Involuntary Celibates: An Exploratory Research of

By: Carolyn Reichert

480644

Brno, Czech Republic

13/8/2020

Masaryk University

Faculty of Social Studies

Department of Political Science

European Politics

Supervisor: Monika Gabriela Bartoszewicz, PhD. ​

Reichert 1

Abstract: Incels, a portmanteau of Involuntary Celibate, are a group of men that came from the ​ Men’s Rights Movement, which itself is a direct pushback against and the rights that women were obtaining throughout the second and third waves of feminism. This has led to attacks against women by men for virtue of them being women and gaining steps closer to equality. The invention of the internet gave rise to websites where men could share like-minded ideas and in some cases, fan the fires of hate that they felt for women, leading to more violence against women, sometimes on very grand scales.

Looking at the websites owned by incels, specifically, an attempt to draw common themes in lines of thought will be employed as they are given an exploratory study and examination of why they feel this way, how they became radicalized in their hatred against women, and what, if anything, can be done to rehabilitate these men and possibly prevent further violence against women in the future.

Key words: , redpill, bluepill, blackpill, Stacy, Chad, Becky ​

Reichert 2

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review

3. Methodological Approach

4. Findings and Analysis

a. Incels.co Findings

i. Blackpill

ii. RageFuel

iii. JFL

iv. LifeFuel

v. Venting

b. Incels.net Findings

5. Discussion

6. Conclusion

7. References

8. Appendix

Reichert 3

Introduction

The Men’s Rights Movement is something that started out of a response to the second wave of feminism. As women were starting to gain more rights and freedoms over their bodily autonomy, finances, and freedoms for divorce, backlash was almost inevitable as men fought for custodial rights and against alimony and child support payments. The movement, while stemming from backlash, in its early days did have good counter points, such as the rights of fathers to see their children in shared custody and the right for men not to be circumcised against their will.

From the start, the fight against feminism has created violent men who wish to cause harm to women simply for existing. A great example of this is the École Polytechnique ​ massacre, which occurred on the sixth of December, 1989 in Montreal. In this attack, Marc

Lépine killed fourteen (14) women in the span of twenty minutes before turning the gun on ​ ​ himself before police arrived; his own manifesto and survivors saying that he did it because he felt that feminism was ruining his life as women were able to keep the advantages of being women, while grabbing for the advantages of men1. It was recognized as an attack against feminists and women only just last year2.

Books and articles written by men that have felt life shifted and unfairly treated them as women gained more freedoms were published and able to be found by others who fell in line with agreement, but the movement lacked any real sort of bearing on a larger scale until the creation of the internet. With the internet came websites, chat services, and message boards

1 Staff, News. “CityNews Rewind: The Montreal Massacre.” CityNews Toronto, December 6, 2006. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2006/12/06/citynews-rewind-the-montreal-massacre/. 2 Blais , Mélissa, and Francis Dupuis-Déri. “The Montréal Massacre Is Finally Recognized as an Anti-Feminist Attack.” The Conversation, January 27, 2020. https://theconversation.com/the-montreal-massacre-is-finally-recognized-as-an-anti-feminist-attack-128450.

Reichert 4

where like minded men could get together and discuss the ways in which they felt that feminism, and the march for left them behind. While not inherently evil or otherwise objectionable, the creation of some of these websites, such as A Voice of Men, run by

Paul Elam, and the Return of Kings which is headed by (real name Dayrush

Valizadeh). These sites contain various articles centered on slut and fat shaming women, the degeneracy of feminism3, how women play games and lie about rape and some tools at times for incels (A portmanteau of Involuntary Celibate)4.

In addition to sites like these, the invention of websites such as gave like minded people a way to gather together and share ideas as well. Again, while like inherently a bad thing, in this case it led to the creation of boards where incels could gather and talk, and in some cases, radicalize each other before carrying out attacks against women. These attacks do pre-date the internet, but as more like minded men got together, the more that have occurred.

There have been at least five large scale attacks carried out since the turn of the century, ones where was a motive for the perpetrators.

Perhaps the first attack on a large scale against women and feminists, Lépine does not ​ ​ stand alone as these sorts of attacks have occurred multiple times. From the 1991 Luby’s shooting in Texas, where perpetrator George Hennard avoided shooting men in order to kill women, successfully taking the lives of twenty-three (23) people screaming about how the women of Killeen had wronged him5 to the 2009 Collier Township shooting during a fitness class at a gym where George Sodini, a who had chronicled, on the internet, his inability to

3 Valizadeh, Dayrush. “About.” Return Of Kings, October 1, 2018. https://www.returnofkings.com/author/roosh. 4 Elam, Paul. A Voice for Men, 2009. https://avoiceformen.com/. 5 Chin, Paula. “A Texas Massacre,” PEOPLE.com, November 4, 1991, https://people.com/archive/a-texas-massacre-vol-36-no-17/.

Reichert 5

find a woman killed three innocent people and injured nine others before turning the gun on himself6.

2015 saw the Umpqua Community College shooting in which student Chris

Harper-Mercer shot and killed an assistant professor, eight students, and injured eight other before taking his own life in a shootout with the police7, after modelling his attack after the

2014 Isla Vista shooting by Elliot Rodger, a student at the University of California at Santa

Barbara who murdered six and injured fourteen (14) before killing himself8, and the 2018

Toronto van attack by Alek Minassian where ten (10) people were killed and another sixteen

(16) injured before he was successfully apprehended by the police9. The last two are of particular importance as there is clear and concise evidence that a hatred of women, or a denial of ability to access women, were the motives behind the attacks.

After the Toronto attack there was one more attack, by Scott Paul Beierle, where he went into a hot yoga studio posing as a customer and opened fire with no warning. He killed two women, injured six others, and turned the gun on himself. He was a self-described misogynist and also identified as an incel10.

6 Tatton, Abby. “Pennsylvania Gym Shooter Described as Quiet, Studious,” CNN (Cable News Network, August 7, ​ 2009), http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/07/pennsylvania.gym.shooting/index.html. 7 Anderson, Rick. “'Here I Am, 26, with No Friends, No Job, No Girlfriend': Shooter's Manifesto Offers Clues to ​ 2015 Oregon College Rampage,” Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles Times, September 24, 2017), https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-school-shootings-2017-story.html. 8 BBC, “Elliot Rodger: How Misogynist Killer Became 'Incel Hero',” BBC News (BBC, April 26, 2018), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43892189. 9 Cecco, Leyland. “Toronto Van Attack Suspect Says He Was 'Radicalized' Online by 'Incels',” The Guardian ​ (Guardian News and Media, September 27, 2019), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/27/alek-minassian-toronto-van-attack-interview-incels. 10 Burlew, Jeff. “Scott Beierle, Gunman in Tallahassee Yoga Studio Shooting, Remembered as 'Really Creepy',” Tallahassee Democrat (Tallahassee Democrat, November 4, 2018), https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/11/03/gunman-had-history-arrests-grabbing-women/1871941002/.

Reichert 6

Incels, as previously discussed, are men that are not having sex, but not by choice. For whatever reason, whether social or personal, they cannot seem to attract a partner. This does not always mean something is wrong about them, for some it just takes time, and just because a man is not able to find a partner, that does not mean that he would classify himself as an incel

(no matter how fitting a descriptor it might be). Those who fall under the incel umbrella, by and large, see sex as a human right, or an inalienable right as it is necessary to carry on the species.

These men believe that society has wronged them by denying them access to sex, or that feminism ruined their chances at finding a woman. In many cases, these men think that women cannot help but go for the best, most superior genetics, but still hold true that feminism gave them unrealistic and unfair expectations.

These men believe sex is something that cannot be lived without, ignoring that the prevalence of asexuality (defined in this case as people who do not have sex), is about 1% worldwide, amounting to about 70 million people who feel no sexual desire and do not have it11, aiding in showing it is not necessary in order for a single person to have and live, and the amount of entitlement these self-described group members have towards women.

As was seen with the attacks that have been carried out within the past few decades, most from the past ten years, this entitlement and rage does not stop just at the message boards, but the gathering of like minded men has resulted in a radicalization, sometimes turned extremism, where women’s lives are endangered and taken because these men feel they are entitled to sex. It would be very easy to write these men off as outliers, but that rage is a common thread throughout the places in which men digitally gather to share ideas.

11 Anna Medaris Miller, “Asexuality: the Invisible Orientation?,” U.S. News & World Report (U.S. News & World Report, May 4, 2015), https://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2015/05/04/asexuality-the-invisible-orientation.

Reichert 7

Having shifted from forums such as Reddit, due to being pushed off of them, to message boards that they themselves own and operate, incels are able to be more publicly open about wanting to commit violence against women, amongst othe activities on these websites.

The purpose of this is to explore and attempt to understand the reasons behind the thoughts, and sometimes actions of these men. While exploring their own websites and words, unfiltered without needing to censor based off of website rules, perhaps an understanding of why these men think and believe this way is possible.

Reichert 8

Literature Review

The Men’s Rights Movement (MRM) is a new field in the civil rights movement.

Predicated upon men being the oppressed party, rather than women, these activists believe that modern society has ignored the problems men face for entirely too long. The issues they cover are varied and vast, similar to that of the feminist movement, from divorce proceedings to rape allegations and the belief they are denied both sex and bodily autonomy, as well as facing more dangers than women do in the current Western world. Their arguments are founded upon mistruths and societally perpetuated beliefs that are not founded in reality, personally held beliefs espoused as facts, in addition to a very curious pop culture influence. With this, there is a lot of focus on women and their “prime” years without so much as a study, scientific or otherwise, to back up their claims. All in all, this movement is unorganized, misleading, dangerous and, quite frankly, a mess. The resources for this review are varied; from academic articles and news reports, with videos, films, books and blogs. The amount of academic articles is still quite small, being this not yet a vastly studied movement, as such many sources have been taken into account. Blogs were selected in addition to the first hand accounts of the books, mainly because the books themselves were self-published, not fact checked, little support for the arguments, and do not widely differ from the blog articles.

Men’s Rights Activism (MRA) was founded as a backlash or response to feminism12, and the rights that women have gained over the course of the past century. A stark difference between feminism and the Men’s Right Movement is the lack of a singular main focus. During the early 20th century, the feminist movement wanted for there to be voting rights for women;

12 Palmer, Z. D., & Subramaniam, M. (2017). Abstract egalitarianism and men as victims: strategic choice of frames by men’s rights organisations. International Social Science Journal, 67(225/226), 97–108. ​ ​ ​ ​ https://doi.org/10.1111/issj.12150

Reichert 9

the second wave of feminism centered on opportunity for women in the work place, as well as making marital rape illegal; and now this third wave is focusing on equal pay for equal work and ending all forms of sexual violence. Where the Men’s Rights Activists are concerned, there is plenty of statistics that are regurgitated, in addition to societal beliefs, founded or not, that are upsetting for all, however a solution or a single problem to be fixed is absent from this movement.

A solid example of this, in the film , a documentary of a woman trying to examine the North American MRM on a deeper level, Paul Elam (founder of the website A

Voice for Men(AVFM)) states that 93% of industrial accidents and deaths happen to men, and that within the scope of wars 99% of male soldiers are the ones that die13. These numbers in themselves are factual, but the presentation of them creates a mistruth; industrial jobs and wars are complex, and the statistics as being presented are without any meat behind them, particularly with regard to war. For the majority of the US and Canada’s history, women were barred from combat positions in war, changing in 2013 and 1989 respectively14, leaving men to be the ones dying on the front lines. It was not women, however, that had these policies in place. With neither country having had a long-running female leader, or one at all, the blame belongs more to the men themselves rather than on women. For the statistic about industrial jobs, those tend to be male-dominated fields, with women pushed out of these jobs due to social pressure, lack of skill exposure and faced within that line of work15.

13 Jaye, C. (2016). The Red Pill [DVD]. USA: Jaye Bird Productions. ​ ​ ​ ​ 14 MacDonald, A. (2013). Canada Offers Lessons on Women in Combat. [online] Wall Street Journal. Available at: ​ ​ ​ https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323539804578262002928698208 [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020]. 15 Catalyst. (2020). Women in Male-Dominated Industries and Occupations: Quick Take | Catalyst. [online] ​ ​ ​ Available at: https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-male-dominated-industries-and-occupations/ [Accessed 19 Jan. 2020].

Reichert 10

The backlash against feminism is the most brought up point within the MRM, a convention in 2014 discovering that as women have gained rights throughout the world, there has always been some form of backlash, however the level and intensity varied by country and jurisdiction16. The common elements brought up were education, family court, and domestic violence, which is consistent with the overall MRM. No matter where men are challenging feminism, the talking points remain largely the same. This can be seen with how the backlash was conceptualized by Ara Jordan, who deconstructed the ways in which feminism, post feminism, and backlash are used throughout the MRA community17.

Sexual Violence

Sexual violence is a big piece of this MRA movement, within the past few years of

#MeToo and #TimesUp making their way into the common lexicon with the help of feminism, it’s no surprise that the opposing party has their own take on sexual violence. A study from the

University of Alberta found that an ad campaign, coming out of Edmonton, urged men not to be

“that” guy and take advantage of women, no matter if they were asleep, had been given rides home, or were intoxicated. A specific example is “just because she’s not saying no, doesn’t mean she’s saying yes. Don’t be THAT guy”, which is the ad attempting to other and ostracize rapists. This did not go unseen from the Men’s Rights Edmonton, an organization closely affiliated with AVFM, who then distorted the original message, not to be “that” guy and switched it to “that” girl, an example being “just because you regret a one night stand, doesn’t

16 Boyd, S. B., & Sheehy, E. (2016). Men’s Groups: Challenging Feminism. Canadian Journal of Women & the ​ Law, 28(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.28.1.5 p 6 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 17 Jordan, A. (2016). Conceptualizing Backlash: (UK) Men’s Rights Groups, Anti-Feminism, and Postfeminism. ​ Canadian Journal of Women & the Law, 28(1), 18–44. https://doi-org.ezproxy.muni.cz/10.3138/cjwl.28.1.18 ​ ​ ​

Reichert 11

mean it wasn’t consensual. Don’t be THAT girl.”18 The interpretation of this would be that women who regret sleeping with someone will later claim that it is rape, breeding into the false rape allegation narrative. This is a narrative that persists within the MRM, prominently featured on AVFM and Return of Kings (ROK), both blogs run by MRAs.

A featured article on AVFM ponders when there will be justice for Harvey Weinstein, known movie producer who is alleged to have coerced young women trying to break into acting into having sex with him, sometimes for roles, sometimes forcibly. It is argued that Weinstein is guilty of nothing because the victims afterward, a decade or so later in a few cases, removed all chance at reasonable doubt and victims at the time of the alleged assault still spent time with him. While a forensic psychologist said both avoidance and continued relationships with assailants is normal, men within the MRM doubt this19.

Another article featured on the site details how the state of California introduced three bills to help stop college rape on campus, but that there is no protection for false accusations, nor are there any punishments20. The problem within this realm is that false accusations are punishable by law, under perjury, false testimony, and defamation of character laws. The men who suffer from these cases have plenty of protection. One of the proposed laws calls for a notation to be made on the transcript of the student accused of rape, saying that they were suspended or expelled from the university due to sexual misconduct, as such, this article argues

18 Gotell L and Dutton E (2016) Sexual violence in the ‘’: Antifeminist men’s rights discourses on rape. International Journal For Crime, Justice And Social Democracy 5(2): 65 80. DOI: 10.5204/ijcjsd.v5i2.310. p66-7 - 19 Solway, D. (2020). Justice for Harvey Weinstein? – A Voice for Men. [online] Avoiceformen.com. Available at: ​ ​ ​ ​ https://avoiceformen.com/featured/justice-for-harvey-weinstein/ [Accessed 19 Feb. 2020]. 20 Conzachi, M. (2020). California assemblyman sponsors three new college related sexual assault bills – A Voice ​ ​ for Men. [online] Avoiceformen.com. Available at: ​ https://avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/california-assemblyman-sponsors-three-new-college-related-sexual-assault-b ills/ [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].

Reichert 12

that should the accusation be proven false, it would still sit on the student’s transcripts, because there is no guidance for removal under this law. However, that would also fall under the defamation of character structure and could be altered by a judge; a transcript is a legal document and must follow certain parameters, such as not falsely accusing its owner.

The website Return of Kings, another prominent MRA blog, has been on hiatus since

October of 2018 but still maintains its server, and there are several editorials about rape and the male perception to it. Some men believe that women share stories to one-up each other on their sexual assault, and also denigrate whether rape is real, going so far to say “a lack of concern for past rapes may be considered rape”21; thoughts such as these are not only ridiculous but also incredibly insulting to those who have survived. This illustrates the careless attitude men have towards sexual violence within the MRM. It is furthered by another article on ROK that says the

“3 signs” for a woman making a rape allegation. While refusing to take victim trauma, shame, and even guilt into consideration, the author focuses on what he perceives to be the more obvious facets, such as comparing to a car break in, rather than a violation of bodily autonomy22

.

This sort of response from the opposing side is known as “anti-anti rape” backlash, and is something that has even women supporting such ideology thinking that women are

“redefining bad sex as rape and manufacturing a crisis” which does not exist23. Having some women respond in support of the MRM is not a surprise, token support from the targeted enemy can be a central point, such as Donald Trump having black and hispanic supporters. Some of

21 Smith, M. (2018). “My” Rape – Return Of Kings. Retrieved 19 January 2020, from ​ http://www.returnofkings.com/181576/my-rape 22 Seau, S. (2013). 3 Signs She’s Making A False Rape Accusation – Return Of Kings. Retrieved 19 January 2020, ​ from http://www.returnofkings.com/6886/3-signs-shes-making-a-false-rape-accusation 23 Gotell L and Dutton E (2016).p 68 ​

Reichert 13

these women were led to the movement from perceived judgement as being stay-at-home moms, being told their husbands would “trade them in for newer models”24. Statements such as this are likely to cause pain to the subject and grow to resentment. Other women feel that there is blame that can be placed on a woman for her rape, such as walking alone, her style of dress, and level of intoxication. One point is these women most likely believe that their husbands leaving them, or them being raped would never happen to them.

