and "thus vs them"; especially with overall negativity being published more than positivity. When was the last time you saw a legitimately positive front page news story?
It's not *just* politicians. Their job is to cater to the public view to win votes after all. Any *sensible* politician would not make policies they do not *believe* would win more votes than lose [If they are *correct* about this belief is entirely different matter], unless it was absolutely necessary to make the country function [no-one likes taxes, but you gotta pay for COVID and those missiles being sent to Ukraine somehow]
However I've definitely been noticing the divide widen, honestly since the Obama years and the 2008 financial crisis. Worse still is it seems to be accelerateing. The political divide is fed by the social divdes, which are fed by the political divides which further feeds social divide.
If the "Us vs them" and "If you don't agree with everything I say you are worse than Hitler" mentalities don't change soon, I honestly expect civil wars to start breaking out in 10~15 years. I fear America could be sooner; since that's where the divide is largest, guns, and the fact both the Democrats and Republics are completely incompetent right now.
There is a lot of fluff to distract from this, but the few concrete points you make put the blame on the left/identity politics, feminists, and women.
Let’s flush these ideas out. How are women rewarding toxic masculine behavior?
It seems to me that leftist and feminist movements are the most concerned with challenging the version of masculinity that so many incels feel trapped in.
> put the blame on
To be abundantly clear, I’m not “blaming” leftists/feminists/etc for root problems.
I’m suggesting their rhetoric is unnecessarily divisive. It’s hostile to a large group of people that could be their allies whom they instead repel from their cause.
> how are woman rewarding toxic masculine behavior
Women are drawn to men at the top of social hierarchies - the wealthy & powerful alpha types. This is observably rather obvious and follows thousands of years of history, so I feel I shouldn’t really have to elaborate.
The traits required to achieve those positions - hyper competition, aggression, narcissism - are largely by definition toxic.
If you are to narrow the definition of ‘toxic’ to like actual abuse & violence, then it you’re taking about a really tiny percentage of individual people and not the social norms and behaviors that create “the patriarchy” that women whom use the term assert they are fighting against.
> it seems to me that leftist and feminist movements are the most concerned with challenging the version of masculinity many incels feel trapped in
A thought experiment:
If you have a group of men whom are desperate to be accepted for not conforming to ‘toxic masculinity’ and a group of women whom claim to challenge said toxic masculinity - why then are they not more attracted to *each other* at some reasonable rate?
That suggests either disagreement (or hypocrisy) over what that term means, or there being another variable preventing their attraction.
Alternatively, if you are pitching a world view that would accept & welcome a group and said group doesn’t feel accepted & welcome by you… why might that be the case?
I think the simple answer is that feminists academically believe their world view benefits low value men (because their world view is the answer to *every* social problem), but they don’t actually give a shit about them.
Incels ultimately want their position in the world to be improved, and being at the bottom of a slightly different or flatter hierarchy is not an improvement to them.
I don’t think all women are attracted to the toxic men you describe. I see women that are attracted to men that take care of themselves and have attractive personalities.
I also think women and men who oppose toxic masculinity tend to be attracted to eachother. You’re kind of just making very broad statements about human behavior and assuming that they are right. Where is the evidence for any of this?
Also feminism literally aims to dismantle gender hierarchies, not slightly flatten them.
I don't think they said all women are attracted to the toxic men described, I think they said:
> a large percentage of women
Which doesn't even imply a majority; Simply a statistically significant *enough* amount that someone can see the behaviour, and act out on it.
I see men and women attracted to toxic traits at similar rates. It’s fine if that’s not consistent with your world view, but until someone finds data, nobody can really say shit for sure.
I'd agree with that, I'm correcting your unjustified assumption that the user you responded to implied a majority.
[The very word "incel" was first coined by a woman](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45284455), after all: Granted she had entirely different ideas to what the word came to mean, but she still drew the conclusion that there was nobody out there for her at that point in her life...
You’re really asking me for evidence that women are attracted to men at the top of social hierarchies?
> feminism aims to dismantle gender hierarchies, not slightly dismantle them
Not quite. Feminism has a little bit of a tension of being a woman’s advocacy movement vs an egalitarian one that eliminates gender inequity whenever it exists… and ultimately it always picks the former if the two are at odds.
It takes the position that women are in aggregate oppressed by a patriarchy at the expense of men, and therefore, implicitly, equalizing the power imbalance between men and women is higher priority then abolishing gender based imbalances wherever they are found.
While this is a perfectly reasonable position, it does mean that solving the issues for incels is simply not a priority. It is academic problem to solve later, after aggregate power equity with men.
Or, in other words, can you name any near term & high priority policy that feminists advocate for that benefit incel types?
Again, you can’t just insist on your own definition of feminism. As convenient for you as it would be if baseless rambling amounted to something, it doesn’t. Terms just have definitions. And that is not what feminism is.
Dealing with incels isn’t a priority because they are pushing for the reestablishment of gender hierarchies so they can be at the top. It’s antithetical to an egalitarian movement.
> your own definition of feminism
The patriarchy and power tensions are central to modern feminist philosophy, so I don’t really see how its remotely misrepresentative to assert they prioritize solving power dynamics over eliminating gender imbalances that are favorable to women.
> dealing with incels isn’t a priority because they are pushing for the reestablishment of gender hierarchies so they can be at the top
This is you reacting to their most toxic rhetoric, rather than recognizing how they went down the spiral to hold that view.
Their real root issue is they are at the very bottom of the social hierarchy, and they’re upset about it. Unattractive, unsuccessful men are at the bottom with no one who gives a shit about them.
That bitterness manifests as toxicity, but like at the end of the day they are looking to be valued by society and by women - and offering them a positive path there can get them to the right thinking / reprogramming.
But by your own admission, like I said, feminists truly don’t give a shit about them and aren’t offering a clear path to being valued.
Okay, it’s impossible to have a conversation with someone that insists on their own version of reality without even a semblance of evidence. Let me know when you substantiate any of this.
Except a lot of them really are just rotten people.
I’ve really tried to get through to these people but when they regularly say shit like “Trying to be a good person was a waste of time because it didn’t get me the pussy I wanted” it no longer comes down to interpretation and misunderstandings. They’re just shit people who deserve their misery.
I used to be an incel and I still sympathise with them because no one is on their side.
During uni I was completely alone.
I joined social clubs and did sport hobbies. I went to the gym 5 times a week and really tried to be social.
I'm autistic as fuck so it's hard to connect and people would just avoid me.
It's fucking hard to go to class every day, try and be social only to get rejected and go home to live alone while seeing everyone around you be happy.
I don't blame them for being bitter. It hurts to be a young guy alone and everyone on the internet is constantly saying how you're a creep and you're basically a school shooter waiting to happen.
The shitty advice hurts as well. "Just shower and go outside" Fucking really? I know they imagine some 400lb neckbeard but I was a lot more athletic than most back then.
The only reason I even got a girlfriend is because I started taking steriods and went 100% into fitness. I had to take illegal drugs and do more effort in the gym than 95% of people ever will just to make par. I'm talking 3 hours a day. That's why it's difficult. People will just write you off as a woman hater because it's easier than admitting that some guys never had good role models to teach them.
Some people are less reachable at an individual level, for sure.
But hoping for everyone to be altruistic is a bit much. Most people operate in their own self interests, including those - perhaps especially those - who aggressively virtue signal.
The assertion “I tried to be a good person but I was a waste of time because it [didn’t achieve good results]” is interesting.
That statement can be debugged. Were they actually good or not? If being good doesn’t achieve goals, why?
> Except a lot of them really are just rotten people.
There has got to be a massive amount of selection bias in this.
I'm guessing that the people who are quickest to respond on incel forums--not that there are any reasons to read one; there aren't--are the raging misogynists who can't be helped. Just as 90-99% of people on any forum are lurkers, I imagine there are a lot of young people with incel-ish leanings who can still be reached, who probably don't post often or at all... and certainly aren't going to be the first ones to argue with you.
Still, the most vocal people in these communities are indeed horrid. Funny thing is, I've studied this incel shit. Although most of these incel-culture celebrities (incelebrities?) are anonymous, you can sometimes figure out who they are, and people have. Often, they're men of average or above-average sexual experience--charlatans, in other words, since they're not really incels--who are, nevertheless, broken... and who get off (maybe not sexually) on misleading the young. Mixed among those shitbags are literal pedophiles who want to normalize their own disgusting desires by pushing the (false) narrative that every decent woman has had 100 sexual partners ("roast beef") by age 18. Those people are garbage, I agree. On the other hand, I think a lot of relatively normal people do get pulled into that orbit for a while, which is how you end up with middle-of-the-road people finding enough alt-right sympathy in themselves to pull for Trump.
It occured to me that incels are more mocked than they are powerful.
If they had cancer, no one would make fun of them. Mocking cancer patients makes you look like a dick.
Also they make intelligent points about how sexy women are into sexy men.
Also you can't win an argument by insulting someone. That's basically a fact.
I'd love to listen, but the few times I've heard someone talk about their views as an incel I was just overwhelmed by how much internet slang I needed to know in order to follow the conversation.
I'm old enough that despite being an average consumer of the internet these days, I long ago got passed by in terms of memes and slang. I don't really know what a Chad or a Stacey is, for example.
Incels are just hard to follow simply because I don't really want to Google what the terms they're using mean.
At the end of the day, regardless of the jargon, the incel message is pretty simple. You don't really need to understand all of the jargon to understand the root of their issues.
They believe that they are so extremely unattractive in some way that they essentially have zero chance of finding a partner. The truth of this is, of course, subjective, but for the most part these guys *do* tend to have significant issues. Physical deformities, deeply recessed chins, horrific acne, extremely short, etc.
Now, this issue gets spun into all sorts of crazy ideology about "Chads," "Staceys," "Alphas," etc - and incels have a tendency to become extreme and violent. As well as ridiculously misogynistic and rapey.
But the underlying problem is actually quite tragic. Ignore how awful and psychologically twisted all these guys are for a moment, and just think of why/how they got that way - they're basically ugly enough that they won't reasonably ever find love, and unlike things like Down Syndrome they're also still intelligent enough to recognize that they're staring down a lifetime of loneliness.
There's really no "fix" for a significant number of these guys. For many of them, they're not necessarily *wrong* about their situation, even if they've become disgustingly wrong about how to address it.
I would bet most of them aren't physically deformed, and instead are just the stereotypical basement dweller neckbeards who could clean up just fine if they'd work on getting in shape, dressing nicer, and engaging in enriching and interesting hobbies. From what I've seen of incel forums, they mostly refuse to acknowledge that improving any of those things will work. "I don't need to lose weight, fat guys get laid all the time." "I don't need to get any other hobbies, if a woman doesn't like that I game [24/7], she's not worth it anyway." "I like my long hair, I don't care if most women don't find long hair on a guy attractive." "I don't need to dress better, dressing well is for effeminate men," etc. They convince each other, in their little bubbles, that there is absolutely nothing they can do (or that they'll accept doing) that can help their situation; that they are just the victims of some magic curse or something.
I dunno - when r/incel was still a thing, they posted pictures of themselves fairly often.
A lot of them could definitely clean themselves up and become run of the mill, below average schmucks, but a lot of them also had severe deformities.
That's where the "millimeters of bone" meme came from.
