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I truly struggle to see how you could become an incel when the main factor of being an incel seems to be to hate women for their own failures.
They don't merely hate women. They also hate men - at least, they hate people they perceive as chads and alpha males. Go deep into black pill communities and they hate themselves, too.
But to answer the question 'how could somebody become an incel?,' here's a brief and simplified recipe:
1) Teach young men that they're not allowed to seek physical affection or emotional intimacy from anybody except a sexual partner.
2) Teach them that aggression is one of a short finite list of emotions they're allowed to express. Bonus points: give them a steady diet of video games and movies that normalize violence, especially heroic male violence.
4) Expose them to a steady diet of media images that systematically show people who are thinner, taller, whiter and prettier than average, so they develop body image problems.
5) Make sure #2 has a gender imbalance, so their perception of what the average woman looks like is particularly warped, leading them to believe that women who look like actresses and models are normal.
6) Wait until they hit puberty, then give them mixed messages about whether they should embrace or repress their strong sex drives.
7) Feed them cultural messages that male virginity is shameful; that finding a woman to have sex with is one of primary goals of man and if you haven't done that by some arbitrarily young age then it means you've failed in your masculine mission.
8) Tell them that they reason they're deeply sexual frustrated and angry all the time is feminism.
The best part of this is that 1-7 don't require 4chan, voat, MRAs, incels, or any other recent emergent movements. All of those steps are already part of hegemonic Western masculinity. By the time an incel gets on 4chan, he's already well-indoctrinated in 1-7. All the incel movement has to do is give it a scapegoat.
Aye. We've always had these ticking timebombs. The internet just let them connect and form a self-reinforcing community and a way to recruit more people into said community.
Let's be honest with ourselves here: nothing about incel ideology is strange or unusual or new to any of us beyond their idiosyncratic jargon for these ideas. Stacies and Beckies and Chads are all silly terms for concepts you can find anywhere in our culture. Fuck, your generic teen comedy film is wall to wall with these stereotypes.
+36
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Inkstain, no one was even talking about the incel movement until after people were killed. Are you saying those casualties were unavoidable? That we should be waiting for extremism to become obvious before we address it?
I'd even contend that a lot of the issues we experience with extremism right now would be drastically helped by improving the emotional support structure men have around the world.
There’s an angle where you are right. There is another angle where the last thing the world needs is even *more* focus on men and their needs.
This is pointless. Its a thread about the men and what can be done.
Is a thread about fascism only about fascists and their needs?
Acting like every bad thing and group is analagous helps no one.
But yeah, the fascism thread has talked about why fascism is appealing to people and how alternatives can be offered.
Pretending this isn’t a violent extremist group and is just a bunch of sad misunderstood men is also actively harmful.
Its mostly just sad bitter guys who feel isolated.
That’s one thing it is.
It’s also a bunch of misogynists encouraging violence.
It’s also a haven for people with untreated mental illness.
Focusing entirely on the first is being their unwitting ally. They want you to focus on that front and ignore the other two.
I think what they really want is for us to destroy them. Every extremist group wants a reckoning one way or the other, but a group that has such a problem with suicide ... it probably leans very heavily towards "other." Could be wrong though
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I'd even contend that a lot of the issues we experience with extremism right now would be drastically helped by improving the emotional support structure men have around the world.
There’s an angle where you are right. There is another angle where the last thing the world needs is even *more* focus on men and their needs.
This is pointless. Its a thread about the men and what can be done.
Is a thread about fascism only about fascists and their needs?
Acting like every bad thing and group is analagous helps no one.
But yeah, the fascism thread has talked about why fascism is appealing to people and how alternatives can be offered.
Pretending this isn’t a violent extremist group and is just a bunch of sad misunderstood men is also actively harmful.
Its mostly just sad bitter guys who feel isolated.
If that’s the case then why are they encouraging each other to punish the gigs chads and gigs Stacie’s. That is their own stupid terminology by the way.
Like the only reason, and I mean the only reason, r/Incels got too blatant about wanting to hurt people. They’d already been advocating to harm other people or cheering posts about making women cry. It’s that they let the fig leaf drop for a bit too long that they got banned.
Are we really going to say it’s just a bunch a of sad sacks? @ Inkstain82 is right.Why don’t we extend this sympathy to white nationalists. I bet you most of that we guys probably had even worse upbringings than the Incels coming from a demographic where it’s unlikely Mom couldn’t find their apartments like the mother in the vice article did for her son. Why should I be more kinder to the Incels than them?
