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Have you ever wanted to go back in time and see how people lived their lives hundreds of years ago?  Well, lucky for you, all you have to do is hop on websites like Reddit or 4chan to truly experience how many men thought of women in the 1400’s. I am talking about a toxic group of individuals who unite online in their hatred of women and their longing to control. They are called involuntary celibates, or Incels for short. The internet has allowed people to connect and share ideas with each other easily, and this group has taken full advantage of that in order to recruit young, mostly white men who feel they are unable to find a romantic relationship because of how they look. It is easier to blame other people for being “shallow” than to take a hard look at oneself and see that rejection may be based on one’s horrible personality and unfavorable values that many find disturbing. To understand this group, you will have to figure out some of their terms, and vocabulary used to dehumanize people,  where they gather, and why they feel they are under attack from feminists or from women in general. Not to mention, the violation of human rights they disguise under their pursuit of “carnal knowledge” and the extreme violence they encourage to attain it. 1

Black Pill |term | courtesy of Google Images

Before diving deeper, we should know a few basic terms these groups use to communicate with other Incels and to spread more hate while many are none the wiser. The terms are carefully chosen to make it easier to convey the way these people think about the world around them. The most used term is “Chad.” A “Chad” is a guy who gets all the girls. He is everything a girl would want. He’s physically fit, “well endowed”, typically stupid, and only wants women for sexual gratification. While that doesn’t sound like, the ideal man for a woman, to an incel, regardless of the contradictions, this is what they believe women want.  The name choice comes from Chicago in the early 1990’s. Back then, a ‘Chad’ in a very different context was a successful young man.2 Now, incels use the term to dehumanize other males they find threatening. However, most other terms are chosen randomly based on what Reddit users on /incel or /braincel think what a stereotypical name would be for the person they are describing. For example, the term Stacy. Incels decided that “Stacy” is a stereotypical name for beautiful women. More often than not, these names are chosen by some kind of bias of the creator and the naming is not as important to them as the meaning. After all, the overall goal is to dehumanize other people and communicate hate speech somewhat under the radar. To outsiders, an incel talking about Chad might just seem like they dislike a person named Chad when in reality they are talking about a large group of people. The female version of a Chad was previously mentioned as “Stacy.” “Stacy” is the stereotypical mean girls. They are beautiful air-heads who are unintelligent and promiscuous. “Becky” on the other hand is an average girl. Of course, they only date Chads or “normies” (normal, average men), so they are considered to be just as bad as anyone else, however you may be able to get into a relationship with them when they hit the “wall.” The “wall” is the idiotic idea that women have a sexual market value, and when it hits zero, they have hit the “wall” and must find someone to settle for. If an Incels managed to find such a woman, he is a “Betabuxx.” All women are known as “Femoids” in the incel community. This means “Female humanoid organism,”  which is dehumanizing towards women. But if you have been recruited to the ideas of Incels, and now see the world as they do, you have been “Black pilled.” The idea is of course taken from The Matrix, but if you take that metaphorical black pill, you will see that the world discriminates against Incels. Of course, there is a long list of ignorant and sexist terms this hate group uses, but these are the ones you will see the most on Incels forums and websites to dehumanize their targets. 3 4

The Incel community advocates for the violation of a women’s basic human rights. They think that they are entitled to a positive human right that will require the government to give them a state-sponsored “girlfriend.” Of course, you should not let the term of girlfriend fool you. Incels have no intent of treating their government assigned women as anything more than a sex toy and a tool for procreation. The Incel community thinks that the idea of consent should be done away with. Violating a women’s human rights is simply the way the world should be, according to Incels. Of course, they are ignoring the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women and clearly would be violating its article two. But clearly, the Universal Declaration of Human rights and other committees of the UN do not specifically address the incel community.5 6