Victim blaming is not something only done by the minority of women supporting this movement, but is also a very common theme throughout the larger scope. It is not a new revelation that rape victims coming forward are often asked “what were you wearing?” or “were you drunk?” or “why were you alone?”, questions that are notably absent whenever a victim comes forward from a robbery, car break-in, or mugging. Paul Elam, founder of AVFM, believes that women are “hustling men for drinks” at bars and “fucking begging” to be raped by doing so, their sexuality seen as a form of currency in this situation25. The frustrations men feel when having bought drinks for women and not going home with them is nothing new, neither, perhaps, is feeling that women have brought this on themselves. The world is shifting, however, to men being held accountable for their actions and that is something a bit fresher, and what these MRAs are fighting against.

Custodial Rights

24 The Women of the Men's Rights Movement. (2014). Retrieved 20 January 2020, from ​ https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/znwwva/the-women-of-the-mens-rights-movement-751 25 Gotell L and Dutton E (2016) p 75 ​

Reichert 14

If fighting back against rape culture is the second wave of the MRM, the first would be the fight for equal custodial rights26. A long perpetuated myth is that women are favored in the matter of custody when it comes to the dissolution of a relationship, a myth that still exists to this day in the United States. Within child custody needs, as stated by an article studying the

USA custodial agreements found an overwhelming amount of custodial cases are settled by the parents themselves, only 4% of custody cases went to a trial, while only 1.5% completed custodial litigation. This is still a very prominent topic, though, with men saying that they are

“dying” to be fathers to their children, and being denied the right to, typically blaming the mothers of their children for barring them access and creating lies about them27.

In Sweden, a country that has typically had strong female roles and some forms of gender neutrality, men fighting for their custodial rights found a bit of a struggle as Sweden tended towards putting the children’s interests first before the parents creating a more gender neutral approach28

Interesting that this has been a long-standing fight and topic, considering a cornerstone of the MRM is based around traditional gender roles and rejecting modern feminism29. This is further seen with the recurring phrase within the MRM, known as “The Red Pill”.

The Red Pill

Earlier, a documentary was mentioned about the MRM, titled The Red Pill. This is a ​ ​ very prominent phrase used throughout the ‘Manosphere30’. The concept comes from the movie

26 Palmer, Z. D., & Subramaniam, M. (2017). Abstract egalitarianism and men as victims: strategic choice of ​ frames by men’s rights organisations. International Social Science Journal, 67(225/226), 97–108. ​ ​ ​ ​ https://doi.org/10.1111/issj.12150 27 Jaye, C. (2016). The Red Pill [DVD]. USA: Jaye Bird Productions. ​ ​ ​ 28 Boyd, S. B., & Sheehy, E. p 8 ​ 29 Mountford, Joseph. (2018). Topic Modeling The Red Pill. Social sciences. 7. 10.3390/socsci7030042. 30 Gotell L and Dutton E (2016). ​

Reichert 15

The Matrix, in which the protagonist, Neo, discovers he has been living in a dream world run by ​ machines, and people are harvested for their energy. His mentor, Morpheus, gives him an option of taking two pills, the blue, and Neo can go back to his dream world never to worry about rescuing humanity from machines again; or the red, which will awake him fully to the world as it is being run by machines and he can fight for humanities freedoms.

This has been co-opted by the MRM and twisted into a different meaning. The men believe that the world in which the patriarchy exists is the dream world, the world where men have all of the power does not actually exist and their power and life force is being sucked out of them. When they take the red pill, a metaphor for moment of realization rather than actually swallowing a pill itself, they wake up and see the world as it is, where men, particularly white men, are overwhelming robbed of their rights and freedoms, and need to fight against the evil machines of feminism in order to become the heroes they see themselves as31.

Another big concept stolen from the Matrix and used within the MRM is that of

“unplugging”. In a similar vein to the red and blue pills, when one is “plugged in”, they are going through the motions of everyday life, such as your work routines and other demands of your time, where as “unplugging” is relaxing or doing what you want to do, realizing there is more to life than what you were living before. The book The Rational Male, picked up on this ​ ​ and morphed it into how men think women want their men to be, versus how women do want their men to be32.

This thematic element comes up on nearly every MRA blog, going to the point that a documentary was made about it, and includes the article “Topic Modeling The Red Pill”, a

31 Jaye, C. (2016). The Red Pill [DVD]. USA: Jaye Bird Productions. ​ ​ ​ 32 TOMASSI, R. (2013). RATIONAL MALE. [S.l.]: CREATESPACE INDEPENDENT P. ​ ​ ​

Reichert 16

study researching the film and its reception within the MRM, specifically on the ROK blog. The topic modelling while an important piece to the greater story, was mostly made by crawling the

ROK blog and coming up with frequently used words, and the language often seen used on these blogs, that tends to be derogatory phrases and links to show how the people who contribute to the website truly feel about women.

The most interesting part to this, however, is men co-opting this movie as their rally cry, knowing how they feel about traditional gender roles, especially when considering the writers and directors for those movies are trans women, and it is an allegory of transitioning33.

The Views on Gender Roles

One of the biggest elements of the MRM is the staunch view of gendered roles and a stark absence of gender fluidity. Societally enforced gender roles are not something new, and the various books written by men about how to be the best are simple retellings of long held archetypes for both genders. These sorts of gendered beliefs are, to their core, about power over women.

Jack Donovan’s book “The Way of Men” is an interesting take on what exactly it means to be a man and how one can become the most manly man. His beliefs are centered around men trying to perfect the four virtues that they should have, strength, courage, mastery, and honor.

This primary resource gives a perspective that cannot be ignored when it comes to detailing the

MRM, particularly when viewed on a digital source, such as the Amazon Kindle app, as I used, which allows readers to see often highlighted parts in the book.

33 VanDerWerff, E. T. (2019, March 30). How The Matrix universalized a trans experience - and helped me accept ​ my own. Retrieved February 5, 2020, from https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/3/30/18286436/the-matrix-wachowskis-trans-experience-redpill

Reichert 17

From the section on strength, Donovan says, “The experience of being male is the experience of having greater strength, and strength must be exercised and demonstrated to be of any worth. When men will not or cannot exercise their strength or put it to use, strength is decorative ad worthless”34. This quote was highlighted 1905 times by other readers of the book, striking with them in some ways (found by the digital selection of “popular highlights”), showing that strength is something that MRA feel is inherent to them. In addition to this, Rollo

Tomassi wrote the book “The Rational Male”, an expanded dating guide for men, which also stresses a lot of tired, gender specific roles for men to follow. With regard to strength, he believes that “In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least”35, 4288 people highlighted this point. Both authors believe that men are the ones who should have the power and strength over their female partners.

A constant within the MRM community is the idea that women are weak and want someone to protect them. It is believed that men should have the power and control in a relationship; it is the way of men, as it were, to be filled with strength. Donovan even goes so far as to say that society does not notice if a woman cannot carry a grocery bag; however men who are weak are considered less manly36. Assertions such as these point to mostly the physical differences between men and women and ignore that strength can be made up of different facets, while also forgetting that women give birth and that in itself, is strong.

This bias of specific gendered roles is a deep seated one, as the MRA movement in

Australia, partnering with health agencies to advance male causes has had false statements released about the children of LGBT couples, saying that they are more likely to end up drug or

34 Donovan, J. (2012). The way of men (1st ed.). Milwaukie: Dissonant Hum. location 492 ​ ​ ​ 35 TOMASSI, R. (2013) p. 7 ​ 36 Donovan, J. (2012). The way of men (1st ed.). Milwaukie: Dissonant Hum. location 442. ​ ​ ​

Reichert 18

alcohol addicted or victims of abuse37. The shift seen in Australia is that men are being denied their right to be men because of the rise of feminism38, showing that men feel women gaining rights is a direct threat to their , which is rooted in having power over women.

The Gap in Research

The above overview clearly shows that as the MRM is a relatively new topic, there are ​ definitive gaps in the current research. The biggest, and most interesting gap, is that of self proclaimed incels. Incel is a word that has not yet found its way into the dictionary, a portmanteau of “Involuntary” and “Celibate”. Perhaps the newest section of the MRM, self titled incels have been gaining more awareness, particularly after the attacks of Elliot Rodger and, alleged, Alek Minassian.

Elliot Rodger, known for his shooting at University of California Santa Barbara and subsequent suicide, released a video before his shooting spree. In it, he discusses all of his perceived slights throughout his post-puberty life, proclaiming that he, a 22-year-old-virgin, should not be withheld sex and girls gave their affections and attentions to men that he had deemed less deserving. In his own words, saying that it was a crime, and an injustice, yet it did not stop there; according to Rodger, women believed he was unworthy of love, affection, devotion and adoration, seen to him as a crime that could never be forgiven and since he was unable to have them, he would destroy these women instead.39 Also contained within the video, he refers to himself several times as a “true alpha male”.

37 Salter, M. (2016). Men’s Rights or Men’s Needs? Anti-Feminism in Australian Men’s Health Promotion. ​ Canadian Journal of Women & the Law, 28(1), 69–90. https://doi-org.ezproxy.muni.cz/10.3138/cjwl.28.1.69 p 73 ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 38 Salter, M. p72 ​ 39 News Now. (2014). Elliot Rodgers Retribution - The Last Video [Image]. Retrieved from ​ ​ ​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TgeR_SFNB8

Reichert 19

The alpha male concept is something that is recurring in the greater scheme of the

MRM, and not specific to incels, such as Tomassi saying “Are you Alpha enough to take a rejection on the chin, smile and confidently come back for more?”40 While Tomassi’s book is not necessarily targeted at incels, both quotes and the alpha attitude lead to a very important point of the incel’s faction within the MRM, entitlement to women’s bodies. Incels believe that sex is a right they have been denied by women, and some, such as Rodger, exact revenge by committing murder.

Allegedly, Rodger is not alone as Alek Minassian is accused and awaiting trial for driving a van into a crowd in Toronto, where 10 were killed and 16 others were injured41.

Speaking in his own words for a police interview, Minassian says he was inspired by Elliot

Rodger, the founding forefather of the incel movement, saying that he was radicalized online, by similarly minded people about being frustrated at never having had a girlfriend or sex42. Not every incel acts on such violent tendencies, however what they do share is this dangerous ideology that they are being deprived of sex with women, which they consider a human rights violation. More research needs to be taken under this realm specifically.

Conclusion

The MRM is one that is founded upon men believing they are denied basic rights and freedoms. While taking the staunch views on gendered roles within society and giving half truths through their statistical references, the MRA that have been pushing this movement

40 TOMASSI, R. (2013). p22 ​ 41 Cecco, L. (2019, September 27). Toronto van attack suspect says he was 'radicalized' online by 'incels'. Retrieved January 25, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/27/alek-minassian-toronto-van-attack-interview-incels 42 National Post. (2019). Alek Minassian confesses in police interview after Toronto van attack [Video]. Retrieved ​ ​ ​ from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGFWovUuWak

Reichert 20

utilize false narratives on rape and child custody issues, along with self-published books and blogs to help further their cause. Inspired by a trans feminine allegory film that has been crowned as their metaphor, the MRM, an already radical group, has created an extremist, terrorist faction known as incels. Given that this is a new field of study, all sources are being included as the start of a structured research project is begun.

Reichert 21

Methodological Approach

The major question that I am attempting to answer is “What are the grievances among the Incels?”

Background

The term, “incel”, a portmanteau of “involuntary” and “celibate”, has been around for a longer time than it has been in the lexicon. Interviewed by The Guardian, following the Toronto ​ ​ truck attack discussed in a previous chapter, the woman who coined the term said she had done so back in the 1990s as a way of expressing her own insecurities and uncertainties to start dating, on her site that explored some of those issues as a way to reach out to other like-minded people43. It was intended to be a warm, welcoming community for people to share their stories and perceived shortcomings and help one another. Now, what was once meant to be a friendly community has morphed into one that appears to have been hijacked exclusively for men, and does not share the same openness of the efforts preceding it.

The Incels are a relatively new piece to the MRA puzzle, something having not been previously studied in an academic aspect, and as such, this is an exploratory nature for information about the attitudes, narration and potential typology of those that make up the incel movement. This hands-off approach was selected for a number of reasons

1. It is important to start with a more broad, background giving sort of examination

rather than an intensive look.

2. Many incels are unwilling to identify themselves publicly, making a direct

interview process less likely, even more so because I am a woman.

43 Kassam, A. (2018). Woman behind 'incel' says angry men hijacked her word 'as a weapon of war'. Retrieved 8 ​ March 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/woman-who-invented-incel-movement-interview-toronto-attack

Reichert 22

3. In the effort of maintaining an ethical practice, no lies about my gender will be

given to the movement.

Concept Integrity

A quick overview of the topics listed shows that both of the sites are run in a message-board style format, a user makes a post and others can reply to it as they see fit. Within these forums, there are sub-threads of various topics; for example on Incels.co there is

RageFuel, JFL44, BlackPill, Based45, along with a few other forms of subthreads. Not every thread has to fit into a subthread, but it does make the search easier to find what the topics are.

Incels.net is a bit more elementary in its design, offering a link to various forums, but having just a basic offering of these threads, with Quality Control, General discussion, and an

Off-topic thread for the members of the site to use. It is both a bit easier and a bit more difficult to navigate in this case, as all threads are posted in ascending chronological order, but specific sub-threads cannot be navigated with ease as they can on Incels.co.

There is one potentially major problem within this thematic analysis, that is as per the rules of registration on these sites, it is limited to men who self-identify as incels, removing any chance at a control group, or seeing any sort of discussion or discourse. Another major recurring issue is the problem of language used. While lifting the texts to back up a point or further analyze various remarks, language will be edited so as not to include the slurs that have been used.

44 Stands for “Just Fucking Laugh” 45 Definition is: being yourself and not caring what other people think of you

Reichert 23

Participant Observation

Participant observation is the research method of trying to gain “close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals and their practices through an intensive involvement with people.46” Practices such as this can help to gain an understanding, especially when done solely through observation, with no interaction, of how a particular group of people operate47. This method is what will be employed to explore two used websites by incels,

Incels.co and Incels.net. Both sites do not require registration and as such, can be viewed publicly. This only prevents me from participating in the discussions themselves, not seeing the ​ actual threads and collecting data; not having an account registered, all of the threads, seemingly, are visible for me, not locked behind password walls, or limited in view. This rudimentary website design allows me to view every thread, and author, on these message boards to witness and take note of their discussions, arguments and rumination.

A quick look at the most basic pieces of these sites shows that both require standard registration aspects; username and password, an email to be linked to the account, and gender, nothing out of the ordinary at first glance. Both of these sites have a bit more extensive registration, with Incels.net asking if a person is “red pilled”, “black pilled”, or “blue pilled”, and Incels.co asks for a thorough explanation of one’s “situation”; presumably how they classify themselves within the incel subculture, not vastly different from the “pills” listed under

Incels.net.

46 Mack, Natasha, and Cynthia Woodsong. “Module 2 Participant Observation.” Essay. In Qualitative Research ​ Methods: a Data Collector's Field Guide. North Carolina: FLI, 2005. ​ 47 Mack, Natasha, and Cynthia Woodsong. “Module 2 Participant Observation.” Essay. In Qualitative Research ​ Methods: a Data Collector's Field Guide. North Carolina: FLI, 2005. ​

Reichert 24

On Incels.co, there is a link to an incel Wiki page that defines some of the terms listed above, while they have been addressed in the previous section through other websites and definitions, it is important to extract the information from the direct source I will be using for the participant observation. Assuming that this site is maintained by incels, this information can be taken as accurate for this subculture and its participants (their term, they say this is not a movement).

Given the question asking about the registrant’s gender, it is confirmed, rather than assumed as within the scope of the rules of both of the sites, that women are not allowed on their forums; the creators and participants wanting them to be exclusive to men. For Incels.co, they state that any woman posting on their forum is an instant ban, whereas Incels.net says that women “taking disguise” of incels “will be taken care of”.

Incels.co has a rule, as well, that is no worship of males or females, inclusive of posting pictures to admire either one, and not allowing for any praise. The only similar rule found within Incels.net is (sic) “no attention whoring”. While Incels.net has no exact rule for this, the content is largely the same, and it is within reason to assume that, therefore, praise and worship of either men or, especially, women would not be accepted on their forum either.

None of this presents itself as being an issue as, since the users on the site do not know a woman is collecting information, the raw data will therefore be more unfiltered. However, the task of remaining objective in an incredibly subjective area of research may prove difficult in its own right.

Narrative Analysis

Reichert 25

A narrative analysis is the process of trying to find a thread or a commonality that is always constantly changing. While the speaker may be telling one story, the investigator may be hearing another, and the reader then can develop their own opinion on what those two varying sources meant, and how the process of interpretation goes. While the words of incels will be studied in raw form, they will then be analyzed and critiqued for their upholding to truth and reality.

This method was chosen for this project as a way of gathering information on incels and what is most important to them, whether it be who they include within their community or not, or the frame of mind they have towards the world. This approach was chosen because while being a woman, I am also a feminist; these two facts could prove dangerous and damage the integrity of the analysis if I were just to present my own feelings towards this movement. While this subgroup is something I have known about for a long time, to write only what I know and have heard would not do justice for the movement, or for myself. It is worthy of a deeper look and understanding than just judgement and dismissal of these men and their grievances.

