Incels furious at TV show for accurately depicting incel culture
Incels furious at TV show for accurately depicting incel culture
The online incel community has taken a break from blaming women for their ongoing failures in life to issue a collective tantrum over Netflix’s new drama Adolescence, which dares—dares, mind you—to portray incel culture as the toxic, rage-filled echo chamber it so demonstrably is.
I would call Adolescence a very surface-level view of incel culture. It's fairly accurate, but you'd need a much longer series to truly get the culture across. Contrapoints' video on incels is a really good breakdown of the mindset.
Yeah this was my main problem with it was it was just very surface-level. Like I'm glad it's being brought to the table for discussion for mainstream audiences, but it felt a bit glossed over like something I'd heard from an NPR story on video games; "did you know about this thing called incel culture? it's all the rage with the youths."
I don't know what the solution is or how I want to see it conveyed, but I recall Polytechnique doing a better job at instilling horror in me from incel culture than Adolescence, albeit it was more subtle, and that was from 2009.
I think the part of the narrative, and the one-shot approach I think supports this, was to highlight how ignorant the people were to this thing that clearly has much more to it.
I'd watch Stephen Graham make tea, it was a well acted interesting show. But how they are finding enough to be angry at I dont even know, bar the obvious with the kid and the throwaway mention of algorithmic recommendations in the closing minutes of the show.
Is it actually worthwhile or just another attempt to spark more conflict between men and women?
Because honestly I can hardly see as anything more than a way to profit off demonizing men that I assume already feel abandoned and, correct me if Im wrong, are not getting much support either
May I please get a summary on their take somewhere?
“It’s a hit job,” said one Reddit user, who goes by the username DarkMageOfTruth99.
Oh geez I snorted so hard at the username I farted
I would have went with DarkMageOfTruth69, but maybe it was already taken
He's such a gentleman he prefers to cuddle, hence the 99.
The life of an incel is very hard...
And to make it worse, you get no help with it
The world doesn't guarantee you anything.
In the history of our species, only about 20-30% of males have managed to reproduce, so what's with the sad face?
You're not entitled to anything, so own your inceldom.
Human beings have brains that were forged during hardships and ice-ages to make us inclined to form groups for survival. Those same drives make us desperate for a social identity, to the degree that we literally can die without social identity. (A fascinating field of study btw.)
This has made the internet the most dangerous tool we've ever created, because it has allowed people to deconstruct the very notion of group identity and exploit the drives in our own brains to connect with others. This is why we have so much absurd bullshit now, so many conspiracy theories, flat earthers, incels and redpill grifters, science-deniers and chemtrailophiles. People are finding their own, almost random group identities to connect with, groups that often have no real connection to reality, and just offer validation for people's feelings.
Validation for feelings is the next most important thing for humans, because it reflects how our brains actually work. Most people are under the impression that the brain is the seat of intelligence, that brains are calculating machines that work out problems and come to logical conclusions. Even if you don't think this, you have most likely at least become comfortable in trusting what you work out in your head.
But brains are not reasonable or rational, there was no such thing in the ancient world that shaped our brains. That world was just threats and signs of threats. If your ancestor had a brain that could accurately connect the sign of a threat to an actual threat, they would likely be prepared and survive. See a paw-print by the watering hole? Maybe there's a predator around.
That same tool now functions the same way in a vastly different environment, and it tells us wild stories that aren't even connected with reality to explain the things we feel. The brain notices you feel fear, it looks around and pieces together things to explain that fear. Feel sad? Brain digs around and starts randomly tying strings together to explain it. No reason, no logic. This is where much of our mental health epidemic is coming from, unchecked brains doing what nature intended them to do, in a world nature never intended.
I don't think this guy has an anthropology degree
In a vacuum, your post implies we should stop giving birth to boys as often as girls on a pure ethical basis to minimize the amount of miserable lonely people. Like, abort 75% of all male babies or if abortion is too yucky for some of you use some kind of geneforge to make female births 5x as likely.
Obviously a parody site but Adolescence is a powerful drama worth watching.
I identify as an incel. I don't visit the incel web spaces though and I don't blame women for it.
I'm an incel because I can't afford to date. Like every week I'm barely able to get by living in poverty. Dating takes time and at least some money. If I got a little more of either, I'd have to use it to better my situation before dating.