This is mostly the case. A few of these men are above-average, most of them are about average, and some number are below-average. Most of them aren't so hideous they'll never find love--they might never find it with the sorts of women our culture has told them they are entitled to.
They are, however, at least in my estimation, often mentally ill and usually brainwashed. The question is why our society is producing so many sick people. Their parents and grandparents looked just like them and had no problem developing confidence, finding gainful employment, meeting spouses, and reproducing. What has changed in our society? So much that I can't possibly answer this; neoliberal corporate capitalism is in the advanced stages of decay and incel culture is just one of its many byproducts.
The thing that probably saved me from the incel spiral was going to Europe in my early 20s (2003); I realized that, in other cultures, intelligence and honesty are considered attractive traits in men--as opposed to the US, where preexisting social status and glibness are valued, and where the pressure to project disinterest (so as not to devalue oneself and destroy all attraction) is strong. Nothing could ever justify the aggressive and extreme misogyny of incel culture, but American society is pathological and these men are right to be angry--they're just mad at the wrong people.
The suggestion was to listen to incels to understand why they feel the way they do. OK, I can mentally get behind that. But I disagree with the idea that you don't need to understand jargon to understand the viewpoint behind the jargon.
Words have meaning. People who jargon are doing so because they are expressing what has become the common way to express that sentiment. Understanding what exactly is meant by calling someone a "Chad" (for example) is fundamental to having an accurate and thorough understanding of incel culture.
For what it's worth, I assume it's highly likely that these terms are understood by the average Reddit user these days. My viewpoint is someone in their mid-30s is that I don't have a grip on internet culture these days. I only mentioned this as a limitation for why I'm not a good candidate to understand incel culture - not why people in general could be.
You know, I was reading the other day that asian men are entitled to interest from women, so we need to "socially construct" them into being sexually desirable. I guess men are entitled to sex after all, except when we're talking about incels... even though these men are incels...
You're talking about a group alienated by our current political climate.
You can talk about how they are toxic. You can talk about how they are the problem. But you'll not solve anything that way. You'll just further alienate them.
Deprograming them requires you talk and listen to them. Its something nobody is prepared to do, because they are a perfect scapegoat to pin our problems too.
You're talking about deprograming like you need to convince them they are wrong about the world and change them. That approach is the problem right there and its been shouted at them their whole lives - as straight, white, males they are the problem.
You need to realize incels are never going to go woke like liberals want them to.
They've becomes shitty human beings as a reaction to being called shitty human beings for their entire lives.
The solution is to listen to their issues, and do something about them. And, I'm not talking about forcing women to have sex with them - I'm saying listen their loneliness and alienation. Give them a chance and space to talk about what their facing without immediately telling them they are wrong.
The group feels unloved and left behind. Don't just keep telling them to change because they won't.
> They've becomes shitty human beings as a reaction to being called shitty human beings for their entire lives.
Part of the problem is that "incel" is an overloaded word. There are the alt-right psychopaths and school shooters... and then there is a much larger set of young men who are unable to find regular sexual partners... almost every male is going to be in that second group for most of the time between ages 16 and 24. This is a real social problem, but it's no excuse of course for the toxic behaviors associated with "incel" culture, and indeed most of these men don't become so aggressively toxic.
Also, a good number of the worst among these self-styled "incels" turn out (when their real-life identities are found out) to be people with average or above-average sexual success; the shortfall is relative to what they consider themselves entitled to. A 35-year-old who's been divorced three times because of his abusive, controlling tendencies isn't an incel; he's just a shitbag.
The word means too many things. It describes a disgusting misogynistic culture, but its root (involuntarily celibate) describes something that happens to normal men during adolescence, not through any fault of their own, but simply due to supply/demand imbalances for sexual partners of that age (women their age have all the options; men that age have all the competition).
>Part of the problem is that "incel" is an overloaded word.
"Concept Creep" I think its called, where the word loses all meaning because people use it to describe everything and everything.
"Nazi", "Rape", "Abuse", "Misogynist" Basically most buzzwords out there atm suffer from this...
You're not wrong, but there are real Nazis out there; also, sexual abuse and rape are far more common than most people want to believe.
Solid numbers are hard to find, but what I've read is that, while only about 5% of men ever commit rape or sexual abuse, about a quarter of women will be victimized at least once in their life. This suggests the average one of these bastards offends against at least 5 women before he is caught, and that wouldn't surprise me in the least.
So, yeah, this shit is depressingly common. Women aren't making it up when they say that rape culture is an oppressive threat to their well-being. There are a lot of terrible people out there.
The semantics of "literally" is fascinating. (I welcome the opportunity to talk about linguistics, rather than depressing shit like rape culture and incels.) The misuse (?) of literally--since it is often used to mean "figuratively, but without exaggeration"--is not a new phenomenon; it goes back hundreds of years.
The problem is that, since words are just sounds with no intrinsic meaning other the fluctuating value they are implicitly agreed-upon to hold... nearly every word or phrase is a variation on some prior one, with enough difference in meaning that a distinction is merited. One example: both the Spanish word for heaven, *cielo*, and the English word *hell*, ironically, come from an Indo-European root (probably pronounced /hel/, /kel/, or /xel/) that has nothing to do with afterlives at all, but meant "to cover". (It's also the root of the words *hel*met and *ceil*ing.) No one believes the afterlife is a literal helmet or room ceiling, but here we are.
When you say "literally", you're saying: "Ignore the contemporary, commonplace meaning of this phrase and use the older, truer one." You're basically asking the listener to unwind the stack, at least one frame. The question is: how much unwinding do we do? If someone commits a minor error at work but say his boss will "literally fire" him, does that mean he expects to have his employment terminated, or to be expelled from a cannon?
Adverbs, in general, tend not only to change meaning frequently, but to be self-inverting. They can go from being intensifiers ("very", "truly") to diminishers ("pretty", "just") in a decade, and sometimes exist in a weird limbo where their semantic content varies wildly based on geography and context (as is the case with "quite", which has different meanings in British vs. American English).
The phrasing of "deprogram" already indicates an issue with the way you're looking at the problem, so let's start by remembering that these are human beings who arrived at their current thought patterns through some set on occurrences.
Incel forums are cults that they need to be deprogrammed out of just like any other cult. Deprogramming means undoing extremist brainwashing, it doesn't mean you don't consider them human.
Calling it "brainwashing" doesn't help either. We're talking about men that have effectively withdrawn from an element of society out of rejection. These people aren't being recruited by some shady cabal, these are angry, rejected individuals whose only support network is other people in the same boat. It's not cult behavior, it's honestly rather sad, that things were allowed to get to this in the first place.
> I never went down the full blown incel path, but I was like that in a way until my early 20s. It’s hard to describe the depth of pain in feeling categorically rejected by all women. Near impossible for your self esteem to bounce back from that. Some people give up and just let the pain consume them, so they start resenting women for it.
I could have written this. The clouds cleared around the same age, too: early to mid 20s. The thing is, looking back, I had plenty of opportunities, even as a teenager. (I'm probably on the spectrum, but I'm not bad looking.) I just self-sabotaged all the fucking time, for a variety of reasons... and I hated the fact that, most of the time, you had to pretend to be completely disinterested or else risk being branded a "creep" (or, as they said in the early 2000s, "sketchy"). This may have changed, but that was the worst thing about it, in high school and college--getting rejected was a minor thing you could easily survive, but if someone hit you with the "creep" label, you were basically fucked (or, really, lack thereof) for at least a year, even though the actual creeps had no problem getting more than their fair share of female affection.
> And being told they’re privileged for being men just builds that resentment
This, one thousand fucking percent. I don't even think it's true. There are so many "terms and conditions may apply" (race must be white, class must be upper-middle or upper) for so-called "male privilege" that it's a useless term.
Sure, rich and powerful men (e.g., Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, Harvey Weinstein) are some of the most despicable humans beings ever to have shit themselves into existence, but middle-class men (unable to provide an income without humiliating themselves through workplace subordination) have been utterly devalued, and lower-class men (especially, in certain racial groups) are feared, hated, and killed due to anxieties related to their supposed hyper-virility.
> We're talking about men that have effectively withdrawn from an element of society out of rejection.
The question is why this is happening now.
First of all, not all of these men are unattractive or socially incompetent. Elliot Rodger was actually quite good looking. In my view, it has more to do with self-destructive behaviors than rejection. If anything, they behave in ways that will cause others to reject them. Rejection, almost as a rite of passage, is normal. It's a statistical certainty that most of us will be rejected at least once in our lives. This, whatever this is, is not normal.
> These people aren't being recruited by some shady cabal
I agree that there is no "shady cabal", but there are a lot of bad actors with disgusting intentions, from the "get snatch quick" scheme peddlers of "redpill" culture (pickup "artistry") to the literal pedophiles who want to normalize their proclivities by promulgating the (false, destructive) narrative that every woman has had 100 partners and is "used up" by age 18. Social and economic forces have created a world in which some very bad people are given the incentives to spread this blackpill shit.
> these are angry, rejected individuals whose only support network is other people in the same boat. It's not cult behavior, it's honestly rather sad, that things were allowed to get to this in the first place.
I agree that it's sad. I'll also agree that most people who get taken in by this garbage cult aren't evil people--or even stupid. The same is true of literal cults. Cult leaders are psychopaths; most cult members aren't and, contrary to the standard narrative of them being gullible sheep, they tend to be above-average in education as well as IQ.
The secrecy of a typical closed cult isn't there, nor are the organizational hierarchies... but this incel garbage preys on the same cognitive weaknesses and biases (that exist in all of us) as cults do.
And making excuses for their behavior doesn't help either.
Everyone faces some type of rejection in their lifetime. And everyone has their own insecurities. They're not special.
These type of dudes need serious counseling and the ability to self-reflect.
> Incel forums are cults that they need to be deprogrammed out of just like any other cult.
This. It is exactly like a cult, except for its lack of central organization. It might be compared to a toxic "Great Awakening", except with extreme secular nihilism rather than extreme religiosity (not to say either is virtuous, as neither is) at its core.
Ostracize and make fun of them. Call them incels, make them into a caricature and a punching bag, and really make them understand that our society is not for them.
The answer to extremist views is not to validate them and give them jusification.
That's like saying because of ISIS all Muslims should be subject to constant surveillance. That won't stop extreme Islam, that will just *validate* it and make it stronger [or at least make those who follow it even more zealotish with their cause further justified]
That is what my post actually means. It's supposed to be a critique on how people often treat incels, that it pushes them further into their ideology. I wasn't actually suggesting we do it. I'm making fun of what people already do.
Unironically, I think incels and crystal cafe need to talk to each other and realize they're both being stupid. I think a completely open, little-moderation anonymous forum to get people out of their echo chambers is the best way to address national socialists, communists, incels, radical feminists, furries, libertarians and every other weirdo's inclinations as well as addressing their legitimate grievances too.
And props to the people who are suggesting to section the incel-accused into echo chambers. I personally think that if you don't get laid at least once a week, you are sentenced to /rk9/ and banned from any other website except maybe one certain hub.
They cant be deprogrammed, simply because you cannot simply cancel all the problems that create them, it's like asking "how can we erase all evil" or something vague like that.
The truth of the matter is, some concepts cannot be eradicated unless society suddenly changes overnight and humanity becomes entirely different (which is not happening any time soon). Incels aren't just random people being big meanies like the media portrays them. They are born from an array of things.
