I haven’t opined otherwise, and in fact, have advocated that we need to conduct some studies to understand these root causes.
I think that what is bugging me in this thread is that posters seems to be assumping a lot in the attempt to empathize. While it’s important not to villlanize for the sake of it, what is getting ignored or glossed over is the distinct possibility that incel ideology is what foments the problems these men are frustrated about, not external realities. The ideology seems to take someone who has insecurities and low self-esteem resulting from social difficulties and turns them into monsters who are completely socially dysfunctional.
Without data, I’m not convinced that proto incels are especially unique in having insecurities and low self esteem resulting from social difficulties, or even unique in having poor coping skills to deal with these issues. I’m not ruling any of this out, but it’s hard for me to just assume based on the stories of single men who are not plowing cars through people or cheering such monsters on.
The question we’re all asking is what turns a proto into a full incel? Is it really due to them being “low status” and experiencing round after round of rejection? Or it is because they start out with low esteem (which could come from any trauma in their life, not just from being single), then encounter incel ideology in the midst of a bad mental health day, and it sticks like any addiction sticks in certain impressionable individuals? If the latter, then making incels communities harder to find online is probably the most effective thing we could do to prevent Incels. And it actually may be more feasible than tackling larger societal issues like destigmatizing male virginity or teaching guys better social skills.
I mostly lurk on reddit and have only sporadically read up on incels. But I came across this threadyesterday started by a self-identified former incel. What stands out is that, real or perceived, the incels did more to fuel the guy’s doubt in himself than anyone else ever has. It’s hard not see this group as embodying crabs in a barrel that not only seek to tear down the hope and self-esteem of others but also elevates external validation as being of central importance. From his account, I’m not really seeing “acceptance” in this community. It seems more like a bunch of toxic people spreading their toxicity because mysery loves company, and he fell into this black hole because of his own impressionable mindset. Therapy is what got him out of it, and it’s probably what most of these guys need.
I’m going with a multiple hit hypothesis. The first hit is loneliness and social isolation, both due to lack of ability and skills and by the circumstances of our world. Some go down a self-hate/depression path with that and some get angry and turn it outwards. Unfortunately some models of masculinity in our society feed into that posture. Find no empathy for this part of your life elsewhere andyou instead fall into a reinforcing group.
Perhaps these models are what some on the “it’s misogyny” side are trying to get at. Incels absorb misogyny because it offers ego-sparing explanatory power for their alienation and justifies their bitterness about it. In other words, it’s less about the situation they actually find themselves in and more to do with their beliefs about it.
Does the isolation comes first and then the misogyny-fueled bitterness? Or is it the other way around?
These are the things that need to be studied and quantified. Not so that we can properly vilify the right people, but so that we don’t make the wrong assumptions in our attempt to understand.
I think you’re reading responses wrong here - these guys are losers when they stop trying to be constructive and fall into hate and blaming everyone but themselves.
Getting turned down once doesn’t make a man a loser. Getting turned down 10 or even 100 times doesn’t make him a loser - ask any man successful on the romance front, he’s been turned down more than his overtures have been accepted. It’s like shooting baskets - no one with their head on straight expects every attempt to sink the basketball is going to succeed, and a player isn’t a “loser” if he misses a bunch of shots. He’s a loser if he /ragequit on the game entirely in a huff. He’s a loser if he obssesses over every missed basket as if it were the last possible attempt ever instead of regrouping and getting back out there.
And yes, if you’re short, uncoordinated, and awkward you are going to miss a LOT of baskets. And if you’re not that attractive, overweight, poor at social interactions, etc. you’re going to have a lot of trouble getting dates. But the solution isn’t to drive over women with a truck, it’s to do what you can to improve your game (yes, the sports metaphors are often overdone with these things, but they work). You may never be a top player, but even poor players can improve and get something out of the game.
Which is still distinct from people who opt out from the game because they’re just not that interested (this would be the asexuals).
