The Rise of Incels

1 INCELS The word incel is derived from the phrase ‘involuntarily celibate’. An incel is a young man who is not sexually active as a result of not being able to convince women to have sex with him. This inability to find women who want to have consensual sex with them frustrates them and they release their anger on women. The word was invented in 1997 by Alana, a queer young woman who coined it to describe her feelings of isolation (Beauchamp). Fearing that she would spend the rest of her life alone, she developed a text-only website to look for people who felt the same way that she could relate to. She stopped using the website, and the phrase, which previously had an innocent meaning, took on a dark connotation. This paper examines the rise of incels in recent years. It seeks to understand why incels behave the way that they do and the factors that have led to a significant increase in the trend.

Incels are young men who have an intense hatred for women that they show by forming groups online to bash feminism, plot violent attacks against women and lobby for the state to allow rape on forums such as Reddit, Incels.me and 4chan. Instead of accepting rejection or learning how to approach women differently, they turn into misogynists who use the internet to express their anger and frustration (Ging 63). The growth and radicalization of incels primarily happen online.

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2 Why Incels Behave the Way They Do At the core of an incel’s anger is a sense of entitlement and superiority towards women. Incels hate women for rejecting their advances because they feel that they are denied something that they should be entitled to. This makes them believe that women should be blamed and punished for rejecting them. According to an article on incels by Huffington Post, incels have a misconstrued idea of how a man should be. This negative idea about manhood is referred to as toxic masculinity. An incel believes that manhood involves aggression, dominance, and authority over women. They also think that a real man should be sexually appealing and that women should accept their sexual advances readily. Unknown to many, and sometimes even to themselves, incels are ashamed, insecure and lonely men. However, toxic masculinity does not allow them to feel these ‘weak' emotions, and they, therefore use these emotions to fuel their frustration against women (Renzetti 1263).

Incels discuss their hatred of women and society in general in online forums where there is a growing trend towards male radicalization. Incels refer to successful, attractive men as ‘Chads’ and attractive, promiscuous women as ‘Stacys’. Chads are attracted to Stacys and vice versa, while they, the incels, are left isolated by society because they are not considered to be attractive. Incels resent Chads, Stacys and other members of the society for the perceived seclusion; some of them may take their resentment to extreme measures by revenging against society (Wright). According to them, women owe them sex but are very shallow and simple-minded and therefore reject incels and prefer Chads.

Inceldom can be considered an extremist movement due to the online radicalization that has resulted in violent acts against society. The movement has been politicized. As a result of being denied sex by women and often being overlooked, they believe that they are an

3 oppressed class, and there needs to be a revolution to change their situation. In April 2018, an incel known as Alex Minassian deliberately rammed a van into pedestrians on a busy street in Toronto, Canada (Griffin). Ten pedestrians were killed, and 16 others were critically injured as a result of this incel-inspired attack. This attack illustrates the level of extremism of this movement.

Research on the rise of incels in recent years reveals that the most discussed topics on the social platforms they use are sexuality, pornography, and feminism (Coles). Incels tend to believe that they do not meet the societal standards of attractiveness and as a result, are looked down upon by the attractive men and rejected by women. As a result of the perceived rejection, they develop into anxious, angry and lonely young men who congregate in social platforms to seek solace from each other, often through aggressive talk (Tolentino, Jia et al).

They usually have a sexualized perception of women as a result of excessive exposure to pornographic material.

Conclusion Incel is born out of a misogynistic and spiteful attitude towards women, as well as poor self-image and low self-worth. It is also believed that a significant proportion of incels have mental-health challenges such as depression, anxiety, and autism. The internet contributes significantly to the spread of incels since it provides a platform where they can congregate and freely discuss their hatred of society and also incite each other to commit dangerous or violent acts against their perceived oppressors (Jaki, Sylvia et al). To prevent the spread and radicalization of inceldom, platforms such as Reddit, Incels.me and 4Chan should be closely monitored and any threats detected should be acted upon promptly.

4 Works Cited Beauchamp, Zack. "Incel, The Misogynist Ideology That Inspired The Deadly Toronto Attack, Explained". Vox, 2018, https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25/17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian.

Accessed 6 Dec 2018.

Coles, Terri. "How Men Get To The Point Where They Identify As 'Incel'". Huffingtonpost, 2018, https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/06/05/https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ 2018/06/05/incel_a_23451320/incel_a_23451320/. Accessed 6 Dec 2018.

Ging, Debbie. "Alphas, Betas, And Incels". Men And Masculinities, 2017, pp.

1097184X1770640. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1177/1097184x17706401.

Griffin, Jonathan. "Inside The Dark World Of 'Incels'". BBC News, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-44053828. Accessed 6 Dec 2018.

Jaki, Sylvia et al. "Online Hatred Of Women In The Incels. Me Forum: Linguistic Analysis And Automatic Detection". 2018, Accessed 6 Dec 2018.

Renzetti, Claire. "Methodological Innovations In Research On Violence Against Women: A Special Issue Of Violence Against Women". Violence Against Women, vol 15, no. 10, 2009, pp. 1263-1264. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1177/1077801209348495.

Tolentino, Jia et al. "The Rage Of The Incels". The New Yorker, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-rage-of-the-incels.

Accessed 6 Dec 2018.

Wright, Mic. "Incel: The Online Cult For Sad, Sexless Young Men Is Terrorism By Any Other Name". Newstatesman.Com, 2018, https://www.newstatesman.com/science-

5 tech/social-media/2018/04/incel-online-cult-sad-sexless-young-men-terrorism-anyother-name. Accessed 6 Dec 2018.