# "Why are incels so angry?" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 28, 2018, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269 "2018-04-28T16:45:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**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:** [May 2, 2018, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/261 "2018-05-02T12:20:14Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I don’t think Incels are the prototypical “nice guys”. … If anything the impression I get is that these guys would prefer to be “pick up artists” if they could, but that doing that requires some “theory of the mind”, some ability to view the circumstance from the other’s POV if only to be able to manipulate them, and that they lack that. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/262 "2018-05-02T12:40:50Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Fixed [link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori) for you. I gotta be useful for something around here. Your assistance is appreciated. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/263 "2018-05-02T13:16:04Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > It takes all types. For some of us physical contact is intimately tied to emotional contact. My married daughter likes physical contact with her husband just fine, but hates, hates hates the thought of a massage. She got a gift card for one once, and gave it away as fast as possible. > Some people don’t think about sex much, and some think about it as often as my dog thinks about food. Like always. It’s not an excuse for being an asshole, but for them it is a basic need. Yep it does. I know people who have met the physical contact need with pets. But the point is that there are ways outside of sex to meet the need for touch. Sex may be a lot of people’s preferred means to meet that need, but it can be met through working with children, living with goats, or getting a massage. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/264 "2018-05-02T13:30:10Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > They believe sex is a basic human need (I don’t agree with this - no one dies if they don’t get laid. Human intimacy and touch may be a basic human need, but that is very different than sex). No one dies from lack of touch either, so I’m not sure what the difference is. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2018, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/265 "2018-05-02T14:16:14Z")
One problem with using Elliot Rodger as a case example is that he had so much fucked up stuff in his life that he is something of a Blind Man’s Elephant - people can pick and choose any of which variables they like to choose from as the culprit for his woes. Bullying/mockery victim? Yes. A bully himself? Arguably. Racist? Yes. Mental issues? Yes. Lack of friends? Yes. Toxic masculinity? Yes. Lack of social understanding? Yes. The only thing lacking might be a radical Islamic background or autism or a childhood of poverty, but other than that there is already so much stuff in there that everyone can shoehorn and angle in whichever cause they see out of it. ---
**Author:** ![Tee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@Tee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tee)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/266 "2018-05-02T14:33:22Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Yeah, but what happens when others call you an incel because you are celibate through nonvoluntary means? I do see that people who are seen as losers in social circles are being pushed away from mainstream thought. They are being denied healthy outlets to discuss their frustrations. They are shut off from social contact, just as social contact is most necessary. > > So they go and try to find someone who will accept them, who will understand them. What community do you think that that is? They will find men ranting about women being stupid sluts, upset that the femshit whores won’t touch them when they find themselves actually needing one of the dumb cumbuckets, and the bitches don’t even _care_. And they will think “ah, someone finally understands.” Or will they? That is the question. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/267 "2018-05-02T14:39:03Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > No one dies from lack of touch either, so I’m not sure what the difference is. Actually, they do. Babies in orphanages will die from lack of human contact. Its called failure to thrive, and it was a huge issue in Romanian orphanages in the late 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/268 "2018-05-02T15:12:41Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > One problem with using Elliot Rodger as a case example is that he had so much fucked up stuff in his life that he is something of a Blind Man’s Elephant - people can pick and choose any of which variables they like to choose from as the culprit for his woes. Bullying/mockery victim? Yes. A bully himself? Arguably. Racist? Yes. Mental issues? Yes. Lack of friends? Yes. Toxic masculinity? Yes. Lack of social understanding? Yes. I hate to sound like Mr. Elliot Rodger Expert, it’s just that his crazy manifesto really stuck with me in how fucked up it is. There’s more: Spoiled entitled little shithead whose parents never made him get a job or do anything for himself? Check. Delusional narcissist who literally thought he would win the lottery just because he wished for it very hard? Check. Instigator of random violence (long before the shooting) - including repeatedly throwing drinks in peoples’ faces whenever he got pissed off at them, and shooting a crowd of people with a Super Soaker filled with orange juice (I swear to God, he actually did that) - Check. Convinced that he would write an “epic adventure story” like _Game of Thrones_ and make millions of dollars, even though he had no writing ability? Check. Obsessed with the idea of flaying people alive (clearly inspired by _Game of Thrones_) - Check. As I have said, this guy could have had a wife and 5 side pieces and he’d still be fucked up psycho. Remember everyone that there is _no_ shortage of serial killers and general whackos who are profilgate womanizers, or “happily” married, or both. