I feel kinda bad about making fun of r/incels sometimes because it is like expressions of actual human misery
but they express it through grotesque misogyny and racism so lmao
I do wish there was an outlet that wasn’t so hideously awful, marketing itself as a place for people with shit social skills and whatnot to… idk, get better and not become horrifying bigots. But i feel like part of what attracts people to r/incels in the first place is a need to blame everything and everyone else so :/
It would be nice for miserable people to interact productively with the formerly-miserable instead of letting them stew in their own juices. Like incel missionaries. Nobody is stepping up to take this missionary position (ba-dum-bum), and I understand why.
In meatspace, people who care a little about you will tell you that if you ever want a date, you need to shave the neckbeard and stop leaving the house in stained anime t-shirts two sizes too small. I was never that bad, but I wish I had Future Me to give some pointers when I was at my most romantically unsuccessful.
What’s the incentive to do this for Internet strangers? None. Online, the romantically unsuccessful can expect to get roasted for laughs or recruited for fascism.
This is largely true, though misses the crucial component of class anxiety among former incels.
Someone who was awkward and socially unsuccessful but has gotten better (often through the luck of landing a decent job and gradually progressing from there, or a particular social group) faces immense cognitive pressure to not see themselves like their former cohort. Any identification with them is extremely uncomfortable, and of course they are more at risk from being associated with the toxic incel community by the high social status people they wish to impress. Whereas there (appears to be) a lot of currency to be gained by trashing their former cohort.
“I was a lonely virgin too, but jesus fuck, I never stooped to misogyny or worshipping Hitlerfrog.” It draws a stark line between you and the untouchables you might have been.
This is why much of the harshest invective against incel-types is not really from women, but from troll-happy men who on many superficial characteristics are quite similar to the target of their mockery. And in a better world, these would be many of the crucial people who could offer credible advice to incel-identifiers about how to improve their prospects.
This is very similar to say, the socially conservative middle class, who are barely keeping above the poverty line, and go to great lengths to prove that this is because of their moral superiority and they never could have been like the lazy Hillbilly Elegy folk.
I mean, yes, all true, as far as it goes, but…I do feel that this whole conversation is dancing around the one meaningful answer to the question with which it’s grappling.
I do wish there was an outlet that wasn’t so hideously awful, marketing itself as a place for people with shit social skills and whatnot to… idk, get better and not become horrifying bigots.
In meatspace, people who care a little about you will tell you that if you ever want a date, you need to shave the neckbeard and stop leaving the house in stained anime t-shirts two sizes too small.
And in a better world, these would be many of the crucial people who could offer credible advice to incel-identifiers about how to improve their prospects.
This is what the respectable world is offering incels. At best, when the respectable people are at their very kindest and most compassionate, it’s Guidance Counselor Advice: “Here are the concrete practical steps you have to take in order to drag yourself up from the pit that you’re in.” [Subtext: “So that you can shut up and become a normal person and stop embarrassing the both of us.”] And far more often, well, it’s what @neuroticpantomime has to offer: “Here is a guide explaining why you’re a terrible person and how you need to change for the benefit of other people who have no interest in going out of their way to help you.”
No one goes online seeking a community for the sake of being told that he’s a terrible person and needs to change. (OK, there are a few very broken emotional masochists out there. But if you see someone enthusiastically participating in an ideology that treats him like shit, it is probably because he is ruthlessly dedicated to playing advanced status games; there are good reasons that people do this, but ultimately it is a sign that you should be wary and not the reverse.) And, if we’re honest, very few people go online seeing out a community for the sake of getting Guidance Counselor Advice. You don’t need a community for that, and usually don’t even want one, you want something private and non-interactive where you won’t have to open yourself up to humiliation.
You seek out a community because you want love and understanding. If it is a community centered on personal struggle, then probably you’re joining because you want to be loved and understood for your struggle. You want brothers-and-sisters-in-arms who will validate you: “yes, your pain is so real, you don’t deserve to be suffering so, you are very heroic for having borne up under it, we will give you status and emotional cookies for being what you are.” Or, at the very least, “we don’t think any less of you for having had to deal with such struggles, we will treat you like a normal person and value you for the other things you have to contribute.”
The only people offering that to incels, in any kind of systematic way, are toxic troll communities.
(Also, to be fair, the monastic clergy. But…that is not a real option for most of these people, for so many reasons.)
I’m not blaming anyone for that, not specifically. It’s a genuinely hard thing to offer. It’s not anyone’s job to offer it. But, if you’re not going to do the work of caring for them yourself, don’t be surprised when the incels flock to the people who are doing the work.
You can still judge the incels for following this obvious incentive gradient, and find them morally wanting, if that makes you feel better…but, as a practical matter, who the hell cares?