Add in we give boys either no or terrible advice as a society as to how to pursue women.
And terrible advise to women on how to express their own selves. Like, the whole thing is seriously f'd up. There needs to be a massive shift in the way healthy, desirable relationships are presented in media.
And Hollywood in particular. It never ceases to amaze me how slowly they react to changes in the world. Not just with romantic comedies, but everything! Technology, civil rights, women's suffrage - these things are unheard of in Hollywood.
Inkstain, no one was even talking about the incel movement until after people were killed. Are you saying those casualties were unavoidable? That we should be waiting for extremism to become obvious before we address it?
I’m saying that addressing extremism cannot be centered around acknowledging and addressing the surface complaints of the extremist group.
Any kind of internet policing you do to remove their online presence is going to have to battle with targeting the most extreme of the extreme but also offer places of encouragement and re-integration for the people that were just "along for the ride". Basically an internal divide-and-conquer/rehabilitate. The "just sad men" need exposure to normal people and probably need to be reminded about how to interact with other humans. Seems tough.
tyrannus on
0
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Inkstain, no one was even talking about the incel movement until after people were killed. Are you saying those casualties were unavoidable? That we should be waiting for extremism to become obvious before we address it?
I’m saying that addressing extremism cannot be centered around acknowledging and addressing the surface complaints of the extremist group.
The incel movement is NOT about dismantling toxic masculinity and providing emotional support structures for men in need, and removing the stigma from asking for that help. The incel movement is about societal regression to a time when women were property. It's a violent counter to feminism and progressivism.
Trying to tie incel violence to the people working against toxic masculinity is helping these extremists, not hurting them.
I think theres a general conflation occuring here between these men as they organize groups and commit violence and incels as the phenoenon of men who feel dissaffected and unfulfilled in terms of human connection.
Inkstain, no one was even talking about the incel movement until after people were killed. Are you saying those casualties were unavoidable? That we should be waiting for extremism to become obvious before we address it?
I’m saying that addressing extremism cannot be centered around acknowledging and addressing the surface complaints of the extremist group.
Talking about how we need to teach boys to deal with and reject toxic masculinity is not dealing with the surface complaint. Incels themselves don't even acknowledge toxic masculinity. It's not the surface complaint of the extremist group in question.
shryke on
+15
JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
I’m not going to engage with white nationalism by spending all my time talking about how white is a shrinking demographic in America.
I’m not going to engage with a fascist uprising by talking about the weaknesses of liberal governance
I’m not going to engage with extreme Islamic terrorism solely by pointing out the problems of American colonialism.
And I’m not going to engage with Incel culture by talking about how boys struggle to feel cared for.
They’re not *wrong*, they’re just recentering the conversation away from their more problematic areas and into fertile ground for them to find unwitting allies.
Aside from white shrinking being not a problem, it is fine to talk about how all those problems are bad. Indeed, it is necessary to talk about them because otherwise you let them be the only place to talk about it. Extremist groups being the only place where you can talk about the evils of American colonialism would be a boon for them,
Their recruiting is based on society denying the problem, not acknowledging it. Agreeing that American colonialism is bad is not somehow helping extremists. Agreeing that society does not help young boys enough is not helping incels.
I’m not going to engage with white nationalism by spending all my time talking about how white is a shrinking demographic in America.
I’m not going to engage with a fascist uprising by talking about the weaknesses of liberal governance
I’m not going to engage with extreme Islamic terrorism solely by pointing out the problems of American colonialism.
And I’m not going to engage with Incel culture by talking about how boys struggle to feel cared for.
They’re not *wrong*, they’re just recentering the conversation away from their more problematic areas and into fertile ground for them to find unwitting allies.
Aside from white shrinking being not a problem, it is fine to talk about how all those problems are bad. Indeed, it is necessary to talk about them because otherwise you let them be the only place to talk about it. Extremist groups being the only place where you can talk about the evils of American colonialism would be a boon for them,
Their recruiting is based on society denying the problem, not acknowledging it. Agreeing that American colonialism is bad is not somehow helping extremists. Agreeing that society does not help young boys enough is not helping incels.
Or course those things are true and should be acknowledged at the appropriate time. They just can’t be the centerpiece of your plan for dealing with the extremist groups that use them.
0
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
I’m not going to engage with white nationalism by spending all my time talking about how white is a shrinking demographic in America.