For this reason, I am using the thematic approach to their narrative. While any single one incel being interviewed could potentially compromise my own safety, a look into the common and recurring themes within, with the focus, as Reissman said, on what is being told, rather than those who are telling48. This was the chosen method of narrative analysis because all of the users are the sites being looked at are self-proclaimed incels, that is a given factor, but there may be some commonality among what these men are discussing within the various posts on the two chosen sites.

48 Riessman, Catherine Kohler. “Accidental Cases.” Considering Counter-Narratives Studies in Narrative, 2004, ​ ​ 33–38. https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.4.06rie.

Reichert 26

Deconstructing and examining the narrative and themes is an important foundation to build for this movement. As it is new and emerging, it is also evolving and growing as more men find themselves drawn to this. Knowing the thematic elements of how men are drawn to this subculture, as well as why they stay within it, will give a grander understanding to why it exists in the first place, and what the goals of these forums are, in addition to this it can also shed light onto how their debates and discussions are formatted. The themes discovered can also help to gain knowledge on how the message is spread throughout the internet community and add to theirs.

Typology

This exploration will be split into typology of the two message boards being looked into.

Typology is defined as, “a classification according to general type, especially in archaeology, ​ psychology, or the social sciences.” The typology being descriptive analysis of a limited ​ number of subthreads that are on Incels.co49, and a limited number of threads within that, while

Incels.net will have a random thread selection typology.

While these sites claim that they welcome incels of all and every race and background, the actual structure is that of white men, no religious affiliation mentioned but Jewish men are heavily looked down upon, with racial slurs thrown at those who do not fit the mold. The vitriol for races other than white, and slurs of old used as well as newly created ones, shows that this is a largely homogenous group of men who hate women, trans people, people of color, gay people, and Jewish people. Removing all of those groups, we are left almost entirely with white men.

49 Peters, B. Guy. Comparative Politics: Theory and Methods. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1998. ​ ​ ​

Reichert 27

However, this does not mean that it cannot be further dissected and analyzed on its own, as well, just a bit more flare and . Originally, I had wanted to structure a commonality between North American and European incels, but was unable to figure out a way as without directly involving myself, it is impossible to find out where the men of this movement come from. The language used is prolific enough, and a general overview found that most spoke english well enough, that it cannot be determined from language alone, and I would be left with no proof that Man A was from Sweden versus Man B from Canada, for example.

Yet, the incels that participate on these sites differentiate themselves, as discussed earlier with the blue/red/black pill incels as compared to the gymcels, based, and other schisms within the incel community. With a heavier focus on Incels.co, as it has the ability to click on certain topical links and see discussion threads within that topic, I will choose five major topic points.

From this, I will select five random threads, of varying lengths, within the discussion topic and see any commonalities that may arise. For Incels.net, a similar approach of twenty-five randomized threads chosen, of recent and older posts, both longer and shorter discussions as will be done with Incels.co.

At the end, a comparison between the two sites, over all, and their most discussed points will be discussed and see if any conclusions of incels can be drawn.

Reichert 28

Findings and Analysis

The findings of the message boards were divided where they could be; examined, discussed and, if possible, refuted by facts and research that disproved these unfounded claims.

This has been broken down into two main groups, Incels.co and their findings, along with

Incels.net and the information drawn there.

One of the problems with sites like these two is the frequency with which posts are made and how impossible it can be to find them again once they have disappeared under an avalanche of other topic threads on the site. The amount of posts is unsurprising; a look at the members of the site had 1 page of the members list with 50 usernames listed, and there were 222 pages of listed users, making the amount around 11,000 registered accounts on Incels.co50. For Incels.net, there was no such similar composite list of users that a registration picture of accounts could be extrapolated. The two listings of the members were under highest reaction scores and most messages, which shows how often members are talking, but not the number of members that are doing it51.

A recurring word is one of the first things to pop up throughout both of these message boards, and the word is Foid. This took some digging to find a deeper meaning as to what it meant, though context said potentially derogatory word for women. A guide on Tim Squirrel, self proclaimed as “definitive” of Incel dictionary defined it as having first started out as

“female humanoid”, then being shortened to “femoid”, and the word’s final form has been

50 This includes both active and banned accounts, understanding that there could have been some overlap between the two in the number of accounts. 51 It is impossible to figure out the number of users currently active, as such no extrapolation was done for Incels.net as it was Incels.co

Reichert 29

shortened to “foid”52. This short overview of the website does set up the language very well.

Racial slurs are thrown around at will, despite no being allowed under “bullying” rules, as well blatant and proud misogyny (this is to be expected, however, given the content), along with and .

In this case, it is odd that vague, potentially threatening language is used, given within the scope of the rules for both sites, no violence or bullying language may be used.

Incels.net has a very interesting question on its registration form, asking for the sexuality of its incoming members, whether they are homosexual or heterosexual. In conjunction with women not being allowed, on both forums, the blatant question being asked, along with gender, would assume that the account would immediately be blocked from the site. Incels.co has within the scope of its rules that there is to be no [sic] “trans or gay content of any kind”, which matches well with the Incels.net rules.

A final note of the rules for both sites, Incels.net says “no excessive racism”, and

Incels.co has a rule against “persecution or bullying”. This is an interesting point when considering that followed within their F.A.Q.s, asking if “are racism and antisemitism allowed”, the answer given is that it may violate the rules, but can be done infrequently, claiming that incels can be of all races and backgrounds, something that will be further dissected within the typology and narrative analysis.

This helps to set the stage for the tone that is used throughout the threads on the site. No bluepill, meaning no one who accepts reality as it exists, no women to defend themselves and try to have discourse with men of this subculture, no one that falls outside of the gendered

52 Squirrell, T. A definitive guide to Incels part two: the A-Z incel dictionary — Tim Squirrell, PhD. Retrieved 9 ​ March 2020, from https://www.timsquirrell.com/blog/2018/5/30/a-definitive-guide-to-incels-part-two-the-blackpill-and-vocabulary

Reichert 30

binary or heteronormativity, and no praising of women. From these rules being established, there is no surprise that it has created a toxic cesspool of misogyny, , racism, and homophobia.

Incels.co Findings

The first website explored for information was Incels.co. As previously discussed it, and the other website being looked at are rudimentary in their message board design. A key difference is that Incels.co is able to be searched by various subtopics within the main

“Inceldom Discussion”. There were four topics chosen randomly using a virtual die, that lead to

Blackpill, RageFuel, JFL, LifeFuel, and Venting in the search for commonalities. Keeping in mind that various posters may cross post throughout the boards as well, and is brought up amongst the findings.

Blackpill

The first subgroup to be explored was one titled Blackpill. Incels apart of the Blackpill ideology believe that “female sexual desire is inflexible, women naturally select men based on looks rather than personality and that women select men with the best genes.” This fatalist attitude towards women and partner selection leads to some insight as to how these men view society.

One of the first threads found on incels.co is titled (sic)“Response to: “You’re Not

Entitled To Sex53”, in which the author, BlackPillPres, breaks down how he sees incel attitudes towards sex, societal history and safety. While claiming that incels do not believe they are entitled to sex, merely just that they would like to have it and repeating that incels viewing it as

53BlackPillPres, “Response To: ‘You're Not Entitled To Sex,’” Incels.co, December 16, 2018, https://incels.co/threads/response-to-youre-not-entitled-to-sex.94998/?

Reichert 31

an entitlement is a strawman argument, that sex is a rite of passage in order to be accepted into society and that women are not entitled to safety. Consistent with the incel ideology, this man says that this dystopian world of men not being able to have sex when they want it is the “result of unrealistic and unfair female standards”.

The argument is made that men go on shooting rampages because of this “human right” to sex that is being denied to men, their outrage no longer containable as they unleash their fury onto unsuspecting people, employing the African proverb, “the child who is not embraced by ​ the village will burn it down to feel its warmth”. This sets the stage for the idea that many incels ​ have of sex not only being a human right, but something equivalent to basic need to function, which would be an entitlement, like the sense of belonging to a group as a social species. He makes the argument that (sic) “sex is of utmost importance to every human (its not the most ​ important thing, but its really really up there on the list, some might argue 2nd or 3rd place)”, which is demonstrably false as water, food, and shelter are the items that are of utmost importance to every human. Not surprisingly, he also erases the existence of asexual people, which may be a minority but exist within every culture, as stated in the introduction.

Additionally, BlackPillPres makes the argument that women are not entitled to safety, failing to further elaborate on that point.

There is much to unpack from what was said by this man and it is hard to know where to start. Those who view incels as feeling entitled to sex may be discussing a fringe group, however his own point is refuted by stating that men have shooting rampages because they are not getting the female attention desired. To suggest, as was done, that men are justified in this

Reichert 32

anger does have the implication that men are entitled to sex and the consequences are the fault of society, rather than personal to the man himself.

While initially consistent with incel ideology of unrealistic female standards, this poster says that these standards “only exist due to various societal changes that resulted from ​ feminism”, which is inconsistent with the BlackPill theory that says women are pre-programmed to want to have partners that are attractive, and have the best genes, not that that is a result from feminism. These ideologies both being held true to one person is confusing to say the least. It is one thing to be saddened by a supposed “pre-conditioning” that nature put in women’s driving forces for choosing partners, but to believe that, and that women fighting for equality in voting, fair wages, and bodily autonomy is the result of some men not being able to find partners is confusing and as the two are mutually exclusive ideas.

The simple phrase “women aren’t entitled to safety” is failed to be expanded upon in any real way, rather an extensive thought experiment at the history of virginity, marriage, promiscuity and rape are brought up and the idea of a social contract stating that previously in history men would take sex from women by force as the norm but society shifted and men protected women for the purpose of creating progeny, while not sourcing where this information came from, which is among the least of the problems in this statement. Everyone is entitled to safety based off of the laws governing societies and how they function. Battery, assault, rape, theft, murder, are crimes that have laws protecting individuals throughout every society on the planet54. To state that because a man is unable, or unwilling, to successfully court a woman, is

54 The enforcement rates of these laws based on gender is outside of the scope of this paper. ​

Reichert 33

therefore allowed to use force to get what he desires is a damage to a social contract as well, as women are entitled to bodily autonomy.

This thread was met with overwhelming support, and while the comments are largely going to be ignored, the first one was attention grabbing as Robtical says (sic) “if we’re forced to pay taxes then foids have to be forced to give us pussy.55” A particularly confusing, and amusing comment because “foids” that are employed are also taxpayers, which completely negates the point in itself, and paying taxes already has a return in emergency services, road upkeep, defense spending, and aid for those in need to name a few.

A thread by a user called Cuyen entitled “Brutal rape pill” attempts to discuss and equate the societies of orangutans to human beings, stating “Among orangutan packs, there is only one alpha male and all females come him to mate and other males(beta males) have only option for mating: RAPE”.56 There are a number of things wrong with this, the most important of which being that “alpha” males do not exist. The researcher who coined the term for wolves in a closed park study, later tried to recreate it in the wild and debunked his own theory, yet the idea is still perpetuated throughout society57. Additionally a quick google search about orangutans and rape leads to the knowledge that the “alpha” is simply the patriarch and the forced copulation that occurs with orangutans is by immature apes, having not yet developed

55 Robtical. “Response To: ‘You're Not Entitled To Sex.’” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, December 16, 2018. https://incels.co/threads/response-to-youre-not-entitled-to-sex.94998/post-1843275. 56 Cuyen. “Brutal Rape Pill.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 6, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/brutal-rape-pill.229558/. 57 Miller, Anna Medaris. “Asexuality: the Invisible Orientation?” U.S. News & World Report. U.S. News & World Report, May 4, 2015. https://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2015/05/04/asexuality-the-invisible-orientation.

Reichert 34

the protruding cheeks, which is a sign of maturity. The female orangutans are drawn to the more mature and adult orangutans rather than the ones that have not yet reached sexual maturity58.

The implication with this particular post is an oft recurring theme, that men who cannot get sex are entitled to rape women, especially since it happens in species that are genetically close to humans. It is funny to note that in comparison to this, the men encouraging rape appear to be as immature as the orangutans that attack their female counterparts. Perhaps if maturity were displayed, they would have much better luck at achieving a sexual partner that did not need to be taken by force.

A randomly chosen thread by user Incel Gamer titled “Now I Know Why They Call It

Getting Lucky” muses that most men in the world are only average looking and that the top twenty percent are “Chads” and women only want the “Chads”, finding that for a man who does not fit into this category managing to have sex with a woman is extremely lucky. “If you're a sub5, 5'6", skinny, ricecel or currycel you'd probably have a better chance of winning the

Powerball lottery than hooking up with a 5/10 or higher woman.”59 There are again, a number of problematic features within this statement. Rating system for women and personal preferences aside, the assumption that women are only into tall, thin men lacks any sort of backing by scientific data or research to support that point. Additionally, the usage of the terms “currycel” and “ricecel” are extremely racist and promote the ideology that women of races other than white are not attractive, and that all the men who are of east asian or indian descent are automatically unworthy of being with an attractive woman. Also worthy to point out, the rating

58 Stanford, Craig. “Despicable, Yes, but Not Inexplicable.” American Scientist. American SCientist, February 26, ​ 2018. https://www.americanscientist.org/article/despicable-yes-but-not-inexplicable. 59 Incel Gamer. “Now I Know Why They Call It ‘Getting Lucky.’” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 5, ​ 2020. https://incels.co/threads/now-i-know-why-they-call-it-getting-lucky.229154/.

Reichert 35

system applied not only to women but to men, which has the staunch issue of personal preference again being ignored, not everyone is attracted to the same type of man or woman; believing so is, at the very least, incredibly silly.

User asdf1234 wrote a thread called “Probably going to cause some shit but here's my anecdotal analysis of JBW60”, the acronym standing for “just be white”, breaks down a supposed numbers game on the attractiveness of white and asian men living in the western world and in an asian country.

“If you are a white man in the west, there is a 5% chance you are a chad (fucks multiple JBs since you were 13), 15% chance you are chadlite (multiple gfs in highschool, girls sometimes have a crush on you), 60% chance you are a normie (at least 1 gf in high school), 15% chance you are below average (first gf after high school) and 5% chance you are incel.

For asians, that number is probably: 0.05% Chang, 3% Changlite, 20% normie, 40% below average and 36.95% incel.

However, that number changes if we these men go to asia. In asia:

White: 30% Chad, 50% Chadlite, 18% normie, 1.95% below average, 0.05% incel

Asian: 1% chang, 9% changlite, 20% normie, 60% below average, 10% incel”61

This opinion is presented without any information as to how the results were collected, what age range and ethnicity was used for polling, which countries in particular were studied, which questions were asked, and if there were any outliers in data collection. It appears that this, along with other data found in previous threads, has no backing in science and is an opinion being espoused as fact and knowledge.

60 JBW just be white 61 asdf1234. “Probably Going to Cause Some Shit but Here's My Anecdotal Analysis of JBW.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, May 17, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/probably-going-to-cause-some-shit-but-heres-my-anecdotal-analysis-of-jbw.204924/.

Reichert 36

The final chosen thread for the Blackpill by BITG is titled “Aggression is attractive to women regardless of what red pilled f*gs62 say”63. Within it, this poster says that women enjoy aggressive men because it taps into a primal part of their brains and that if women do not like a man because of his face, the aggression will cause fear and respect. This assumption goes against common knowledge as studied saying that women do not like aggression, as it is a form of violence against them64. In addition, it displays a theory that men want to get women by any means necessary, not because they wish to have a woman love them, but they would take the submission of fear and respect over genuine love and devotion.

RageFuel

RageFuel is a randomly selected subthread that is not defined in the incel glossary of terms. However, a quick glance shows that it is a subgroup dedicated to men talking about things which upset them that women do.

The first selected thread is called “Foids dress like whores whenever the opportunity arises”65. Inside, the author, DepravedandDeprived says that when the warm weather has struck in Danmark, women have taken the opportunity to wear shorts and tank tops, and, according to him, even walking openly in their bras. While a normal thinking human knows this form of dress is allowing women a reprieve from the heat, those on the RageFuel board believe that this depreciates a woman’s worth as more men are able to see her body. This is a classic form of

62 Editing out the slur was my own ​ 63 BITG. “Aggression Is Attractive to Women Regardless of What Red Pilled Fags Say.” Incels.co - Involuntary ​ Celibate, May 4, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/aggression-is-attractive-to-women-regardless-of-what-red-pilled-fags-say.201415/. 64 Adam Ruins Everything - Alpha Males Do Not Exist | TruTV. Adam Ruins Dating. Youtube.com, 2017. ​ ​ ​ ​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ti86veZBjU. 65 DepravedandDeprived. “Foids Dress like Whores Whenever the Opportunity Arises.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 7, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/foids-dress-like-whores-whenever-the-opportunity-arises.229803/.

Reichert 37

sexualization of women, particularly when done without their consent. However, the human body existing on its own is not inherently sexual, especially when considering that men are not sexualized to the extent that women are66.

The second thread discovered through random selection on the RageFuel subgroup is titled (sic) “women have it so good”. Wherein the author failmaxxed discusses his job opportunities as being abysmal, claiming that women will become a housewife to a “simp” and not have to worry about employment67. This conjecture is not founded in reality as only 1-in-5 parents, inclusive of both mothers and fathers, are stay-at-home parents, and those that are, have a spouse that either earns a considerable amount of money, or, as for the case of about a quarter of stay-at-home-parents, the expense of childcare forces one to remain in the home68.

