Cross post from How to...

[Bramblethorn]

The incel movement is ultimately just about anger towards everyone.

It's true that incels feel anger towards just about everybody, but potentially misleading to characterise it as "anger towards everyone" without acknowledging that their anger is directed far more towards women than other men.

I'm not going to link it, but it's easy to find a transcript of Elliot Rodgers' manifesto online. There are a couple of paragraphs in which he expresses anger and murderous intent towards "popular kids" and "sexually active men" but most of it by far is directed against women who wouldn't sleep with him. For instance:

"On the day of retribution, I am going to enter the hottest sorority house on UCSB [University of California, Santa Barbara] and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up blonde s*** I see inside there. All those girls that I have desired so much, they would have all rejected me and looked at me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them."

 

[AG31]

No offense, but I've no intention to read all of that. It's 16 pages long discussion. The tldr version will be fine.

I just meant the first post in HowTo, that started the thread. It explains why the focus is on men, and I thought it was persuasive. You had asked why. It gives an answer.

 

[EmilyMiller]

It's true that incels feel anger towards just about everybody, but potentially misleading to characterise it as "anger towards everyone" without acknowledging that their anger is directed far more towards women than other men.

I'm not going to link it, but it's easy to find a transcript of Elliot Rodgers' manifesto online. There are a couple of paragraphs in which he expresses anger and murderous intent towards "popular kids" and "sexually active men" but most of it by far is directed against women who wouldn't sleep with him. For instance:

"On the day of retribution, I am going to enter the hottest sorority house on UCSB [University of California, Santa Barbara] and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up blonde s*** I see inside there. All those girls that I have desired so much, they would have all rejected me and looked at me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them."

This whitewashing incels as poor put-upon and misunderstood guys who deserve our pity is pretty much gaslighting. I’ve had these scum go after me in X multiple times; and seen them do the same to my connections. They need psychiatric treatment, not sympathy.

 

[NuclearFairy]

The only incel I know is a schizophrenic relative who's been committed multiple times for stalking. I'm so glad I no longer live in the same state as him.

 

[TheRedChamber]

It's true that incels feel anger towards just about everybody, but potentially misleading to characterise it as "anger towards everyone" without acknowledging that their anger is directed far more towards women than other men.

I'm not going to link it, but it's easy to find a transcript of Elliot Rodgers' manifesto online. There are a couple of paragraphs in which he expresses anger and murderous intent towards "popular kids" and "sexually active men" but most of it by far is directed against women who wouldn't sleep with him. For instance:

"On the day of retribution, I am going to enter the hottest sorority house on UCSB [University of California, Santa Barbara] and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up blonde s*** I see inside there. All those girls that I have desired so much, they would have all rejected me and looked at me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them."

I actually edited that sentence a few times before posting it, changing it from women to everyone. Yes, clearly the incel movement is primarily misogynistic but from what I've read about Elliot Rogers (and indeed what I've reread just now) he seemed to have rage against both 'all women' and 'men who get to have sex' Certainly, some of his victims were men. The typical incel, I'm guessing, was likely bullied at school.

This whitewashing incels as poor put-upon and misunderstood guys who deserve our pity is pretty much gaslighting. I’ve had these scum go after me in X multiple times; and seen them do the same to my connections. They need psychiatric treatment, not sympathy.

At the extreme end some definitely need psychiatric treatment. Many others could probably benefit from counselling, but would be unlikely to go. And I'm sorry if you've been targeted by certain people. There are plenty of poor, put-upon and misunderstood guys who have issues with dating who don't fall down that rabbit hole. Then there are arseholes everywhere - some of whom are able to have sex and some of whom are not.

 

[stickygirl]

I actually edited that sentence a few times before posting it, changing it from women to everyone. Yes, clearly the incel movement is primarily misogynistic but from what I've read about Elliot Rogers (and indeed what I've reread just now) he seemed to have rage against both 'all women' and 'men who get to have sex' Certainly, some of his victims were men. The typical incel, I'm guessing, was likely bullied at school.


