everybody on ilx complains about reddit

i'm thinking things like them must always have existed. the problem is now they have circles online where they can congregate and try to normalize their behaviour (to one another), and maybe share terrible ideas.
then we find their online shoeboxes and we can't stop ourselves from analyzing their depravity.

shoeboxes full of cum

i was trying to be subtle, but yes.
shoeboxes full of cum.

incels sub not being banned after all this time is a definite candidate for worst mark against reddit administrative powers ever

it's literally the deep end of violent misogyny and suicide encouragement, they worship elliott rodgers ffs

i have no idea how it's still alive

don't they keep to themselves more or less? those other dark corners were banned for intentionally spreading their bile throughout the site i think.

they keep to themselves until they mass shoot us

Incels: so voluntary

that's generally because their behavior literally isn't allowed anywhere else and if it is it's an edgy teen sub where everything is excused because "humor"

but it's a massive community that's constantly getting more popular. it especially seems to attract a lot of teenagers. it has a shared culture and language and is easily accessible to one of the largest user pools on the internet. they constantly talk about "blackpilling" which is literally... radicalizing outsiders

i'm against the idea that open hate communities are effective 'cages', which is an idea a lot of redditors seem to have. they live for converts, especially right now. incels is the best example imo. it's one of the most extreme, ridiculous hate communities i've ever heard of and it's thriving

Agreed. If this were a radical islam grooming subreddit how long would it last?

i've only just identified the term via google now since y'all brought it up but can someone explain to me (cause i sure as fuck don't wanna read too much - or any - of the literature), why do these guys believe they are truly incapable of having a relationship with a woman? is it just shorthand for "we are owning our sociopathy and acting like it's cool because everybody's doing it"?

They think they are entitled to sleep with women/women have to sleep with them. see also: friendzone, "nice guy", fedora, anyone who talk about "females" and "femoids."
I'm in a facebook group for making fun of right wing memes and it's actually just super depressing but now i know a lot about these fucking kekistani incel mofos.

why do these guys believe they are truly incapable of having a relationship with a woman?

Isn't it more that they think society is all wrong and this is forcing them to be celibate?

so they're entitled to explicitly own a woman by virtue of being born male but society currently tells them they can't and they're bitter about it?
again, i'm pretty sure that's just sociopathic.

It's not that *they* can't, it's that The Feminazi Liberal Conspiracy has told women they can be more than just the owned sex objects of men, so they're being denied their birthrights.

yes and yes xpost

they're under the impression that society has promised them their selection of perfect women, and then when they don't get that, they lash out. there isn't much logic behind the lashing out, it's just what they do for leisure.

keep in mind that the community is extremely self-policing and it's built on reinforcing the idea that every member is the same incel. it's communal self-hatred, which manifests itself as strangers calling each other worthless, unlovable monsters, and anyone who tries to get off the hate train will either be banned or downvoted into oblivion and harassed.

i don't know if they autoban "success stories" (i used to be one of you, now i have a girlfriend) but i know that was a thing at the previous, less-violent incel sub (ForeverAlone). even if they don't autoban, that's the kind of post that would get swarmed with downvotes or deleted.

oh god i should've put that parenthetical in quotes, i am not nor have i ever been an incel lol

They think they are entitled to sleep with women/women have to sleep with them.
― ian, Monday, October 9, 2017 7:55 PM (thirty-six seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I actually don't think this is quite right. There are some incel types who believe this, but there are others for whom entitlement to sex with women doesn't seem to be part of their worldview. Unfortunately, these others are not generally any less hateful.

What all the Reddit incels seem to have in common is a view of (straight) women as completely ruled by their insatiable sexual appetite for a narrow category of conventionally attractive, hypermasculine men. Any sexual or romantic attention directed at any other man is seen as being motivated by a desire to extract social or financial resources from that man. The fact that women deny this is seen as evidence that they're dishonest and conniving, or that they're childish in their lack of self-awareness, or both.

What this means, according to incels, is that a small proportion of men (often said to be 20%, for some reason) receive sincere sexual interest from women; another, larger proportion sometimes get to have sex with women who aren't really attracted to them and who have ulterior motives (and who are cheating with higher-status men at every opportunity); and some men are so far from meeting basic standards of socially acceptable attractiveness that no woman will have sex with them at all without being paid first.

Incels see themselves as the members of that last category. They often refer to themselves as genetically inferior, as having lost the "genetic lottery", sometimes even as deformed, and see the whole situation as the inevitable result of evolutionary pressures on human behavior. But they still absolutely hate women for it.