Quite a bit of the problem here is attitude. The internal state of the person in question. All people need validation, and if these guys are not doing well with dating then it helps immensely if they have something positive in their lives, some arena where they do function well.
It would also help if our society wasn’t so damn sex-obsessed, but that’s another issue.
Why do some people become morbidly obese hoarders in response to childhood abuse, while others become serial killers, while some others become pillars of their communities? I’m guessing it comes down to
the diversity of experiences that can be labeled abusive. Being starved in a locked basement for weeks on end is not the same kind of abusive experience as being fondled by a neighbor.
genetics. Hoarders are more likely to be found in families that have a genetic vulnerability to OCD, ASD, and schizophrenia. Psychopaths have noticable abnormalities in brain structure. Some people are just more sensitive to certain things than others.
the presence/absence/intensity of environmental mitigators. Perhaps the abuse victim that becomes the pillar of his community has loving grandparents who were able to counterbalance the hate of his parents.
the presence/absence/intensity of environmental stressors. It is harder to be resilient to abuse when you are living in poverty or you suffer from chronic illness.
the presence/absence/quality of interventions. Maybe if the serial killer had had received some interventions early in life, he wouldn’t have become a serial killer. Maybe the morbidly obese hoarder was put into therapy as a kid, but it was ineffective therapy.
I’ve written all of this to show that no pathology has a 1:1 correspondence to all the identified risk factors, but that doesn’t stop us from using those risk factors as red flags for intervention. There is always going to be some individuals who fit the profile but buck the generalization, and vice versa. I agree that the science on the Incel phenomenon is too nascent for us to hang our hat on any one hypothesis and that we all just spit-balling here. But I think we know enough to say that a lot of the Incel-ish guys who are actually committing violence (not just rooting from the sidelines…since rooting isn’t that hard to do from behind a keyboard) have spent their whole lives at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Deservedly or not, that’s where they live. You don’t hear folks talking about how these violent guys used to be happy and normal with a lot of friends, pillar of their communities, until they fell into the Incel crowd. Not all people at the bottom become Incels. But we don’t have to be social scientists to suspect that social isolation combined with serious emotional difficulties are likely big risk factors. They are also big factors for a number of other social ills, so tackling them (just like tackling childhood abuse and poverty) could lift many boats.
There has always been social isolation in our society. There has always been “Boo Radley’s” in our community, living marginal lives in their parents’ basements, not doing much with their lives but trying to endure the stigma the best way they know how. But these people now have the opportunity to form communities and form dangerous echo chambers, Incel or something even worse. Is the solution really to just shut down those echo chambers? How do we do this without trampling on the First Amendment? And it is even possible to shut all of them down?
I absolutely think that hanging with Incels results in people feeling even more isolated, with even greater insecurities. And I don’t think that people who become full-fledges Incels are people without any misogyny to start with. (Of note, I think most people have internalized some nasty things about women, including women.) And I don’t think that Incels have a leadership that is directly targeting people—unlike ISIL, for example—who are vulnerable in some way.
Instead, I think people run across the Incel ideology, find it horrifying and flee or intriguing and stay. Those who find it intriguing are not otherwise okay fellows. They are not necessarily ready to really hurt anybody yet or to be as vicious and threatening in their commentary as Incels can be, though. I think that probably takes some desensitization. So, if it follows some other types of radicalization, at first intrigue or excitement but maybe with discomfort, then more comfort, then taking part in the talk to “fit in,” then full belief, maybe with actions, etc. And all this while, the hatred and violent speech is ramping up and the calls to normalcy or conscience are suppressed or mocked.
So when you say you’re not convinced these guys have unique problems or lack of social skills, I absolutely agree. I don’t think everyone would follow this path, just as not everyone in high-risk groups would join a gang or the KKK. And I absolutely 100% think that anyone who does follow the path and who does become a full-fledged Incel is incredibly damaged, likely dangerous, and responsible for their speech and actions.