At the extreme end some definitely need psychiatric treatment. Many others could probably benefit from counselling, but would be unlikely to go. And I'm sorry if you've been targeted by certain people. There are plenty of poor, put-upon and misunderstood guys who have issues with dating who don't fall down that rabbit hole. Then there are arseholes everywhere - some of whom are able to have sex and some of whom are not.

So 'not all men' but 'all women'?

 

[TheRedChamber]

So 'not all men' but 'all women'?

Basically anyone who isn't themselves another (male) incel, yes.

 

[Levorotatory]

IMO, it's not mostly about "good" or "nice" or "bad" guys. That is definitely part of it sometimes, but I think it's mostly about confidence. I'd bet the numbers are something like 100% of hetero women prefer men who treat them well, but at least 50% prefer men who aren't to shy to flirt or don't assume they're unworthy of love.

Combine that with rejection making it more difficult to maintain confidence and you have a potential positive feedback cycle, particularly if you find confidence in others intimidating.

 

[bestkeptsecret678]

Everyone I've ever dated was a friend first.

I married one, 38 yrs ago. The best proof point we remind ourselves of is that we never had a “first date”, evolving into a couple so gradually it was like we never noticed it happening.

 

[old_prof]

I have been married twice, went on one total pre-couple "date" between the two. I was on a group event (baseball game) when I realized I was in love. Two months later (to the day) we were living together and haven't looked back since. Still the love of my life many decades later.

We went to the movies once together (exactly one month after I realized I was in love and one month before we moved in together), but we already knew we were in love with each other, so it wasn't anything like most dates.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Combine that with rejection making it more difficult to maintain confidence and you have a potential positive feedback cycle, particularly if you find confidence in others intimidating.

Probably an under appreciated aspect of this. It's easy to toss platitudes at people, but it's like telling someone dealing with depression to "just cheer up".

 

[Bramblethorn]

I actually edited that sentence a few times before posting it, changing it from women to everyone. Yes, clearly the incel movement is primarily misogynistic but from what I've read about Elliot Rogers (and indeed what I've reread just now) he seemed to have rage against both 'all women' and 'men who get to have sex'

He did, but the rage against women was primarily directed against women he considered more attractive and it appears to have been a bigger influence on his actions than his rage against sexually active men.

Having read his manifesto, I'd estimate that it was about 90% ranting against women vs. 10% ranting against men/people in general, and he very specifically targeted a sorority that he identified with the hottest women on campus; he didn't target any frats. When his attack on the sorority was unsuccessful he then resorted to just murdering random passers-by, but had he achieved his intentions it seems likely he'd have killed a lot more women.

The typical incel, I'm guessing, was likely bullied at school.

I expect some were; many people are bullied at school, me and most of my friends included. But I'd caution against making excuses for incels ahead of the facts.

After the Columbine massacre, we got this narrative that the killers were friendless outcasts who snapped after being bullied. It's a nice simple narrative (I fell for it myself) but it's not true: they had friends, they weren't particularly bullied (though they did bully others), they weren't Goths or part of the "Trenchcoat Mafia" outcast group that they were supposedly in. Yet that narrative persists, obscuring the reality, which was that one of them was a psychopath who wanted to be famous - an arsehole, if you will - and the other was suicidally depressed and went along for the ride.

Let's not repeat that mistake here. Arseholes love to paint themselves as victims so we need to be a little skeptical when people claim bullying made them hateful or violent.

(I was bullied at school. So were my partner and many, I guess most, of my friends. It is awful and it can leave life-long marks, but we remain free-willed beings who have choices about how we respond to that history.)

At the extreme end some definitely need psychiatric treatment. Many others could probably benefit from counselling, but would be unlikely to go.