A third RageFuel thread titled (sic) “This 9/10 chad browses here” by Higgcels has links to tweets by a man who denounces incels and finds them to be vile69. Obviously an infiltrator to their group, one where they felt a bit safer is a bit alarming, particularly when done in such a public forum as . (This puts me, another participant observer in a position of feeling incredible safe70). The twitter account user also believes that law enforcement agencies are

66 Meredith, Brooke. “The Human Body Is Not Inherently Sexual, So Why Do We Make It The Case For ​ Women's?” Medium. The Startup, May 15, 2020. https://medium.com/swlh/the-human-body-is-not-inherently-sexual-so-why-do-we-make-it-the-case-for-womens-9 6efe3c12482. 67 failmaxxed. “Women Have It so Good.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, January 19, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/women-have-it-so-good.172337/. 68 Livingston, Gretchen. “About 1 in 5 U.S. Moms and Dads Are Stay-at-Home Parents.” Pew Research Center. ​ Pew Research Center, May 30, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-home-moms-and-dads-account-for-about-one-in-five-u- s-parents/. 69 Higgscel. “This 9/10 Chad Browses Here.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, January 19, 2020. ​ https://incels.co/threads/this-9-10-chad-browses-here.172356/. 70 Note the sarcasm, these men can be very, very dangerous when they want to be. ​

Reichert 38

monitoring the form71, which is supported by a youtube video on Incels.net as well72, though in that video the moderator in question only alerted the FBI when threats made crossed the line into plausibly dangerous for others. Obviously, in a different way than women living their lives, this is going to cause rage within the users of the message board.

The fourth chosen thread is titled (sic) “Already sunday night, fuck workceldom so fucking much” by user Saddam discusses how he’d been able to work only two days the week before but was back to the “5/2 dichotomy” for the rest of his life and how most people probably work for “feminazi” bosses that contribute nothing to the company and make twice as much money73. Assuming that this man is a US citizen, the frustration is understandable as the

USA has no government mandated vacation time for employees; vacation time is something that is decided by the company, if they choose to give it. He further muses how the suicide rate is not higher considering how people must hate their lives in order to keep working like this rather than enjoying themselves. As much as it does not have a lot to do with women, it is a nice change to see these men complaining about everyday problems in addition to their lack of courtship abilities.

The final thread chosen for RageFuel is called “You literally have to pay or give something to women if you want to talk to them” by UglyMe74. The title is straightforward

71 Crumplar, Mike. “Believe Me, They're Monitoring the Forum Pic.twitter.com/8qaNXkCfKV.” Twitter. Twitter, ​ October 10, 2019. https://twitter.com/user/status/1182329352568082433. 72 StoicNihilist. “(IMPORTANT) Former .CO Moderator Disowns Incel Community, Confirms They Are ​ Collaborating with the FBI during Press Interview.” Incels. Incels.net, May 1, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/important-former-co-moderator-disowns-incel-community-confirms-they-are-collaboratin g-with-the-fbi-during-press-interview.15358/. 73 Saddam. “Already Sunday Night, Fuck Workceldom so Fucking Much.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, ​ January 5, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/already-sunday-night-fuck-workceldom-so-fucking-much.169101. 74 Uglyme. “You Literally Have to Pay or Give Something to Women If You Want to Talk to Them.” Incels.co - ​ Involuntary Celibate, January 9, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/you-literally-have-to-pay-or-give-something-to-women-if-you-want-to-talk-to-them.17001 2/.

Reichert 39

enough, but has an interesting ideology of; “The cashier at the store. The fast food employee. ​ The homeless woman outside my work. The phone company call center lady. The girl to whom

I gave chocolates yesterday and who rejected me. The female bartender. I don't remember the last time I talked to a woman without paying.” This is an insanely problematic attitude to have towards women who are working because their job is not to make friends or form romantic bonds while being employed. Sure, in the USA there is a culture of friendliness from employees to customers but their job is not to be sexually available, nor to carry a conversation. Pleasant, polite, and efficient, women who are employed are not responsible for a man and his inability to speak to women when not making a transaction, nor are they required to accept attention because gifts were purchased for them.

JFL (Just Fucking Laugh)

JFL is a subthread for men to laugh at situations other men, typically non-incels are in, amongst themselves.

The first used thread is one by TheCrook titled, (sic) “Tyrone75 breeds 16 yo foid, leaves her pregnant. Is OP the asshole for not wanting his son to pay for Tyrone’s baby?76” There are a number of problems with this. The whole message links to a reddit where a man is asking if he is in the wrong for not giving his son more allowance money to spend on this girl and her child, but nowhere is race ever mentioned in the question itself. He simply says his son’s best friend

75 This is a racist term for black men who are able to court women ​ 76 TheCrook. “Tyrone Breeds 16 Yo Foid, Leaves Her Pregnant. Is OP the Asshole for Not Wanting His Son to Pay ​ for Tyrone's Baby?” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, January 16, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/tyrone-breeds-16-yo-foid-leaves-her-pregnant-is-op-the-asshole-for-not-wanting-his-son-to -pay-for-tyrones-baby.171579/.

Reichert 40

has a three month old baby, with no mention of the race of his family, the young mother, or her child77.

Included in this, he addresses the child spending his allowance money on the baby as

“beta”, and as previously discussed, there is no such thing as an alpha or beta human in this society. In addition, he says that the young mother does not even offer sex in exchange for the money being returned which may not be true, the father of the young boy just may not be privileged to that information. Further, he assumes that this young woman is “betabuxxing”, defined on the incel dictionary as “a male (sic) finacially provides for a partner” and that there ​ may not be any real attraction78. Once more this is conjecture as not enough information is given by the father in the original reddit post, the assumptions of the relationship itself and the race of the infant’s father shows how incels view men who disappear on their children, when the raw data shows of the United States that largely more white families have single parent households than any other race79.

A thread by HowCanSheSlap titled (sic) “Made a Staceyfish okcupid account” discusses a man who makes a fake account as a “Stacy”, an attractive white woman with an hourglass figure80, in order to laugh at the men who messaged him while pretending to be a woman. The poster complains that “I'm using a 10/10 Stacey yet none of the Chads are replying or liking the photos. I get about 1/2 likes every fucking minute ... most are normies and incels, even balding

77 Hhmo-100. “r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for Not Giving My Son Money Anymore.” reddit, January 15, 2020. https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ep883l/aita_for_not_giving_my_son_money_anymore/. 78 Incel dictionary located at: https://incels.wiki/w/Incel_Forums_Term_Glossary ​ 79 2020 The Annie E. Casey Foundation. “Children in Single-Parent Families by Race: KIDS COUNT Data ​ Center.” KIDS COUNT data center: A project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. 2020 The Annie E. Casey Foundation., January 2020. https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by-race. 80 Incel dictionary located at: https://incels.wiki/w/Incel_Forums_Term_Glossary

Reichert 41

curries and rices are liking me.81” There could be a number of reasons why the “Chads” are not responding to this man pretending to be a woman on a dating site, perhaps this poster does not think men are attractive and therefore it does not matter how attractive these men could be, possibly someone attracted to a man would find these respondents more of the 10/10 range. The subjectivity of looks is a big factor for dating across all races and countries.

In addition, this poster says that men should “Staceyfish” rather than “Chadfish” in order to show how “bluepilled” some of these people responding to his fake profile are. Now, there is a lot to unpack here with the terminology used, some of which is not defined in the incel glossary of terms. We know that a Stacy/Stacey is an attractive white woman with an hourglass figure, and we know that a Chad is a highly attractive white man, and the glossary of terms gives race counterparts such as Tyrone for a Black man, Chabdul for an Arab man, Chaddeep for an Indian man, and Chang for an Asian man.

From this, it is easy to see that Stacey/Chad fishing is a play on the term “catfishing”, which is pretending to be someone you are not on dating or social media websites. Bluepilling is a term, coming from the Matrix movie, as discussed in the literature review, about those who do not understand, agree, or acknowledge the reality of dating, as perceived by incels82. The men that are “fishing” others do so to teach them a lesson, in this case, that an attractive woman could not want them, attempting to either bring them over to the incel community and commiserate together, or just to ruin their day by discovering that the woman is not real.

81 HowCanSheSlap. “Made a Staceyfish Okcupid Account.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, January 18, 2020. ​ https://incels.co/threads/made-a-staceyfish-okcupid-account.172266/. 82 Incel dictionary located at: https://incels.wiki/w/Incel_Forums_Term_Glossary ​

Reichert 42

The third selected thread from JFL is one a bit unorthodox for the incel community, written by NoMoreCoping83, titled “I can’t understand this race war on incel forums.84” In it, he claims there are Chads of every race, and being an incel means you’re unattractive, regardless of your race. While the majority of the incel community is wrought with racism, as previously mentioned with the rice/curry/black-cel demarcations for other groups of incels, while the term

“incel” itself is only applied to white men, it is refreshing in a way to see that some within the incel community are willing to bridge the gap and realize that race is not a determining factor for attractiveness across the board and that incels of all race exist. Obviously, there is a problem within the idea that looks makes one an incel alone, but the slow approaching of the point, race not being a determining factor, is a nice change from a lot of the attitudes within the community.

While a little racism was ignored in one thread, it can always be made up for in another.

During research, a thread called “People are getting laid off and have trouble paying bills yet foods seem to be raking in thousands on Onlyfans.85” While no argument is posed by user

Wagiecel, he does ask where the money has come from and is met with the answers of men having money saved for this, and another saying he hates the Jews for for “ruining everything and [making] women more degenerate than ever.” OnlyFans is a subscription website, typically used for pornography, with other content creators on there as well, and absolutely zero proof that its founder follows any religion. Largely within the incel community, blame is placed on

83 Coping in the incel community is a term meaning adopting an untrue belief; to avoid the harsh reality. ​ 84 NoMoreCoping. “I Can't Understand This Race War on Incel Forums.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August ​ 15, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/i-cant-understand-this-race-war-on-incel-forums.230066/. 85 Wagiecel. “People Are Getting Laid off and Have Trouble Paying Bills Yet Foids Seems to Be Raking in ​ Thousands on Onlyfans.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, April 16, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/people-are-getting-laid-off-and-have-trouble-paying-bills-yet-foids-seems-to-be-raking-in-t housands-on-onlyfans.196005/.

Reichert 43

minorities in order to have a “boogeyman”. However, a counter argument is made in this thread by our old pal, BlackPillPres, saying that it is not the Jews who are to blame, but rather “women who choose to betray men and capitalize on these opportunities”.

Finally, there is a thread by Mulattocel that is titled “Ugly and low value depressed men keep the wheels of Tinder spinning so Chad can slay.86” The title alone is disturbing in that “low value” has very little meaning and is never defined upon. Within the post itself, he says “think about the men that spend money on Tinder”, yet provides no evidence of the parameters of attractive versus unattractive and what low value may be. He muses that those are the ones needing to spend money on Tinder to find someone, propping the app itself up for the more attractive, assumably “high value” men, without having any clear evidence of the amount of women that attractive men on the site actually interact with, nor proof that they also are not paying for the service themselves. Included, the idea that Tinder would die completely, as though another app would not take its place assuming the incels were not paying for the service and thus stopping the “Chads” from getting laid is ridiculous in and of itself. It appears a bit contradictory as well with a previous thread of a man faking an account of a “10/10” woman who was not getting the “Chads”; showing that this espousing opinion as fact is something that occurs in a few areas of the community.

LifeFuel

LifeFuel in the incel community is described as something that is positive and gives encouragement in life87. This is a bit of an odd thing to discover as the first thread by

86 Mulattocel. “Ugly and Low Value Depressed Men Keep the Wheels of Tinder Spinning so Chad Can Slay.” ​ Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, April 14, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/ugly-and-low-value-depressed-men-keep-the-wheels-of-tinder-spinning-so-chad-can-slay.1 95428/. 87 Incel dictionary located at: https://incels.wiki/w/Incel_Forums_Term_Glossary ​

Reichert 44

DominicanDancel91 is titled (sic) “Women vs Men requirements to get LAID88”. It is a very extensive list that he has for men, presented in whole here:

What a Man needs to get laid: 1. Be attractive 2. Have high income (60k+) 3. Have an ambition to earn MORE (your job isn't enough) 4. Be within a certain age range (18-30) 5. Have an "Alpha Personality" 6. Be in shape 7. Dress nicely 8. Have decent cologne 9. Have a certain hairstyle 10. Live on his own (not even roommates are allowed) 11. Have a car no older than 3 years 12. House and car must be spotless with Air Freshner 13. Call/Text back at the right time (4-5 hours) 14. Respond to convos/messages a specific way (the wrong words = GAME OVER) 15. Live in the right place (living too far away, combined with doing #13&14 WRONG will deplete a woman's short attention span and GAME OVER) 16. Plan the right date location 17. Plan the right time length of the date 18. Pay for the date 19. Plan the follow-up Netflix and chill movie 20. Calculate the time length of the movie before you make the right move and the foreplay 21. Learn how to pull back when she says no 22. Have a 7+ inch dick with 5+ inch girth, (anything less will dry her pussy up like sandpaper) 23. Wait until she finally pulls her pants down and after sex PRAY she doesn't file a FALSE RAPE accusation

This list is one that is hard to attack and break down. But to start, there are no parameters given for what attraction is; if we are pulling on the incel Blackpill ideology that women are preprogrammed to find someone attractive based on good genes, then the entire list is pointless and will not matter. Women have a genetic drive towards a certain type of men,

88 DominicanDancecel91. “Women vs Men Requirements to Get LAID.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August ​ 8, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/women-vs-men-requirements-to-get-laid.230167/.

Reichert 45

according to incels, so why would any social factors matter? Contradicting their own point, the blame is shifted from the genetic predisposition to superior genetics to social norms like paying for and planning dates when providing no proof that women were polled for this study and this list. This is by far the commonest theme throughout the incel community, the spread of opinion as fact towards what women want.

The repeated appearance of the “Alpha” personality, though having been debunked by its creator, flies in the face of what was actually discovered of what women want from men in a relationship. A study done by David Moore, et all discovered what women looked for in romantic partners and it flies directly in the face of this list, which is unsurprising. Women look for honesty, communication, kindness, empathy, sensitivity, selflessness and compassion89.

Nowhere near the made-up and unsupported list by the user on this site. This particular thread does seem to be a bit out of place, though, as it does not appear to be uplifting or positive for anyone involved.

The article’s author listed one requirement for a woman to get laid which was, “have a hole between her legs.” Which, in part, shows that he believes men have no standards for a partner.

A second thread, titled “German prostitutes demand the reopening of brothels” by grondilu90 has a link to an article that states Hamburg, Germany sex workers demand brothels

89 Moore, David, Stuart Wigby, Sinead English, Sonny Wong, Tamás Székely, and Freya Harrison. “Selflessness Is Sexy: Reported Helping Behaviour Increases Desirability of Men and Women as Long-Term Sexual Partners.” BMC Evolutionary Biology. BioMed Central, September 3, 2013. https://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-13-182. 90 grondilu. “German Prostitutes Demand the Reopening of Brothels.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 4, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/german-prostitutes-demand-the-reopening-of-brothels.228970/.

Reichert 46

reopen in the wake of the 2020 Global Health Crisis of COVID-1991. Grondilu, in a bit of a surprising turn for incels, wishes for this to happen so that men in Germany at least have the option of having sex, even if it is with a sex worker, rather than dying a virgin like guys “over here92”. Most preliminary research showed that incels looked down upon sex workers, calling the act degenerate, and that is backed up in a few responses to this post, such as a comment by

L33tbl0k3, which says “keep them closed, let these roasties starve93”. This comment was liked by several users on the thread, showing that acceptance of full-service sex workers may exist within the incel community, but it is not by and large.

What others find as uplifting in LifeFuel is interesting to say the least as a thread by

BududubNow titled “I don’t get off to porn anymore, I have my own thoughts” starts off by this man claiming that “Porn is not good enough for me but recently I noticed that I get aroused when I find certain videos and make up stories in my mind around them.94” Without explaining the full details and sharing all of the information included by the example this poster makes, I will simply put his ending sentences: “Tl;dr I kill my flatmate in my thoughts, rape and mutilate her body and later kill her boyfriend and police finds me and shoots me.” The beginning he does say he has a fantasy about a roommate, not an actual one, so no woman is actually in danger of his actions. However, this posted in a place that is supposed to be “uplifting” and “good news”; it is a bit odd that he would consider rape and murder of his flatmate and her boyfriend, fictional or otherwise, uplifting. Included, it is absolutely bizarre that this poster would consider his own

91 Bimmer, Fabian. “Hamburg Sex Workers Demand Germany's Brothels Reopen.” Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, July 12, ​ 2020. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/hamburg-sex-workers-demand-germanys-100542514.html. 92 Presumably this means the United States where full-service sex work is not largely legal. ​ 93 Roasties being a derogatory term for women, specifically defined as (sic) “A sexually promiscuous woman. ​ ​ Word originated from the idea that a woman's vagina becomes distended after she get fucked by a lot of partners.” ​ ​ 94 BududubNow. “I Don't Get off to Porn Anymore, I Have My Own Thoughts.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, ​ August 2, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/i-dont-get-off-to-porn-anymore-i-have-my-own-thoughts.228393/.

Reichert 47

killing, or even harming, at the hands of the police something that gives him “LifeFuel”. But this bizarre take could be what led to the actions of Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian.

The hatred of women is not always something so blatant, however. Another post of

“LifeFuel” simply titled “I never tip women” by Ionlycopenow is a bit self-explanatory by the title95. This user claims that he almost tipped a “foid dasher96” and canceled the tip because he only tips men, in his fight to end “simping97”. This thread was well received as well, with other users on the site saying that they only tipped men, ugly men, or no one because they had already paid for their items, which is less anti-woman and more consistent, if still rude.

The last piece of LifeFuel to be looked at is one thread called “Easy way to become

Chad found” written by user ShySaxon98. In it, there is a link to an article of a man wearing a facemask to avoid facial recognition software. The poster takes this as meaning that if only they were to put on a facemask, they could finally be the attractive “Chad” that they think is holding them back from finding someone to have sex with. This circling back around to the point that woman only go for attraction, rather than the studied and shown theories that women appreciate more than just looks and money from a man.

