everybody on ilx complains about reddit

Or ryan otm

maybe someday reddit will produce its very own buddha who discovers that the suffering of not getting laid can be solved with....compassion!

It being reddit, that buddha will go by the handle "urea_fritters"

Lol

damn it

I also speculate some of these people aren't necessarily Americans- I know that there is a fairly sizable contingent in India of younger professional people clued into Reddit

Maybe I'm just hoping that so I don't have to share a society with these folks

Somewhere around a fifth of my coworkers are younger professional people from India but none of them are shitheads!

Surely there are people who take a sincere, unselfish interest in others who are still lonely; and people who are needy, suspicious, and misogynistic but still attractive to women; and the explanations for these things will have a lot to do with social advantages and disadvantages that are distributed arbitrarily. These guys lash out about that in the most unproductive way imaginable, but if the reply is basically "your problems would go away if you weren't such an asshole", that just digs them in further--because they know it isn't true.

And also we've not knowingly met any of these people in real life - wonder if some of them would, face to face, be people with just a nice, quiet demeanour as contrasted with their online manner

That's a good point. They could be venting and indulging an inner demon.

However, a person who thought the way these people claim they think would be a miserable person.

Oh yes.

I agree (xp) we must avoid the just world fallacy. Or I mean actually - it's fun to call these people assholes based on their shitty online postings and the urge to do so is quite understandable if we're being honest. But also we know what bargain basement nightclubs, whatever, places where people hang about and socialise, are like in actual real life, which is to say often not very accepting, not very mature, not very chill. Society at large is itself fairly prone to lashing out at people.

Tho obviously if you're not someone who's likely to be shot at by police etc etc you have things to be grateful for

lol what the fuck happened to this thread

i never meant for this to turn into psychoanalyzing incels. it's already a fool's errand to take their words as individuals at face value imo. it's assuming a lot of good faith about a massive group of people adhering to strict ideological guidelines. trying to argue with whatever web of internal logic (in this case, lore) they've concocted is trying to argue with a wall. the logic's imaginary! i don't even believe that the majority of the posters there truly believe in a lot of what they're peddling, if only because so much of it is in conflict with itself. for the most part it's just a group of solipsistic, entitled boys who are lashing out in the only way they feel comfortable -- semi-anonymously, self-righteously, with memes and the security of knowing they're intellectually superior (because kayfabe internal logic)

reddit is a great place for people who, in real life, fade into the background. if you fail to impress your peers, you just... fade into the background, where you're comfortable anyway. real life doesn't work that way

i'm way more interested in the way their communit(ies) (and hate communities in general) work as a self-defending machine, and the way reddit is organized to allow for/encourages the plunge into hate extremism

Surely the "works both ways" thing here is that if you accept the logic that they're too ugly to date then there's also women who're in the same predicament, and presumably deserving of incel solidarity.

Rule 11) Those who continuously claim there are as many female incels in the same situation as male incels will receive a warning and then a ban. Most can agree that women can be incel in some rare situations such as extreme disfigurement, but their numbers do not come close to male incels

so you think the posters are not trying to represent their "true" experiences and beliefs but rather are just playing a role in order to gain approval from a highly conformist yet (weirdly) extremely low stakes, anonymous community?

i buy it.

trying to argue with whatever web of internal logic (in this case, lore) they've concocted is trying to argue with a wall. the logic's imaginary! i don't even believe that the majority of the posters there truly believe in a lot of what they're peddling, if only because so much of it is in conflict with itself.

What parts of it do you think are in conflict? Their worldview strikes me as largely internally consistent and pretty much unfalsifiable, since anything observation that seems to contradict it can be explained away by appeal to some malevolent female subterfuge. I figure that's part of how the subculture works as a "self-defending machine": it can generate a self-justifying response to anything.

i've never clicked on this thread because i think the reddit community (and esp the imgur community) is so fucking terrible. you'd think the title would have made it clear that it was a safe space to hate on reddit, but what can i say.

i really regret that now. how could i have gone this long without knowing about this guy who stores all his pee and cum shirts up in his attic and passionately hates his wife? you can't make this shit up

so you think the posters are not trying to represent their "true" experiences and beliefs but rather are just playing a role in order to gain approval from a highly conformist yet (weirdly) extremely low stakes, anonymous community?