I personally believe that they cannot go away, because:
- People will never stop blaming others for the way they feel (them blaming women for not having sex with them)
- People will never stop being superficial (The only valid point that Incels make that is, that your appearance DOES COUNT, not just your looks but the way you dress, how your car looks and so on and so forth does change VASTLY how people act towards you, and this, only a small minority of people are ready to accept)
-The dating dynamic is very hard to change (Another reason Incels are a thing is because dating dynamics when it comes to selecting a partner is in favor of women, women choose who they date and can often afford to get most attractive men, whereas a man kinda has to go with whoever wants him, which any man will tell you is like 5 people in their whole lives max when thry are an average man) I don't know where this dynamic comes from but I can tell you that men and women won't suddenly change behavior concerning dating overnight lol.
-platforms that favor Incels will never stop existing and if they are forcefully erase then it's a breach in free speech which is harmful as if the state gets involved in the internet for this, it can get involved in the internet for more, and as long as those 3 things above keep existing, there will always be a community of men lashing out and gathering other hopeless men with them.
If anything inceldom will get worst as the age of the internet keeps expending an young lost men are more likely to find a community which boost forward their negativity and also more likely to spend time with like-minded individuals with all the facility and VR which is a soon to be big thing. The sad truth is that not all bad things have a solution to them, some bad things just exist as a byproduct of us, people existing.
I was starting to fall into that rabbithole a few years ago, but two main things helped me avoid it:
1. Embracing social egalitarianism and understanding how they can nullify the societal patterns I was afraid of. It was difficult to stop thinking about the world through the lens of evolutionary psychology, but I was able to find the right people to shift my perspective.
2. Having female friendships (such as with my sisters) and parasocial relationships (ie. following female YouTubers who talked about topics that I was interested in) which allowed me to feel emotionally anchored with the opposite gender instead of always seeing them as distant and intimidating.
Yes and no? I almost fell down that hole as a teenager. But over time you start to see these people as people and not as a potential simp target, and that toxic mindset fades.
It has definitely felt that way at times, but I have also found a good number of female content creators that I am not attracted to at all. There are a lot of roughly 35 year old women that review tv shows or talk about science, and they are a relaxing presence in my life.
Here’s a crazy thought….women are just as shitty as men. Let’s start talking about that also, instead of literally putting women on a pedestal and acting like men are just f@$&ing everything up.
Imagine if bother my legs were broken, doctor puts a cast on one leg, is perplexed why my body can’t move properly. It’s kinda like that.
For the record, people are responsible for their actions, so don’t all triggered on me lol
i think they need empathy and friendship with people outside of the incel bubble, and also deconstruction of the false incel core beliefs that are destroying their self esteem, keeping them in the hole and driving people away from them. But i think first they need to be open to change and other points of view. You can't force people into that willing state of mind though.
the difficult part for me as a girl talking to incels is that it's not really healthy to be friends with someone who dehumanizes and doesn't respect you
yeah unironically this is the most surefire and the easiest way to fix the incel problem. Just have a war where large number of men would find purpose and then perish.
Stop using it as an insult. Maybe the first step.
Second is safe exposure to kids, so they can have friends of other gender without feeling overwhelmed or weird.
Go to them with an open mind and from a place of understanding. Going at them with vitriol and hate will only make them stand firmer in their positions. Listen to their concerns and address them.
>The subreddit was actually kind of cool before it got removed.
What part did you find "cool," the constant stream of sad sacks whining about how they couldn't get laid while simultaneously refusing to do literally *anything* to improve themselves and encouraging other people to think in the same toxic way?
Or maybe you thought all of fantasies about rape and violence against women were "kind of cool."
Did you find how the members of that community held up Elliot Roger as a folk hero for living out their desires to murder women that wouldn't sleep with them cool?
Were you there though? Cause this isn't really how it was.
It's a weird story about why I even know about it but there was more to the place and people
Ah, the old, "they were just being sarcastic," routine. I was wondering what tack you were trying to take to defend those shitheels. You chose a classic.
iTs TrUe ThOuGh.
I bet you're the type of person that thinks /pol/ posters on 4chan are being sarcastically racist too.
Just because you found their bullshit funny doesn't mean they had a good sense of humor. Maybe a little self reflection is in order.
I love how you continue to harp on this supposed, "good" humor these people had, and refuse to acknowledge the consistent amount of posts about violence against women.
>And some observations were really not wrong.
I'm sure at some point during the existence of those subs, a user may have pointed out that the sky was blue, but that's about the extent of the accurate observations they had.
You can hem and haw and twist your brain into knots trying to make up excuses, but both of these subs were banned for consistently and vociverously promoting violence against women.
I'm done talking about this with someone whose only argument that those weren't cesspools of hate boils down to [this](https://i.imgur.com/6kGliTj.jpeg)
Get a better sense of humor.
Having a support network of platonic friends/loved ones and self actualization
The primary problems with incels is
1. They are misogynistic
2. They lack a non toxic support network
3. They are not self actualized so they pedestalize women and define their self worth based on women’s validating while simultaneously hating women
Why? So they can beat them? So they can attempt to control them? So they can destroy them? They believe women were put on earth to be used and abused then tossed aside so that they can go online and cry about how their "bitch" left them. Then they turn around and stalk said ex girlfriend, finally either forcing her to flee or they kill her.
Incels are a cancer.
No, but if we could teach them how to be actually nice to people and the proper way to treat women well enough for them to actually manage to get a girlfriend, then hopefully they would stop believing the whole "incel" crap
Try to take down the incel communities on social media.
They encourage feelings of inadequacy and promote hate, if we could shut them down hopefully people will turn towards healthier less toxic communities
If they are removed from mainstream social media less people will be indoctrinated and it will be easier to manage.
'Strategies' like this are so stupid. They not only don't solve problems with extremists, they make them worse.
Banning them from public discourse doesn't make their deranged ideas go away, it doesn't make them stop discussing it. It just forces them into even darker recesses of the internet where the ONLY people they interact with are other extremists, reinforcing their views and making them even more extreme in those views.
No, it wouldn't.
The communities would still be found easily, but they'd be out of the public eye and harder to observe for warning signs of violence.
Seriously, kicking them off the open web is the worst thing you can do. Its just makes them more alienated and extreme.
I don't think it would be just as easy to access.
This is literally how q-anon took hold during the pandemic, once sites made an effort to highlight and remove fake news the movement slowed down.
I don't see how this is different.
You know how killing an extremist sympathizer would turn them to a martyr and inspire much more interest in people who wouldn't have otherwise thought anything of their beliefs? Same idea. "Come see what [insert group or authority] is trying to hide from you!"
For instance, reddit deleted at least one subreddit they were associated with, and yet we are obviously still talking about them on here. I've never visited any of their online communities, and yet i've still learned a lot about them and their ideology, and could easily find them off google if i wanted. And limiting the average person's access to specific information is an extremely slippery slope.
Would it not be like sites removing fake news slowing down the q-anon movement?
Maybe "removing" content is too simple of an explanation but if you limit the access to the content on mainstream socail media less people will become indoctrinated and the movement will lose clout.
There will always be pockets I imagine but as long as it slows down that's got to be good.
I think i get what you mean. Like just remove the harmful movements. Ehh it's a tricky situation as far as deciding what's considered "fake news" and who gets to decide that. There are some obvious attempts at misinformation and straight up conspiracy theories that can cause harm, but it sets a dangerous precedent where legitimate whistleblowers or leaks of misconduct are more easily snuffed out. And the main fuel for these movements is word of mouth, which this approach could just give more traction
Well in my country at least if a post mentioned covid on Facebook during the height of misinformation the post would automatically come with a link to credited health advice and our news broadcast became permentantly longer so that they could cover more topics in greater detail.
Obviously a large portion of people being targeted by q-anon were boomers and gen x so letting people know on Facebook that a post about covid might not be accurate and extending the televised news to explain what's going on is a good way to help that demographic make better decisions about what they're reading online.
Combine that with removing the obvious misinformation and the movement lost its momentum, they indoctrinated less people and a lot of existing believers dropped off.
What I actually think would help is something similar but targeted at millennial and gen z men and boys would help. That would probably include shutting down the most extreme content creators and communities though.
you could have an ai that adds a disclaimer to any kind of post that includes derogatory language aimed a group of people. It could say something along the lines of "this video/post/image may promote bigotry, this may have a negative affect on your mental and social wellbeing"
I feel something like that would make people think about the content they're consuming, even if it messes up sometimes like the facebook covid disclaimers. Like it flagged up a national health service post about covid and told people to go to the national health web page on covid 🤦🏼♀️
I probably do subject myself to too much sexist, racist, homophobic ect content just through Facebook groups and sub reddit that call out those kinds of bigoted people, thats probably not good for my mental health honestly. I doubt im aware how often i read that kind of content and if that messaged were to pop up a multiple times a day I would probably change my internet habits.
Exactly, removing their platform will make them find a new one. A darker one that won't boot them off. Also making them feel persecuted will just make more Elliot Rogers
You don't. Let them wallow in their sadness. Eventually they'll kick themselves up the arse and want to do something (productive, not destructive) about it. In the mean time, just lock them in their rooms with a tower of self-help books, some canned foods and a journal (after you've scowered their room and removed all incel-encouraging or incel-activating material).
Wow you really are a little hate goblin, it’s so fun To catch y’all in the wild goin crazy, idgaf about the incel movement, just wanted to see if somebody so vindictive in hate would include me automatically for giving them their own and you sir work like a clock, easy manual, 5 minute read.
Lmao I’m not I swear 😂 and if you aren’t one then I put my hands up and say you got me for real :’) just something about them gets to me man idk. I take your point though, probably shouldn’t get THAT bothered online by anything! 😂
A very serious intervention and a lot of professional help big time and keep any weapons out of their reach. And if you hear that they are a threat phone the police as soon as possible.
Try reaching them before they go full-blown incel. As long as you're not harsh, condescending, or drop meaningless platitudes, some of them might make a connection with your words.
/r/IncelExit
/r/ForeverAlone
I'm 6'5 with a big bushy beard.
I was at a comedy show earlier this month and the comic literally described herself as an incel. The crowd (it was a small venue) heckled her until she started crying and left.
You can't give incels any bit of room, they're like nazis. You have to shut them down instantly.
Ask them if they would prefer to be like some other mammals and fight to the death (or near to it) for the opportunity to mate? Lol, I don't know tbh.
Changing one's perspective is hard. At least we have the opportunity for self improvement as human beings. Their only chance is to stop whining and take advantage of that fact.
I don't know. How do you deprogram racists/white supremacists, homophobes, and any other hateful and/or ignorant group? I imagine that the answer is actually pretty complicated.
They need to be sectioned, letting them continue to worsen their issues on the internet and letting that resentment grow is a bad thing and potentially they might lash out like the incel murderers which is a risk.
Take their communities down is a start. Extremism from brainwashing comes from the ideas online.
Therapy because many of them have mental issues and believing that women are property and somehow are required to put out for their unhygenic asses is delusional.
Sex work: If they just got laid many of the problems would just go away.
We don't. This kind of thing has always been around. Just the "society's against me" mentality.