I’m not going to engage with a fascist uprising by talking about the weaknesses of liberal governance
I’m not going to engage with extreme Islamic terrorism solely by pointing out the problems of American colonialism.
And I’m not going to engage with Incel culture by talking about how boys struggle to feel cared for.
They’re not *wrong*, they’re just recentering the conversation away from their more problematic areas and into fertile ground for them to find unwitting allies.
Aside from white shrinking being not a problem, it is fine to talk about how all those problems are bad. Indeed, it is necessary to talk about them because otherwise you let them be the only place to talk about it. Extremist groups being the only place where you can talk about the evils of American colonialism would be a boon for them,
Their recruiting is based on society denying the problem, not acknowledging it. Agreeing that American colonialism is bad is not somehow helping extremists. Agreeing that society does not help young boys enough is not helping incels.
It's still not the same (I agree with the spirit of your post, though!)
Islamic terrorism has many 'goals'. Dismantling American influence is absolutely one of them.
Helping young boys become more emotionally healthy, responsible men is NOT a goal of the incel movement. It is absolutely counter to the incel movement.
I don't believe anyone is arguing that it's a goal of the incel movement. I think it'd be one of the things that would help dismantle the movement. Anyways, society as a whole would benefit from helping young boys become more emotionally healthy. But it's also important to convey the spirit of forgiveness and redemption because otherwise you're going to get people who were so committed to it, mentally, think that they're still hopeless.
The "you're right, but not in the way you think" could be a way of validating something that they feel so a therapist can get to the point of conversation by having an empathetic connection.
tyrannus on
+3
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Their surface complaint is that society has failed them.
“You’re right, but not in the way you think” can be a part of addressing them, but it shouldn’t be the primary focus
I'm not sure why not. It SHOULD be the primary way of addressing them, because waiting until they become extremists is far, far too late. We can prevent violence by removing the leaders' ability to recruit. Radicals like this are all the same. The leaders aren't going to do shit because they're cowards. They groom people to do their dirty work by preying on vulnerable individuals. Sure, address these recruiters where you find them with banning and what not. But lonely, isolated, depressed and frustrated people they prey upon? Why not just help them then? Before they become radicalized? Why wait until someone gets hurt?
I'd even contend that a lot of the issues we experience with extremism right now would be drastically helped by improving the emotional support structure men have around the world.
There’s an angle where you are right. There is another angle where the last thing the world needs is even *more* focus on men and their needs.
I suspect, and could be wrong here, but suspect most women would be happy for there to be at least some amount of effort dedicated towards helping men be more capable of seeking out and accepting emotional support when they need it.
I'd even contend that a lot of the issues we experience with extremism right now would be drastically helped by improving the emotional support structure men have around the world.
There’s an angle where you are right. There is another angle where the last thing the world needs is even *more* focus on men and their needs.
I suspect, and could be wrong here, but suspect most women would be happy for there to be at least some amount of effort dedicated towards helping men be more capable of seeking out and accepting emotional support when they need it.
I'd agree thematically that we've probably been addressing wants for a long time and mostly been ignoring needs. Our culture tends to give in to the wants of men while deliberately ignoring needs because needs are uncomfortable and possibly beneficial to women.
Eg: I want boner pills vs. I need therapy to address my anxiety induced impotence.
Alana though, Alana did something really unusual. Which is that when she finally started dating somebody at 24, she immediately looked back. She decided that the decade where she had been alone, she wanted to do something about that. She wanted to help people that were stuck the way she had been.
ALANA: I came up with the idea to create the the support group online because I recognized that um, you know, there are other people who have this kind of situation and if if I can get out of it, if I can start dating after a long period of being single, then maybe other people can too.
ALANA: You know phrases like the lonely virgin in his mother's basement was kind of dominant in the culture and and was worthy of attack as well. So I wanted something neutral and kind of precise. I didn't want to use virginity in the name because it's quite possible for someone to have sex and then stop having sex again for a long time.
PJ: Hm.
ALANA: Uh, so I I don't remember exactly- like coming up with names is a mysterious, creative process, but I do remember noticing that celibacy was a useful, you know accurate descriptor, but it was mostly a religious term that priests or nuns- priests and nuns are celibate. And in fact if I researched, you know, for books and articles on celibacy, they would all be about religious voluntary vows of celibacy. So putting “involuntary” in front of it solved that problem and then we were off to the races.
