# Incel question **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 20, 2019, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822 "2019-04-20T17:36:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/41 "2019-04-22T00:56:11Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > I’ve certainly heard boys and men express their loneliness in terms of “I am jealous of men who have girlfriends” and it’s clear the part they are fixated on is being seen by other men as successful, not anything about the hypothetical girlfriend. Yup. An interesting thought experiment for men who complain about not getting laid is the following: Would you rather **(a)** have amazing hot mutually fulfilling sex with some universally adored beautiful babe, with the caveat that nobody else in the world will ever know about it or believe you if you try to tell them about it, or **(b)** have all the guys you know firmly convinced (as well as loudly impressed and envious) that you’ve had hot sex with said beautiful babe, even though in actual fact nothing of the sort ever happened and she’s never even heard of you? A surprising number of men who are unhappily celibate, particularly young and insecure men, would actually prefer option (b). ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/42 "2019-04-22T03:32:48Z")
To the degree that posters here are basing their speculations on having spent some significant time reading Incel boards I stand corrected. OTOH I do not think that not leaving equals endorsement. It means they get something out of being there (seems like a maladaptive something but still something) and can at least tolerate the hate, not necessarily that they endorse the hate. And the comment to Velocity was still strange. I still do wonder about calling them “a movement”. Is there any reason to believe this is more dysfunctional socially maladaptive misogynistic men than there were before? Has had having something to call themselves and a virtual gathering place to meet increased the numbers or just labeled those who have always existed? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/43 "2019-04-22T03:44:22Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Is there some statement of beliefs they sign on to to post there? Is it a community devoted to attacking others? I have not and will not go to those sites but I wouldn’t want anyone to assume that because I post here I endorse whatever anyone else says here. Does anyone post there just sad that they are lonely? Are these just the same dregs as have always been who now post to each other? Do you really know? The sites probably don’t exist anymore anyway, for the most part. Back when Reddit still allowed incel boards (they’ve been shut down now, which I think is a shame, because it prevents us from getting a window to view into their minds,) there were black-pillers (who thought things were hopeless,) red-pillers (who were generally the MRA type, but not totally hopeless in viewpoint,) and also they would label people who could get laid, but didn’t (for religious or other reasons) as “volcels” - voluntarily celibate people. But there were still many other types - some who were “just sad that they are lonely,” as you put it - incels who didn’t seem malicious or bitter at all, just melancholy and perhaps crippled by social anxiety or shyness. Plenty of Asperger’s or autistic incels, no doubt. There were also “ricecels” (incels who complained about anti-Asian discrimination,) “blackcels” (complaining about anti-black discrimination,) “currycels” (complaining about anti-Indian discrimination,) etc. Another part of the incel lingo was “ascension” - if you managed to date a woman, get laid or in a relationship, you had “ascended” out of the incel status. One incel described himself in a news article as a “hopecel” - someone who was still incel but hopeful of better things to come. But many of these incel men also refused to believe that a woman could be an incel. Edit: As \*\*raventhief \*\*mentioned, there was also the term “suicide fuel” in reference to posts that showed other non-incel men getting laid with ease or having the good life women-wise. Like, a rich or famous man who had women throwing themselves at him. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/44 "2019-04-22T03:45:52Z")
I think if you attend a weekly meeting that ends up being all about, say, how to kill your spouse and how to develop convincing alibis or dispose of the evidence, or where everyone Seig Heiled every comment and wear swastikas, AND YOU KEEP COMING BACK EVERY WEEK, you shouldnt be surprised if people question your devotion to your spouse or suggest maybe you’re a Nazi. Yeah, maybe the wife killing meeting fills some need you have that isn’t related to killing your wife, and maybe you just really like the coffee the Nazis serve. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/45 "2019-04-22T03:48:06Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > OTOH I do not think that not leaving equals endorsement. It means they get something out of being there (seems like a maladaptive something but still something) and can at least tolerate the hate, not necessarily that they endorse the hate. But if the chief point of being there is to exchange derogatory comments and revenge fantasies about women (as well as hating on themselves for supposedly not measuring up to some invented “standard” of evolutionary “fitness”), then how does not leaving qualify as anything but endorsing the hate? [QUOTE=DSeid] I still do wonder about calling them “a movement”. Is there any reason to believe this is more dysfunctional socially maladaptive misogynistic men than there were before? Has had having something to call themselves and a virtual gathering place to meet increased the numbers or just labeled those who have always existed? [/QUOTE] Well, AFAIK both of those phenomena could qualify as a “movement”. A social “movement” is simply a bunch of people getting together in some way as a response to what they see as a social problem. That can mean either that they’re converting/radicalizing people who originally disagreed with them, or that they’re providing an identifying label and a sense of solidarity for people who already shared the same views. Or some of each. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/46 "2019-04-22T03:58:52Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The sites probably don’t exist anymore anyway, for the most part. Really? Because with only the barest minimum of googling, you can find yourself at the notorious former [incels.me](http://incels.me), now at incels. is (space-broken url to avoid inadvertent linkage). I just this minute looked at their page and here are the initial posts of threads at the top of various forums: > [@](#): > > The one thing that always confused me with normalfags > > Is when they tell us that we only go for chicks out of our league but then at the same time try to fill our heads with false hope about claiming to know fat ugly dudes that pull 10/10 stacies. > [@](#): > > Even the ugliest of the ugliest roasties can get love, while we rot alone > [@](#): > > I looked in a large mirror today and was reminded of how subhuman I am. I’m absolutely defeated. Living like this is unbearable. There really is no hope. I just want to die. > My subhumanity is also confirmed by the fact that I’m treated like shit, recieve no female validation, am ignored, and looked down on. It’s hard to describe what defeat feels like. Worst part is, no one will ever sympathize because we’re ugly. Nothing I ever do will make up for the fact that I’m absolutely flawed. > It isn’t possible for me to live this life. At this point, I have nothing to lose and have accepted that I will die young. Before, I was always afraid of dying in certain ways and not by my own hand but now I just want to die somehow. > I deluded myself into believing I was somewhat attractive and could get someone, however my daily life disproves my delusions. The girl I am pursuing takes forever to respond. She is obviously not interested and never was. > Well guys, I guess you will get it finally. I have enough money in my savings for a gun, I just have to find where to get it. Also, I need some advice on the platform I should use. I mean, yeah, guys like this are a tragic mess, but they are also a **hate-filled** tragic mess encouraging one another’s hatred and rage. This is not just sad and lonely singles: this is a toxic stew of nihilism and misogyny born of a rancid sense of entitlement. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/47 "2019-04-22T04:01:50Z")
Platform he should use? Like… To stream his hatred? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/48 "2019-04-22T06:06:02Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Could be only a few thousand people total or hundreds of thousands. People here are taking one or two specific nut jobs to extrapolate from about some unknown sized group. > > None of this seems to based on anything other than people imagining an Incel as a boogeyman character. An “incel” is not a person, but an identity that had been created through online discourse. Incels exist only because of the internet. It’s not like all of sudden all these men suddenly couldn’t get all the sex they want. There have always been people who are sexually frustrated. So no one needs to imagine anything, boogeyman or otherwise. One need only read what they write online, because that is what constitutes an “incel,” to the degree that it is anything. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/49 "2019-04-22T07:00:48Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > [Read it and weep.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel) Yikes. I read a bit about it when Rogers went on his murder spree, but haven’t keep up. Japan has herbivores men, guys who have given up on the idea who’d finding women, but there isn’t the hatred. > **[Herbivore men](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore_men)** > > Herbivore men or grass-eater men (草食(系)男子, Sōshoku(-kei) danshi) is a term used in Japan to describe young men who become a voluntarily celibate and express little interest in getting married or being assertive in pursuing relationships with women. The term was coined by the author Maki Fukasawa, who initially intended for it to describe a new form of masculinity that was not reliant on the proactivity and assertiveness typically associated with masculinity in Japan. Philosopher Masahiro Mor Th... > [@Kimstu](#): > > **(b)** have all the guys you know firmly convinced (as well as loudly impressed and envious) that you’ve had hot sex with said beautiful babe, even though in actual fact nothing of the sort ever happened and she’s never even heard of you? > > A surprising number of men who are unhappily celibate, particularly young and insecure men, would actually prefer option (b). That doesn’t actually surprise me. I have known a bunch of happily uncelibate (is that a word?) men, both young and old who would likely choose B. They tend to be insecure, looking for external validation. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/50 "2019-04-22T07:09:24Z")