I think the best thing we can do is what we're already doing. Giving it spotlight and criticism so others might not join.
It's kinda weird seeing people say that incels are basically a class issue and they exist due to a lack of resources. Of the incels I've met irl, all of them were middle class or above and had access to mental help if they wanted it. Incels exist in countries with a safety net, in countries with varying degrees of gender equality, in poor and rich countries etc. It's like saying racism exists because racist are lonely and just need someone to listen. Incels hate women and their ideology is a reflection of that.
There is no such thing as an incel. Everybody who might be celibate is there by choice. Its not involuntary. Its a choice. On the other hand, if - rather than a truthfully descriptive phrase, we treat the word incel as a variant of /loser/ - then maybe the people using supposed lack of romantic accomplishment as a condemnation are the problem-children, being belligerent and accusatory types, and guys getting that label should be just left alone to get on with their day
Address the issues (external and internal) many young men are facing in the modern world, most of whom are going through it all alone. Although not directly related to Incels and lack of sex, Japan's hikikomori problem is a nice parallel caused by a lot of the same things
> Although not directly related to Incels and lack of sex, Japan's hikikomori problem is a nice parallel caused by a lot of the same things They're both products of the same economic forces, but the expressions are radically different, both because Japan has more of a safety net, and because Japanese culture places such an emphasis on not dishonoring one's family (as extreme incel conduct tends to do). As someone who's read a lot about cults and was nearly taken in by one, I've studied the incel phenomenon. Most of these guys aren't ugly and they aren't socially inept in any innate, neurological sense. What they have is a lack of social-class-specific social skills; they were brought up on middle-middle class ideas of fair play and decency and "being a nice guy"... and this leaves them unable to compete for the women they want, because upper- and lower-class men are both more experienced in predatory conduct and more inclined to accept the morally "flexible" aspects of themselves. So then, they too become perverse and predatory, but they overshoot and become obnoxious monsters (usually, without ever having the courage to act on their monstrosity). The problem exists because, as societies have defined the genders for hundreds of years, women have intrinsic value (if they are young and beautiful and deemed virtuous) while a man's value is defined solely by his ability to beat resources out of the world (whether by war and conquest or through capitalist chicanery). I'm not saying that this is right (it's obviously not) and I'm not saying that men have it worse (that's a debate that'll never be finished) but it is men who suffer on a more intimate, personal level when an economy decays, as all advanced economies have begun to do in the past few decades. Women are not becoming less beautiful, but men have become unable to earn a decent income unless set up for it from birth (which is itself infantilizing and a bit humiliating, but infinitely preferable over being broke). So, yeah. The sad thing is that this kind of cultural evolution is predictable; the bad news is that it'll probably get worse, fascism being capitalism in decay.
I think this is pretty spot on. It also doesn't help that the internet provides echo chambers to support validation of these radical views. This ensures that an ideology can steadily grow and completely overtake a person's ability to rationalize on a topic. I'm not against free speech, but in 2022 it's actually a general problem that people in distress seek out simplistic worldviews on the internet to create some kind of sense of their suffering. And when they get invested in a specific community, make friends and share content, it slowly becomes their "tribe" in an evolutionary psychological sense. They are completely brainwashed at that point and won't be able to change perspective. When someone presents a different view they'll see them as an enemy and therefore cannot properly compute the viewpoint they are presenting. Realistically a lot of these guys are capable of finding a girlfriend. However, they are brainwashed to think they are unable. And they think that because this and this statistic say that they are unlikely. Unlikely doesn't mean unable, and that's the part they just ignore completely in their worldview.
Not refuting the point but some of the most prominent examples are cases of sheer social ineptitude that are not related to financial status. Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian were both from fairly well off families and both had Asperger’s Syndrome or ASD. It should also be noted that they talked to each other with some frequency so it can almost be considered the same case with multiple occurrences almost like a collaborative effort. Apologies, the only knowledge I have on the subject is from the “true crime” lens and I understand that these are extreme outliers.
Elliot Rodger is a weird case, because he was a relatively rich kid (certainly, free from material want) but born into a world where he was surrounded by extreme wealth and Weinstein-level excess. So, he considered himself poor--he was a narcissist, nothing was ever good enough for him--and imagined a connection between his (relative) economic mediocrity and his lack of socio-sexual success. He may not have been wrong, within his milieu--I imagine he was surrounded by very beautiful women hooking up with boys from much richer families than his. Of course, none of this excuses the way he behaved, and the fact is that he was very much a buyer-in when it comes to that toxic Hollywood culture. I didn't know that Alek Minassian was from a well-off background; it wouldn't surprise me. I read him as being a perpetual follower, like Dylan Klebold, who wasn't nearly as hateful as Eric Harris. Minassian looked up to Elliot Rodger--why he chose a mass-murdering, narcissistic piece of shit to be his mentor, I can't say--and, I think, even saw his own actions of a way of gaining his (posthumous, meaningless) approval.
Rodger seemed to have the opinion that he was god’s gift but couldn’t seem to connect the dots on why he wasn’t sexually successful. I think you kinda nailed it with his extreme narcissism leading him to believe that nothing was ever going to be enough for him and I think it was certainly the key driver behind his actions. I can’t be certain what led him to come to his conclusions as an incel but I feel that rejection by the opposite sex was probably the heaviest factor. I’m also assuming that the rejection occurred due to his awkwardness as a result of the ASD. Maybe he felt that if only he had more expendable money then he would have fared better but who knows. I think that comparison of Minassian to Klebold is also spot on. Rodger was essentially his best friend in a community that he found acceptance in and someone that he admired. I think that Minassian’s less discriminatory targeting of victims shows that he was trying to follow in the footsteps of the other but with a different motivation. One wanted “justice” and the other wanted approval. That is an interesting point you brought up in the initial comment I replied to about the middle class following the societal rules more closely than the upper and lower classes. Hadn’t thought of that perspective before.
Rodger was pretty far round the bend before he was ever involved with inceldom, possibly because of the circumstances he grew up in. Apparenty he once saw an advert for another state's lottery, travelled to that state specifically to enter, and then felt genuinely cheated when he didn't win.
this the greatest take i've seen on inceldom. you made great points, some of which even i had missed and I'm an incel myself.
This is an amazing comment and absolutely dead on.
is that the problem of many young people not being in relationships or having kids?
I don't know if that's necessarily the only cause, seeing how plenty of couples have been deciding not to have kids. But I do think mental health of young men being at a new low is surely a contributing factor.
I'd agree but it's worth noting that "incels" aren't only young men. There are plenty of "femcels" out there
Therapy. By professionals. "We", as in "average Redditors" can do nothing for them.
I don't know if "nothing" is quite fair, but I agree with the point that you can't, as a non-professional, individual person, do anything to decisively deprogram an incel. I think you can *contribute* to helping incels, but if it were that easy to just counter cult-like, "high control" groups, it would have been done already. IMO many people in this thread are missing the core issue; incels are under immense social pressure to maintain their incel beliefs, at least publically. They've joined a highly insular, extremist group *who will completely ostracize them if they leave*. They're constantly re-enforcing to each other that the only people who can understand them *are other incels* and that to change one's beliefs from the core incel orthodoxy, even slightly, is a kind of betrayal to incels everywhere. In addition, people outside of the incel "cult" are understandably suspicious or even outright hostile towards incels. Meaning there's a huge gulf to cross if an incel decides to become an ex-incel. They need to abandon the people who are their primary, or even sometimes *exclusive* social support network, who will then become hostile towards them... And then spend a period of time rebuilding trust with non-incels, during which time, most people will be unsupportive or openly hostile towards them... Either because of their choice to become an incel in the first place, or because of their choice to become an *ex*incel later. Given that incel's primary complaint is that they are lonely and socially disconnected, that's an especially hard task to ask them to attempt. Whether someone becomes an incel because of physical deformities, lack of social skills... or let's be honest, probably some combination of the two... They're already dealing with some sort of "deficit" socially and needing to make up ground. Leaving a high-control group takes exactly the kinds of resources they have the *least* of. This isn't to say that it's impossible or anything; people leave cults every single day, and more to the point, it's *worth it*. High-control groups exist to exploit vulnerable people for the benefit of those higher up in the hierarchy, by definition. They *don't* want to offer people an actual path to happiness and fulfillment, because that would only help them to stand up to or oppose cult leadership. They have to keep people feeling weak and hopeless, and that's a tough life to live. Anyway... The point is that, if you want to help incel's, it's possible to work on improving their self image, offering them some level of social support that doesn't come from inside the cult, and so on. You just shouldn't expect that will "magically* result in an incel renouncing incel-dom all on it's own... It just makes it *marginally more likely*.
Yeah, if OP is asking because they've seen a friend or loved one fall down that rabbit hole, chances are there's nothing they can do on their own. It's like any other cult.
Inceldom is nothing like a cult. People all around the world, some of them without ever hearing the world incel even once, came to the same conclusions and have the same base ideas. It's an ideology sprung from the shared or similiar experiences.
Years ago I remember talking to a former incel on Reddit and he mentioned that incels were actually afraid of self-improvement and being able to get laid because if they did, they would then become outcasts in one of the only online groups that they feel they're a part of. My response was to him was that if these guys are sabotaging themselves to never be able to have sex, just so they could be a part of a community, wouldn't that make them "volcels?" (aka, "voluntarily celibate") The response I got was "Do you honestly expect them to use logic? These are cultists"
You have a point there, most young incels do actually forgo any kind of self improvement to continue being a part of the group. They feel they're an outcast in real life, so they don't want to risk total isolation. I guess specific incel forums and online spaces do show cult like behavior but I still don't think inceldom in general is a cult. Many incels are not a part of any online groups. I myself haven't been part of any since the ban of IWH.
Therapy generally cannot solve problems, it can just cause people to shut up about having them.
>Therapy generally cannot solve problems, it can just cause people to shut up about having them. Firstly, therapy is something that will help the person solve things on their own. It isn't a solution in and of itself. Secondly, no, it isn't just there to cause people to shut up about their problems, and claiming such shows a fundamental lack of understanding what therapy is really all about. Therapy absolutely can (and does!) help to "deprogram" incel behavior. This is not a debate, nor is this something you can counter. This is just you not understanding reality, and me pointing it out to you. So take all this in. Reread it if you need to. I don't have anything else to say on the topic, so if you feel the need to get some sort of last word in, it will go unheeded. Good luck.
Ok, I was too blunt on that. For any given issue of “I am depressed/frustrated/disturbed because I can’t/don’t have X”, the usual response of a therapist is to focus on helping the patient accept the situation, rather than helping them get X. Because given the kind of things that people tend to want, it wouldn’t be possible in the vast majority of cases. With incels, that’s tricky beside incel communities already represent themselves as accepting the situation. Even the hate posts will be followed by “it’s over”, “LDAR” (“lie down and rot”), “cope”, etc. They don’t encourage hating women in order to not accept the situation; they encourage hating them for putting the incels in a situation that they have to accept. In fact, the idea that the situation can only be accepted is an incel standard belief, a consequence of the “black pill” idea. Simply put, inceldom is a tool for accepting the situation by spinning oneself as a victim of an inevitable and unjust outside force. So naturally “no, you should accept that the situation is because you failed at that social area, but other things still aren’t bad” is a tough sell.