I seriously recommend Reply All in general, it's a good podcast, but that episode dug pretty deep into the incel community and I really recommend it. They've put out some really interesting Internet-focused journalism this past year.
Their surface complaint is that society has failed them.
“You’re right, but not in the way you think” can be a part of addressing them, but it shouldn’t be the primary focus
Nah, that's just you trying to get ridiculously abstract so you can keep trying to squint really hard and make 2 completely different things look the same.
The surface ideology of incels is that they are doomed by genetics to be lonely sacks of crap for all eternity.
The underlying core ideology is a deep-seated rage at women for rejecting them combined with an incredible lack of self-evaluation.
Basically, they believe they are being fucked over and it's not their fault.
The actual issue is that toxic masculinity and a few other things in our society has given them shitty criteria by which to measure themselves and no tools with which to deal with their own emotions and thoughts. We should do something about that. For the good of everyone. There is no other way to address the issue beyond, like, not giving them internet access and hoping that not too many of them boil over into violence on their own as men have been wont to do always.
There is parsecs of difference between addressing the shitty way we teach boys to behave in society and handing out a free woman to every sadsack who feels like they can't attract the exact type of women-as-object they want.
I'd even contend that a lot of the issues we experience with extremism right now would be drastically helped by improving the emotional support structure men have around the world.
There’s an angle where you are right. There is another angle where the last thing the world needs is even *more* focus on men and their needs.
I suspect, and could be wrong here, but suspect most women would be happy for there to be at least some amount of effort dedicated towards helping men be more capable of seeking out and accepting emotional support when they need it.
I'd agree thematically that we've probably been addressing wants for a long time and mostly been ignoring needs. Our culture tends to give in to the wants of men while deliberately ignoring needs because needs are uncomfortable and possibly beneficial to women.
Eg: I want boner pills vs. I need therapy to address my anxiety induced impotence.
Our society does not focus on men and their emotional needs and that's the whole problem. It focuses on their want for dominance and control and maintaining a power structure that places them on top. These two ideas are not the same.
"the last thing the world needs is even *more* focus on men and their needs" is a shallow and rather silly way to view the issue.
I'd even contend that a lot of the issues we experience with extremism right now would be drastically helped by improving the emotional support structure men have around the world.
There’s an angle where you are right. There is another angle where the last thing the world needs is even *more* focus on men and their needs.
This is pointless. Its a thread about the men and what can be done.
Is a thread about fascism only about fascists and their needs?
Acting like every bad thing and group is analagous helps no one.
But yeah, the fascism thread has talked about why fascism is appealing to people and how alternatives can be offered.
Pretending this isn’t a violent extremist group and is just a bunch of sad misunderstood men is also actively harmful.
Its mostly just sad bitter guys who feel isolated.
That’s one thing it is.
It’s also a bunch of misogynists encouraging violence.
It’s also a haven for people with untreated mental illness.
Focusing entirely on the first is being their unwitting ally. They want you to focus on that front and ignore the other two.
Did I miss anyone saying we shouldnt crack down on extremist elements?
Incels are extremists, that's what makes them incels
Otherwise they're just angry virgins.
It's not a thing that you just are, it's a movement that you identify with and join.
Alana though, Alana did something really unusual. Which is that when she finally started dating somebody at 24, she immediately looked back. She decided that the decade where she had been alone, she wanted to do something about that. She wanted to help people that were stuck the way she had been.
ALANA: I came up with the idea to create the the support group online because I recognized that um, you know, there are other people who have this kind of situation and if if I can get out of it, if I can start dating after a long period of being single, then maybe other people can too.
ALANA: You know phrases like the lonely virgin in his mother's basement was kind of dominant in the culture and and was worthy of attack as well. So I wanted something neutral and kind of precise. I didn't want to use virginity in the name because it's quite possible for someone to have sex and then stop having sex again for a long time.
PJ: Hm.
ALANA: Uh, so I I don't remember exactly- like coming up with names is a mysterious, creative process, but I do remember noticing that celibacy was a useful, you know accurate descriptor, but it was mostly a religious term that priests or nuns- priests and nuns are celibate. And in fact if I researched, you know, for books and articles on celibacy, they would all be about religious voluntary vows of celibacy. So putting “involuntary” in front of it solved that problem and then we were off to the races.
Wow, this support group really went off the rails.
Notice how we are on page 3 of a thread about an extremist movement that has caused multiple incidents of death and violence, and all of the talk is about the emotional needs of the perpetrators and almost nothing about the victims?