I also don’t think it requires “low status” (at least how I would define that) or round after round of rejection (at least how I would define that).
If this is true, how they came to be at the bottom is just as important as the fact that they are there. In other words, we shouldn’t be assuming the relationship between social status and one’s feelings about themselves is unidirectional, and that these guys are correct in assessing their social status to begin with (going back to a point made by DSeid earlier).
Perhaps not, but if they have a thought process that is systematically distorted and overly negative this could explain both why they become incels and why they suffer socially. The assumption that I question is that they generally start out mentally sound, find themselves hopelessly single because of their status, and then become incels because of that. The unexamined risk factors that we both agree need attention almost certainly makes causality much more complex than just this straight line.
Reddit recently banned incels because of what it was encouraging. I do believe actions like this are what is needed. Perhaps it will not cure the problem altogether, but making it less easy for these incels to pull each other down into a cesspool of hate and negativity, the less recruiting power the community will have.
If a dangerous cult sets up camp in town, there will always be people attracted to it if the leader is charismatic enough and the cult offers something that scratches an itch among vulnerable people in search of solutions and meaning. We could tackle the issue by creating more competitive alternatives for these would-be cultists, but we shouldn’t discount the power of getting rid of the cult too. That’s part of making alternatives more competitive.
For the record, I don’t think they start out mentally sound and then become Incels because they are hopelessly single. I’m not sure how many people do believe that, but I definitely don’t. I don’t think someone accidentally becomes an Incel.
And how big is this problem, really? Yes, a couple of these losers killed, but most haven’t, nor are they likely to. For the most part it seems they are just obnoxious blowhards. I’d say that their involvement with the movement helps identify them as major losers, but the people who know them knew that already.
We are going to have to go with the data we have and not the data we want.
What we do see is a whole mess of misogynic assholes with decent social skills who do quite well in the hooking up department. Maybe they do not do as well in the stable long term partnership arena, but being a misogynic prick does not seem to get in the way of casual sex success. Misogyny alone is not disqualifying.
To me that falsifies the misogyny leads to isolation and bitterness hypothesis as primary. (Which does not mean that some were not always misogynists or even that almost all at least had some receptivity that direction.)
Broomstick, y’know something? Someone who is short and uncoordinated who both misses a lot of baskets and is laughed at when they keep missing most often does not keep going to shoot baskets. Just sayin’
This has never been my assumption. I can’t imagine that someone who is mentally sound (however we want to define that) would find Incel culture all that intriguing. I think your mind kind of already has to be full of distorted ideas (about yourself and reality) for the Incel mindset to take hold.
But I also think we need to acknowledge that mentally unsound does not equal psychopath or someone who is just naturally inclined to violence and extreme misogyny. Someone who is depressed and socially anxious is mentally unsound. I think most if not all “bottom dwellers” of the social hierarchy are there because they are dealing with something like these disorders. They are either not being treated by medical/psychiatric professionals or they are not receiving effective treatment. Some of these people become violent with no identification with Incel (the VT shooter, for instance). Some of these people become non-productive addicts (gaming, drug, alcohol). Some of these people just kill themselves off. And some of them become Incel, non-violent or otherwise. I think it’s a mistake (not saying you’re doing this) to use “mentally unsound” to write out the existence of seemingly normal, everyday young men from Incel culture. A lot of seemingly normal, everyday young men are vulnerable to a mental illness at some stage in their development.
I’m also not convinced pinpointing the main driver (social isolation or mental illness) will be all that helpful. Social psychologists know that social isolation and marginalization can cause and exacerbate mental illness. Anyone who has spent a long-time being unemployed can attest to that. And we know that people who are mentally ill do better when they are not socially isolated and they feel like they matter. So I don’t know what teasing apart the two factors gets us. I think most people are recognizing that mental illness is bad and needs to be treated immediately. However, not all of us see social isolation the same way. In the generic person’s view, if a person is social marginalized, he must be doing stuff to be socially marginalized and therefore he needs to stay there until he fixes himself. I even have this attitude. But I don’t think this is the right attitude, cuz maybe the dude can’t fix himself. Just like a crazy person can’t un-crazy themselves. I think there are some ways that we could make the social marginalized feel less marginalized without encouraging all their deviant behaviors.