Thing is, some people are just arseholes, and as far as I know there isn't an effective psychiatric treatment for being an arsehole.

Some people are arseholes who are also neurodivergent or were bullied at school or whatever, and are still arseholes in a way that's not amenable to treatment. We need to be careful about how we attribute cause and effect in those cases - not only because it risks making excuses for somebody who chose to be an asshole, but also because it risks profiling bullied/ND people as arseholes.

And I'm sorry if you've been targeted by certain people. There are plenty of poor, put-upon and misunderstood guys who have issues with dating who don't fall down that rabbit hole. Then there are arseholes everywhere - some of whom are able to have sex and some of whom are not.

Outside of actual impotence, I am a little skeptical of "unable to have sex" because any guy in the USA who can afford to buy a handgun can afford to have consensual sex at least once. (Not legally, but closer to legal than, say, mass murder. Or for the price of a few handguns they can travel to a place where it's legal.)

(I'm not challenging the ones who talk about wanting a loving relationship and feeling like that's impossible; been there, it sucked, it's not a simple thing to solve. I'm specifically talking here about the ones who choose to focus on sex/virginity as if getting laid were this insurmountable barrier, when what they really want is something other than what they say they want.)

 

[Kelliezgirl]

It's true that incels feel anger towards just about everybody, but potentially misleading to characterise it as "anger towards everyone" without acknowledging that their anger is directed far more towards women than other men.

I'm not going to link it, but it's easy to find a transcript of Elliot Rodgers' manifesto online. There are a couple of paragraphs in which he expresses anger and murderous intent towards "popular kids" and "sexually active men" but most of it by far is directed against women who wouldn't sleep with him. For instance:

"On the day of retribution, I am going to enter the hottest sorority house on UCSB [University of California, Santa Barbara] and I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up blonde s*** I see inside there. All those girls that I have desired so much, they would have all rejected me and looked at me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them."

But to what extent do we take one nuts manifesto as being representative of a much larger group?
Should we take Aiden Hale's manifesto as indicative of how trans people feel?

 

[TheRedChamber]

Thing is, some people are just arseholes...

If I acknowledge that some people are arseholes (again) will you acknowledge that some people aren't arseholes? - given that I've already described the incel movement as the arsehole path.

 

[Bramblethorn]

If I acknowledge that some people are arseholes (again) will you acknowledge that some people aren't arseholes? - given that I've already described the incel movement as the arsehole path.

I rather thought that went without saying, but sure, some people aren't arseholes. I'm also willing to say things like "many foods are edible" and "murder is bad, usually" if you'd like?

 

[Britva415]

incel

incelry

incels

uglycel

incel

incels

incel

incel

incel

inceldom

incel

incel

baked beans

spam

and incels

I'm ready

 

[TheRedChamber]

I rather thought that went without saying, but sure, some people aren't arseholes. I'm also willing to say things like "many foods are edible" and "murder is bad, usually" if you'd like?

Fantastic. I'm hoping we're kind of done here now. If we circle back to the start of the thread, @EmilyMiller 's suggestion was that the first step of getting into a relationship was to be a decent person. My point was that it was deeply patronizing because it ignores that many (if not most) of the men who struggle with relationships are already decent enough people, at least equivalent morally to people who have great or medium success dating.

It's entirely possible that Emily means something different by decent that I am reading, but she neatly closed that avenue to discussion by declaring that anyone who didn't intuitively understand her was part of the problem.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Fantastic. I'm hoping we're kind of done here now. If we circle back to the start of the thread, @EmilyMiller 's suggestion was that the first step of getting into a relationship was to be a decent person. My point was that it was deeply patronizing because it ignores that many (if not most) of the men who struggle with relationships are already decent enough people, at least equivalent morally to people who have great or medium success dating.

It's entirely possible that Emily means something different by decent that I am reading, but she neatly closed that avenue to discussion by declaring that anyone who didn't intuitively understand her was part of the problem.