George Chen and Katherine Cooper had emotional needs too, before an incel shot and killed them.
While the ways that people deal with depression in themselves and those around them is certainly a part of the discussion, we shouldn’t forget that we are dealing with a violent extremist group and it should be treated as such. Like, for example, deplatforming them
1) we have to understand their movement if we want to stop it from radicalizing more people.
2) most incels don't kill anybody. Some unknown but significant number commit suicide. Saying to somebody who is in pain that we don't give a shit about his pain because some other dude he's never met who happens to be part of the same movement killed somebody is deeply shitty.
3) their problems are a symptom of deeper dysfunctions with Western masculinity in general. Understanding incels helps us understand this masculinity.
4) if you want to talk about the needs of the victims, go ahead. In another thread. There are plenty of places online where you can discuss the damage that toxic masculinity causes to victims of violence. There are damn few that talk about the damage it does to the men who have interalized it.
What can be done to stop these groups is within the bounds of the OP - it's just that the most obvious solutions are not particularly nuanced and the entire discussion in that area is worth on average one post. There's not much to discuss about the group overall other than how ruthless we want to be in dealing with them.
I obviously fervently disagree. This kind of 'burn it all down' fundamentalism is unbenefitiing of liberal intellectuals.
My view of this particular issue is deeply nihilistic. A lot of people around me express a deep, well rooted desire to harm women and an even deeper wish to be themselves flushed out and destroyed. I do not see an oasis of compassion from which we can cultivate a humane solution for most. All we can do is save the lucky few. Prove me wrong, I beg you.
Even if that were true, we can still prevent future young men from getting to that state.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
+18
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
edited November 2018
As a reformed incel I'd just like to say I endorse everything Feral and Shyrke have said. I was fortunate Reddit's incel community didn't exist at the time.
I was and i continue to be frustrated with the inability to find communities that provide guidance or solutions as to the damaging effect of toxic masculinity on men.
If nothing else people should have an epidemiological interest in assisting the community.
SummaryJudgment on
+16
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
The dismantling of toxic masculinity and providing men with healthy emotional alternatives to the incel community are 100% ways to help fix this problem.
That said, I can tell a lot of ya'll haven't tried to talk to incels to get through to them; I have. Now it might be a different conversation if you are a man talking to them, I have no way of knowing. But the incel community itself "protects" it's members of getting free by way of it's core philosophies. If you tell them that therapy could help them, they accuse you of wanting to erase them, of trying to turn them into "beta bux" (thier word for a man who a woman marries only for his money while she goes out to have sex with the man she "really" wants every night). Inceldom has even innoculated them against actually getting a relationship, because as soon as they gain female attention, they assume she's trying to use them or that it's a trick. Even if they believe the attention is somehow sincere, they don't pursue it because they think that knowing them would make the girl lose interest.
Examples:
These examples leave out the guys who literally say things like "if you really wanted to help me you'd have sex with me", but them aside - how do you help these guys? They're so deep inside thier own heads and they've attached themselves to a group that tells them that thier darkest thoughts are the only correct ones.
"excuse my French
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
They build a bulwark around thier conscious thoughts because that is all they haven't come to hate.
They hate "society" because of how they are treated. And Half their worldview is setting the root cause of their problems on things outside their control (genetics/etc).
Since they have so thoroughly placed blame for their situation on those things all they have left is to take responsibility for their personality. It's obvious to an outsider, but that's the hardest step for them.
I'm not sure most people are really thinking they can all be reached. I think the best method is to keep more people from joining by solving the underlying issues that lead people to the edges of the community and to deplatform incels and prevent them from communicating with potential recruits.
These examples leave out the guys who literally say things like "if you really wanted to help me you'd have sex with me", but them aside - how do you help these guys? They're so deep inside thier own heads and they've attached themselves to a group that tells them that thier darkest thoughts are the only correct ones.
You tell them what they need to hear on whatever level is appropriate to your relationship with them, and then you walk away or wash your hands of it.
I've talked to incels. I don't have any magic way to get through to the ones who are well-embedded in the subculture, blackpillers, etc. But I've been pretty successful talking to people who are on the fence, who are recently getting into the subculture, who aren't too deep yet.
It's not terribly easier being a man and talking to them; if you acknowledge at all that you've had any success at dating then you're a "Chad," and I dare not reveal that I'm poly or else I'm a cuck.