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/269 "2018-05-02T15:39:01Z")
If I was involuntarily celibate, I don’t know that I’d identify with this “movement” , if they worshipped a psycho. (are they a legitimate movement? do they have a mission statement that everybody agrees on? do they have a leader?) But, if there just happened to be a psycho in this movement, (as there are psychos in ANY movement once it reaches a sizable amount), I don’t know if I’d distance myself just for that. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/270 "2018-05-02T15:51:50Z")
My twenties included a long, involuntary dry spell (I mentally described myself something like “involuntarily celibate”), and it was super lonely and depressing and discouraging. But I blamed myself, not women, which was exactly the right thing to do IMO. No, sex and physical contact are not needs in the way that food and air are. But neither are they luxuries in the way that videogames and caviar are. For the majority of people, physical intimacy–and I think for the majority of people, sexual intimacy–are necessary for psychological and emotional health. It’s perfectly understandable that if someone desires sexual intimacy and isn’t getting any, they’re gonna be frustrated and sad and discouraged In general, I feel pity for folks who want sex and aren’t having it; I remember how shitty that felt. But that pity doesn’t translate in any way at all to patience with anyone who turns hostile about it. I can be sad someone isn’t having sex without thinking that they’re owed sex. I do wish that more people recognized flirting and dating as comprising a distinct set of social skills that not everyone knows intuitively, and that can be taught in a respectful, psychologically healthy way. It seems that the main folks who teach sad dudes how to get sex is pickup artists and the like, and what they teach is scummy bullshit. Ideally there’d be a clear alternative to these fools, an alternative that would teach incels how to behave in an attractive manner (like, specifically, not just general ideology) while not being misogynistic jackasses. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/271 "2018-05-02T16:11:04Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > I don’t think Incels are the prototypical “nice guys”. > > When I say these guys lack meaningful relationships, I’m not talking about just friendships. A lot of them feel disconnected from their families. A lot of them feel alienated from their communities (being under or unemployed). They have a perceived lack of social status. > > Also, nowadays young people can claim to have a lot of friends. Dig deeper and they are talking about people they “know” online, who they game with or “forum” with. Or people they know in real life, but who they engage only through social media. Not friends who will take them out for a beer and ice cream when the feels get to be too much. This isn’t just an an Incel thing either. Friendship doesn’t mean quite the same thing now than it did a generation ago. Incels aren’t nice guys. In those threads I saw a lack of confidence and a lack of understanding of women, but seldom the kind of hatred the incels show. People complaining about being confined to the friend zone at least have friends, and more than just online ones. Incels seem to have neither friends nor romantic partners. People with high sex drives often don’t understand those with low sex drives, but the reverse is also true. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/272 "2018-05-02T16:15:37Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Yep it does. I know people who have met the physical contact need with pets. But the point is that there are ways outside of sex to meet the need for touch. Sex may be a lot of people’s preferred means to meet that need, but it can be met through working with children, living with goats, or getting a massage. Some people, sure, but I’ve got a Golden Retriever and it isn’t the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/273 "2018-05-02T16:18:10Z")
Ways you shouldn’t touch your GR: ---
**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:** [May 2, 2018, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/274 "2018-05-02T16:51:50Z")
Another issue - not about Rodger, but about incels and frustrated people in general - is that desperation is generally punished by rejection in society, which only leads to more desperation. It’s an extraordinarily cruel Catch-22. A desperate person not being able to find love or companionship because of desperation is akin to a starving person being told, “We’ll give you food when you stop being so \*hungry \*all the time.” ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/275 "2018-05-02T17:29:40Z")