Venting

The last subgroup of threads that was looked at is that simply titled Venting, and much ​ ​ like the name sounds, is a group where men can talk about the problems they are having, and while not necessarily related to incels, that will be the only aspect being surveyed.

95 ionlycopenow. “I Never Tip Women.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 2, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/i-never-tip-women.228433/. 96 Dasher in this context is a contractor of DoorDash, a food delivery company ​ 97 Defined as “as a pejorative for an effeminate male” ​ 98 ShySaxon. “Easy Way to Become Chad Found.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, July 24, 2020. ​ https://incels.co/threads/easy-way-to-become-chad-found.225808/.

Reichert 48

The first thread found was titled “Setting the stage for a life of bullying and mockery99” and in a different shift from the previous threads, the user Scr3am0u33ns poses the question of when people were first mocked for their appearances, noting that when he was in high school he had an acne problem that was made fun of by “foids”. This opened the floor for the user,

OverBeforeItBegan, to say that he grew up being told he looked ethnic and that, “I basically did look like a full-blooded g**k100 before about 17… Imagine being white but not even experiencing the benefit of being white.101” This point is particularly interesting because during the findings and research process, finding someone who admitted white privilege was real has not before been seen. While the racism has been evident in various other forms and posts throughout the process of searching, and is likely to come up again, perhaps it is simply because he, and a fellow commenter, feel disadvantaged by their whiteness is the only reason it is being recognized.

This plays nicely into the next selected thread, which Total Imbecile titles, “ I fear that if

I kill myself I will get reincarnated as an even lower status male102”, wherein he elaborates that he is afraid he would be coming back as a “g**k103 or a curry”. This blatantly shows how members within this community view those who are not white, placing them on a lower status, and less worthy of female attention than white men.

99 Scr3am0u33ns. “Setting the Stage for a Life of Bullying and Mockery.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August ​ 10, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/setting-the-stage-for-a-life-of-bullying-and-mockery.230574/. 100 Editing out of the racial slur is my own ​ 101 OverBeforeItBegan. “Setting the Stage for a Life of Bullying and Mockery.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, ​ August 10, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/setting-the-stage-for-a-life-of-bullying-and-mockery.230574/post-5190720. 102 Total Imbecile. “I Fear That If I Kill Myself I Will Get Reincarnated as an Even Lower Status Male.” Incels.co - ​ Involuntary Celibate, August 10, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/i-fear-that-if-i-kill-myself-i-will-get-reincarnated-as-an-even-lower-status-male.230534/. 103 Editing out of the racial slur is my own ​

Reichert 49

The last three threads chosen from this were done so, with a shift from randomization, to highlight the way that these men are treating themselves and just how much emphasis they put on having romantic relationships as well as sexual relationships. These threads are titled

“Loneliness physically hurt104” “I can't be alone with my thoughts.105” and “Wish I never took the blackpill106”. Within all of these, the authors of the threads, Diocel, InternetUser, and curryZoomercroomer, respectively, are all lemenating about how isolating the world of being an incel and taking the blackpill was.

For Diocel, he talks about a general loneliness causing some stomach aches, which escalates when he realizes he is without friends or a relationship. Being that humans are a social species, the loneliness can be detrimental to our health and it is possible this is being said with no entitlement or want for sex, just a general rant107.

InternetUser says that, “I can't even cope online. Every time I detach myself from the pc,

I can't even have peace of mind, all that is there are negative thoughts, hatred, anger, envy, violent, suicidal thoughts108.” He further elaborates that he has been banned from video game online platforms for (sic) “tak[ing] out a little of my hatred by insulting normies109 and chad in game”. His hatred of those two specific groups is based right within the incel ideology, that if they didn't exist, he could be getting the “Stacy” and “Becky” girlfriends.

104 Diocel. “Loneliness Physically Hurt.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 8, 2020. ​ https://incels.co/threads/loneliness-physically-hurt.230198/. 105 InternetUser. “I Can't Be Alone with My Thoughts.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 10, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/i-cant-be-alone-with-my-thoughts.230491/. 106 curryZoomercoomer. “Wish I Never Took the Blackpill.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 3, 2020. ​ https://incels.co/threads/wish-i-never-took-the-blackpill.228544/. 107 Also this taking place during the Global Health Crisis of COVID-19, that may have an outsized effect. ​ 108 InternetUser. “I Can't Be Alone with My Thoughts.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 10, 2020. ​ https://incels.co/threads/i-cant-be-alone-with-my-thoughts.230491/. 109 Incel dictionary located at: https://incels.wiki/w/Incel_Forums_Term_Glossary ​

Reichert 50

Finally, curryZoomercroomer laments about how he is a lesser being because of his looks, which pulls back on the idea that that is the only thing women care about, or amongst the most important things women care about. Within his vent, he includes that other incels talk about how they have “Stacy” asian girlfriends that sleep with, and ends with (sic) “to all all lurking incels…: LOOKS ARE EVERYTHING110”. This sentiment has been repeated and is ​ held true within the incel community but always without proof and lacking for personal tastes and cultural beauty trends and standards.

Incels.net Findings

Incels.net is a much more simplistic design and in doing so is much more complicated to navigate as there are no subtopics throughout the messageboard. From the main message board, there will be random threads chosen, much like from Incels.co, however it will not be broken down into subtopics. As such, this section will not be so cleanly divided, and the threads are broken down in a much less streamlined fashion. However, this site is more meant for discussion, and in some threads the responses will be taken into consideration, particularly when questions are posed, whereas in the previous section, the comments were largely not included.

The first thread chosen was one of user Reformedcel asking “What’s one thing you always wanted to do with a woman in your bluepilled days?111” He says that he would have wanted to take cute pictures on a walk in the snow, while others say they wanted to be cute and

110 curryZoomercoomer. “Wish I Never Took the Blackpill.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 3, 2020. ​ https://incels.co/threads/wish-i-never-took-the-blackpill.228544/. 111 Reformedcel. “What’s One Thing You Always Wanted to Do with a Woman in Your Bluepilled Days?” Incels. Incels.net, August 9, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/what%E2%80%99s-one-thing-you-always-wanted-to-do-with-a-woman-in-your-bluepille d-days.20888/.

Reichert 51

go on dates to the movies and buy flowers for them, play video games, get married and have children, pretty average stuff. Reformedcel themselves commented on his thread to say that

“It’s funny because most foids dreams consist of rаpe fantasies and being tied up while men just want to be loved.” And while he is not the only one to think that, what could have been a nice and wholesome thread was destroyed by his own perception of women liking violence.

Another question posed in a thread by Primordial94 is “Did Feminism ruin women?112”

The user who posed the question believes that feminism did not ruin women but rather, allowed them to express their own nature. This is echoed by many others on the thread, saying they did not have the power, religion held back women’s degenerate nature, and that before feminism these men would have been able to get laid and that if feminism had not happened (assuming the second wave), “the planet would be intact”. It is hard to begin to break these arguments down, and not because they are based in fact. To consider women degenerate by nature is to imply that men have an innate hatred of women because of their inherent corruption, which could be considered largely based in the Original Sin of the bible, without proof of what these men actually mean, to explore further would be mere conjecture off of their own conjecture.

Climate change and the state of the planet, however, has nothing to do with the rights that have been obtained by women.The science has been clear for decades that human production of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere is the number one cause of global climate change throughout the past fifty or so years113. To blame a planetary crisis on women who solely have gotten the rights they deserve, and not everywhere in the world to that extent, is absolutely absurd.

112 Primordial94. “Did Feminism Ruin Women ?” Incels. Incels.net, August 9, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/did-feminism-ruin-women.20893/. 113 “The Causes of Climate Change.” NASA. NASA, July 10, 2020. https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/. ​

Reichert 52

Incels.net user ortharzeal gave his opinion on how to help incels in a thread titled (sic)

“Another incel rights project, but within clown world.114” Within, he says that e-thots115 and other models should be taxed at “90% rate or at least at the rate that other exploiters of natural resources pay” and that the government should use that money to develop “Incel Card holders for sub8” men to get “sex without payment… most low effort way to address incel rights.” The implication that sex is a right for men, while not addressing how it violates the bodily autonomy of women when forced upon them. Also, reiterating the idea that looks are the most important thing to a woman, rather than personality.

BrettyBoy poses the question (sic) “Does this whole chad thirst women have turn you off?116” Wherein he says that women act like zombies but instead of wanting brains, they want

“Chads”, and it is a turn off due to women “going way too far” with their personal preferences.

A few of the follow up comments say women cannot be blamed because it is in the nature of them to select the best, and that it would not be a problem if women intended to breed with chad, but they instead are degenerate because it “turns sex into a drug”, and these men themselves could be chads if only “we were birthed with good looks and that can't be denied”.

BrettyBoy also poses another question (sic) “Anyone else not find women as attractive anymore after swallowing the hell out the blackpill?117” Without answering this question, the

114 ortharzeal. “Another Incel Rights Project, but within Clown World.” Incels. Incels.net, August 6, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/another-incel-rights-project-but-within-clown-world.20764/.

115 ThotCat. “E-Thot.” Urban Dictionary, March 16, 2019. ​ https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=E-thot. Usually Girls who stream or post tik-toks or on Instagram looking for attention & admitting it or are in denial, they causally shove their ass in the camera & either blame you for talking about it, or admitting they like the attention and sometimes ask for money 116 BrettyBoy. “Does This Whole Chad Thirst Women Have Turn You off?” Incels. Incels.net, August 9, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/does-this-whole-chad-thirst-women-have-turn-you-off.20879/. 117 BrettyBoy. “Anyone Else Not Find Women as Attractive Anymore after Swallowing the Hell out the ​ Blackpill?” Incels. Incels.net, August 9, 2020.

Reichert 53

follow ups are mainly from men that say they cannot help but want to fuck them, they try not to think about them because attention is like air, or that they associate women with disgust and immaturity. One even goes so far as to say that “Every time I see a foid extend her arm for a selfie I want to throw her in mud so she can wallow around” and another says that they associate women with being demons.

Both of these threads are examples of the way women are dehumanized within the

Incelsphere. Thought of as mindless monsters who are only capable of sex and shortsighted views on which men they deem worthy of passing genes along, women are blamed for the perceived lack of attractiveness these men have about themselves. And while this may be the way these men see women, as though it is not the fault of them but their genetics and hardwiring to find the perfect genetic mate, they still hold women accountable for the fact that they are not attractive and believe that they should be compensated for the natural selection they themselves believe in.

Anakin66 muses on (sic) “Why it hurts so much to be rejected romantically by a foid118” wherein he expands upon this to say (sic) “The reason is that youve failed your primary goal in life which is for your lineage to carry on,to reproduce. Getting rejected by the opposite sex shows that the foid who rejected you doesnt deem your genes worthy of carrying onto the next generation.” Depending on the ideology of this particular user, if he is a blackpiller, therefore while the rejection itself may sting, falling in line with other users and posts on the board, it is

https://incels.net/threads/anyone-else-not-find-women-as-attractive-anymore-after-swallowing-the-hell-out-the-blac kpill.20858/.

118 Anakin66. “Why It Hurts so Much to Be Rejected Romantically by a Foid.” Incels. Incels.net, August 8, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/why-it-hurts-so-much-to-be-rejected-romantically-by-a-foid.20806/.

Reichert 54

not the fault of the women for his genetics being unworthy, as that is what women are programmed to search for.

The Incels.net user SpiritAnimal has a thread called (sic) “Going to the mall is ragefuel” where he claims (sic) “So I went to the mall today for the first time in three years to hang out with my mom, looking at all the stacies makes you just want to go up and grab their ass, but if you do they'll overreact and act like it's the end of the world, malls are no place for incels.119” A few of the responses say that they have learned their lesson and know that the mall is not a place they should be, based off of past experiences or that they feel ignored by women in the mall and it drives them to the brink. One frequently commenting user on the board, SaintMentalcel, says when asked about his “brink of what” includes a picture of the Oklahoma City hospital that

Timothy McVeigh bombed back in 1995120. This sort of visceral hatred is part of the reason why incels that preach for violence must be taken seriously, particularly after the likes of Elliot

Rodger and Alek Minassian who did attack based off of their perceived entitlement to sex.

The user AccountError makes the claim (sic) “ugly men are invisible121” wherein he makes the claim that “women cannot tell the difference between a 1/10 and 4/10 male, while they ​ can pinpoint the differences between a 8/10 vs a 9/10”. This is an oft recurring theme as the men within these boards keep the rating system up but do not seem to have the scale by which the rating is done or how many women were polled and asked what they do and do not find attractive about men. This led to several responses in support, however, of men saying this is why they hate women,

119 SpiritAnimal. “Going to the Mall Is Ragefuel.” Incels. Incels.net, August 1, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/going-to-the-mall-is-ragefuel.20473/. 120 Oklahoma city bomber 121 AccountError. “Ugly Men Are Invisible.” Incels. Incels.net, August 1, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/ugly-men-are-invisible.20514/.

Reichert 55

and maybe if they were ethnic they could get women based off of looks, and a few simple “yes” or

“this122”.

User titled “The End” and labeled Incels.net Master poses the question (sic) “How cavalier ​ are you with your misogyny?123” This question, before the answers are brought up, is an interesting one because it does not even try to hide the fact that incels are misogynistic. The author of this thread says that he loves to tell people that he hates women and relishes in their outrage, but he tells his mother he is merely angry with them. A comment from user ugly_boy says that he hates all women and he would kill them all if not for laws there, Kaczor says that he does not like to use the term misogyny as it gets the (sic) npcs124 in an outrage thinking that he hates women for no reason, but he hates their “degenerate, slutty nature”. Surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of comments were that hatred were time consuming and still expending energy onto the “foids”, which is what they live for, so ignoring them and paying no mind was a healthier, better spent option125.

Incelsior, a new user based off of the novice badge, claims in his thread, (sic) “The joker movie really hurt us,126” by throwing the incel community into the public limelight, though

Incelsior had no idea of the incel community before the movie, by his own admission. This is contradicted by several people on the messageboard replies, but one poignant response says that

“They were afraid of more incels going down the path of ER due to that movie.127” ER in this

122 Common term used on various forms of social media to mean agreement with what has been said. ​ 123 The End. “How Cavalier Are You with Your Misogyny?.” Incels. Incels.net, July 30, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/how-cavalier-are-you-with-your-misogyny.20340/. 124 Similar term for “normies” ​ 125 XTamaska. “How Cavalier Are You with Your Misogyny?” Incels. Incels.net, July 30, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/how-cavalier-are-you-with-your-misogyny.20340/post-340644. 126 INCELSIOR. “The Joker Movie Really Hurt Us.” Incels. Incels.net, July 28, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/the-joker-movie-really-hurt-us.20254/. 127 JustAWittyCel. “The Joker Movie Really Hurt Us.” Incels. Incels.net, July 28, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/the-joker-movie-really-hurt-us.20254/post-339273.

Reichert 56

context is referring to Elliot Rodger and this user making the claim, JustAWittyCel, is not incorrect. Particularly with the violent wants spread by other men on this forum, wishing death upon all women, wanting a day of reckoning like Timothy McVeigh, and claiming that women have no right to safety.

According to AdamKadmon, (sic) “From what Ive observed, the vast majority of us are fullblown sociopaths.128” His definition of sociopath is, (sic) “basically a person with the potential to become a psychopath, atleast to me. Basically, You dont have to be an ERcel to be a sociopath”. By his estimation, a majority of incels display sociopathic tendencies, but do not have to be willing to or desire to walk down the same path as Elliot Rodger in order to be deemed a sociopath, and eludes to the distinction being that Elliot Rodger is not a sociopath, but rather actual psychopath by his actions at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014.

The actual definition of a sociopath as defined by Oxford Dictionary online says “a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.129”

Taking the definition of sociopath into consideration, many of the comments to

AdamKadmon deny his accusations, saying they love their families, their parents, their friends and do feel emotional connection and empathy for others. There are a few saying they hate all forms of humanity and enjoy the suffering of innocent people, which would make them sociopaths, but it was refreshing to see that not all subscribe to that mentality.

128 AdamKadmon. “From What Ive Observed, the Vast Majority of Us Are Fullblown Sociopaths.” Incels. ​ Incels.net, July 25, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/from-what-ive-observed-the-vast-majority-of-us-are-fullblown-sociopaths.20108/. 129 “Sociopath.” In Dictionary.com, n.d. ​ ​ ​

Reichert 57

A frequent commenter called Ihateexistence made his own thread to say “Anti-Incels are either pathetic cucks or r*t*rd*d130 roasties131” wherein he expands on the title of the thread to say that those who oppose incels are “bigger and more pathetic losers” than incels and are never the “Chads” or “Stacies”, but rather the average people that cannot hate on those above them and therefore have to punch down. There was very little argument given by commenters on this thread, all saying that the “Chads” and “Stacies” are too busy hooking up with one another to bother thinking, worrying, or caring about the incel community.

User LonelyGuy has a sad take on the fate of inceldom, in his thread, “We are worthless

132”, wherein he says that since finding a girlfriend and having children is something that will never happen for him, his whole life from birth to death was a waste of time. While a depressing outlook, perhaps the sadder part is the amount of people who agree with him, saying they all will amount to nothing and even a few self-proclaimed girl incels coming out of the woodwork to say that they, too, feel rejected by society and are trying to find a man, or woman, to love them back. While this has amounted in their accounts being banned133, it also did not add much to the discussion as they were seen as trolls and it being impossible for women to be involuntary celibates.