But I've been able to get through to a few people who aren't that far gone.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
The dismantling of toxic masculinity and providing men with healthy emotional alternatives to the incel community are 100% ways to help fix this problem.
That said, I can tell a lot of ya'll haven't tried to talk to incels to get through to them; I have. Now it might be a different conversation if you are a man talking to them, I have no way of knowing. But the incel community itself "protects" it's members of getting free by way of it's core philosophies. If you tell them that therapy could help them, they accuse you of wanting to erase them, of trying to turn them into "beta bux" (thier word for a man who a woman marries only for his money while she goes out to have sex with the man she "really" wants every night). Inceldom has even innoculated them against actually getting a relationship, because as soon as they gain female attention, they assume she's trying to use them or that it's a trick. Even if they believe the attention is somehow sincere, they don't pursue it because they think that knowing them would make the girl lose interest.
Examples:
(snipped)
These examples leave out the guys who literally say things like "if you really wanted to help me you'd have sex with me", but them aside - how do you help these guys? They're so deep inside thier own heads and they've attached themselves to a group that tells them that thier darkest thoughts are the only correct ones.
There are people who use their illness as a core part of their identity and it's not specific to incels. If you work in a hospital / er / clinic setting, you will 100% meet people who are in love with their collection of maladies. They've got every chart in paper form and only really come alive and animated when they get to delve in to their list of problems, it's really very depressing. Not because they're so sick - they usually aren't very sick at all - but because that long hanging list of illnesses and debilitation has been the only thing they could reliably use to get someones attention. Even if it's just an ER Tech listening to them while their blood pressure is taken and chart updated. To them it's their only real connection to another person who seems to care, in some cases they've recovered from a protracted illness and it's defined them for so long they don't know how to just exist anymore.
I always wonder what thing happened that put them down this sort of road, some people probably have damn good reasons they don't feel comfortable with themselves or the world... but it's not, "No one wants to fuck me".
There are definitely a number of people who wont ever improve because they don't want to. The best we can do is hopefully provide meaningful guidance and expectations for intimacy to kids instead of letting them learn everything they know about how to get a date from pornhub comments and romantic comedies.
There are definitely a number of people who wont ever improve because they don't want to. The best we can do is hopefully provide meaningful guidance and expectations for intimacy to kids instead of letting them learn everything they know about how to get a date from pornhub comments and romantic comedies.
Through my life I've noticed a disturbing amount of lack guidance regarding manhood, so I can sympathise with this lack of direction. Thankfully I never strayed into toxic masculinity, but lots of people would find that appealing at their darkest hours giving how many networks have set up, especially after the internet was created. When people don't think they're cared about or don't have guidance it's a recipe for getting conned into movements like this and it's disappointing the world over how men have failed to provide a sufficient alternative despite many people agreeing this needs to be done. Someone has to do it, but no-one's actually stepping up for the job.
Telling people to reject outside help and specially psychological help is classic cult behaviour.
Seriously, look at that list. Most things apply, except the single leader parts, since online communities by default are cell structures instead of pyramidal ones, so there's no big "leader". That way the organization can survive even if a particular member gets jailed. Modern activist movements do the same for the same reasons.
Part of my has to wonder how much shitty toxic corporate culture also feeds into these kinds of things. The way things are it pretty much creates a situation where these people don't development any sort of relationship with anyone and with men it creates a socially acceptable excuse for why they have less and friends. If you're a deadbeat shut in, society will give you shit, but if your a shut in with a productive job, society gives no fucks that that isn't a healthy setup.
My sympathy for people who feel marginalized by society tends to wane when their proposed solution involves marginalizing other parts of society.
Like how the popular "solution" voiced within the incel community is being able to forcibly engage in sexual relations with any woman they so choose, and barring that, having some women be "designated" to provide sex upon demand to people who can't get any through other means. You know, sex slaves.
How much of a problem is this, anyway? Are people who self identify as incels numerous and increasing, or are they just the perpetual fringe of society that gets the least amount of social support?
This movement will exist for ages in some form or another. Is the problem actually getting worse, or does it just exist?
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Posts
Aye. We've always had these ticking timebombs. The internet just let them connect and form a self-reinforcing community and a way to recruit more people into said community.
Let's be honest with ourselves here: nothing about incel ideology is strange or unusual or new to any of us beyond their idiosyncratic jargon for these ideas. Stacies and Beckies and Chads are all silly terms for concepts you can find anywhere in our culture. Fuck, your generic teen comedy film is wall to wall with these stereotypes.