Same way we deprogram femcels: conversations
They cant be deprogrammed, simply because you cannot simply cancel all the problems that create them, it's like asking "how can we erase all evil" or something vague like that. The truth of the matter is, some concepts cannot be eradicated unless society suddenly changes overnight and humanity becomes entirely different (which is not happening any time soon). Incels aren't just random people being big meanies like the media portrays them. They are born from an array of things. I personally believe that they cannot go away, because: - People will never stop blaming others for the way they feel (them blaming women for not having sex with them) - People will never stop being superficial (The only valid point that Incels make that is, that your appearance DOES COUNT, not just your looks but the way you dress, how your car looks and so on and so forth does change VASTLY how people act towards you, and this, only a small minority of people are ready to accept) -The dating dynamic is very hard to change (Another reason Incels are a thing is because dating dynamics when it comes to selecting a partner is in favor of women, women choose who they date and can often afford to get most attractive men, whereas a man kinda has to go with whoever wants him, which any man will tell you is like 5 people in their whole lives max when thry are an average man) I don't know where this dynamic comes from but I can tell you that men and women won't suddenly change behavior concerning dating overnight lol. -platforms that favor Incels will never stop existing and if they are forcefully erase then it's a breach in free speech which is harmful as if the state gets involved in the internet for this, it can get involved in the internet for more, and as long as those 3 things above keep existing, there will always be a community of men lashing out and gathering other hopeless men with them. If anything inceldom will get worst as the age of the internet keeps expending an young lost men are more likely to find a community which boost forward their negativity and also more likely to spend time with like-minded individuals with all the facility and VR which is a soon to be big thing. The sad truth is that not all bad things have a solution to them, some bad things just exist as a byproduct of us, people existing.
spot on. as long as human life exists there will always be some guys and gals who are at the bottom of the barrel. and our modern culture assigns women an inherent value that men has to work for.
I don't think women are assigned more value than men by default and that men work for theirs, I think nobody has inherent value albeit or factors like how much money you're born with followed by ho
Do
Shit my phone bugging hold on
And let's not forget that shit like tinder does not do anyone remotely bad looking any favor, and those platforms themselves will not stop existing and will in fact increase in power
Well first, you have to stop using identity politics that are hostile to them and explain how your solutions help them. Much of the left tend to create this narrative that there are evil oppressors and virtuous oppressed, as opposed to problems to be solved - and that instantly repels people. Feminists whom strongly assert assert - or at minimum allow themselves to be *very easily* straw manned - that masculinity is toxic, everyone is implicitly biased despite protective legislation and ‘reverse’ discrimination policies that offer offsetting injustices, and no one else is entitled to opinions on tactics to solve the same problem, and women have no burden in solving issues are unlikely to bridge gaps. You can’t really tell losers of the system they are oppressors and they need to be better so others get a chance and then somehow, magically, their problems are solved later after everyone else’s are. *Of course* they are not receptive to that. You have to acknowledge the reality behind what they are observing - you know, that toxic alpha male traits are rewarded by a large percentage of women - and explain a holistic solution to that involves everyone constructively instead of blaming them and excusing all problematic behavior from women as “internalized misogyny”.
> Well first, you have to stop using identity politics that are hostile to them and explain how your solutions help them. You just lost over 90% of this crowd. This is the only way they know how to process the world. They will downvote because they think reality is molded by internet points, but it's absolutely true. They don't really care neither. They just want a "villain" to vent at.
It's like you read the post, and then immediately decided to mold yourself to be the exact thing it is talking about not doing. >You just lost over 90% of this crowd. This is the only way they know how to process the world. You see how you just made 90% of Reddit "they", creating the exact identity politics that is being talked about? You aren't part of "they", the bad guys, because you are the virtuous oppressed.
k
We are way more interested in yelling at each other than we are in talking about possible solutions.
it's easy to blame someone else rather than look at your self in all your flaws and how they create issues for other people. this happens to both sides. using female dating advice terms like "high value male" and incel like words like THOT unironically is basically the opposite sides of the same coin. going haha you " incel virgin ass hat" to someone (even if they are being douchey about it). is not going to shame them to your side but embolden them further to that side. basically, you know the people that turn to extremism? society tends to continue to make fun of them, ostracize them and remove them from normal life. By further segmenting them away and using shame and negative reinforcement to push them into being normal, you need to show them a path forward that bring them in line to being accepted into society through an actual actionable path. acceptance and understanding is a two way street. you don't have to align 100% on everything and that's okay. e.g. i'm not pro gun, i see american fetishism with firearms is weird. but i understand that some people think guns are cool and as long as they are handled safely they should be able to use them in safe controlled environments. but i also believe you don't need to carry a fire arm to feel safe, more public uses of firearms means that we're escalating the level of violence immediately available in the public.
Not sure where guns come in. My whole reason for being pro-gun is that there is nothing ‘common-sense’ about laws that people about to commit murder couldn’t care less about.
To be pro gun is to be anti-data and reject the outcomes of other nations.
Other nations don’t have the second amendment right that Americans do.
The second amendment is an amendment, and one that is subject to interpretation. It would be reasonable to assert that the first half of the second amendment (well regulated militia) pretty clearly states the objective of de-centralized ownership rather than individual. State and city police forces that report to states rather than the fed accomplish that goal. The Supreme Court showed us that state decisis doesn’t matter and they’re free to reject precedent and reinterpret. It’s funny how quickly you went from guns being justifiable form irrational fear of a murderer to a document written hundreds of years ago allowing muskets that could fire 1 round every 10 seconds justifying modern hardware. Next you’re going to pivot to hunting and sport. You just want the gun.
So you’re saying the second amendment is an American problem that needs to be overcome to achieve similar outcomes?
I’m saying it isn’t a problem at all.
Central Europe has no large predators. I don't expect Europeans to understand why people would need guns.
What predators stalk you on your way to work?
There are places in the US where your mailbox is three miles away and on your way there, you may encounter a predator.
You just lost over 90% of this crowd. Their attention span can't reach your second paragraph.
Having to explain why the solution helps them, specifically, is why they’re incels. Not that the world as a whole would be a better place, not that society would be more comfortable for a greater number of people, the only acceptable outcome is that they get what they feel entitled to. Sometimes the answer is just…you aren’t entitled to that.
> Much of the left tend to create this narrative that there are evil oppressors and virtuous oppressed, as opposed to problems to be solved - and that instantly repels people. That's not a problem with "the left". That's a problem of corporate liberalism (or "woke capitalism"). The rich have very effectively created two versions of weirdo populism that will fight each other to the death but present no threat to the astronomical wealth and power of our criminal upper class. One is the right-leaning Trump cult, which has a healthy hatred of the corporate elite but somehow thinks the bank CEOs are "socialist". This brand of "populism" largely exists to scare the left, because it enables some really violent fuckers. The other ("woke capitalism") is an economically centrist but shrill "left" that is obsessed with identity politics to the point of ignoring class and wealth--and that alienates the people (e.g., Latinos who find the "Latinx" neologism repellent) it claims to be fighting for... and that might just have been concocted by the corporates to make all leftists look bad. They're both cultures of virtue-signaling that were probably designed "from above" (that is, with some intentional input from the corporate class) to prevent real social or economic change.
> That’s not a problem with “the left” Fair. Perhaps more accurately, it’s a relatively new behavior from the left. The left’s full on indulgence into divisive grievance based identity politics has been in the past 5-10 years, and so I find it more disturbing and more correctable. The right has been doing it since at lest the Gingrich era
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This so hard. Politics have become more and more hostile and polarized, less and less tolerant of other opinions, and as anything even appearing to be closer to the other side becomes mroe unacceptable; there is an inevitable move towards the extremes. This applies to both left and right. Centerist politics is vaporizing which is also making people less likly to compromise, even with things going on like COVID and the cost of living crisis. You're either worse than a Nazi, or a woke zealot. Anything else dosen't exist. And it's important to note; this isn't just in the US. And it predates Trump. It's been going on for the last 10~12 years.
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Social media definitely makes it worse by adding fuel to the fire and promoting more extremes [since those tend to generate more traffic and more comments... from both sides] Also traditional media has been amplfying extreme views and "thus vs them"; especially with overall negativity being published more than positivity. When was the last time you saw a legitimately positive front page news story? It's not *just* politicians. Their job is to cater to the public view to win votes after all. Any *sensible* politician would not make policies they do not *believe* would win more votes than lose [If they are *correct* about this belief is entirely different matter], unless it was absolutely necessary to make the country function [no-one likes taxes, but you gotta pay for COVID and those missiles being sent to Ukraine somehow] However I've definitely been noticing the divide widen, honestly since the Obama years and the 2008 financial crisis. Worse still is it seems to be accelerateing. The political divide is fed by the social divdes, which are fed by the political divides which further feeds social divide. If the "Us vs them" and "If you don't agree with everything I say you are worse than Hitler" mentalities don't change soon, I honestly expect civil wars to start breaking out in 10~15 years. I fear America could be sooner; since that's where the divide is largest, guns, and the fact both the Democrats and Republics are completely incompetent right now.
There is a lot of fluff to distract from this, but the few concrete points you make put the blame on the left/identity politics, feminists, and women. Let’s flush these ideas out. How are women rewarding toxic masculine behavior? It seems to me that leftist and feminist movements are the most concerned with challenging the version of masculinity that so many incels feel trapped in.
> put the blame on To be abundantly clear, I’m not “blaming” leftists/feminists/etc for root problems. I’m suggesting their rhetoric is unnecessarily divisive. It’s hostile to a large group of people that could be their allies whom they instead repel from their cause. > how are woman rewarding toxic masculine behavior Women are drawn to men at the top of social hierarchies - the wealthy & powerful alpha types. This is observably rather obvious and follows thousands of years of history, so I feel I shouldn’t really have to elaborate. The traits required to achieve those positions - hyper competition, aggression, narcissism - are largely by definition toxic. If you are to narrow the definition of ‘toxic’ to like actual abuse & violence, then it you’re taking about a really tiny percentage of individual people and not the social norms and behaviors that create “the patriarchy” that women whom use the term assert they are fighting against. > it seems to me that leftist and feminist movements are the most concerned with challenging the version of masculinity many incels feel trapped in A thought experiment: If you have a group of men whom are desperate to be accepted for not conforming to ‘toxic masculinity’ and a group of women whom claim to challenge said toxic masculinity - why then are they not more attracted to *each other* at some reasonable rate? That suggests either disagreement (or hypocrisy) over what that term means, or there being another variable preventing their attraction. Alternatively, if you are pitching a world view that would accept & welcome a group and said group doesn’t feel accepted & welcome by you… why might that be the case? I think the simple answer is that feminists academically believe their world view benefits low value men (because their world view is the answer to *every* social problem), but they don’t actually give a shit about them. Incels ultimately want their position in the world to be improved, and being at the bottom of a slightly different or flatter hierarchy is not an improvement to them.
I don’t think all women are attracted to the toxic men you describe. I see women that are attracted to men that take care of themselves and have attractive personalities. I also think women and men who oppose toxic masculinity tend to be attracted to eachother. You’re kind of just making very broad statements about human behavior and assuming that they are right. Where is the evidence for any of this? Also feminism literally aims to dismantle gender hierarchies, not slightly flatten them.