A few had nicer takes though, saying that the incels had higher IQs, though with no evidence to support this, and that as long as you are cognizant and not braindead, there was no

130 Editing of hateful language is my own ​ 131 Ihateexistence. “Anti-Incels Are Either Pathetic Cucks or Retаrded Roasties.” Incels. Incels.net, July 25, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/anti-incels-are-either-pathetic-cucks-or-ret%D0%B0rded-roasties.20085/. 132 LonelyGuy. “We Are Worthless.” Incels. Incels.net, October 20, 2018. ​ https://incels.net/threads/we-are-worthless.106/ . 133 Proof of banning: https://incels.net/members/lonelyguy.335/ ​

Reichert 58

such thing as being useless. Ableism aside, there has been very little positivity in the mix of this research and it was a wonderful thing to see if only for a moment.

DarkestLoner3 made a post called (sic) “The real mgtows134”, simply saying that the real ones are gay men. Bringing back up the MGTOW topic, this acronym stands for “Men Going

Their Own Way”, meaning men who reject the idea of getting married and sharing resources with a woman because of their perception that men lose everything in a marriage or partnership

135. Many of the respondents on this thread considered it to be bait, or someone with only the most vague understanding of what a MGTOW is, or a favorite response (sic)“The real MGTOW doesn’t exist, it is a coping method”.

Anakin66 poses another question for the board, asking (sic) “When did you start holding redpill/blackpill beliefs?136” It is an interesting thing to look at because it can give insight into what turns these men away from society. His own answer is that in the beginning of his Junior year of highschool, an attractive young girl starts going to his school, befriends him, and then casts him aside once she has a friend group of her own. A respondent to the thread says that his own hatred began within the past year as he went onto a reddit thread and was radicalized by memes there; another claims that his was based solely on observations of the world; while one claims that watching his brother become a “Chad’ growing up, while he himself did not, led to his own self proclaimed inceldom.

134 DarkestLoner3. “The Real Mgtows.” Incels. Incels.net, July 23, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/the-real-mgtows.20007/. 135 Lamoureux, Mack. This Group of Straight Men Is Swearing Off Women. VICE Media Group, September 24, ​ 2015. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7bdwyx/inside-the-global-collective-of-straight-male-separatists. 136 Anakin66. “When Did You Start Holding Redpill/Blackpill Beliefs?,” July 22, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/when-did-you-start-holding-redpill-blackpill-beliefs.19953/.

Reichert 59

All of these are problematic in their own way, having the seeds of entitlement sewn into their threads of women owing them attention but never giving it.

SaintChincel says that (sic) “its like the world worships women137” and decries how women get help in every direction, once more without proof of this, saying that men are left with “nothing but abuse and ridicule, torment and pain” asking how “foids can even live with themselves”. His questioning was met with some rather visceral agreement as men say that “it’s to keep the cucks supporting them; they aren’t oppressed and they know it” and how “women just want to be treated like victims.” From this, we can see that these men do not take into consideration a woman’s bodily autonomy (unless of course they are complaining about the fact that women’s bodily autonomy means they can say no having sex with them), nor the chances of being victim blamed in an assault or battery, sexual or otherwise, and appear to be only honing in on the public assistance women may get from needing to support children.

Lordgoro, a commenter that is very active on the Incels.net message boards, posts a thread titled (sic) “Parkland ‘survivor’ Stacy type kills herself..138” Inside the thread, an article is linked about a survivor committing suicide due to survivor’s guilt139 (the feeling of trauma and

PTSD after a serious, or fatal, event140) and Lordgoro says to that (sic) “Good RIDDANCE … too bad they ALL cant do this!!” Contextually, Lordgoro referred to the victim as a Stacy, a direct reference to her appearance; indicating he is happy with the fact that she chose to take her

137 Saint Chincel. “Its like the World Worships Women.” Incels. Incels.net, January 13, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/its-like-the-world-worships-women.9469/. 138 Lordgoro. “Parkland ‘Survivor’ Stacy Type Kills Herself..” Incels. Incels.net, March 23, 2019. ​ https://incels.net/threads/parkland-survivor-stacy-type-kills-herself.663/. 139 Gallagher, Dianne, and Meridith Edwards. “Sydney Aiello, a Survivor of the Parkland School Shooting, Dies by ​ Suicide.” CNN. Cable News Network, March 24, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/23/us/parkland-shooting-survivor-sydney-aiello-suicide/index.html. 140 Legg, Timothy J. “Survivor's Guilt: What Is It, Symptoms, and How to Cope.” Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, June 27, 2019. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325578.

Reichert 60

own life and wants either all women, or all attractive women, to do the same thing. The comments within this particular thread overwhelmingly show support of this young woman’s actions, commenters proclaiming the world is a better place, and calling her weak minded for not being able to handle one traumatic incident. A post such as this really does show the value that men in this community place on the lives and safety of women.

A slightly lighter note, user yuuppitsme poses the question, (sic) “What would you do if a girl liked you?141” and further elaborates that he means a particularly attractive one, giving the numbers 8 or 9, and asking if other incels would take the bait. While this was thought to have been a ridiculously obvious yes by me, as it turns out, some within the incel community would not be so quick to jump on the offer. There are those that questioned if they would still be

“involuntary” celibates if they were to turn down the option, but many believe that a woman of a certain level of attraction would only be showing interest to get money or other resources from them. A vast majority say they believe it would be a trick and would not accept the opportunity out of self preservation142.

The next thread looked at for this was one by a user called Hikkicel, who states in thread title, (sic) “I get filled with rage when seeing stacies in public143”, saying in the body of the message that he “can’t fuсking stand them smiling and laughing after leaving us with a lifetime of torment and loneliness”. He does not further elaborate but fellow messageboard users agree and say they feel vile hatred towards them, that they would do unspeakable things if not for law

141 yuuppitsme. “What Would You Do If a Girl Liked You?” Incels. Incels.net, November 23, 2018. ​ https://incels.net/threads/what-would-you-do-if-a-girl-liked-you.168/. 142 Though there is one fun comment from someone saying this is exactly why they are incapable of getting ​ girlfriends. 143 HikkiCel. “I Get Filled with Rage When Seeing Stacies in Public.” Incels. Incels.net, July 19, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/i-get-filled-with-rage-when-seeing-stacies-in-public.19812/.

Reichert 61

and order, Lordgoro shows up once more and says that he would like one day of the Purge144 to help himself out, and there are several that say they ignore their existence.

All of this bowing towards the fact that women doing nothing in this case, merely existing, within eyesight of these men, has them ready to murder. The willingness to murder is not something new for this group of men. As has come up in previous threads, the next two selected will deal with Elliot Rodger, and two different opinions of him. AccountError makes the thread titled, (sic) “you must realize people just don't give a fuck about the blackpill or incels going ER145”. This is a rather dangerous point of view that he elaborates on by saying that people do not believe that the blackpill is real, comparing it to the flat Earth theory (which is widely accepted as false information146), and saying that society just hates ugly men but does not fear them because the chances of someone “going ER” and victimizing them in particular is low.

This attitude is dangerous, in a way almost condoning a lash out or attack on people as incels feel justified because they do not see them as a threat, so most people would never see it coming. As shown previously, the amount of hate for women within the community reaches levels that are, in a word, terrifying. To assume that people are unafraid of incels because the chances of them “going ER” is small is ridiculous. Even one innocent person being killed in the

144 Movie reference: The premise is there is a twelve (12) hour period once a year where all crime, including ​ murder, is legal 145 AccountError. “You Must Realize People Just Don't Give a Fuck about the Blackpill or Incels Going ER.” ​ Incels. Incels.net, July 19, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/you-must-realize-people-just-dont-give-a-fuck-about-the-blackpill-or-incels-going-er.198 16/.

146 Andrew, Elise. “Flat Wrong: The Misunderstood History Of Flat Earth Theories.” IFLScience. IFLScience, ​ March 11, 2019. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/flat-wrong-misunderstood-history-flat-earth-theories/.

Reichert 62

plight of incels inability to successfully court a woman is too many and that possible threat should be taken incredibly seriously.

User Relapsecel has a take on Elliot Rodger that is different from all of the other takes and opinions of him seen before. His thread, simply titled, (sic) “I read ERs manifesto.147” and within he says that ER was a “whiny bitch” who had numerous friends and was never rejected by a woman. Relapsecel proposes that Elliot lose his incel “sainthood” because “richcels are fakecels”and Elliot never had a tinder account and did not have prostitutes.

According to Elliot Rodger’s manifesto, in the video he did when he said his “day of reckoning was coming”, he said he had been rejected and being the “supreme gentleman” was not enough to land him a girlfriend, or at least one that met his standards of beauty. He claimed at twenty-two, he had not even been kissed. Is it possible he was lying while sitting in his car filming this video? Of course, but this opinion by Relapsecel saying that Elliot Rodger was faking his inceldom by being rich counters the rest of the ideology within the community that believes that all that matters is the level of attractiveness, not wealth. Is it truer than the idea that only looks matter to women, more than likely, but it is an out-of-the-box idea for this group.

In a thread by Retrogamecel, the poster says that, (sic) “Incels are opressed and normies deny it148”, elaborating that mocking someone for their virginity is bullying. He says that his brother and his friends constantly use the term virgin as an insult, and that society rejects incels because of their relationship status and therefore that is , and discrimination, presumably, is oppression.

147 RelapseCel. “I Read ERs Manifesto.” Incels. Incels.net, July 13, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/i-read-ers-manifesto.19478/. 148 Retrogamecel. “Incels Are Opressed and Normies Deny It.” Incels. Incels.net, July 18, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/incels-are-opressed-and-normies-deny-it.19769/.

Reichert 63

The logical fallacy with this is that virginity is not something that can be seen from the outside, where the otherness of oppression stem. Virginity is not a skin color or a race or ethnicity, or religious symbol (such as a Star of David on an article of clothing or jewelry or a hijab or a Sihk turban), and while after a certain age a person may be judgemental, to say societies as a whole judge virgins is disingenuous and seeking for ways to be considered a protected class.

A thread by ElephantMan12 titled, (sic) “If your mom had you after the age of 20…149” and elaborates inside that it is “over” for anyone born to a woman past the age of 20, because,

(sic) “Most Chads/Tyrones was born when their mom was 15-16 years old…”. This is another example of presenting opinion as though it is fact, but having absolutely no supporting evidence for this claim. While not only unfounded, it is also incredibly absurd to think that the vast majority of men who are attractive, tall, and fit, were born to teenage mothers. There have been many claims that seemed wild and it was hard to start even beginning to deconstruct them, but this one may be so entirely wild that it is nearly impossible to understand where to begin dismantling it. One part remains true, to make a claim without evidence to support it is refuting enough.

To round out the exploration of incel message board threads, the last one selected is by

Inceldo, and he titles his thread with, (sic) “List of things foids would rather fuck than an ugly male150” and within he lists, among others, dogs and other animals, bananas and other phallic shaped food items, pillows and showerheads and opens the floor for contributors to list anything

149 ElephantMan12. “If Your Mom Had You after the Age of 20...” Incels. Incels.net, July 16, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/if-your-mom-had-you-after-the-age-of-20.19667/. 150 Inceldo. “List of Things Foids Would Rather Fuck than an Ugly Male.” Incels. Incels.net, July 6, 2020. ​ https://incels.net/threads/list-of-things-foids-would-rather-fuck-than-an-ugly-male.19022/.

Reichert 64

else. The responses are, for the most part, equally as abhorrent, with racial slurs for black men added into the mix, cacti, previously unlisted animals, sex toys and “other foids”, among other things.

The misogyny is not surprising, that is a known cornerstone to this counterculture of men, but knowing how deep seated it is, how much these men hate women to believe that women would, overwhelmingly, choose these paths, rather than them, is disgusting. And, as with most pieces of this incel puzzle, all of these claims are completely unfounded and unresearched. At this point, such a factor should not be surprising, but the added layer of fornication with animals and food in an attempt to avoid these men is an absolutely bizarre ideology to hold true, and gives a lot more credence to the self hatred these men have as they choose to believe that women would rather do this, than them.

Reichert 65

Discussion

The research done on random threads throughout the world of incels on two of their oft used message boards has revealed a rather horrifying commonality with what goes on in their and how they view society and their own place within it. The biggest emergence from this exploration of incels is that of entitlement, rage, hatred, and dehumanization. An answered question remains as to why these men think and feel this way, and what may be the root causes of their hatred and anger towards women.

The first thread analyzed in this was by far the longest, and most thought out thread found during this process. In it the author, BlackPillPres, posed that a small fraction of incels thought they were actually entitled to sex, with most having just wanted it. It could be easy to see how a fringe group were to be taken as a whole sample, rather than just an extreme.

However, further research showed that this was not the fringe that Incels.co user BlackPillPres wanted it to be.

While having no evidence to support his claim, the research has shown that men think women should be commodified and have the government regulate when and how they can have sex with women in the form, as one example showed, of couponing due to taxing the women who sell imagery of their body to those willing to pay. The tone of many of the messages is that it is not enough to be sad that they cannot achieve a relationship with a woman they like, but rather they are enraged that the option has not been gifted to them, and their jealousy of the men who are able to be with these women verges on the same amount of hatred.

This flies in the face for how these men think and treat women, however, as seen with a thread on German full service sex workers wanting brothels to reopen and commenters saying

Reichert 66

they should stay closed to let them starve. Granting that incels are not a monolith, it does stand to reason that some would be for women selling themselves for sex, especially if it were the only way they could get it, and others wanting the pristine virgin girl who never touched or looked at another man in her life.

The rage and hatred that these men have towards women is something I was aware of on a garden-variety misogyny level, but this extensive look into their own wording and their own minds has led to some rather horrifying revelations. From the man who dreams of having a female flatmate just to murder and rape her corpse, to those celebrating the suicide of a shooting victim, justification of the attacks in Toronto and Santa Barbara by Alek Minassian and Elliot

Rodger, respectively, and wishing that furthered harm could be done to women for merely living their lives in the same or similar areas as these men is sickening to say the least.

The first thread explored was that of BlackPillPres and his response to not being entitled to sex, and how he justified that by saying women are not entitled to safety. His logic is flawed as men and women are entitled to safety throughout societies as there are laws in place to protect against theft, burgles, assault, battery, rape, and murder. His claim that women today are selective about giving up what would have been taken by force not too long ago is a baseless claim, coming possibly from the old “caveman bonks woman in the head and drags her to his cave” trope that was an assumption of pre-recorded human history. Without records, this cannot be proven or disproven, and to state, as though it is a fact and justifies the actions of men who take vengeance out on women and society is, in a word, disgusting. Along with the fantasy of having a roommate that is a woman only to murder and rape to ultimately be killed by the

Reichert 67

police, taking by force is something that is terrifying and this deep seated hatred of women is horrifying.

Of course this is not just limited to thought experiments that the two previous users have had, but also with those who actively celebrate the suicide of a shooting survivor, deeming the world a better place because this teenager was incapable of processing survivor’s guilt. Included under the umbrella of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), those who survive a horrifying situation from a natural disaster like a tornado or an act of terror such as a school shooting are plagued with thoughts of why did they survive, why not others, was it luck, were they chosen, etc. An obvious answer to how to help with this is therapy but the trauma sometimes can be so deep seated that the demons win, as was the unfortunate case with Sydney Aiello.

And yet these men celebrate this action as though she had it coming for being attractive and not sleeping with or dating them. They treat the fact that they want to have sex and have not found it as a crime and this is her just desserts. As Lordgoro said, he wished all attractive women would do that, and in another thread that he would be happy with one purge like day so he could take out all of the attractive women.

But how would that help him? Would it remove the anger that there would be no more attractive women for him to dehumanize and lust after? Would that anger be redirected to another place? Did he mean all women or just those that landed higher up on his rating scale?

Would that alleviate his anger towards both women and society? Would he then decide to start hating women lower on his own personal scale if they were to choose not to date him?

Obviously these are rhetorical questions as the search for how and why men think this way has simply led to much more confusion. It is not limited to these messageboards, either, but

Reichert 68

rather the operating of them by their own incel kind puts them less at risk for removal. Reddit, another message board site, was one of the first known places of incels communicating and advocating violence against women, demoting from advocacy of murder to advocacy of rape until being banned from the creators of Reddit after the Toronto van attack by Alek Minassian151

. However, some pieces of this still exist on the internet as seen here152:

This harm that wants to be done to, not even women, but in this case, girls who were doing nothing but enjoying their day at work, not knowing that there was a man who wished them harm simply for existing. It is not dissimilar from a thread earlier discussed of a man who wanted to cause women harm for passing by, living their lives in public. The amount of people who agreed and said women, especially the ones they found to be really attractive, should be harmed for teasing them when, to the woman’s knowledge, she was only going about her day,

151 Fingas, Jon. “Reddit Bans Misogynist Community as Part of Anti-Violence Crackdown.” Engadget, February ​ 28, 2020. https://www.engadget.com/2017-11-08-reddit-bans-misogynist-community-in-anti-violence-crackdown.html. 152 Appendix A ​

Reichert 69

was a more shocking admission than expected within this circle. Perhaps behind the closed doors of anonymity on the internet, it is easier for men to to say whatever they want, knowing that the chances they will face consequences for these actions is slim to none, unless a more detailed plan was published that was reported to the police.

A recurring theme throughout the thread reading process was that of sub 8, 8 or 9, 10, sub 5, etc. This was the rating system men used as a basis for judging a woman’s looks and determining her worth. The only thing that mattered to this was simply the visual aspects, which they would name the women that were a nine or ten as being a “Stacy” and those that were an eight, possibly even a seven as a “Becky”, moderately attractive but not to “Stacy” quality.

Previous discussion and research has shown that these men place a lot of emphasis on a woman’s looks alone and offer no wiggle room for personality or interests. It is interesting to note that by and large, this rating system of “Stacy” and “Becky” and those below have no other racial equivalents such as they do for men.