I think what they really want is for us to destroy them. Every extremist group wants a reckoning one way or the other, but a group that has such a problem with suicide ... it probably leans very heavily towards "other." Could be wrong though
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
If that’s the case then why are they encouraging each other to punish the gigs chads and gigs Stacie’s. That is their own stupid terminology by the way.
Like the only reason, and I mean the only reason, r/Incels got too blatant about wanting to hurt people. They’d already been advocating to harm other people or cheering posts about making women cry. It’s that they let the fig leaf drop for a bit too long that they got banned.
Are we really going to say it’s just a bunch a of sad sacks? @ Inkstain82 is right.Why don’t we extend this sympathy to white nationalists. I bet you most of that we guys probably had even worse upbringings than the Incels coming from a demographic where it’s unlikely Mom couldn’t find their apartments like the mother in the vice article did for her son. Why should I be more kinder to the Incels than them?
And Hollywood in particular. It never ceases to amaze me how slowly they react to changes in the world. Not just with romantic comedies, but everything! Technology, civil rights, women's suffrage - these things are unheard of in Hollywood.
I’m saying that addressing extremism cannot be centered around acknowledging and addressing the surface complaints of the extremist group.
The incel movement is NOT about dismantling toxic masculinity and providing emotional support structures for men in need, and removing the stigma from asking for that help. The incel movement is about societal regression to a time when women were property. It's a violent counter to feminism and progressivism.
Trying to tie incel violence to the people working against toxic masculinity is helping these extremists, not hurting them.
Talking about how we need to teach boys to deal with and reject toxic masculinity is not dealing with the surface complaint. Incels themselves don't even acknowledge toxic masculinity. It's not the surface complaint of the extremist group in question.
Aside from white shrinking being not a problem, it is fine to talk about how all those problems are bad. Indeed, it is necessary to talk about them because otherwise you let them be the only place to talk about it. Extremist groups being the only place where you can talk about the evils of American colonialism would be a boon for them,
Their recruiting is based on society denying the problem, not acknowledging it. Agreeing that American colonialism is bad is not somehow helping extremists. Agreeing that society does not help young boys enough is not helping incels.
Or course those things are true and should be acknowledged at the appropriate time. They just can’t be the centerpiece of your plan for dealing with the extremist groups that use them.
It's still not the same (I agree with the spirit of your post, though!)
Islamic terrorism has many 'goals'. Dismantling American influence is absolutely one of them.
Helping young boys become more emotionally healthy, responsible men is NOT a goal of the incel movement. It is absolutely counter to the incel movement.
“You’re right, but not in the way you think” can be a part of addressing them, but it shouldn’t be the primary focus
I'm not sure why not. It SHOULD be the primary way of addressing them, because waiting until they become extremists is far, far too late. We can prevent violence by removing the leaders' ability to recruit. Radicals like this are all the same. The leaders aren't going to do shit because they're cowards. They groom people to do their dirty work by preying on vulnerable individuals. Sure, address these recruiters where you find them with banning and what not. But lonely, isolated, depressed and frustrated people they prey upon? Why not just help them then? Before they become radicalized? Why wait until someone gets hurt?
I suspect, and could be wrong here, but suspect most women would be happy for there to be at least some amount of effort dedicated towards helping men be more capable of seeking out and accepting emotional support when they need it.
I'd agree thematically that we've probably been addressing wants for a long time and mostly been ignoring needs. Our culture tends to give in to the wants of men while deliberately ignoring needs because needs are uncomfortable and possibly beneficial to women.
Eg: I want boner pills vs. I need therapy to address my anxiety induced impotence.
Not sure how youd even measure to determine what is "primary"
Nah, that's just you trying to get ridiculously abstract so you can keep trying to squint really hard and make 2 completely different things look the same.
The surface ideology of incels is that they are doomed by genetics to be lonely sacks of crap for all eternity.
The underlying core ideology is a deep-seated rage at women for rejecting them combined with an incredible lack of self-evaluation.
Basically, they believe they are being fucked over and it's not their fault.
The actual issue is that toxic masculinity and a few other things in our society has given them shitty criteria by which to measure themselves and no tools with which to deal with their own emotions and thoughts. We should do something about that. For the good of everyone. There is no other way to address the issue beyond, like, not giving them internet access and hoping that not too many of them boil over into violence on their own as men have been wont to do always.