I think one thing people miss is that social isolation/marginalization today has a different dynamic than it did before the internet. It’s one thing to be on the margins and not really know it because you don’t see what everyone around you has been up to. It’s quite another to know you’re on the margins because you have constant reminders of all the parties you aren’t invited to, all the conversations you’re excluded from, and all the social milestones you’re missing out on. And you even get penalized if you don’t want to be privy to all this stuff because only “losers” aren’t on social media (which is why I’m so glad I’m not a teenager). Psychologists are seeing a whole new crop of neuroses in young people that didn’t exist a generation ago. So not only is Incel stuff poorly understood, so is the short-term and long-term effects of social media. We don’t even know how this stuff affects so-called “healthy” people, let alone people who are already dealing with mental illness. The Incel may be an emergent property of a whole bunch of stuff that our old models just aren’t calibrated for because things are just moving so fast.
That’s what I am going for here. I have very little sympathy for those who have fully embraced real misogyny and hatred, but I do think that there are far more on that path that can be diverted than have actually reached that destination. To label everyone who has even considered that path to be as bad as one who has a hotel built at the end tends to push them further down it.
I dunno if she knew the whole definition, but she meant it to be insulting and degrading. The only thing she knew about me in the whole wide world with our maybe 15 seconds of interaction was that I hadn’t had a girlfriend in a few years.
I actually quit that job shortly after, so I never followed up.
Crap. I think I got you conflated with Little Nemo.Odd thing about names sometimes. You are entirely different, but the way the name flows… My bad.
Though I thought is was you that said something like that if the only community you can find to accept you is one that contains misogynists, then you must be one yourself, but I cannot find that post, so if not, I apologize and retract that as well.
No, I don’t notice how passive I am in this story. I am not telling a story, but rather, just the ends of them. These were all women that I asked out and went on one or two dates with, and got that as a response to my request for another. My point was only to show that that is a pretty typical way of being broken up with. I am not saying that they were mean. In fact, they were probably trying to be nice. My only point in that is to show that people don’t even realize that they are doing anything wrong, much less what it was.
It was better than being ghosted, as some have done, or the one that really messed me up, where several times, she texted me after we the time that we had decided upon to meet to say that she had an emergency come up. Until the fifth time, when I texted when she was 20 minutes late to see if she was running behind, and her reply was “CAN’T YOU TAKE A HINT?”
I didn’t even know that there was a hint to be taken. I did think that one was a little bit mean.
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Dude, your flaws are not their problems to fix, they’re yours.
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I never said that they were their problems to fix. I am saying that it is hard to fix a problem when you don’t even know it exists.
The way I finally discovered a bit about myself was when my friends signed me up for a speed dating event. I thought it was the stupidest idea in the world, and pretty much refused to go. Well, peer pressure… I went. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and it did help a bit with allowing myself to become more comfortable with initial interactions with a woman, but the biggest thing it had going for it was feedback. They would actually fill out little cards that said what it was they did or did not like about you.
That was when I discovered that I didn’t know how to smile. No had ever told me this before, but when I smile, I pull the corners of my mouth tight, and some (many) people took that to be anger.
Now, I’ve talked crap about media, and how it feeds into false expectations, but this is where it was useful. Actors are good at facial expressions. So, after nearly a year of spending hours a day staring in a mirror and comparing that to what actors looked like when they smiled, I finally was able to pull off a nice, genuine smile. I even had dimples! Just that little thing made such a huge difference in my life, even outside of dating, that I am a bit resentful that it took so long and such convoluted circumstances for me to discover it.
I’m not sure what to do with that. It comes across as extremely condescending, even insulting, but I’ll be happy to let you explain what you mean here.