Perhaps a reprieve from this would be that these men are consistent enough to also believe that men are subject to this rating system as well; however they have more acceptance of male attractiveness than they do for women. As pointed out earlier, they will allow for men of other races to be their racial version of a “Chad”, which are the fit, attractive, tall, white men; however they recognize that other races have attractive members to women of that race. The converse, as pointed out, is not true for a lot of incels as they believe that a white woman is the highest form of prize. For women, they allow for attraction to the “Chads” of other races.

This rating system is dehumanizing to both men and women as it hones in on their looks alone, as though that is the only thing that people are looking for in a partner. They have lists of

Reichert 70

things men need to have in order to have a girlfriend that is a “Stacy” or a “Becky”; because they accept nothing less than a woman who meets that stature, and these incels have created a list with no proof of materialistic women who would only accept that.

Along with this gross dehumanization, it is also in the other ways they discuss women, calling them “foids”, or in some cases, “holes”153, both of which are rooted in the dehumanization of women, either as being nothing more than “hole”, which really lacks a certain creativity and grace that “foid” carries. The hatred these men feel towards women, worldwide, is honestly frightening as they have allowed themselves to become so all consumed by it that the garden variety misogyny154 is not enough and they need to further fan the flames of the hatred fire by going towards complete removal of any humanity that women deserve.

One thing that was surprising is the mutually exclusive ideologies that men held towards women at the same time. To say that women cannot help but to pick the strongest, best genetic lottery winning men, but also that feminism has given women unfair and unrealistic expectations of men, in the same sentence, is almost enough to cause whiplash. How can women be both cognizant of the choices they are making, but also so primally wired that they are unable to help which men they seek out to reproduce with. Furthered with women choosing the “Chads” to have sex with but not reporduce, but they are hardwired to only pick men to reproduce with. The lack of cogency in these arguments is something astonishing; perhaps because I have been on the search for truth and facts and expected something to be grounded in logic, and there is no way that these frames of thought held within the same person, spoken in

153 Incel Dictionary: derogatory term for women ​ 154 Make up definition

Reichert 71

the same sentence, can be deemed logical. The inability to pick a side and develop an argument to formulate a solution is incredibly bizarre.

Mixed in with this, the idea that women would rather fornicate with animals and various other objects rather than looking at one of them as a partner, shows that the deep seated hatred may also lie within themselves. These men think of themselves as lesser than these objects, animals, food items, which seemed to be a vicious cycle of self hatred reflected in misogyny and then causing more inner self hatred.

Perhaps this is what leads to one surprising, and truly refreshing thread found was asking if men did anything to hide their misogyny, and if so, to whom. The user who posted the question saying that he hid it from his mother, humanizing and respecting her, it would seem, countered by the one who said he made sure even his mother knew of his dislike of women added a layer of reality to it. These men know they are misogynistic, they know that is something people will take exception towards, they understand they do have a deep seated hatred.

So, then why would it be refreshing? A problem cannot be fixed without knowing it exists. While this is a problem that is going to be incredibly hard to fix, insofar as the entitlement to sex and those seeing it as a staunch human right that they have been denied, recognizing it as misogyny is a start. The hatred towards women and their freedom of choice, whether by virtue of these men not measuring up by their own shortcomings, or women being hardwired to select only the best of the best can possibly help to understand how to reprogram these men into living in the reality they believe does not exist.

Reichert 72

Tying things together from the research and findings, a huge recurrence is incels on these boards espousing their opinions as facts. While not to discredit learned life experience, the consistent belief that women only go for attractive, in shape, tall men is demonstrably false when one looks at any sort of reality television or various other forms of media. Short men are able to obtain wives; thin not fit men are able to do the same; men who are not thin or in shape have found women to date and procreate with; women marry men with old cars, no house, who are not financially well off all the time. The superficial beliefs these message board users hold that they have not gotten anywhere because they are not attractive, neverminding if they are financially well off is the way they see the world, not owing anything to how women are attracted to personalities and they do care about the ways in which men treat them155.

Along with this, there have been men on the message boards that claim they simply want to be loved, while all the “foids” want is to be violently fucked156. Without the proof and the studies that this is what women want, they are internalizing their own hatred of women to further dehumanize them in their own attempts to justify their hatred. They call themselves

“blackpilled” for accepting the fatalist world that exists; yet they have no proof that it does, and have leaned so heavily into their beliefs that it has destroyed their ability to function wholly within the world. By that, I mean while you may not be able to see first hand, in person, how much they dislike women, the fact that by their own admission they hate seeing women in

155 There are outliers of women who go for men solely due to their financial status but that is beyond the scope and ​ should not be taken into consideration. 156 Reformedcel. “What’s One Thing You Always Wanted to Do with a Woman in Your Bluepilled Days?” Incels. ​ Incels.net, August 9, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/what%E2%80%99s-one-thing-you-always-wanted-to-do-with-a-woman-in-your-bluepille d-days.20888/post-349350.

Reichert 73

public, and wish death upon them, rejoice in the harm and suicide done to women, that is a lack of function within society.

This brings us to the final point of the discussion; why do these men feel this way and what is it that has brought about these message boards that seem to only further fan the flames of this misogynistic fire. For whatever reason, these men feel like they have been shunned from society; whether by self imposed standards they feel they do not meet, or lack of empathy for others, an astonishing low amount of self-esteem, whatever the cause, they feel they do not belong, and the sense of belonging is apart of human nature as we are a social species that lives in herds. When someone feels they do not belong to the society in which they live, they are more susceptible to radicalization and extremism, in order to belong, finally to a tribe. Whether it is white men feeling shunned because they do not have as much power over women and minorities as was once enjoyed before the second wave of feminism, or influences of media and entertainment of sex making them think they do not fit the mold of what makes a desirable partner, it is clear that these message boards have given them a group of people that were like minded enough to welcome and accept them.

Going back once more to the first thread studied in this thesis, BlackPillPres gives an

African proverb of “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth”, these men want destruction of the society they live in because they feel shunned by it, whether by societies making or their own unintentionally. This exploratory search of incels has led to one major discovery; this a counterculture that will absolutely need more in depth research due to its potentially, historically, violent nature. Writing this subgroup of men off, which is something I had every intention of doing from the start, does neither society as a

Reichert 74

whole, nor these men any good. This is a problem that is going to need much more sociological, psychological, and to a certain extent, political research to try to adjust and fix.

Reichert 75

Conclusion

The Men’s rights movement, started by Men’s rights activism has been around since at least the second wave of feminism, when divorces started taking higher rates and no-fault was brought into play, men wanted to protect their rights to property and financial gain from their ex-spouses, leading to this uptick in misogyny. The third wave of feminism of women standing up and calling out their rapists and demanding justice and punishment only furthered the cause of men defending whether or not consent was included and saw the abolishment of laws that claimed a husband could not rape his wife. What began as a win for feminism ws quickly seen as discrimination and a loss of freedom for men.

The invention and easy accessibility of the internet helped for like minded men to get together and form websites like Return of Kings157, and A Voice for Men, to lament about the perceived unfairness of false rape accusations, favoring of mothers in custody proceedings, and how the world is a matriarchy rather than a patriarchal structure. This led to the creation of

Pick-Up Artists to try and help men successfully court, or simply fornicate, with women who had otherwise had issues with that in the past.

The age of the internet also gave a chance for misogynists like RooshV of Return of

Kings and Paul Elam of A Voice for Men to espouse how the world was being “blue pilled” and if only men would take the “red pill” and see what the world truly was, then they could be freed from being under the thumb of women and regain control that men had lost. This led to their voices being amplified as other men who felt that society had left them behind starting gathering on various message board sites, such as Reddit, until their banishment after the attacks

157 Now shutdown because all funding avenues were cut off ​

Reichert 76

of Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian. The vitriol and encouragement of violence that was once allowed on Reddit was banned due in part to the innocent people who lost their lives from these attacks.

Elliot Rodger put out for the world to see in his own video manifesto that he felt he had been barred from a human right and that girls were unfairly not choosing him even though he was rich, attractive, and the “supreme” gentleman. In his rampage, Rodger stabbed three people to death, shot three people fatally, injured fourteen others, and turned the gun on himself and toko his own life before he was found by police. He left behind his own manifesto, written and video recorded, the written version totalling 141 pages158. While it was hoped, and believed, that he was the only one dangerous enough to attack and murder out of his own perceived human right to have sex that he was being denied; within a few years time he was followed by Alek

Minassian in Toronto, who drove a truck into an unsuspecting crowed and injured six, killing ten people before he was apprehended.

Both of these attacks propelled the world of incels into the spotlight, and took away the safe spots for incels on message boards that they themselves did not own or operate. This gave rise to at least two message board-like sites called Incels.co and Incels.net. On these sites men are allowed and encouraged to discuss the ways in which they think inceldom came to exist within the modern world. There are men who believe sex is an inalienable human right, men who think that sex should be commodified and taxed by the government to ensure they do not have more incidents like Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian. There are men who think that women cannot help their hard wired brains and can only choose the best genetic matches to

158 Rodger, Elliot. “The Manifesto of Elliot Rodger.” The New York Times. The New York Times, May 25, 2014. ​ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/05/25/us/shooting-document.html.

Reichert 77

carry on lineage. Gone are the days of being a gold digger, women now just want tall, attractive, fit men to create their progeny with.

With logic not included in the mix, these men also believe that the liberation of women through feminism has given a rise unfair and unjust expectations and standards for women, meaning that it is not hardwiring itself, but rather women believe they are entitled to men who will support them or are otherwise outstandingly handsome in a way that not every man can be.

These two staunchly different, separate beliefs are many times held by the same exact person as they try to justify the reasons why they may not be able to successfully court a woman for either a night or a lifetime.

It is no surprise that this is all rooted in misogyny, but the fact that there are those who go so far as to admit that they themselves are misogynistic, and possibly even try to hide it from family and friends is rather astonishing. These men are aware that they hate women and think that women ruin everything, and still believe that they are entitled to sex and love, dubbing themselves involuntar celibate. The ability to hold such two contradictory beliefs at the same time is almost impressive, due to the fact that if they would only try to not hate women, a vibe that many women can probably sense, their ability to have a relationship with all the physical aspects would not be so unlikely.

It is not just enough for these men to hate women, though. In some cases, the hatred goes so far as to wishing death on women who have done nothing other than exist and be a certain level of beauty or attractiveness to these men. A great example is a previously used thread where a man said he could no longer successfully masturbate to porn and had to imagine

Reichert 78

scenarios in his head; a particular one of murdering a female flatmate and raping her corpse only to die in the end, which also adds a sprinkling of self-hatred that these men must feel.

There are those that cheered on the suicide due to survivor’s guilt of Sydney Aiello, wishing that “they all” would do that, and not elaborating if they just mean the attractive women, or all women so as any chance they have, or one of their most hated “Chad”s (men who reach a certain level of height, weight, and attractiveness) would also be denied. There are also those that say they just want to kill a pretty woman that they see walking outside; with some wishing there was a purge-style day without consequence to murder so that they might be able to wipe the world of women. These deep, deep roots of misogyny are truly terrifying and things that must be taken as serious threats, not only because positively horrifying it is to know that men want to murder women who have done nothing but live near or around them; but also because men have taken action in the past against women who did nothing but exist, and maybe not have sex with them.

The views these men have towards women is dehumanizing on so many levels. From referring to women as “female humanoids” which was then shortened to “femoid” and now, presumably the final form of “foid”, all to imply that women are “human-like” without being human. Literally matching the definition of dehumanizing, however it does not stop there.

These men have created a rating system where women are graded, presumably by attractiveness, on a scale from one to ten, and from there, these men place most of their desires on the nines or tens, calling them “Stacy”s, with a possibility of interest in a seven or an eight, which they have deemed as being the “Becky”. These incels go through the trouble of creating a rating system

Reichert 79

only to have it turned around and say that women are the ones who are only interested in looks and believe that we care about nothing other than that, including personality, money and charm.

No self-marginalized group is complete without a healthy dose of racism, and

Involuntary Celibates are absolutely no different than the rest. From referring to themselves as racial slurs, saying that women will choose a man by way of using a racial slur instead of a race itself, defining different groups of incels as rice/curry, et cetera, they have established that they largely intend the movement to be for white men who feel that other races have been chosen above them, and women would rather “date down” than date an incel.

These men feel that they have been removed from society, and the internet and these message board sites have given them a group to which they do belong, and yet they still feel like outsiders. Wanting to belong is a part of human nature and even when they have found their niche these men still feel as though they are not a part of society, which adds a dangerous element of having nothing to lose.

An important question to pose is whether or not members of this counterculture will have further attacks against women or other innocent people just because they were existing and it is not an easy one to answer. It has happened recently, with the two perpetrators, Rodger and

Minassian, mentioned within the conclusion, and others in the introduction, and more often before that, in other areas around the world that were rooted in misogyny as discussed.

However, should society as a whole continue to ignore and dismiss this group of men before another attack happens, or is there a way to help alleviate it before more lives are lost due to the hatred these men have? How could it be solved? What methods can be used to help rewire the

Reichert 80

brain activity of men that think they are owed something? The misogyny did not just leap into these men’s minds, it had to have a starting point.

As mentioned at the end of the discussion, this is not a problem that is going to go away quietly, or quickly. This is not something that can be left with “is it was it is”, nor is it something that can be wished from existence. If the African proverb is correct and these men are burning down villages to feel the warmth they believe they were denied, how does society, collectively, bring these men and accept them into the village, while simultaneously not allowing them access to a woman’s body without consent?

None of these are easy questions to answer, and they are not meant to be. It does remain clear though that this is merely the tip of the iceberg and more in depth research is needed to be done in order create a safer world where women are not going to be victims of attacks such as these, but also where men do not feel the hatred and shame of loneliness and lack of belonging within their own societal structure.

Reichert 81

Appendix

Found from website

Sick Chirpse. “The Incel Files #2 - The Creepiest & Most Disturbing Incel Communities On The Internet.” Sick Chirpse, October 15, 2019. https://www.sickchirpse.com/incel-files-2/. Screen grabbed from incels.net

Reichert 82

Bibliography

2020 The Annie E. Casey Foundation. “Children in Single-Parent Families by Race: KIDS COUNT Data Center.” KIDS COUNT data center: A project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. 2020 The Annie E. Casey Foundation., January 2020. https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by-ra ce.

AccountError. “Ugly Men Are Invisible.” Incels. Incels.net, August 1, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/ugly-men-are-invisible.20514/.

AccountError. “You Must Realize People Just Don't Give a Fuck about the Blackpill or Incels Going ER.” Incels. Incels.net, July 19, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/you-must-realize-people-just-dont-give-a-fuck-about-the-black pill-or-incels-going-er.19816/.

Adam Ruins Everything - Alpha Males Do Not Exist | TruTV. Adam Ruins Dating. ​ ​ ​ Youtube.com, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ti86veZBjU.

AdamKadmon. “From What Ive Observed, the Vast Majority of Us Are Fullblown Sociopaths.” Incels. Incels.net, July 25, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/from-what-ive-observed-the-vast-majority-of-us-are-fullblown- sociopaths.20108/.

Anakin66. “When Did You Start Holding Redpill/Blackpill Beliefs?,” July 22, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/when-did-you-start-holding-redpill-blackpill-beliefs.19953/.

Anakin66. “Why It Hurts so Much to Be Rejected Romantically by a Foid.” Incels. Incels.net, August 8, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/why-it-hurts-so-much-to-be-rejected-romantically-by-a-foid.20 806/.

Anderson, Rick. “'Here I Am, 26, with No Friends, No Job, No Girlfriend': Shooter's Manifesto Offers Clues to 2015 Oregon College Rampage.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, September 24, 2017. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-school-shootings-2017-story.html.

Reichert 83

Andrew, Elise. “Flat Wrong: The Misunderstood History Of Flat Earth Theories.” IFLScience. IFLScience, March 11, 2019. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/flat-wrong-misunderstood-history-flat-earth-the ories/. asdf1234. “Probably Going to Cause Some Shit but Here's My Anecdotal Analysis of JBW.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, May 17, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/probably-going-to-cause-some-shit-but-heres-my-anecdotal-ana lysis-of-jbw.204924/.

BBC. “Elliot Rodger: How Misogynist Killer Became 'Incel Hero'.” BBC News. BBC, April 26, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43892189.

Bimmer, Fabian. “Hamburg Sex Workers Demand Germany's Brothels Reopen.” Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, July 12, 2020. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/hamburg-sex-workers-demand-germanys-100542514.html.

BITG. “Aggression Is Attractive to Women Regardless of What Red Pilled Fags Say.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, May 4, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/aggression-is-attractive-to-women-regardless-of-what-red-pilled -fags-say.201415/.

BlackPillPres. “Response To: ‘You're Not Entitled To Sex.’” Incels.co, December 16, 2018. https://incels.co/threads/response-to-youre-not-entitled-to-sex.94998/?

Blais, Mélissa, and Francis Dupuis-Déri. “The Montréal Massacre Is Finally Recognized as an Anti-Feminist Attack.” The Conversation, January 27, 2020. https://theconversation.com/the-montreal-massacre-is-finally-recognized-as-an-anti-femi nist-attack-128450.

Boyd, S. B., & Sheehy, E. (2016). Men’s Groups: Challenging Feminism. Canadian Journal of ​ Women & the Law, 28(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.28.1.5 ​ ​ ​

BrettyBoy. “Anyone Else Not Find Women as Attractive Anymore after Swallowing the Hell out the Blackpill?” Incels. Incels.net, August 9, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/anyone-else-not-find-women-as-attractive-anymore-after-swall owing-the-hell-out-the-blackpill.20858/.