I've been fascinated with these guys for a long time--I used to browse the PUA Hate forums, where Elliot Rodger was an occasional poster. I absolutely do not recommend that anyone else develop this interest.

shit is bleak

they sound traumatized by late stage American free market capitalism.

not surprising a lot of these guys are turning to neo-nazi bullshit. its same value system that warped their minds in the first place, it's just called free market capitalism now.

There's no self-awareness for these guys that its nothing to do with being good looking. some of these assholes are good looking! But the bitter, angry, socially-fucked-up vibes come off this type in WAVES, Ive known a few. It is really, really offputting to be around. I honestly dont think some of em even know they come across that way.

I think part of what makes the incel world so seductive to these guys is that it allows them to see themselves as affirming certain obvious truths that "normies" deny. And "it's got nothing to do with being good-looking" is their central example. Because looks do matter a lot--not as much as they believe, but more than people sometimes want to admit. The halo effect is real. Conventional attractiveness does offer a big advantage in sex and dating. Big enough, in fact, that it can sometimes cover up or compensate for serious deficiencies in character. They love to point out that good-looking male abusers, up to and including serial killers, can be very successful with women. (This allows them to scoff at the idea that women are good at detecting bad personalities.)

In fact, the Reddit incels forum has a bot that scans for uses of the word "personality" and auto-replies with a script about Jeremy Meeks, the former felon who got a modeling contract based on his mug shot and who is now reportedly dating some U.K. heiress. I think the first line is "Women don't really care about personality".

There are some obvious replies to all of this, but they all involve a more complex picture of the world in which there's a lot of individual variation among women, and they have no patience for that.

sounds like a self fulfilling propechy

*prophecy

they sound traumatized by late stage American free market capitalism.

not surprising a lot of these guys are turning to neo-nazi bullshit. its same value system that warped their minds in the first place, it's just called free market capitalism now.

― carpet_kaiser, Monday, October 9, 2017 10:18 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think this is right.

they have dehumanized women by seeing them as consumers looking to maximize their advantages by pursuing sex with "high value" men. they have dehumanized themselves and other men by ranking them within a sexual hierarchy. nowhere in this scheme is there a space for genuine human connection.

i read a book by thich nhat hanh where he defined hell as anywhere where there is a lack of compassion. i think that's what these MRA and alt right forums are. little hells.

these clowns can stay in hell for all i care

sure. but i think they pose a threat to society, stewing like that in their own anger, pulling one another further and further from any sense of solidarity with the rest of humanity.

they have dehumanized women by seeing them as consumers looking to maximize their advantages by pursuing sex with "high value" men. they have dehumanized themselves and other men by ranking them within a sexual hierarchy. nowhere in this scheme is there a space for genuine human connection.

― Treeship, Monday, October 9, 2017 11:14 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think you're right. I also think there's some projection at work here: they imagine that women ruthlessly assess men for their attractiveness and masculinity, and use them accordingly, because that's the gender-flipped version of what they fantasize about being able to do to women.

At the same time, though, a lot of them openly pine after real affection. You'll often see them say that they want this more than they want sex itself--which is why you can see escorts and still be incel ("escortcel" is their term for this).

In fact, it's pretty common to see one of these guys opine that only men are capable of feeling real love. Speaking of gender-flipping: a lot of them end up with the idea that women are all emotionally cold and sexually voracious, while men are the true softies. This sentiment mingles uneasily with the sex slave fantasies and Elliot Rodger memes.

it’s completely average men blaming their inability to socialize or have a relationship on everything other than a lack of self-actualization

I think you're right. I also think there's some projection at work here: they imagine that women ruthlessly assess men for their attractiveness and masculinity, and use them accordingly, because that's the gender-flipped version of what they fantasize about being able to do to women.

^ Very much so imo - it's about noticing cold/cruel/calculating tendencies in self and others and deciding that there is nothing else.

And "it's got nothing to do with being good-looking" is their central example. Because looks do matter a lot--not as much as they believe, but more than people sometimes want to admit.