Deep fried Thot Patrol |meme |courtesy of google images

So, who cares about a bunch of socially awkward men who hate women? The group of nerds who played Pokémon and Magic the Gathering in my 8th-grade class hated women too. You can say the same about the majority of the people who leave comments on YouTube videos. They are annoying and ignorant but seem harmless. Unfortunately, that no longer is the case. Several mass shootings have been committed by men identifying as Incels. The most prominent one being the two attack in Toronto, Canada that killed 16 people and injured over 20 more back in 2015 and earlier this year. A more recent one would be the Santa Fe school shooting that occurred earlier this year. The student is believed to be an incel and committed his act due to the rejection of his romantic advances of another classmate.  One of the Toronto shooter left a manifesto blaming feminist liberals for his inability to find a romantic partner. They all claim to be doing this for “Incel Rebellion.” An idea that has been poping up within incel forums that the only way to overcome their supposed discrimination, is through violence. In many cases, this violence was manifested in the form of a mass shooting or hijacking vehicles to run people over. This group has left the online forums and ventured into hate crimes and mass murdering.7  89

The group has done well attracting new members. Young men go into the group thinking it is a group of like-minded people who are having difficulty finding a relationship, and then quickly become radicalized. 10 This is a major problem developing online and little is being done to stop it. However, internet culture has a weird way of attacking fringe groups. 11

Gang Weed is a meme-style using irony that normally features “The Joker” from Batman or some other character or person that has been edited to have Joker make-up, and usually features the phrase “We live in a society” and points out a ridiculous ideology that a group believes in by mocking it. Unfortunately, there are several people who think that these memes are done unironically and agree with the message they are sending. A great example of this is the “Thot Patrol” memes. First, used to mock internet users who shame women online, it is now also used by Incels to further their own message of hate. 12

Gang Weed| Meme |courtesy of Reddit.com

Not all Incels are hopeless or unable to understand the ironic memes made to shame them for their foolish ideas. An ex-Incel, Jack Peterson, was once an emerging spokesman for the Incel community. According to him, he did not join for the misogyny, but for companionship with other men who felt like he did. He finally left after hearing the news of a mass shooting in Canada previously mentioned. 13 However, more people join daily than leave the sites.

The best way to stop this group is to dismantle the misogyny that already exists. The thought that women should bend to the will of men did not just come out of nowhere. Its something women have been resisting against since the beginning of time. The only way to make sure groups like this do not exist is to rid the world of the idea that this is normal or acceptable, to begin with. While this would be wishful thinking, it is hard to say what a realistic solution would be. If we knew the solution to stop extremist ideology, the world would be a much safer place. 14

  1. TAUB, AMANDA. 2018. “‘Incels’ Aren’t Alone In Online Harvesting Of Men’s Sense of Loss.” New York Times, May 11.
  2. Risen, Clay  2001 “Lincoln Park Trixie Society” Flak Magazine.
  3. Conti, Allie “Learn to Decode the Secret Language of the Incel Subculture” Vice (June 25, 2018)
  4. Daelemans, Walter, Guy De Pauw, Tome De Smedt, Maja Gwozdz, Sylvia Jaki, Eduan Kotze, and Leila Saoud. Multilingual Cross – Domain Perspectives On Online Hate Speech Report no 8 CLiPS Research Center, University of Antwerp. Antwerp: University of Antwerp Prinsstraat, (September 10, 2018).
  5. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. (December 18, 1979).
  6. Morris, Chris “What Isan Incel And Why Are People Talking About Them?” Fortune (April 25, 2018).
  7. Beauchamp, Zack. “Incel, the Misogynist Ideology That Inspired the Deadly Toronto Attack, Explained.” Vox. (April 25, 2018).
  8. Gessen, Masha. “After the Santa Fe Shooting, We Still Resist the Idea of the “Ordinary” Terrorist.” The New Yorker (May 24, 2018).
  9. “The Virgin Terrorist” Economist 427, no. 9089 (April 28, 2018): 32 EBSCO.
  10. Beauchamp Zack, “Incel, the Misogynist Ideology That Inspired the Deadly Toronto Attack, Explained” Vox (Apil 25, 2018)
  11. Talbot, Michael “‘Incel Rebellion Has Already Begun’: Expert Explains Van Suspect’s Cryptic Facebook Post” CityNews Toronto (April 25, 2018).
  12. Lynch, Conor “Angry Young White Men, the “Incel Rebellion” and an Age of Worldwide Reaction” Salon (May 12, 2018).
  13. Jeltsen, Melissa “The Unmaking Of An Incel” The Huffington Post (June 7, 2018).
  14. “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” United Nations Human Rights UNITED NATIONS PUBLICATION. February 14, 2014