Reichert 84

BrettyBoy. “Does This Whole Chad Thirst Women Have Turn You off?” Incels. Incels.net, August 9, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/does-this-whole-chad-thirst-women-have-turn-you-off.20879/.

BududubNow. “I Don't Get off to Porn Anymore, I Have My Own Thoughts.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 2, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/i-dont-get-off-to-porn-anymore-i-have-my-own-thoughts.22839 3/.

Burlew, Jeff. “Scott Beierle, Gunman in Tallahassee Yoga Studio Shooting, Remembered as 'Really Creepy'.” Tallahassee Democrat. Tallahassee Democrat, November 4, 2018. https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/11/03/gunman-had-history-arrests-grabbi ng-women/1871941002/.

Catalyst. (2020). Women in Male-Dominated Industries and Occupations: Quick Take | ​ Catalyst. [online] Available at: ​ https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-male-dominated-industries-and-occupation s/

“The Causes of Climate Change.” NASA. NASA, July 10, 2020. https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/.

Cecco, Leyland. “Toronto Van Attack Suspect Says He Was 'Radicalized' Online by 'Incels'.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, September 27, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/27/alek-minassian-toronto-van-attack-inte rview-incels.

Chin, Paula. “A Texas Massacre.” PEOPLE.com, November 4, 1991. https://people.com/archive/a-texas-massacre-vol-36-no-17/.

Conzachi, M. (2020). California assemblyman sponsors three new college related sexual assault bills – A Voice for Men. Retrieved 20 January 2020, from https://avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/california-assemblyman-sponsors-three-new-colle ge-related-sexual-assault-bills/

Crumplar, Mike. “Believe Me, They're Monitoring the Forum Pic.twitter.com/8qaNXkCfKV.” Twitter. Twitter, October 10, 2019. https://twitter.com/user/status/1182329352568082433.

Reichert 85

curryZoomercoomer. “Wish I Never Took the Blackpill.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 3, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/wish-i-never-took-the-blackpill.228544/.

Cuyen. “Brutal Rape Pill.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 6, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/brutal-rape-pill.229558/.

DarkestLoner3. “The Real Mgtows.” Incels. Incels.net, July 23, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/the-real-mgtows.20007/.

DepravedandDeprived. “Foids Dress like Whores Whenever the Opportunity Arises.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 7, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/foids-dress-like-whores-whenever-the-opportunity-arises.22980 3/.

Diocel. “Loneliness Physically Hurt.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 8, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/loneliness-physically-hurt.230198/.

DominicanDancecel91. “Women vs Men Requirements to Get LAID.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 8, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/women-vs-men-requirements-to-get-laid.230167/.

Donovan, J. (2012). The way of men (1st ed.). Milwaukie: Dissonant Hum.

Elam, Paul. A Voice for Men, 2009. https://avoiceformen.com/.

ElephantMan12. “If Your Mom Had You after the Age of 20...” Incels. Incels.net, July 16, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/if-your-mom-had-you-after-the-age-of-20.19667/.

The End. “How Cavalier Are You with Your Misogyny.” Incels. Incels.net, July 30, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/how-cavalier-are-you-with-your-misogyny.20340/. failmaxxed. “Women Have It so Good.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, January 19, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/women-have-it-so-good.172337/.

Fingas, Jon. “Reddit Bans Misogynist Community as Part of Anti-Violence Crackdown.” Engadget, February 28, 2020. https://www.engadget.com/2017-11-08-reddit-bans-misogynist-community-in-anti-viole nce-crackdown.html.

Reichert 86

Gallagher, Dianne, and Meridith Edwards. “Sydney Aiello, a Survivor of the Parkland School Shooting, Dies by Suicide.” CNN. Cable News Network, March 24, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/23/us/parkland-shooting-survivor-sydney-aiello-suicide/i ndex.html.

Gotell L and Dutton E (2016) Sexual violence in the ‘manosphere’: Antifeminist men’s rights discourses on rape. International Journal For Crime, Justice And Social Democracy 5(2): 65 80. DOI: 10.5204/ijcjsd.v5i2.310. -

grondilu. “German Prostitutes Demand the Reopening of Brothels.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 4, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/german-prostitutes-demand-the-reopening-of-brothels.228970/.

Hhmo-100. “r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for Not Giving My Son Money Anymore.” reddit, January 15, 2020. https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ep883l/aita_for_not_giving_my_so n_money_anymore/.

Higgscel. “This 9/10 Chad Browses Here.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, January 19, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/this-9-10-chad-browses-here.172356/.

HikkiCel. “I Get Filled with Rage When Seeing Stacies in Public.” Incels. Incels.net, July 19, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/i-get-filled-with-rage-when-seeing-stacies-in-public.19812/.

HowCanSheSlap. “Made a Staceyfish Okcupid Account.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, January 18, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/made-a-staceyfish-okcupid-account.172266/.

Ihateexistence. “Anti-Incels Are Either Pathetic Cucks or Retаrded Roasties.” Incels. Incels.net, July 25, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/anti-incels-are-either-pathetic-cucks-or-ret%D0%B0rded-roasti es.20085/.

Incel Gamer. “Now I Know Why They Call It ‘Getting Lucky.’” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 5, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/now-i-know-why-they-call-it-getting-lucky.229154/.

Reichert 87

Inceldo. “List of Things Foids Would Rather Fuck than an Ugly Male.” Incels. Incels.net, July 6, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/list-of-things-foids-would-rather-fuck-than-an-ugly-male.19022 /.

INCELSIOR. “The Joker Movie Really Hurt Us.” Incels. Incels.net, July 28, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/the-joker-movie-really-hurt-us.20254/.

InternetUser. “I Can't Be Alone with My Thoughts.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 10, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/i-cant-be-alone-with-my-thoughts.230491/. ionlycopenow. “I Never Tip Women.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 2, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/i-never-tip-women.228433/.

Jaye, C. (2016). The Red Pill [DVD]. USA: Jaye Bird Productions.

Jordan, A. (2016). Conceptualizing Backlash: (UK) Men’s Rights Groups, Anti-Feminism, and Postfeminism. Canadian Journal of Women & the Law, 28(1), 18–44. ​ ​ ​ ​ https://doi-org.ezproxy.muni.cz/10.3138/cjwl.28.1.18

JustAWittyCel. “The Joker Movie Really Hurt Us.” Incels. Incels.net, July 28, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/the-joker-movie-really-hurt-us.20254/post-339273.

Lamoureux, Mack. This Group of Straight Men Is Swearing Off Women. VICE Media Group, September 24, 2015. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7bdwyx/inside-the-global-collective-of-straight-mal e-separatists.

Legg, Timothy J. “Survivor's Guilt: What Is It, Symptoms, and How to Cope.” Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, June 27, 2019. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325578.

Livingston, Gretchen. “About 1 in 5 U.S. Moms and Dads Are Stay-at-Home Parents.” Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center, May 30, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-home-moms-and-dads-accou nt-for-about-one-in-five-u-s-parents/.

Reichert 88

LonelyGuy. “We Are Worthless.” Incels. Incels.net, October 20, 2018. https://incels.net/threads/we-are-worthless.106/.

Lordgoro. “Parkland ‘Survivor’ Stacy Type Kills Herself..” Incels. Incels.net, March 23, 2019. https://incels.net/threads/parkland-survivor-stacy-type-kills-herself.663/.

MacDonald, A. (2013). Canada Offers Lessons on Women in Combat. Retrieved 19 February 2020, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323539804578262002928698208

Mack, Natasha, and Cynthia Woodsong. “Module 2 Participant Observation.” Essay. In Qualitative Research Methods: a Data Collector's Field Guide. North Carolina: FLI, ​ 2005.

Mech, L. David. “Leadership in Wolf, Canis Lupus, Packs.” David Mech, scientist and wolf researcher. http://davemech.org/, 2000. http://www.wolf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/247Leadership.pdf.

Meredith, Brooke. “The Human Body Is Not Inherently Sexual, So Why Do We Make It The Case For Women's?” Medium. The Startup, May 15, 2020. https://medium.com/swlh/the-human-body-is-not-inherently-sexual-so-why-do-we-make -it-the-case-for-womens-96efe3c12482.

Miller, Anna Medaris. “Asexuality: the Invisible Orientation?” U.S. News & World Report. U.S. News & World Report, May 4, 2015. https://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2015/05/04/asexuality-th e-invisible-orientation.

Moore, David, Stuart Wigby, Sinead English, Sonny Wong, Tamás Székely, and Freya Harrison. “Selflessness Is Sexy: Reported Helping Behaviour Increases Desirability of Men and Women as Long-Term Sexual Partners.” BMC Evolutionary Biology. BioMed Central, September 3, 2013. https://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-13-182.

Mountford, Joseph. (2018). Topic Modeling The Red Pill. Social sciences. 7. 10.3390/socsci7030042.

Reichert 89

Mulattocel. “Ugly and Low Value Depressed Men Keep the Wheels of Tinder Spinning so Chad Can Slay.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, April 14, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/ugly-and-low-value-depressed-men-keep-the-wheels-of-tinder-s pinning-so-chad-can-slay.195428/.

National Post. (2019). Alek Minassian confesses in police interview after Toronto van attack [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGFWovUuWak

NoMoreCoping. “I Can't Understand This Race War on Incel Forums.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 15, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/i-cant-understand-this-race-war-on-incel-forums.230066/.

News Now. (2014). Elliot Rodgers Retribution - The Last Video [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TgeR_SFNB8 ortharzeal. “Another Incel Rights Project, but within Clown World.” Incels. Incels.net, August 6, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/another-incel-rights-project-but-within-clown-world.20764/.

OverBeforeItBegan. “Setting the Stage for a Life of Bullying and Mockery.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 10, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/setting-the-stage-for-a-life-of-bullying-and-mockery.230574/po st-5190720.

Palmer, Z. D., & Subramaniam, M. (2017). Abstract egalitarianism and men as victims: strategic choice of frames by men’s rights organisations. International Social Science ​ Journal, 67(225/226), 97–108. https://doi.org/10.1111/issj.12150 ​ ​ ​ Peters, B. Guy. Comparative Politics: Theory and Methods. New York, NY: New York ​ ​ University Press, 1998.

Primordial94. “Did Feminism Ruin Women ?” Incels. Incels.net, August 9, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/did-feminism-ruin-women.20893/.

Reformedcel. “What’s One Thing You Always Wanted to Do with a Woman in Your Bluepilled Days?” Incels. Incels.net, August 9, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/what%E2%80%99s-one-thing-you-always-wanted-to-do-with- a-woman-in-your-bluepilled-days.20888/.

Reichert 90

Reformedcel. “What’s One Thing You Always Wanted to Do with a Woman in Your Bluepilled Days?” Incels. Incels.net, August 9, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/what%E2%80%99s-one-thing-you-always-wanted-to-do-with- a-woman-in-your-bluepilled-days.20888/post-349350.

RelapseCel. “I Read ERs Manifesto.” Incels. Incels.net, July 13, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/i-read-ers-manifesto.19478/.

Retrogamecel. “Incels Are Opressed and Normies Deny It.” Incels. Incels.net, July 18, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/incels-are-opressed-and-normies-deny-it.19769/.

Riessman, Catherine Kohler. “Accidental Cases.” Considering Counter-Narratives Studies in ​ Narrative, 2004, 33–38. https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.4.06rie. ​ Riessman, Catherine Kohler. “Analysis of Personal Narratives.” The SAGE Handbook of ​ Interview Research: The Complexity of the Craft, n.d., 367–80. ​ https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452218403.n26.

Robtical. “Response To: ‘You're Not Entitled To Sex.’” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, December 16, 2018. https://incels.co/threads/response-to-youre-not-entitled-to-sex.94998/post-1843275.

Rodger, Elliot. “The Manifesto of Elliot Rodger.” The New York Times. The New York Times, May 25, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/05/25/us/shooting-document.html.

Saddam. “Already Sunday Night, Fuck Workceldom so Fucking Much.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, January 5, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/already-sunday-night-fuck-workceldom-so-fucking-much.16910 1.

Saint Chincel. “Its like the World Worships Women.” Incels. Incels.net, January 13, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/its-like-the-world-worships-women.9469/.

Salter, M. (2016). Men’s Rights or Men’s Needs? Anti-Feminism in Australian Men’s Health Women in Male-Dominated Industries and Occupations: Quick Take | Catalyst. (2020). Retrieved 19 February 2020, from https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-male-dominated-industries-and-occupation s/

Reichert 91

Squirrell, T. A definitive guide to Incels part two: the A-Z incel dictionary — Tim Squirrell, PhD. Retrieved 9 March 2020, from https://www.timsquirrell.com/blog/2018/5/30/a-definitive-guide-to-incels-part-two-the-b lackpill-and-vocabulary

Promotion. Canadian Journal of Women & the Law, 28(1), 69–90. ​ ​ ​ ​ https://doi-org.ezproxy.muni.cz/10.3138/cjwl.28.1.69

Scr3am0u33ns. “Setting the Stage for a Life of Bullying and Mockery.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 10, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/setting-the-stage-for-a-life-of-bullying-and-mockery.230574/.

Seau, S. (2013). 3 Signs She’s Making A False Rape Accusation – Return Of Kings. Retrieved 19 January 2020, from http://www.returnofkings.com/6886/3-signs-shes-making-a-false-rape-accusation

ShySaxon. “Easy Way to Become Chad Found.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, July 24, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/easy-way-to-become-chad-found.225808/.

Sick Chirpse. “The Incel Files #2 - The Creepiest & Most Disturbing Incel Communities On The Internet.” Sick Chirpse, October 15, 2019. https://www.sickchirpse.com/incel-files-2/.

Smith, M. (2020). “My” Rape – Return Of Kings. Retrieved 19 January 2020, from http://www.returnofkings.com/181576/my-rape

“Sociopath.” In Dictionary.com, n.d. ​ ​

Solway, D. (2020). Justice for Harvey Weinstein? – A Voice for Men. Retrieved 19 February 2020, from https://avoiceformen.com/featured/justice-for-harvey-weinstein/

SpiritAnimal. “Going to the Mall Is Ragefuel.” Incels. Incels.net, August 1, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/going-to-the-mall-is-ragefuel.20473/.

Staff, News. “CityNews Rewind: The Montreal Massacre.” CityNews Toronto, December 6, 2006. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2006/12/06/citynews-rewind-the-montreal-massacre/. Stanford, Craig. “Despicable, Yes, but Not Inexplicable.” American Scientist. American SCientist, February 26, 2018. https://www.americanscientist.org/article/despicable-yes-but-not-inexplicable.

Reichert 92

StoicNihilist. “(IMPORTANT) Former .CO Moderator Disowns Incel Community, Confirms They Are Collaborating with the FBI during Press Interview.” Incels. Incels.net, May 1, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/important-former-co-moderator-disowns-incel-community-conf irms-they-are-collaborating-with-the-fbi-during-press-interview.15358/.

Tatton, Abby. “Pennsylvania Gym Shooter Described as Quiet, Studious.” CNN. Cable News Network, August 7, 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/07/pennsylvania.gym.shooting/index.html.

TheCrook. “Tyrone Breeds 16 Yo Foid, Leaves Her Pregnant. Is OP the Asshole for Not Wanting His Son to Pay for Tyrone's Baby?” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, January 16, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/tyrone-breeds-16-yo-foid-leaves-her-pregnant-is-op-the-asshole -for-not-wanting-his-son-to-pay-for-tyrones-baby.171579/.

The Women of the Men's Rights Movement. (2014). Retrieved 20 January 2020, from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/znwwva/the-women-of-the-mens-rights-movement- 751

ThotCat. “E-Thot.” Urban Dictionary, March 16, 2019. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=E-thot.

Usually Girls who stream or post tik-toks or on Instagram looking for attention & admitting it or are in denial, they causally shove their ass in the camera & either blame you for talking about it, or admitting they like the attention and sometimes ask for money

TOMASSI, R. (2013). RATIONAL MALE. [S.l.]: CREATESPACE INDEPENDENT P.

Total Imbecile. “I Fear That If I Kill Myself I Will Get Reincarnated as an Even Lower Status Male.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, August 10, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/i-fear-that-if-i-kill-myself-i-will-get-reincarnated-as-an-even-lo wer-status-male.230534/.

Uglyme. “You Literally Have to Pay or Give Something to Women If You Want to Talk to Them.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, January 9, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/you-literally-have-to-pay-or-give-something-to-women-if-you- want-to-talk-to-them.170012/.

Reichert 93

Valizadeh, Dayrush. “About.” Return Of Kings, October 1, 2018. https://www.returnofkings.com/author/roosh.

VanDerWerff, E. T. (2019, March 30). How The Matrix universalized a trans experience - and helped me accept my own. Retrieved February 5, 2020, from https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/3/30/18286436/the-matrix-wachowskis-trans-experie nce-redpill

Wagiecel. “People Are Getting Laid off and Have Trouble Paying Bills Yet Foids Seems to Be Raking in Thousands on Onlyfans.” Incels.co - Involuntary Celibate, April 16, 2020. https://incels.co/threads/people-are-getting-laid-off-and-have-trouble-paying-bills-yet-fo ids-seems-to-be-raking-in-thousands-on-onlyfans.196005/.

Women in Male-Dominated Industries and Occupations: Quick Take | Catalyst. (2020). Retrieved 19 February 2020, from https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-male-dominated-industries-and-occupation s/

XTamaska. “How Cavalier Are You with Your Misogyny?” Incels. Incels.net, July 30, 2020. https://incels.net/threads/how-cavalier-are-you-with-your-misogyny.20340/post-340644. yuuppitsme. “What Would You Do If a Girl Liked You?” Incels. Incels.net, November 23, 2018. https://incels.net/threads/what-would-you-do-if-a-girl-liked-you.168/.

Reichert 94