^ Agree with this and think it needs to be factored in by anyone wanting to really understand or critique these guys.

carpet kaiser's posts read better if you imagine a sultry sax solo playing in the background

Good posts by JRN and treeship. I've known dudes like this and they also seem threatened by a woman's sexuality, or/and they're sexually repressed themselves.

it’s completely average men blaming their inability to socialize or have a relationship on everything other than a lack of self-actualization

― mh, Tuesday, October 10, 2017 1:38 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I always see ppl insist this when discussing this stuff, and I don't really see why? my impression is that a lot of them would still be socially/romantically unsuccessful regardless of how much self-actualizing they do.

really? because I mean learning to speak to others as equals without being awkward, learning how to dress in a semi-flattering or at least normal way, and having decent hygiene

not high-minded things like "find your true self" or w/e, just "learn how to function as an average human in society"

like, if someone accepts your invite for a date, don't wear a fedora and scream about your job the entire time

I guess the key point would be to present yourself in a way that other people find interesting. It's not that these guys are necessarily unintelligent or unattractive, just that there's a deep gulf between how others view them and how they view themselves, and "self-actualization" is probably a clumsy way of saying "figure out how to reconcile how others view you with how you view yourself"

you sure know a lot about "these guys"

especially when it comes to how they view and commodify women -- there's a basic level of image management, grooming, socialization that is expected of women but not applied to men, and these guys are amazingly critical of how women present themselves without realizing that they have absolutely no understanding of how others might evaluate them

and their language for describing what they *think* women use to evaluate prospective partners is so bad that they immediately jump to "well I'm not a model and don't have the money for a $2k suit or nice car so women won't like me"

*tips fedora at brimstead*

I've always felt a "there but for the grace of god go I" with these guys because I think I struggled with similar emotional problems and put off dating and sex a lot longer than my peers because of it. There's a point, sometime after junior high maybe, when the gender and sexual dynamics of social life starts to change among your peers, and I think different people are ready for that change at different times in their lives. But there can be a sense--if you're not ready to date, still finding your confidence, still trying to unfuck your head from all the gendered nonsense you've been fed your whole life--of being left behind, cast out, etc. If your more confident friends start talking to girls, having girlfriends, while you're still in some kind of oedipal trap, or only able to deal with sexual desire via fantasy, then you're gonna feel like you've been abandoned or forgotten somehow.

The difference was that I went to college and got interested in philosophy (lol) while these guys find a ready-made ideology that not only explains their predicament but explains it according to the unquestioned logic of neoliberal capitalism. The funny part is that they are much more comfortable seeking and finding intimacy with each other, and in this way they can extend that adolescent sojourn they remember right before Everything Changed.

xps idk, I think there are a significant number of guys who will never be able to make themselves as attractive/interesting to other people however much they try. it's weird, because I think that most people would agree that there *are* genuinely,irredeemably unattractive people out there - but then insist that the people posting to these forums are not among them? why would there not be overlap?

the "personality doesn't matter" stuff is interesting to me as well, since it doubles as a way to assert that personality is some deep inner essence of the self (and thus necessarily isolated, as they feel) and not merely a way to interact with other people. it's a logic that actually rejects the possibility of intimacy--which is of course already a difficult and sometimes paradoxical notion.

xp ryan otm

I definitely spent too much time alone, and too much time obsessing over how I _thought_ other people perceived things, when the truth is you just have to talk to people and learn how to socialize instead of finding an echo chamber where you consolidate your unspoken prejudices and put words to them

I think that most people would agree that there *are* genuinely,irredeemably unattractive people out there

because of their attitudes or physical appearances? or are you saying that some people are intrinsically less human?

someone once told me that "whatever you look like, you're someone's type" and while I doubt that's totally true I like to think it is.

I wonder if it adds to the frustration that for adult men that romantic relationships are about it for close social relationships. Communities are gone. Neighborhoods are gone. Groups and organizations to belong to are gone. Close male friendships are gone. Finding purpose at work or career is gone. The stakes are: it's all or nothing.

Everything is gone, except for maybe a couple of things, all revolving around having a romantic partner.

Once again, it's the rich who stole all of this from us, and then blamed everyone for not being "genetically fit" enough to survive in the resulting social and psychological hell scape.

Play it, brimstead.

I wonder if it adds to the frustration that for adult men that romantic relationships are about it for close social relationships.

I think this is most of it!

there's also the weird toxicity of that situation -- I had some good adult male role models as a kid, but even some of them would use the time when they're in an all-male space to vent about the ways of women or w/e. it's that dual-edged thing where romantic intimacy is the only intimacy, and it's seen as something to speak poorly about to other men

add that into the situation where kids are honing their social views in these online cloisters and you have problems

People arguing that looks do matter don't seem to consider that this would work both ways if true

^^^