I had to go look up what a “roastie” is. And now I wanna die. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/51 "2019-04-22T08:05:51Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > I think these people are deeply misogynistic, and would expect even a married woman to “put out” because “all women are sluts”. Yeah, they’re iteration Oggette knows how many of “all women are whores except for my sainted mother (who is a virgin lalalala I can’t hear you), my wife (when I’m not mad at her, at which point ‘whore’ is one of the things I call her) and my daughters (production of any grandchildren notwithstanding)”. Any woman who rejects them does so, not because she’s not interested, but because she’s playing hard to get in order to squeeze more money out. Many of those guys find particularly inconceivable that a married woman will say no: after all, if she gets preggers there’s a husband who’ll be assumed to be the father, so what’s her problem uh? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/52 "2019-04-22T11:46:45Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Yikes. I read a bit about it when Rogers went on his murder spree, but haven’t keep up. > > Japan has herbivores men, guys who have given up on the idea who’d finding women, but there isn’t the hatred. > > [Herbivore men - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbivore_men) > That doesn’t actually surprise me. I have known a bunch of happily uncelibate (is that a word?) men, both young and old who would likely choose B. They tend to be insecure, looking for external validation. At the risk of inviting ire, I personally get the mentality. Relationships are a powerful symbol of put-togetherness. Everywhere one turns, this symbol is reinforced. It’s perpetuated everytime a nosy relative asks “Do you have a girlfriend yet?” Incels are very much a product of the social media phenomenom, in which people are literally scored based on how socially connected they are and compete over how cool their highlight reels are. Old fogies may be sufficiently detached such that they don’t experience social media as a battle royale of status symbols. But young people aren’t so immune. And this is the only world they know. The prototypical Incel is mediocre across the board. They aren’t star athletes. They aren’t serious academicians. Often they’ve been burdened by various neurological and psychiatric diagnoses. They may not be that bad-looking, but they haven’t been socialized by their peers to make the most of their physical appearance. Yes, people like this have always existed, but back in the day, people like this would have been forced to get out and socialize like a “normie” due to the lack of any other alternative. And by doing so, most would have found a way to deal. Nowadays, it isn’t anything to hole up in one’s bedroom and “socialize” in maladaptive way. And their parents put up with it because “Hey, at least we know where he is” and “What harm could come from posting on the internet all day? It’s just words.” I’m saying all of this not because I ooze sympathy for the Incel, but because I’m tired of people acting like Incels are just fucked-up individuals operating in a vacuum. No, we’ve got Incels because our society provides fertile ground for them. If we want Incels to go away, we’ve got to change how we raise children who are at-risk for social marginalization. The social interventions that worked 30-50 years ago probably aren’t good enough since social media didn’t exist back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/53 "2019-04-22T12:38:01Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I still do wonder about calling them “a movement”. Is there any reason to believe this is more dysfunctional socially maladaptive misogynistic men than there were before? Has had having something to call themselves and a virtual gathering place to meet increased the numbers or just labeled those who have always existed? I don’t think it’s strange to have a movement of maladaptive young men, but the ideaology they embrace varies by time and place. In this time and place, it carries more overt self-loathing, more hatred of women as objects, and a weird “scientific” dogma that makes it very hard to help people. They don’t think they deserve help. They think that anyone attempting to help is a beta cuck who can’t accept the inarguable scientific facts. Anyone trying to help them will, by that act, generate even more scorn, which sparks the self-loathing, which sparks more resentment. It’s a mess. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/54 "2019-04-22T13:50:59Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Yikes. I read a bit about it when Rogers went on his murder spree, but haven’t keep up. > > Japan has herbivores men, guys who have given up on the idea who’d finding women, but there isn’t the hatred. … Correct me please but my impression has been that the sexism and misogyny is more, as is the case for much in Japanese culture, codified and mainstream. Men read anime with graphic violence against women openly on the subways. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/55 "2019-04-22T14:02:39Z")