No it’s not. We all face disappointments in life, we all feel short changed. Some people are enormously shortchanged, they have longed their whole lives to have a child and now find they cannot. They are widowed with two kids at twenty six. They can’t secure a position in the field they adore. Life is filled with grievous shortfalls for everyone. We get past it, and find our way to some kind of happiness, by maturing, and looking past those things we lack to enjoy the things we do possess. They live in a hell of their own creation, certain it’s never gonna change. That _is_ the hell part. But that is total horseshit. Things change, people find love late in life, and in unexpected places, all the freaking time. This bunch accept it’s never gonna change, and blame everything external to them because otherwise, they might be the part of the problem that needs working on. (And I seriously question that anyone, anywhere, ever mocked someone by calling them ‘incel’, unless they have already self identified as such.) ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/276 "2018-05-02T17:44:01Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Another issue - not about Rodger, but about incels and frustrated people in general - is that desperation is generally punished by rejection in society, which only leads to more desperation. It’s an extraordinarily cruel Catch-22. A desperate person not being able to find love or companionship because of desperation is akin to a starving person being told, “We’ll give you food when you stop being so \*hungry \*all the time.” The same with the long-time unemployed. It is tough to not look desparate when you are indeed desparate. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/277 "2018-05-02T17:50:16Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > No it’s not. We all face disappointments in life, we all feel short changed. Some people are enormously shortchanged, they have longed their whole lives to have a child and now find they cannot. They are widowed with two kids at twenty six. They can’t secure a position in the field they adore. Life is filled with grievous shortfalls for everyone. That’s true, but not all shortfalls have the same sort of reinforcing feedback loops that **Velocity** was describing. A widow with two kids who gets sad about it doesn’t suddenly have three kids. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/278 "2018-05-02T18:42:27Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > No it’s not. We all face disappointments in life, we all feel short changed. Some people are enormously shortchanged, they have longed their whole lives to have a child and now find they cannot. They are widowed with two kids at twenty six. They can’t secure a position in the field they adore. Life is filled with grievous shortfalls for everyone. > > We get past it, and find our way to some kind of happiness, by maturing, and looking past those things we lack to enjoy the things we do possess. “We” do not all get past life’s disappointments. Healthy people who are operating with a full complement of emotional and intellectual and support resources do. But lots of people–not just Incels–are on self-detructive paths because they cannot cope. The whole “I am okay so why aren’t you okay?!” is a stupid way to knock sense into an Incel. It is stupid for Incels because their whole thing is that of course life is okay for the the top 50th percentile of the social hierarchy, which is where the “we” you are referencing live. I hang out at the r/lostgeneration subreddit, where some Incels occasionally post. A lot of unemployed and underemployed 20- and 30-somethings hang out there. These folks are fed up with the “I am okay with life’s disappointments so why aren’t you okay with yours?!” line they hear from parents and other Boomers. Could it possibly be that carrying a heavy student loan burden while working a minimum wage job is a different kind of disappointment than getting past over for a promotion? Could it possibly be that being unable to make enough money to move out of your childhood bedroom is a different kind of disappointment than being turned down for a home loan? Not all blues are the same. And the way that blues are framed by the people around us help to shape how intensely we feel about them. It is easier to cope psychologically with poverty when everyone you know is poor. But if you are the only person you know who is poor, it will be harder to cope…to not feel like you aren’t being ripped off. Incels see everyone else finding success and the advice that seems to work everyone else failing for them. Yes, this is crazy since obviously not everyone finds success. But if I had the same mindset, I would be angry too. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/279 "2018-05-02T20:34:57Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Actually, they do. Babies in orphanages will die from lack of human contact. Its called failure to thrive, and it was a huge issue in Romanian orphanages in the late 1980s. They died? We were told about the Romanian orphanage tendency to ignore babies crying in ante-natal classes but I thought it was that they eventually stopped crying and grew up all sociopathic. Maybe dead babies is a bad thing to bring up in a room full of pregnant women. Non hijack: these analogies to food and employment are flawed, if the hungry and unemployed people viscerally hated food, jobs, chefs and employed people they would be apt. It’s like complaining that you don’t have any black friends at a Klan rally. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269/280 "2018-05-02T21:23:41Z")
The point isn’t that all crushing disappointments are equatable, it’s that people move on to happy productive lives after devastating blows all the time. But it takes a maturity beyond stamping your foot and lamenting your lot in life. They remind me of that fellow who was around for a while that never stopped raging about how unfair it was tall guys got all the chicks and he couldn’t get any. Lots of women prefer tall men. But lots of short guys make out okay every day. But that guy wasn’t having it! He’d built his own little hell where society was cruel and unjust and life unfair. Yeah, focusing on your shortcomings and blaming society for an inability and/or refusal to grow up, move on, and get right with however it is, (short, fat, bald, unemployed, whatever!), is gonna lead to anything but happiness. We are all responsible for our own happiness, not society. Finding a path to being happy while facing your challenges in life, IS maturity, in my opinion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-incels-so-angry/813269.md?page=15)