obv new to this thread and still trying to review the last week or two, but yes, that is reddit

Some of the incel guys may be playacting--maybe most--but that little world has already had one participant go on a killing spree.

xps

it's more than i'm not really concerned about self-identified incels on the individual level because the ideology of the community is much larger than their individuality

so in a way, yes, but i'm being intentionally vague, they're a whole-ass population and i don't think you can apply a single psychoanalytical intent to them

at a community level the place is throbbing with solipsism. i don't know if similar communities outside of reddit are like this, but at incels it's like no one's actually talking to each other, it's a community of people talking to mirrors. it's hard for me to even imagine them performing to "gain approval" of the community. there isn't like a king incel with the most incel karma points. their whole thing is that they're at the bottom of society and the sub is their personal gutter. or maybe i'm wrong and i just haven't spent enough time there. JRN would probably know better about the social hierarchy if any

at a community level the place is throbbing with solipsism. i don't know if similar communities outside of reddit are like this, but at incels it's like no one's actually talking to each other, it's a community of people talking to mirrors.

this reminds me of what I think about when I watch twitch chat and all the copy pasta nonsense. like I legitimately do not understand what communicating is going on there.

What parts of it do you think are in conflict? Their worldview strikes me as largely internally consistent and pretty much unfalsifiable, since anything observation that seems to contradict it can be explained away by appeal to some malevolent female subterfuge. I figure that's part of how the subculture works as a "self-defending machine": it can generate a self-justifying response to anything.

the main conflict is between the reality that doesn't exist (where women are as perfect as they are in the movies and also desire incels) and the reality they think exists (all women are [everything bad ever] because they don't desire incels). their ideology is built on the fantasy of the pursuit of women, which disgusts them. like at least when MGTOW hate women, their solution is to do the opposite of that.

i'm tired and not explaining well, but this is generally why i see their whole routine as an exercise in screaming and not intellect.

if you replace "the pursuit of women" with "the pursuit of sex, which women selfishly keep" it makes more sense though. but that doesn't seem to be it, given their flexibility with paying for sex.

re internal logic, having an answer to every argument doesn't mean those answers have to line up with each other. as long as they only need to answer one question at a time, the ideology is protected enough, in their eyes.

and they know it too! all of these new hate movements are like this, at least on reddit. go on the_donald, no belief is ever expressed in good faith. they know half their shit contradicts the other half, it's more about getting on message, and enjoying the company of others who are bullshitting their way onto the same message.

t_d is more ironic about it, but the approach is the same i think. it's more about sharing the message than believing in it

a friend of mine saw me using zing on my phone yesterday and wanted to know what ILX was so I gave her a two minute tour and her takeaway was "oh, so it's like a low budget reddit" and i wasn't sure what to say to that beyond "...kinda, yes"

it's at least a high-budget reddit!

our quality/$ratio is very good

Don't compare ilx to anything with fucking nested comment threads.

Ilx is a more user-hostile metafilter if you're going to compare us to anything

Ilx isn't much like other online communities I've seen, thanjs God.

i like "user-hostile metafilter"

the reality that doesn't exist (where women are as perfect as they are in the movies ...)

their ideology is built on the fantasy of the pursuit of women, which disgusts them.

Again not wanting to defend 'these guys' but I do think of this worldview as emanating from some central point of culture (mass television, movies and advertising) and heading outwards and outwards until we reach the obviously toxic edgeland of incels.

Like the narratives they come out with about sex sound less like actual experiences from life, and more like the cliched plots of low budget teen sex comedies? Or the logic of the narratives is that of advertisements (have big car, get to fuck sexy girl).