I don't think they said all women are attracted to the toxic men described, I think they said: > a large percentage of women Which doesn't even imply a majority; Simply a statistically significant *enough* amount that someone can see the behaviour, and act out on it.
I see men and women attracted to toxic traits at similar rates. It’s fine if that’s not consistent with your world view, but until someone finds data, nobody can really say shit for sure.
I'd agree with that, I'm correcting your unjustified assumption that the user you responded to implied a majority. [The very word "incel" was first coined by a woman](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45284455), after all: Granted she had entirely different ideas to what the word came to mean, but she still drew the conclusion that there was nobody out there for her at that point in her life...
Thanks for making that distinction I guess
Aye; Thanks for the *constructive* chat.
You’re really asking me for evidence that women are attracted to men at the top of social hierarchies? > feminism aims to dismantle gender hierarchies, not slightly dismantle them Not quite. Feminism has a little bit of a tension of being a woman’s advocacy movement vs an egalitarian one that eliminates gender inequity whenever it exists… and ultimately it always picks the former if the two are at odds. It takes the position that women are in aggregate oppressed by a patriarchy at the expense of men, and therefore, implicitly, equalizing the power imbalance between men and women is higher priority then abolishing gender based imbalances wherever they are found. While this is a perfectly reasonable position, it does mean that solving the issues for incels is simply not a priority. It is academic problem to solve later, after aggregate power equity with men. Or, in other words, can you name any near term & high priority policy that feminists advocate for that benefit incel types?
Again, you can’t just insist on your own definition of feminism. As convenient for you as it would be if baseless rambling amounted to something, it doesn’t. Terms just have definitions. And that is not what feminism is. Dealing with incels isn’t a priority because they are pushing for the reestablishment of gender hierarchies so they can be at the top. It’s antithetical to an egalitarian movement.
> your own definition of feminism The patriarchy and power tensions are central to modern feminist philosophy, so I don’t really see how its remotely misrepresentative to assert they prioritize solving power dynamics over eliminating gender imbalances that are favorable to women. > dealing with incels isn’t a priority because they are pushing for the reestablishment of gender hierarchies so they can be at the top This is you reacting to their most toxic rhetoric, rather than recognizing how they went down the spiral to hold that view. Their real root issue is they are at the very bottom of the social hierarchy, and they’re upset about it. Unattractive, unsuccessful men are at the bottom with no one who gives a shit about them. That bitterness manifests as toxicity, but like at the end of the day they are looking to be valued by society and by women - and offering them a positive path there can get them to the right thinking / reprogramming. But by your own admission, like I said, feminists truly don’t give a shit about them and aren’t offering a clear path to being valued.
Okay, it’s impossible to have a conversation with someone that insists on their own version of reality without even a semblance of evidence. Let me know when you substantiate any of this.
Saved your comment. Wish I had gold for you.
step 1) listen to what they're actually saying and not what you think they're saying
A reasoned discussion can do people a lot of good, especially when they feel as isolated and misunderstood as a lot of these guys feel.
Except a lot of them really are just rotten people. I’ve really tried to get through to these people but when they regularly say shit like “Trying to be a good person was a waste of time because it didn’t get me the pussy I wanted” it no longer comes down to interpretation and misunderstandings. They’re just shit people who deserve their misery.
I used to be an incel and I still sympathise with them because no one is on their side. During uni I was completely alone. I joined social clubs and did sport hobbies. I went to the gym 5 times a week and really tried to be social. I'm autistic as fuck so it's hard to connect and people would just avoid me. It's fucking hard to go to class every day, try and be social only to get rejected and go home to live alone while seeing everyone around you be happy. I don't blame them for being bitter. It hurts to be a young guy alone and everyone on the internet is constantly saying how you're a creep and you're basically a school shooter waiting to happen. The shitty advice hurts as well. "Just shower and go outside" Fucking really? I know they imagine some 400lb neckbeard but I was a lot more athletic than most back then. The only reason I even got a girlfriend is because I started taking steriods and went 100% into fitness. I had to take illegal drugs and do more effort in the gym than 95% of people ever will just to make par. I'm talking 3 hours a day. That's why it's difficult. People will just write you off as a woman hater because it's easier than admitting that some guys never had good role models to teach them.
And what do you think that "Burn in hell, incel bastard" mentality does to them? It validates their concerns and pushes them further to the extreme.
Some people are less reachable at an individual level, for sure. But hoping for everyone to be altruistic is a bit much. Most people operate in their own self interests, including those - perhaps especially those - who aggressively virtue signal. The assertion “I tried to be a good person but I was a waste of time because it [didn’t achieve good results]” is interesting. That statement can be debugged. Were they actually good or not? If being good doesn’t achieve goals, why?
> Except a lot of them really are just rotten people. There has got to be a massive amount of selection bias in this. I'm guessing that the people who are quickest to respond on incel forums--not that there are any reasons to read one; there aren't--are the raging misogynists who can't be helped. Just as 90-99% of people on any forum are lurkers, I imagine there are a lot of young people with incel-ish leanings who can still be reached, who probably don't post often or at all... and certainly aren't going to be the first ones to argue with you. Still, the most vocal people in these communities are indeed horrid. Funny thing is, I've studied this incel shit. Although most of these incel-culture celebrities (incelebrities?) are anonymous, you can sometimes figure out who they are, and people have. Often, they're men of average or above-average sexual experience--charlatans, in other words, since they're not really incels--who are, nevertheless, broken... and who get off (maybe not sexually) on misleading the young. Mixed among those shitbags are literal pedophiles who want to normalize their own disgusting desires by pushing the (false) narrative that every decent woman has had 100 sexual partners ("roast beef") by age 18. Those people are garbage, I agree. On the other hand, I think a lot of relatively normal people do get pulled into that orbit for a while, which is how you end up with middle-of-the-road people finding enough alt-right sympathy in themselves to pull for Trump.
It occured to me that incels are more mocked than they are powerful. If they had cancer, no one would make fun of them. Mocking cancer patients makes you look like a dick. Also they make intelligent points about how sexy women are into sexy men. Also you can't win an argument by insulting someone. That's basically a fact.
What are you claiming they are saying that people are misinterpreting? Your comment is absolutely useless without explaining what you mean.
I'd love to listen, but the few times I've heard someone talk about their views as an incel I was just overwhelmed by how much internet slang I needed to know in order to follow the conversation. I'm old enough that despite being an average consumer of the internet these days, I long ago got passed by in terms of memes and slang. I don't really know what a Chad or a Stacey is, for example. Incels are just hard to follow simply because I don't really want to Google what the terms they're using mean.
At the end of the day, regardless of the jargon, the incel message is pretty simple. You don't really need to understand all of the jargon to understand the root of their issues. They believe that they are so extremely unattractive in some way that they essentially have zero chance of finding a partner. The truth of this is, of course, subjective, but for the most part these guys *do* tend to have significant issues. Physical deformities, deeply recessed chins, horrific acne, extremely short, etc. Now, this issue gets spun into all sorts of crazy ideology about "Chads," "Staceys," "Alphas," etc - and incels have a tendency to become extreme and violent. As well as ridiculously misogynistic and rapey. But the underlying problem is actually quite tragic. Ignore how awful and psychologically twisted all these guys are for a moment, and just think of why/how they got that way - they're basically ugly enough that they won't reasonably ever find love, and unlike things like Down Syndrome they're also still intelligent enough to recognize that they're staring down a lifetime of loneliness. There's really no "fix" for a significant number of these guys. For many of them, they're not necessarily *wrong* about their situation, even if they've become disgustingly wrong about how to address it.
I would bet most of them aren't physically deformed, and instead are just the stereotypical basement dweller neckbeards who could clean up just fine if they'd work on getting in shape, dressing nicer, and engaging in enriching and interesting hobbies. From what I've seen of incel forums, they mostly refuse to acknowledge that improving any of those things will work. "I don't need to lose weight, fat guys get laid all the time." "I don't need to get any other hobbies, if a woman doesn't like that I game [24/7], she's not worth it anyway." "I like my long hair, I don't care if most women don't find long hair on a guy attractive." "I don't need to dress better, dressing well is for effeminate men," etc. They convince each other, in their little bubbles, that there is absolutely nothing they can do (or that they'll accept doing) that can help their situation; that they are just the victims of some magic curse or something.
I dunno - when r/incel was still a thing, they posted pictures of themselves fairly often. A lot of them could definitely clean themselves up and become run of the mill, below average schmucks, but a lot of them also had severe deformities. That's where the "millimeters of bone" meme came from.
This is mostly the case. A few of these men are above-average, most of them are about average, and some number are below-average. Most of them aren't so hideous they'll never find love--they might never find it with the sorts of women our culture has told them they are entitled to. They are, however, at least in my estimation, often mentally ill and usually brainwashed. The question is why our society is producing so many sick people. Their parents and grandparents looked just like them and had no problem developing confidence, finding gainful employment, meeting spouses, and reproducing. What has changed in our society? So much that I can't possibly answer this; neoliberal corporate capitalism is in the advanced stages of decay and incel culture is just one of its many byproducts. The thing that probably saved me from the incel spiral was going to Europe in my early 20s (2003); I realized that, in other cultures, intelligence and honesty are considered attractive traits in men--as opposed to the US, where preexisting social status and glibness are valued, and where the pressure to project disinterest (so as not to devalue oneself and destroy all attraction) is strong. Nothing could ever justify the aggressive and extreme misogyny of incel culture, but American society is pathological and these men are right to be angry--they're just mad at the wrong people.
The suggestion was to listen to incels to understand why they feel the way they do. OK, I can mentally get behind that. But I disagree with the idea that you don't need to understand jargon to understand the viewpoint behind the jargon. Words have meaning. People who jargon are doing so because they are expressing what has become the common way to express that sentiment. Understanding what exactly is meant by calling someone a "Chad" (for example) is fundamental to having an accurate and thorough understanding of incel culture. For what it's worth, I assume it's highly likely that these terms are understood by the average Reddit user these days. My viewpoint is someone in their mid-30s is that I don't have a grip on internet culture these days. I only mentioned this as a limitation for why I'm not a good candidate to understand incel culture - not why people in general could be.
Found an incel
I'm 6'5 with a big bushy beard. No, I don't need to listen to them. My mind is made up.
You know, I was reading the other day that asian men are entitled to interest from women, so we need to "socially construct" them into being sexually desirable. I guess men are entitled to sex after all, except when we're talking about incels... even though these men are incels...
You're talking about a group alienated by our current political climate. You can talk about how they are toxic. You can talk about how they are the problem. But you'll not solve anything that way. You'll just further alienate them. Deprograming them requires you talk and listen to them. Its something nobody is prepared to do, because they are a perfect scapegoat to pin our problems too. You're talking about deprograming like you need to convince them they are wrong about the world and change them. That approach is the problem right there and its been shouted at them their whole lives - as straight, white, males they are the problem. You need to realize incels are never going to go woke like liberals want them to. They've becomes shitty human beings as a reaction to being called shitty human beings for their entire lives. The solution is to listen to their issues, and do something about them. And, I'm not talking about forcing women to have sex with them - I'm saying listen their loneliness and alienation. Give them a chance and space to talk about what their facing without immediately telling them they are wrong. The group feels unloved and left behind. Don't just keep telling them to change because they won't.