No, they are okay with hanging out with people that are willing to listen to their stories without judgement or humiliation, even if there are people who others outside of the group label as misogynists.
There’s another excluded middle. There are places where one can go to play a game, or they can talk about movies, but if they want to talk about relationships, about life, about the disappointments that they have endured, they will be made fun of in most communities. The communities that do not degrade people for being socially awkward are going to, pretty much by definition, contain social outcasts. Some of whom are outcast for good reason, but many who just don’t fit in. To judge the community of outcasts by its worst members isn’t really fair.
No, that’s not what I mean at all. I am talking about communities that will accept a sad and lonely man, and not humiliate or degrade him for being a sad and lonely man.
Right, and I agree with you. However, most people see the person in the first catagory, and pigeonhole him into the second.
One of my many jobs in this life was as a cable tech. When I knocked on the door, I would be subject to a barrage of blames that none of which were my fault. I had literally just shown up. However, I was representing a company for which the blame was assigned. Even in cases when the fault was entirely the customer’s (half the time it was their dog eating the cable line) I was subject to quite the blame.
And, even after receiving a tirade of screaming that I didn’t deserve, I still didn’t feel as though they hated me, but that they were frustrated with their lack of success in getting the cable service they thought that they deserved.
So, yeah, I was using shorthand that it is the mailman’s fault, as the mailman is the representative of the mail service. He is the point of contact, and he is the one who is ultimately responsible for me getting my mail.
However, my entire point there was to say that, even though I may blame the mailman (and those he represents) for my mail being late, that doesn’t mean that I hate him. It is your side of the argument that demands that blame be associated with hatred.
I can only say that I entirely disagree with this line of logic. Just as people point out that it’s not a woman’s job to explain to a socially awkward man what they are doing wrong, it’s not my job to delve into the beucrocray of the USPS to find out what the reason is for my mail being late. If I give my mailman a “it’s about time” when he finally delivers my mail, is that me being hateful, because I didn’t track down to find out who’s fault it actually was?
Under what conditions do you need to know that it is one person or another’s fault before you can assign blame without hate? If you have called the USPS, and talked to all the supervisors and found out that it is in fact, your mailman’s fault that your mail is late, is an, “it’s about time” when he delivers the mail now not hateful?
And, once again, you are talking about a different cohort of people than the ones that I am. I am talking about frustrated men, who may fall for the path of going down a line of misogyny, and you are talking about people who already are. Now, if we assume that we are talking about the same people, then you are claiming that anyone who ends up a misogynist always was a misogynist, and therefore, deserved everything that they got up until the time that they radicalized.
What do you think about a guy who doesn’t resent women, doesn’t resent women who won’t date him, doesn’t resent men who date the girls that he wants to date, but does resent the misogynists that do date the girls that he wants to date?
I have met quite a number of women who are in abusive relationships. Usually there is an obviously made up story about slipping in the shower, or tripping in the kitchen, though I had one co-worker who, after she was out for three days and when she returned, the parts of her face not covered in bandages were covered in black and blue, simply stated that her boyfriend punched her through a wall.
When a man who is not a misogynist, who doesn’t resent women, who doesn’t want them to be hurt, sees this sort of thing, it is a bit confusing as to why a woman would pick a man who beats her over himself. It is even more baffling that pointing that out, and questioning it, gets you labeled as a misogynist yourself.
It also has the very bad effect of lifting up misogynists who beat women as role models who get to date the girls that one wants to date. And the very desperate and unfortunate socially awkward person may try to follow in their footsteps.
Yeah, and my point here is that incel has different meanings. If someone is called an incel by people because of their lack of romantic success, and then they join a group that has self identified incels in it, what definition are they supposed to be using? The label and the definition come from outside sources. People say that certain political parties are full of hateful people, but the people that are parts of those groups disagree. Which is right?