There is parsecs of difference between addressing the shitty way we teach boys to behave in society and handing out a free woman to every sadsack who feels like they can't attract the exact type of women-as-object they want.
Our society does not focus on men and their emotional needs and that's the whole problem. It focuses on their want for dominance and control and maintaining a power structure that places them on top. These two ideas are not the same.
"the last thing the world needs is even *more* focus on men and their needs" is a shallow and rather silly way to view the issue.
Incels are extremists, that's what makes them incels
Otherwise they're just angry virgins.
It's not a thing that you just are, it's a movement that you identify with and join.
Steam: adamjnet
Wow, this support group really went off the rails.
Even if that were true, we can still prevent future young men from getting to that state.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I was and i continue to be frustrated with the inability to find communities that provide guidance or solutions as to the damaging effect of toxic masculinity on men.
If nothing else people should have an epidemiological interest in assisting the community.
That said, I can tell a lot of ya'll haven't tried to talk to incels to get through to them; I have. Now it might be a different conversation if you are a man talking to them, I have no way of knowing. But the incel community itself "protects" it's members of getting free by way of it's core philosophies. If you tell them that therapy could help them, they accuse you of wanting to erase them, of trying to turn them into "beta bux" (thier word for a man who a woman marries only for his money while she goes out to have sex with the man she "really" wants every night). Inceldom has even innoculated them against actually getting a relationship, because as soon as they gain female attention, they assume she's trying to use them or that it's a trick. Even if they believe the attention is somehow sincere, they don't pursue it because they think that knowing them would make the girl lose interest.
Examples:
These examples leave out the guys who literally say things like "if you really wanted to help me you'd have sex with me", but them aside - how do you help these guys? They're so deep inside thier own heads and they've attached themselves to a group that tells them that thier darkest thoughts are the only correct ones.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
They hate "society" because of how they are treated. And Half their worldview is setting the root cause of their problems on things outside their control (genetics/etc).
Since they have so thoroughly placed blame for their situation on those things all they have left is to take responsibility for their personality. It's obvious to an outsider, but that's the hardest step for them.
You tell them what they need to hear on whatever level is appropriate to your relationship with them, and then you walk away or wash your hands of it.
It's not terribly easier being a man and talking to them; if you acknowledge at all that you've had any success at dating then you're a "Chad," and I dare not reveal that I'm poly or else I'm a cuck.
But I've been able to get through to a few people who aren't that far gone.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
There are people who use their illness as a core part of their identity and it's not specific to incels. If you work in a hospital / er / clinic setting, you will 100% meet people who are in love with their collection of maladies. They've got every chart in paper form and only really come alive and animated when they get to delve in to their list of problems, it's really very depressing. Not because they're so sick - they usually aren't very sick at all - but because that long hanging list of illnesses and debilitation has been the only thing they could reliably use to get someones attention. Even if it's just an ER Tech listening to them while their blood pressure is taken and chart updated. To them it's their only real connection to another person who seems to care, in some cases they've recovered from a protracted illness and it's defined them for so long they don't know how to just exist anymore.
I always wonder what thing happened that put them down this sort of road, some people probably have damn good reasons they don't feel comfortable with themselves or the world... but it's not, "No one wants to fuck me".
There are definitely a number of people who wont ever improve because they don't want to. The best we can do is hopefully provide meaningful guidance and expectations for intimacy to kids instead of letting them learn everything they know about how to get a date from pornhub comments and romantic comedies.
Through my life I've noticed a disturbing amount of lack guidance regarding manhood, so I can sympathise with this lack of direction. Thankfully I never strayed into toxic masculinity, but lots of people would find that appealing at their darkest hours giving how many networks have set up, especially after the internet was created. When people don't think they're cared about or don't have guidance it's a recipe for getting conned into movements like this and it's disappointing the world over how men have failed to provide a sufficient alternative despite many people agreeing this needs to be done. Someone has to do it, but no-one's actually stepping up for the job.
Seriously, look at that list. Most things apply, except the single leader parts, since online communities by default are cell structures instead of pyramidal ones, so there's no big "leader". That way the organization can survive even if a particular member gets jailed. Modern activist movements do the same for the same reasons.
Like how the popular "solution" voiced within the incel community is being able to forcibly engage in sexual relations with any woman they so choose, and barring that, having some women be "designated" to provide sex upon demand to people who can't get any through other means. You know, sex slaves.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
This movement will exist for ages in some form or another. Is the problem actually getting worse, or does it just exist?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.