So I think all the stuff people are saying about certain online communities and reddit specifically helping this stuff to really fester and get properly nasty is OTM, but also that reddit is perhaps just an accelerant acting on an ideology that is already here?

by reddit do you mean social media in general?

i agree with you about the media aspect, it's one of the things i mean when i say solipsism -- they sound like they have possibly never had any sort of human contact with an actual girl, and they're taking media portrayals of girlfriends as the world they were promised. when i think of their idea of the ideal woman, i'm always thinking about the girlfriends video game webcomics artists write for their self-insert protagonists.

i think it comes down to patriarchy and rape culture and capitalism and this attitude has taken some form for a long long time. but i disagree that the online communities are only accelerating it. if the communities were shut down, it would be a legitimate blow to the strength of the ideology and the spread of its language. if the subreddit was shut down specifically, and any attempts to resurrect it, then a few of them might migrate elsewhere, but for the most part it would be dead on reddit. and the thousands of men that are set to be converted would go on to doing what they were doing before, being sad in their solitude and then going any number of different paths from there, some positive some negative. i really believe that angry young men are driven to right-wing extremism when the opportunity of a community is right there.

and incels in particular is such a trap. no one who subscribes to it is just dabbling in it. there are a lot of trump people who will stick their toes into t_d, post there a few times and then i guess get bored with the act. it's like a lot of the other meme boards that are built on doing the same joke over and over. incels is a whole identity, it's degrading and miserable and you have to commit to it. culty.

you could say that other hate subs, fatpeoplehate and c**ntown and idk what else getting shut down didn't stop those ideologies, but there was already significant overlap with other boards at least. and i do think it was still a net positive that they were shut down, and that there aren't dedicated places to spread that hate, at least

shut down incels, take MGTOW with it too

i’m vocel now

. i really believe that angry young men are driven to right-wing extremism when the opportunity of a community is right there.

i agree 100% with this

the internet isn't just "amplifying" hate that was with us all along. it is doing that but it is also facilitating hatred, and allowing it to take new forms.

i think the reason i liked ilx at first was that it was the opposite of these cultish communities where people reinforce each other's bullshit all day long. at its best, people challenge each other here.

it’s amplifying hate

there have been a couple studies that ppl don’t necessarily come to specific policies or opinions on their own, but if it’s part of an in-group identity they’ll wholeheartedly adopt it as part of the group

it was about pro-lifers in the evangelical movement but there are definitely people even more desperate for a coherent identity that’ll be like, uh, I like video games so I guess I’m a republican shithead now

I mean I like to think I don’t hang on to bandwagons but I’ve had conversations where I’ve made the point for something only to run out of steam as I realize it’s just a part of some platform I support and I don’t remember why I would like that part

see also: political parties being wholeheartedly grafted on to weird-ass international policies

i like "user-hostile metafilter"

― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Wednesday, October 11, 2017 4:42 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

new board description obv

it's probably absurd to try and understand and relate to "incels", but at the same time it's good to see ilx's comments on those darn kids occasionally go beyond "we used to kick a ball in the street".

if these kids ever kicked a ball in the street they wouldn't be in this predicament

Some truth to that. Exercise can ameliorate solipsism.

Does Rocket League count?

I know this is just "we used to kick a ball" but I do think about how at one point the weirdo outcasts (or at least some of them) were more likely to start terrible bands and go to shows in bowling alleys and VFWs and basements.

I was captivated by online communities even when I was doing that, but I think there's a lot to be said for interacting irl with other awkward weirdos vs online during teenage years.

Definitely

https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/7669xp/i_feel_like_an_idiot_i_vastly_misunderstood_how_a/

It's s whole new world for PM_ME_GLUTE_SPREAD

what's sad is, i think that guy's idea of a library (basically a movie rental store, for books) is pretty close to how you'd expect it to be in our shitty society! libraries with free books are an amazing thing that we all take for granted.

if the concept of the library suddenly vanished, and we were all walking around the same 2017 except that libraries didn't exist, and then someone had the brilliant idea to create a physical space with tons of books that could be borrowed, the natural inclination would be to charge money for each book to offset all the other costs of running the library. the idea of making it basically free for the library patrons and instead paying for the operation through local funding, government subsidies, grants, etc would seem naively progressive and unlikely to work in places other than small towns in Vermont. instead, someone would be like "why don't we just all purchase books separately, and then we can lend them to each other using an app that lists the books we own and the books we want to borrow, and then it'll cost $6.99 a month to use the app, and then we'll offer free basic shipping but offer a 1-day shipping option that's more expensive and we take a modest cut of it. yes, that sounds much easier and financially lucrative than going to the trouble of putting all the books in a physical space and trying to pay for it through local taxes."