Right, but there are a few people on this board that have very misogynistic views, and they are easy to see because they get called out in the Pit on them. However, if you see what they have to say, and you agree that some of what they say is hateful, but some other things that they say make sense, and are things that aren’t being discussed by others, what does that make you?
If one of these misogynists posts a link to a blog or a board that offers comfort and support to the lonely and someone who is lonely follows it, and finds people there who have similar experiences, and who will not say things like “What does the therapist you pay for help tell you?” in response to a story about rejection, I can certainly see how they would turn a blind eye to some of the more hateful members, especially if they only make up a small (but vocal and most noticeable) part of the membership.
And it is not a healthy environment. Most people will probably just keep on keepin on and use it as a place to occasionally vent about their romantic problems in a space where they will not be called out for it. But, some may find reason to go further, and move away from mainstream thought. The problem with a place like that is not that they have hateful people, but that they do not have anyone who puts the breaks on someone else’s hate.
Agreed 100% here. Outgroups judge a group by its worst members. Ingroups judge a group by its best. You are going to have a difference of opinion on the judgment of the group that way.
I debated quite a bit whether I wanted to get involved in this, as it has caused me to open up on some rather personal issues. And I do feel as though there is more than just a bit of condescension towards that. I do feel as though even trying to answer the OP of the thread of asking how people got to be like this gets pushback, and is seen as showing “compassion for men who think women owe them sex and deserve brutal punishment for failing to provide them with it.”
I don’t say that they cannot find other communities that have interest in common, just that they will not find community that will accept their relationship status. You can be interested in model airplanes, and talk about model airplanes all day. But when the subject turns to more personal matters is when problems arise. I participated in RPGs for years (and still do, but less often), and contrary to popular belief, these D&D players did have healthy relationships. In order to find a community that accepts you for who you are, you have to find people that understand what it is to be who you are.
Right, and that is what I consider to be acceptance in a community. I kinda like it here, there are interesting people to talk to, but I don’t feel at all comfortable talking about my problems or issues here. I was very nervous even talking about my experiences, as I felt that that may open me up to ridicule and contempt from other posters. I for a while participated in a forum about nuclear power, and another one about dog grooming and training, even one about a webcomic that I enjoyed, and would certainly not feel comfortable in any way about sharing my personal experiences there.
Like I said, it is not a healthy community. It is putting the radicalized in direct contact with people in danger of being radicalized. I am sure that such things do far more harm than good, both to the overall community and the the members, even if someone feels good by joining.
Life isn’t easy. Wasn’t meant to be. Work on it, or get over it.
Those are ultimately your choices.
I say that as a liberal that is happy to help those that got a shit sandwich after shit sandwich. I’ve had plenty of them.
Stop fucking complaining, that’s the first part of growing up. ‘Incels’? You’re a group? A Movement? You have a name? Bwahaaa. Please. No one owes you anything. That’s what you learn when you become an adult.
I see a lot of assumping on both sides. There’s a lot of “Incels think this”, “Incels believe that”; but the actual cites that have been provided have been a mixed bag. Even in a group that has such romantic frustration in common, there is still a broad continuum of thought on what causes it and how to cope with it. I try to make a distinction. I abhor and condemn the hatred and violence, but I have empathy for the frustration and sadness. Difficult to do when they’re all present in the same person.
I think it’s easier to shrug off a missed basket than a romantic rejection. Shooting a basketball is just a thing that I can, or can’t do; rejection is for who I am. It’s more personal. Any one rejection, or two, or five, is not the end of the world, but it builds up. Long enough or frequent enough, it takes a toll.
Unless you think the answer is to treat relationships as being no more important that a game of basketball. Asking someone out is just a skill, like changing a tire. She said yes, or she said no; what difference does it make? If the failures mean nothing then the successes mean nothing, too. I’m not sure that’s the unemotional road I want to go down, even if I could.