What \*\*monstro \*\*said. You can’t have a society in which sex and relationships are portrayed as desirable, in which men who get laid are considered winners and those who can’t are considered losers, and toss in natural hormones, libido, etc. into the mix and \*\*\*not \*\*\*expect some to be pissed off about it. It makes as little sense as tossing a chunk of sodium into water and then acting surprised when the sodium explodes - that’s simply the natural product of putting such a volatile mix together. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/56 "2019-04-22T14:12:25Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > … Yes, people like this have always existed, but back in the day, people like this would have been forced to get out and socialize like a “normie” due to the lack of any other alternative. And by doing so, most would have found a way to deal. Nowadays, it isn’t anything to hole up in one’s bedroom and “socialize” in maladaptive way. And their parents put up with it because “Hey, at least we know where he is” and “What harm could come from posting on the internet all day? It’s just words.” > > I’m saying all of this not because I ooze sympathy for the Incel, but because I’m tired of people acting like Incels are just fucked-up individuals operating in a vacuum. No, we’ve got Incels because our society provides fertile ground for them. If we want Incels to go away, we’ve got to change how we raise children who are at-risk for social marginalization. The social interventions that worked 30-50 years ago probably aren’t good enough since social media didn’t exist back in the day. I find this position very interesting even if I am not yet convinced of its accuracy completely. I agree that “people like this” always existed but don’t know that that they ever got out and found a way to deal. I think they stayed hidden and isolated in their depressed self-loathing and resentment. They had no one to talk to and no one who would listen. They were, to the rest of us, invisible, even as they worked and walked among the rest of us. Invisible people often want to be seen and heard. Social media has given them an audience of people who are also resentful of what others have and self-hating that they don’t have it. That audience, that membership in a group, is a powerful thing to get. Self-hate and turning the hate outwards are easy to combine given no alternative and adopting the norms of a group you feel part of is hard to not do. But I completely agree with your conclusion. Preventing more from adopting the group membership requires more than pointing out how bad they are. And not sure but Mando JO may be right that those who already have the identity are too far gone to reach. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/57 "2019-04-22T14:13:36Z")
I would argue it’s less driven by hormones than ego. I’d also point out women’s hormonal issues were used to disqualify them from a lot over the centuries, and it’s amusing to see how for men it’s a pass for a LOT of bad behaviour. Kind of how drunkenness mitigates responsibility for sexual assault for the male aggressor but condemns the female victim. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/58 "2019-04-22T14:39:09Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > I had to go look up what a “roastie” is. And now I wanna die. I’m sorry. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/59 "2019-04-22T14:44:09Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > I would argue it’s less driven by hormones than ego. > > I’d also point out women’s hormonal issues were used to disqualify them from a lot over the centuries, and it’s amusing to see how for men it’s a pass for a LOT of bad behaviour. > > Kind of how drunkenness mitigates responsibility for sexual assault for the male aggressor but condemns the female victim. Change “Kind of how” with “Exactly like how” and that last sentence is 100% spot-on. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822/60 "2019-04-22T15:02:30Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I find this position very interesting even if I am not yet convinced of its accuracy completely. > > I agree that “people like this” always existed but don’t know that that they ever got out and found a way to deal. I think they stayed hidden and isolated in their depressed self-loathing and resentment. They had no one to talk to and no one who would listen. They were, to the rest of us, invisible, even as they worked and walked among the rest of us. Note that I did not say all social weirdos from “back in the day” found a way to deal. Back in the day, social deviants were thrown into mental institutions or they lived sad Boo Radley-like existences. Maybe they were sent to reform school and became criminalized. Or they were drafted into war, where being a social dingus made them a prime candidate for cannon fodder. But alternatively, many social weirdos were able to find status by joining the military or getting a good factory job right out of high school. Earning only minimum wage in the 1960s and 1970s was not a barrier to an independent “grown up” lifestyle. So yeah, you might not be getting any play, but at least you’ve got your own place. You’ve got your own wheels. You’ve got a job. You’ve got status symbols, is what I am saying. And maybe you eventually do find a companion in a pre-feminist woman who is fine with the bare minimum in a partner and doesn’t care so much that you have the emotional intelligence of a cold potato. But nowadays, we’ve got 20-somethings who _aren’t_ socially weird who are struggling to acquire basic symbols of success. People with college degrees, friends and significant others, and the ability to pass a personality test are struggling just to move out of their parents’ house. But at least they have friends and significant others, right? At least they can flash their social worth on insta. The guy with only minimum wage job prospects and zero friends ain’t got nothing to flash. He ain’t taking selfies with pretty girls. He ain’t taking pictures of him and his boys hitting the club. He ain’t flashing “bae” pics of his sleeping girlfriend. He also isn’t living in his own place or driving a car he bought with his own money. He feels very much like a child and a nobody…except when he logs onto the Incel forum and gets validation for his violent trash talk. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incel-question/832822.md?page=4)