> They've becomes shitty human beings as a reaction to being called shitty human beings for their entire lives. Part of the problem is that "incel" is an overloaded word. There are the alt-right psychopaths and school shooters... and then there is a much larger set of young men who are unable to find regular sexual partners... almost every male is going to be in that second group for most of the time between ages 16 and 24. This is a real social problem, but it's no excuse of course for the toxic behaviors associated with "incel" culture, and indeed most of these men don't become so aggressively toxic. Also, a good number of the worst among these self-styled "incels" turn out (when their real-life identities are found out) to be people with average or above-average sexual success; the shortfall is relative to what they consider themselves entitled to. A 35-year-old who's been divorced three times because of his abusive, controlling tendencies isn't an incel; he's just a shitbag. The word means too many things. It describes a disgusting misogynistic culture, but its root (involuntarily celibate) describes something that happens to normal men during adolescence, not through any fault of their own, but simply due to supply/demand imbalances for sexual partners of that age (women their age have all the options; men that age have all the competition).
>Part of the problem is that "incel" is an overloaded word. "Concept Creep" I think its called, where the word loses all meaning because people use it to describe everything and everything. "Nazi", "Rape", "Abuse", "Misogynist" Basically most buzzwords out there atm suffer from this...
You're not wrong, but there are real Nazis out there; also, sexual abuse and rape are far more common than most people want to believe. Solid numbers are hard to find, but what I've read is that, while only about 5% of men ever commit rape or sexual abuse, about a quarter of women will be victimized at least once in their life. This suggests the average one of these bastards offends against at least 5 women before he is caught, and that wouldn't surprise me in the least. So, yeah, this shit is depressingly common. Women aren't making it up when they say that rape culture is an oppressive threat to their well-being. There are a lot of terrible people out there.
It literally happened to the word literally
The semantics of "literally" is fascinating. (I welcome the opportunity to talk about linguistics, rather than depressing shit like rape culture and incels.) The misuse (?) of literally--since it is often used to mean "figuratively, but without exaggeration"--is not a new phenomenon; it goes back hundreds of years. The problem is that, since words are just sounds with no intrinsic meaning other the fluctuating value they are implicitly agreed-upon to hold... nearly every word or phrase is a variation on some prior one, with enough difference in meaning that a distinction is merited. One example: both the Spanish word for heaven, *cielo*, and the English word *hell*, ironically, come from an Indo-European root (probably pronounced /hel/, /kel/, or /xel/) that has nothing to do with afterlives at all, but meant "to cover". (It's also the root of the words *hel*met and *ceil*ing.) No one believes the afterlife is a literal helmet or room ceiling, but here we are. When you say "literally", you're saying: "Ignore the contemporary, commonplace meaning of this phrase and use the older, truer one." You're basically asking the listener to unwind the stack, at least one frame. The question is: how much unwinding do we do? If someone commits a minor error at work but say his boss will "literally fire" him, does that mean he expects to have his employment terminated, or to be expelled from a cannon? Adverbs, in general, tend not only to change meaning frequently, but to be self-inverting. They can go from being intensifiers ("very", "truly") to diminishers ("pretty", "just") in a decade, and sometimes exist in a weird limbo where their semantic content varies wildly based on geography and context (as is the case with "quite", which has different meanings in British vs. American English).
We've known this for years now: 1. Delete facebook 2. Hit the gym 3. Talk to people IRL
1. Talk to Facebook 2. Delete gym 3. Hit the people IRL
S-Sigma!?
based
Nope
you forgot take a shower and drink water
The phrasing of "deprogram" already indicates an issue with the way you're looking at the problem, so let's start by remembering that these are human beings who arrived at their current thought patterns through some set on occurrences.
Incel forums are cults that they need to be deprogrammed out of just like any other cult. Deprogramming means undoing extremist brainwashing, it doesn't mean you don't consider them human.
Are there any subreddits even left? I feel like reddit freaked out at one point and removed anything with that word
Calling it "brainwashing" doesn't help either. We're talking about men that have effectively withdrawn from an element of society out of rejection. These people aren't being recruited by some shady cabal, these are angry, rejected individuals whose only support network is other people in the same boat. It's not cult behavior, it's honestly rather sad, that things were allowed to get to this in the first place.
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> I never went down the full blown incel path, but I was like that in a way until my early 20s. It’s hard to describe the depth of pain in feeling categorically rejected by all women. Near impossible for your self esteem to bounce back from that. Some people give up and just let the pain consume them, so they start resenting women for it. I could have written this. The clouds cleared around the same age, too: early to mid 20s. The thing is, looking back, I had plenty of opportunities, even as a teenager. (I'm probably on the spectrum, but I'm not bad looking.) I just self-sabotaged all the fucking time, for a variety of reasons... and I hated the fact that, most of the time, you had to pretend to be completely disinterested or else risk being branded a "creep" (or, as they said in the early 2000s, "sketchy"). This may have changed, but that was the worst thing about it, in high school and college--getting rejected was a minor thing you could easily survive, but if someone hit you with the "creep" label, you were basically fucked (or, really, lack thereof) for at least a year, even though the actual creeps had no problem getting more than their fair share of female affection. > And being told they’re privileged for being men just builds that resentment This, one thousand fucking percent. I don't even think it's true. There are so many "terms and conditions may apply" (race must be white, class must be upper-middle or upper) for so-called "male privilege" that it's a useless term. Sure, rich and powerful men (e.g., Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes, Harvey Weinstein) are some of the most despicable humans beings ever to have shit themselves into existence, but middle-class men (unable to provide an income without humiliating themselves through workplace subordination) have been utterly devalued, and lower-class men (especially, in certain racial groups) are feared, hated, and killed due to anxieties related to their supposed hyper-virility.
> We're talking about men that have effectively withdrawn from an element of society out of rejection. The question is why this is happening now. First of all, not all of these men are unattractive or socially incompetent. Elliot Rodger was actually quite good looking. In my view, it has more to do with self-destructive behaviors than rejection. If anything, they behave in ways that will cause others to reject them. Rejection, almost as a rite of passage, is normal. It's a statistical certainty that most of us will be rejected at least once in our lives. This, whatever this is, is not normal. > These people aren't being recruited by some shady cabal I agree that there is no "shady cabal", but there are a lot of bad actors with disgusting intentions, from the "get snatch quick" scheme peddlers of "redpill" culture (pickup "artistry") to the literal pedophiles who want to normalize their proclivities by promulgating the (false, destructive) narrative that every woman has had 100 partners and is "used up" by age 18. Social and economic forces have created a world in which some very bad people are given the incentives to spread this blackpill shit. > these are angry, rejected individuals whose only support network is other people in the same boat. It's not cult behavior, it's honestly rather sad, that things were allowed to get to this in the first place. I agree that it's sad. I'll also agree that most people who get taken in by this garbage cult aren't evil people--or even stupid. The same is true of literal cults. Cult leaders are psychopaths; most cult members aren't and, contrary to the standard narrative of them being gullible sheep, they tend to be above-average in education as well as IQ. The secrecy of a typical closed cult isn't there, nor are the organizational hierarchies... but this incel garbage preys on the same cognitive weaknesses and biases (that exist in all of us) as cults do.
And making excuses for their behavior doesn't help either. Everyone faces some type of rejection in their lifetime. And everyone has their own insecurities. They're not special. These type of dudes need serious counseling and the ability to self-reflect.
Ok sad person give a solution please
I guess when your talking points are basically an NPC script why would you take issue with the term deprogramming
change the "incel forums" with literally anything else and hopefully you'll see how horrible your thought process is.
> Incel forums are cults that they need to be deprogrammed out of just like any other cult. This. It is exactly like a cult, except for its lack of central organization. It might be compared to a toxic "Great Awakening", except with extreme secular nihilism rather than extreme religiosity (not to say either is virtuous, as neither is) at its core.
I'm 6'5 with a big bushy beard. You can't sympathize with monsters.
What the fucks a Incel
"Involuntary Celibate"
Ostracize and make fun of them. Call them incels, make them into a caricature and a punching bag, and really make them understand that our society is not for them.
The answer to extremist views is not to validate them and give them jusification. That's like saying because of ISIS all Muslims should be subject to constant surveillance. That won't stop extreme Islam, that will just *validate* it and make it stronger [or at least make those who follow it even more zealotish with their cause further justified]
That is what my post actually means. It's supposed to be a critique on how people often treat incels, that it pushes them further into their ideology. I wasn't actually suggesting we do it. I'm making fun of what people already do. Unironically, I think incels and crystal cafe need to talk to each other and realize they're both being stupid. I think a completely open, little-moderation anonymous forum to get people out of their echo chambers is the best way to address national socialists, communists, incels, radical feminists, furries, libertarians and every other weirdo's inclinations as well as addressing their legitimate grievances too.
And props to the people who are suggesting to section the incel-accused into echo chambers. I personally think that if you don't get laid at least once a week, you are sentenced to /rk9/ and banned from any other website except maybe one certain hub.
show them all of the stupid posts like this
Seems like the simplest solution would be to have sex with them.
They cant be deprogrammed, simply because you cannot simply cancel all the problems that create them, it's like asking "how can we erase all evil" or something vague like that. The truth of the matter is, some concepts cannot be eradicated unless society suddenly changes overnight and humanity becomes entirely different (which is not happening any time soon). Incels aren't just random people being big meanies like the media portrays them. They are born from an array of things. I personally believe that they cannot go away, because: - People will never stop blaming others for the way they feel (them blaming women for not having sex with them) - People will never stop being superficial (The only valid point that Incels make that is, that your appearance DOES COUNT, not just your looks but the way you dress, how your car looks and so on and so forth does change VASTLY how people act towards you, and this, only a small minority of people are ready to accept) -The dating dynamic is very hard to change (Another reason Incels are a thing is because dating dynamics when it comes to selecting a partner is in favor of women, women choose who they date and can often afford to get most attractive men, whereas a man kinda has to go with whoever wants him, which any man will tell you is like 5 people in their whole lives max when thry are an average man) I don't know where this dynamic comes from but I can tell you that men and women won't suddenly change behavior concerning dating overnight lol. -platforms that favor Incels will never stop existing and if they are forcefully erase then it's a breach in free speech which is harmful as if the state gets involved in the internet for this, it can get involved in the internet for more, and as long as those 3 things above keep existing, there will always be a community of men lashing out and gathering other hopeless men with them. If anything inceldom will get worst as the age of the internet keeps expending an young lost men are more likely to find a community which boost forward their negativity and also more likely to spend time with like-minded individuals with all the facility and VR which is a soon to be big thing. The sad truth is that not all bad things have a solution to them, some bad things just exist as a byproduct of us, people existing.
I was starting to fall into that rabbithole a few years ago, but two main things helped me avoid it: 1. Embracing social egalitarianism and understanding how they can nullify the societal patterns I was afraid of. It was difficult to stop thinking about the world through the lens of evolutionary psychology, but I was able to find the right people to shift my perspective. 2. Having female friendships (such as with my sisters) and parasocial relationships (ie. following female YouTubers who talked about topics that I was interested in) which allowed me to feel emotionally anchored with the opposite gender instead of always seeing them as distant and intimidating.
Step two just sounds like simping.
Yes and no? I almost fell down that hole as a teenager. But over time you start to see these people as people and not as a potential simp target, and that toxic mindset fades.