I find it interesting that your friends would do that for you. I’m sure that most of my friends know about my dating frustration, and they’ve all been sympathetic and supportive (of course they have, they’re my friends), but there hasn’t been much concrete help like this. I know some people might see your friends action as interfering and invasive, and I can understand that, but I also see a certain hopefulness in it. They remembered you and tried to help. And it sounds like they did, even if it didn’t rise to the level of complete success.
Yeah, I know the feeling. No condescension here. I appreciate that you’re willing to share this stuff, and sorry that you have to.
Probably because misogyny and low self-efficacy are not intrinsically linked. Perhaps when these things are present in the same person, their odds of being drawn into the incel cesspool increases greatly. Doubly so if other risk factors are present.
What data do we have, really? Hopefully people aren’t thinking I’m being needlessly argumentative here, but I can’t help but see some shortcuts in reasoning being made.
This presumes that the incel keeps earnestly playing long enough to say he’s really bad at it, as opposed to just giving up early like anyone pre-convinced of their inferiority would. On my cursory searches on Reddit, I’ve seen teenaged boys calling themselves incels. These are kids who have diagnosed themselves as losers before they’ve even gotten to the starting gate, but they can’t see that.
So for kicks I did some Google Scholar searching, using both “incel” and “involuntary celibacy” … not much data or even scholastic spitballing out there.
What does seem to be the case is that the use of the phrase in the meaning of misogynistic and victimhood is pretty recent. Even in 2016 it seems that academic wannabees were using the word more generically:
The specific association with misogynist male victimhood I can first find here in 2017:
Numbers of people who identify with these boards? Compared to the numbers of those just sad? Actual data? Yeah pretty slim pickins.
I suppose someone can run something to determine how many active members these boards have, actually analyze the posts to see how many are actively hateful, how many sharing stories, and how many supportive, and compare the number of at least commonly hateful posters with some estimate of how many adult males are not “Incel” but are involuntarily celibate. Maybe correlate it otherwise with rates of loneliness and social disorders.
Not gonna be me doing it but I’d wager that the actual number of posters active on these board typically posting hateful posts is extremely small compared to the numbers of those who are otherwise in a group that feels sad and perhaps even self-loathing about not having sexual intimacy and perhaps of loneliness overall. Meanwhile yeah, most of this end of day is folk making shit up.
I’d pretty much made that self-diagnosis by 14 or 15 (loser, that is). That’s how I saw myself for the next 15 years. I was convinced that there was something wrong with me that made me less desirable than cheaters and abusers. The hate I had was for the person in the mirror, which is arguably just as messed up as those who direct it toward others.
I just realized something that could have sent me over the edge (as in being institutionalized and needing medication to become functional again). A woman I had dated for a few months dumped me, right after telling me how hard it was because I was the nicest person she’d ever dated. She ended up going back to a guy who had cheated on and verbally abused her. I don’t think I would have ever been able to put myself out there again. Fortunately for me, I was a husband and father by the time I heard about it. Fortunately for her, she didn’t end up marrying the guy.
My point? A person can get beaten down until they just give up. It doesn’t justify hate or violence, and it doesn’t make the person less responsible for his/her words and actions. It can make it damn near impossible to keep trying, though.
How would one do that? On the one hand I have time on my hands while on the other hand they squick me out. Do I start with Reddit? I don’t usually go there, having a fear of rabbit holes, but what little I’ve seen shows them laughing at incels.
I wouldn’t wager this after taking a quick glance at this board. Now what constitutes hateful is in the eye of the beholder. But to my eye, the majority of content ranges from “that’s rather messed up” to “um, what the fuck!?”
Now, what I imagine is that a lot guys lurk more than post, and these guys don’t necessarily believe 100% of the ideas asserted as truths. But they agree enough with the gestalt to tolerate the ideas, derive some puerile satisfaction from their expression, and have their negative self-talk validated in a way that is comforting in a sad kind of way. I don’t think these generally guys pose a danger to others and they probably pass as regular people from the outside. But their mentality poses a danger to them and their chances at getting out of the hole they are in.