Recent Comments

67 comments

  • This article was interesting and without a doubt an eye opener to the fact that there are some very disturbed individuals out there. I am not sure what has to happen to someone for them to believe in the things that this community believes in. I am glad that you wrote this though and your writing style makes it easy to see why it was an article that was nominated for an award. It keeps the reader engaged and wanting to know more about these angry and irrational individuals.

  • Victoria Rodriguez

    I appreciate the authors sarcasm towards the topic because I think when hate groups like these get serious coverage it gives them power. The idea of Incels is just in short ridiculous and if they are truly attempting to get their way they would have an easier time if they found a time machine and transported themselves to our primal history and get over it. I enjoyed the read, it was different and did not make me, as a woman, uncomfortable when informing me about a threatening population.

  • Montserrat Moreno Ramirez

    At first I dint understand what the article was about, but as ai kept reading it turned out to be a really engaging and even funny, it really made me laugh some times. I really loves how the author combined both serious topics with a bit of humor with made this an easy read!

    Congratulations for the nomination! really good job

  • Jocelyn Moreno

    The article was very well-written and very interesting to read. The cover picture was what made me very interested to read, It made me laugh and so I clicked to read – great choice of the picture!! The terms they have made me laugh because it’s so stereotypical but it honestly became a bigger problem once they started to take actions on their feelings. They are entitled to nothing yet they feel they deserve everything. Dehumanizing woman and people in general in order to feel superior. This hate-group makes me sick once completely understanding the whole concept of Incels.

  • Lorenzo Rivera

    First of all good luck and congratulations on being nominated for an award this semester. This article was both very informative and extremely well written. You did an outstanding job of grabbing the readers attention and presenting your topic. I really liked the tone of the article as a whole, being able to be both humorous and serious at the same time. It was a really great read, and very enjoyable overall.

  • Brianna Ford

    This is such a great article, and the way the article flowed was great. The cover photo though made me laugh the transition between laughter and seriousness was great! I never knew there was a community based on specifically to hate on women. It is such a cruel world we live in unfortunately, I will never understand why certain men have to be chauvinist and feel like women are below them. All in all this was such a great read. Congratulations on your nomination!

  • Crystal Baeza

    This was truly one of the most interesting articles I’ve read so far. I can’t believe this group exists and would be so extreme. It was a great article with information had no clue about which had me wanting to read more. I can’t people who are so downgrading towards one another still exists in today’s world. Hate will never win. Congratulations on your article! This for sure was an article worth receiving a nomination for.

  • Raymond Nash Munoz III

    What an amazing topic! I always knew that there were different kinds of people connecting on the internet to make themselves feel better, but I never knew it was taken to such an intense level. Which is one of the downsides to the internet, because if the internet didn’t connect millions of people across the world then these men probably wouldn’t be fueling each other’s hatred. Though, if the internet didn’t exist then we wouldn’t even know to be afraid of these kinds of people. It’s very complicated situation, but I think this author does a great job of taking us in the right direction by teaching us about these men. Very well written article and congratulations on the nomination!

  • Eric Ortega Rodriguez

    This is a very interesting article. In the world of today, rude remarks and insults are easy to state since, for the most part, these comments are done behind a computer screen. I find that by using the terms of Chad, Becky, Stacy, etc really help understand the article better. It is truly sad to see certain men talk about women in such a negative light. Overall, this article does an amazing job in giving context to what occurs within websites such as Reddit or 4chan. Great article.

  • Jose Sanchez

    This was a good article on something we seldom talk about or even know about. I personally knew very little of this before. It is very unfortunate that even it today’s society we find people who are like this and think this way. We must continue to educate and combat these ideas as they are outdated and continue to hinder progress.

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