During a business law class in college we were discussing a court case, one of the guys made a solid, factual argument for why he thought the case was correctly decided.
Girl sitting next to me turned to me and said, "Uhhhh... and I USED to think he was a nice guy."

Experiences like that lead me to question some people's definition of "decent guy", it's not about getting a strict legal definition, it's about getting a useful one.

 

[TheLobster]

Thing is, some people are just arseholes, and as far as I know there isn't an effective psychiatric treatment for being an arsehole.

Ah, what lovely consistency.

On one hand, we gotta be careful to call spergs all the more precise and accurate terms like "autistic", "on the spectrum", "neurodivergent", and so on.

But here, when we're obviously talking about complex confluence of various personality disorders -- sociopathy, borderline personality, narcissism, and the rest of the adorable cluster B phenomenon; which is unlikely not to be involved given we're talking about mass shooters -- then it's perfectly fine to just blanket them with the term "arseholes" and thus shut off the possibility of any nuance.

Bonus point for doing that and also calling the opposite stance "a simple narrative," because it tries to offer a better and perhaps more productive explanation than 'well, they were just arseholes.'

 

[Bramblethorn]

Fantastic. I'm hoping we're kind of done here now. If we circle back to the start of the thread, @EmilyMiller 's suggestion was that the first step of getting into a relationship was to be a decent person. My point was that it was deeply patronizing because it ignores that many (if not most) of the men who struggle with relationships are already decent enough people, at least equivalent morally to people who have great or medium success dating.

It's entirely possible that Emily means something different by decent that I am reading, but she neatly closed that avenue to discussion by declaring that anyone who didn't intuitively understand her was part of the problem.

I am not answerable for what Emily writes.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Some of these discussions would be truly interesting and fruitful if certain people would stop inserting their loaded activism into everything.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Ah, what lovely consistency.

On one hand, we gotta be careful to call spergs all the more precise and accurate terms like "autistic", "on the spectrum", "neurodivergent", and so on.

But here, when we're obviously talking about complex confluence of various personality disorders -- sociopathy, borderline personality, narcissism, and the rest of the adorable cluster B phenomenon; which is unlikely not to be involved given we're talking about mass shooters -- then it's perfectly fine to just blanket them with the term "arseholes" and thus shut off the possibility of any nuance.

Bonus point for doing that and also calling the opposite stance "a simple narrative," because it tries to offer a better and perhaps more productive explanation than 'well, they were just arseholes.'

I suspect that as you move along the spectrum from guys who struggle to meet girls to the actual incel movement you will find an increasing number of men who are autistic.

 

[old_prof]

I suspect that as you move along the spectrum from guys who struggle to meet girls to the actual incel movement you will find an increasing number of men who are autistic.

Having spent a lot of time in the autistic community, I STRONGLY disagree with that assumption. That kind of resentment is not nearly as common in that community as it is in the NT community, at least in my personal experience. Lack of empathy and classical narcissism are not hallmarks of ASD.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Having spent a lot of time in the autistic community, I STRONGLY disagree with that assumption. That kind of resentment is not nearly as common in that community as it is in the NT community, at least in my personal experience. Lack of empathy and classical narcissism are not hallmarks of ASD.

Don’t feed the trolls, hun. Just sayin’.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Having spent a lot of time in the autistic community, I STRONGLY disagree with that assumption. That kind of resentment is not nearly as common in that community as it is in the NT community, at least in my personal experience. Lack of empathy and classical narcissism are not hallmarks of ASD.

I'm not saying they are hallmarks of the community, remember we are dealing with the fringes. Also I don't see any real evidence that narcissism is at work in the incel community.
As has been mentioned earlier, many of those guys recognize they are "2s" they don't all think they are GigaChads (or whatever the current term is) they are confused as to why they can't connect.
Struggles with cognitive empathy are consistent with people on the spectrum.
Again, we are only talking about small subsets of the population.