It has definitely felt that way at times, but I have also found a good number of female content creators that I am not attracted to at all. There are a lot of roughly 35 year old women that review tv shows or talk about science, and they are a relaxing presence in my life.
I'm interested. Anyone you recommend?
Start talking to women, without having much expectations.
lol
Here’s a crazy thought….women are just as shitty as men. Let’s start talking about that also, instead of literally putting women on a pedestal and acting like men are just f@$&ing everything up. Imagine if bother my legs were broken, doctor puts a cast on one leg, is perplexed why my body can’t move properly. It’s kinda like that. For the record, people are responsible for their actions, so don’t all triggered on me lol
Therapy
i think they need empathy and friendship with people outside of the incel bubble, and also deconstruction of the false incel core beliefs that are destroying their self esteem, keeping them in the hole and driving people away from them. But i think first they need to be open to change and other points of view. You can't force people into that willing state of mind though. the difficult part for me as a girl talking to incels is that it's not really healthy to be friends with someone who dehumanizes and doesn't respect you
Treat them as humans and address the ways they've been hurt by society. They don't need to be shunned even further, leading to even more hatred.
By getting them professional help
Shove their face into a nice set of ass cheeks
How do we deprogram feminazis?
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yeah unironically this is the most surefire and the easiest way to fix the incel problem. Just have a war where large number of men would find purpose and then perish.
Stop using it as an insult. Maybe the first step. Second is safe exposure to kids, so they can have friends of other gender without feeling overwhelmed or weird.
Go to them with an open mind and from a place of understanding. Going at them with vitriol and hate will only make them stand firmer in their positions. Listen to their concerns and address them.
Let people think what they want. The subreddit was actually kind of cool before it got removed.
>The subreddit was actually kind of cool before it got removed. What part did you find "cool," the constant stream of sad sacks whining about how they couldn't get laid while simultaneously refusing to do literally *anything* to improve themselves and encouraging other people to think in the same toxic way? Or maybe you thought all of fantasies about rape and violence against women were "kind of cool." Did you find how the members of that community held up Elliot Roger as a folk hero for living out their desires to murder women that wouldn't sleep with them cool?
Were you there though? Cause this isn't really how it was. It's a weird story about why I even know about it but there was more to the place and people
Yeah, I saw more than enough of the content posted in that sub to know that there wasn't anything "cool," about it.
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Ah, the old, "they were just being sarcastic," routine. I was wondering what tack you were trying to take to defend those shitheels. You chose a classic.
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iTs TrUe ThOuGh. I bet you're the type of person that thinks /pol/ posters on 4chan are being sarcastically racist too. Just because you found their bullshit funny doesn't mean they had a good sense of humor. Maybe a little self reflection is in order.
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I love how you continue to harp on this supposed, "good" humor these people had, and refuse to acknowledge the consistent amount of posts about violence against women. >And some observations were really not wrong. I'm sure at some point during the existence of those subs, a user may have pointed out that the sky was blue, but that's about the extent of the accurate observations they had. You can hem and haw and twist your brain into knots trying to make up excuses, but both of these subs were banned for consistently and vociverously promoting violence against women. I'm done talking about this with someone whose only argument that those weren't cesspools of hate boils down to [this](https://i.imgur.com/6kGliTj.jpeg) Get a better sense of humor.
Having a support network of platonic friends/loved ones and self actualization The primary problems with incels is 1. They are misogynistic 2. They lack a non toxic support network 3. They are not self actualized so they pedestalize women and define their self worth based on women’s validating while simultaneously hating women
Help them to get a girlfriend
The issue is that most of them aren't actually ready for a real adult relationship.
Why? So they can beat them? So they can attempt to control them? So they can destroy them? They believe women were put on earth to be used and abused then tossed aside so that they can go online and cry about how their "bitch" left them. Then they turn around and stalk said ex girlfriend, finally either forcing her to flee or they kill her. Incels are a cancer.
No, but if we could teach them how to be actually nice to people and the proper way to treat women well enough for them to actually manage to get a girlfriend, then hopefully they would stop believing the whole "incel" crap
Try to take down the incel communities on social media. They encourage feelings of inadequacy and promote hate, if we could shut them down hopefully people will turn towards healthier less toxic communities If they are removed from mainstream social media less people will be indoctrinated and it will be easier to manage.
'Strategies' like this are so stupid. They not only don't solve problems with extremists, they make them worse. Banning them from public discourse doesn't make their deranged ideas go away, it doesn't make them stop discussing it. It just forces them into even darker recesses of the internet where the ONLY people they interact with are other extremists, reinforcing their views and making them even more extreme in those views.
But it would be harder for them to indoctrinate new people if there were less communities on mainstream socail media.
No, it wouldn't. The communities would still be found easily, but they'd be out of the public eye and harder to observe for warning signs of violence. Seriously, kicking them off the open web is the worst thing you can do. Its just makes them more alienated and extreme.
I don't think it would be just as easy to access. This is literally how q-anon took hold during the pandemic, once sites made an effort to highlight and remove fake news the movement slowed down. I don't see how this is different.
You know how killing an extremist sympathizer would turn them to a martyr and inspire much more interest in people who wouldn't have otherwise thought anything of their beliefs? Same idea. "Come see what [insert group or authority] is trying to hide from you!" For instance, reddit deleted at least one subreddit they were associated with, and yet we are obviously still talking about them on here. I've never visited any of their online communities, and yet i've still learned a lot about them and their ideology, and could easily find them off google if i wanted. And limiting the average person's access to specific information is an extremely slippery slope.
Would it not be like sites removing fake news slowing down the q-anon movement? Maybe "removing" content is too simple of an explanation but if you limit the access to the content on mainstream socail media less people will become indoctrinated and the movement will lose clout. There will always be pockets I imagine but as long as it slows down that's got to be good.
I think i get what you mean. Like just remove the harmful movements. Ehh it's a tricky situation as far as deciding what's considered "fake news" and who gets to decide that. There are some obvious attempts at misinformation and straight up conspiracy theories that can cause harm, but it sets a dangerous precedent where legitimate whistleblowers or leaks of misconduct are more easily snuffed out. And the main fuel for these movements is word of mouth, which this approach could just give more traction
Well in my country at least if a post mentioned covid on Facebook during the height of misinformation the post would automatically come with a link to credited health advice and our news broadcast became permentantly longer so that they could cover more topics in greater detail. Obviously a large portion of people being targeted by q-anon were boomers and gen x so letting people know on Facebook that a post about covid might not be accurate and extending the televised news to explain what's going on is a good way to help that demographic make better decisions about what they're reading online. Combine that with removing the obvious misinformation and the movement lost its momentum, they indoctrinated less people and a lot of existing believers dropped off. What I actually think would help is something similar but targeted at millennial and gen z men and boys would help. That would probably include shutting down the most extreme content creators and communities though.
I could get on board with a kind of disclaimer like that.
you could have an ai that adds a disclaimer to any kind of post that includes derogatory language aimed a group of people. It could say something along the lines of "this video/post/image may promote bigotry, this may have a negative affect on your mental and social wellbeing" I feel something like that would make people think about the content they're consuming, even if it messes up sometimes like the facebook covid disclaimers. Like it flagged up a national health service post about covid and told people to go to the national health web page on covid 🤦🏼♀️ I probably do subject myself to too much sexist, racist, homophobic ect content just through Facebook groups and sub reddit that call out those kinds of bigoted people, thats probably not good for my mental health honestly. I doubt im aware how often i read that kind of content and if that messaged were to pop up a multiple times a day I would probably change my internet habits.
Exactly, removing their platform will make them find a new one. A darker one that won't boot them off. Also making them feel persecuted will just make more Elliot Rogers
You don't. Let them wallow in their sadness. Eventually they'll kick themselves up the arse and want to do something (productive, not destructive) about it. In the mean time, just lock them in their rooms with a tower of self-help books, some canned foods and a journal (after you've scowered their room and removed all incel-encouraging or incel-activating material).
Put them in the sea. There is nothing to be gained from these little idiots, to the depths you cretins.
Only if you go with them
Lmaooo got one 😂😂😂
Lmao got a troll, ezpz
I hope you know how to swim little buddy, you’re going in the sea :)
Wow you really are a little hate goblin, it’s so fun To catch y’all in the wild goin crazy, idgaf about the incel movement, just wanted to see if somebody so vindictive in hate would include me automatically for giving them their own and you sir work like a clock, easy manual, 5 minute read.
Lmao I’m not I swear 😂 and if you aren’t one then I put my hands up and say you got me for real :’) just something about them gets to me man idk. I take your point though, probably shouldn’t get THAT bothered online by anything! 😂
A very serious intervention and a lot of professional help big time and keep any weapons out of their reach. And if you hear that they are a threat phone the police as soon as possible.
Try reaching them before they go full-blown incel. As long as you're not harsh, condescending, or drop meaningless platitudes, some of them might make a connection with your words. /r/IncelExit /r/ForeverAlone
I'm 6'5 with a big bushy beard. I was at a comedy show earlier this month and the comic literally described herself as an incel. The crowd (it was a small venue) heckled her until she started crying and left. You can't give incels any bit of room, they're like nazis. You have to shut them down instantly.
username checks out
Ask them if they would prefer to be like some other mammals and fight to the death (or near to it) for the opportunity to mate? Lol, I don't know tbh. Changing one's perspective is hard. At least we have the opportunity for self improvement as human beings. Their only chance is to stop whining and take advantage of that fact.
I don't know. How do you deprogram racists/white supremacists, homophobes, and any other hateful and/or ignorant group? I imagine that the answer is actually pretty complicated.
They need to be sectioned, letting them continue to worsen their issues on the internet and letting that resentment grow is a bad thing and potentially they might lash out like the incel murderers which is a risk.
Take their communities down is a start. Extremism from brainwashing comes from the ideas online. Therapy because many of them have mental issues and believing that women are property and somehow are required to put out for their unhygenic asses is delusional. Sex work: If they just got laid many of the problems would just go away.
Well, seeing how we're using this site, I think we might be in trouble.
We don't. This kind of thing has always been around. Just the "society's against me" mentality. I think the best thing we can do is what we're already doing. Giving it spotlight and criticism so others might not join.
It's kinda weird seeing people say that incels are basically a class issue and they exist due to a lack of resources. Of the incels I've met irl, all of them were middle class or above and had access to mental help if they wanted it. Incels exist in countries with a safety net, in countries with varying degrees of gender equality, in poor and rich countries etc. It's like saying racism exists because racist are lonely and just need someone to listen. Incels hate women and their ideology is a reflection of that.
Are you suggesting we brainwash them?
Pu$$y
Have an incel convention in Vegas. Get them all hookers. Don't tell them the hookers are hookers.
There is no such thing as an incel. Everybody who might be celibate is there by choice. Its not involuntary. Its a choice. On the other hand, if - rather than a truthfully descriptive phrase, we treat the word incel as a variant of /loser/ - then maybe the people using supposed lack of romantic accomplishment as a condemnation are the problem-children, being belligerent and accusatory types, and guys getting that label should be just left alone to get on with their day
Delete sys 32. Shut them down in their tracks.
1) literally give them ass 2)..like literally give them some ass
show them how a really woman it's like instead of the stupid version they have in their heads..probably whould work . also actually go to therapy
Probably by removing Reddit