I bring this point up because, as toxic as incel culture is, I rarely see it tied back to the shitty economy. Just people pointing fingers at each other as though the Male Loneliness phenomenon were entirely the result of people's personalities.
You are looking at the etymology of the term "incel" and then assuming that's the actual meaning. But it isn't. Incel culture is not about people who are too poor to date. If it were, they'd be complaining about minimum wage in the next paragraph, right? But that is not what we see.
I see incel culture tied to sexism, selfishness, and often an willingness to try hard. Do we see it waxing and waning together with the economy? I don't think we do, so I don't think it's closely connected.
Tbh at this point calling yourself an incel because you're involuntary celibate is like calling yourself a homophobe because you're scared of gay people. Technically accurate, but do you really wanna go there?
We need a tinder for poor people, those who don't have the economic means to date, but would have their situation bettered by joining forces with one or more like-minded and equally fin-locked partners.
We could call it Prolescroll, PlentyOfRamen, Stumble, econHarmony
It would only have men.
ok, I love this idea lol. "PlentyOfRamen"
Fumble
Edit: op already did stumble and I didn't see it.thought Fumble was to similar, and tried to delete but I also forgot you can't really delete your thing so the comment stays lol
Really nice idea in principle but will certainly be exploited by richer ppl
And yet, I have seen places of abject poverty where people sing to eachother and sing together, they have joys and romance. Dirt poor people are making sweet love together and having kids and I don't know how but they just keep on going.
So the economy is part of it, yes, but poverty isn't a barrier to gettin some lovin, because it doesn't cost anything to get a woman's attention.
There must be more to the story, there is something else going on with our culture and our society that makes it seem impossible.
I agree, I think there's more to the story.
As for the example, I agree that there are impoverished places where people get along fine in their socio-economic status, meaning wealth is not a necessary factor.
I think the key difference with what's going on now in the western world is that young males are disproportionately being pushed to the bottom of the socio economic ladder with the cultural expectation that they have the same resource capacity as their older counter parts.
Another commenter noted the loss of third spaces and I'd add communities in general. People used to date within their communities more, I assume.
So I think it's more to the story like you said. Probably some perfect storm, of which, the general loneliness in the world is but one expression of.
The places you talk about still have a public social life, 3rd spaces, etc. In advanced capitalist countries, there is no public space without some sort of consumption.
I dont think that counts my dude. You just broke. You could probably go get laid if you really wanted to. These guys online are different.
Hell yeah, the horny dudes online don't care how broke you are. They want dick pics and good times.
I'm not sure I'd call that involuntarily celibate, rather involuntarily unsocial, as in you don't have the time or money to hang out with people.
I bring this point up because, as toxic as incel culture is, I rarely see it tied back to the shitty economy. Just people pointing fingers at each other as though the Male Loneliness phenomenon were entirely the result of people’s personalities.
Because it is. Women aren't magically getting rich while all the men go bankrupt. Thinking you are lonely because you are poor is a cope fantasy that is 100% due to some kind of personality flaw you are harbouring.
It isn't just your stereotypical incel who is lonely. People aren't lonely because they suddenly just got worse at being people.
I see a lot of good, decent guys lonely who don't hate women, it's just that infrastructure and third places got defunded, so you're either at home alone or at work getting told it's only appropriate to socialise in company-approved ways.
Add in that rape somehow got politicised (mostly because we have rapists and pedophiles holding public office), so while we do fuck all for most of the victims who get raped in domestic situations, we get women and men afraid of talking to each other and also afraid of being talked to.
And people who come out and say 'hey I feel lonely' get told 'it's your fault'.
Because it is. Women aren’t magically getting rich while all the men go bankrupt.
Wouldn't be required, so long as the social expectation is that straight dating generally requires men to spend on women over the reverse. All it requires is that the dude not have the money to spare, regardless of how women are doing. Couple that with the tendency for women to tend to strongly preference men who are wealthier or higher status than themselves, and just barely scraping by means you have a generally smaller dating pool available as a straight guy. That still generally expects you to be spending on them, rather than the reverse.
Is this genuinely not a thought out response.
On average women are more educated and end up with the dual income that a relationship provides. They are more likely to not die alone.
On average women date and marry hypergomous men. Another Stat that might interest you is that the more successful a women is the odds of them ending up alone go up.
So ya.
It's a lot of things. It's a measure of vulnerability, and of the social expectations and needs of men or women. It's not exclusive to men, though I think the culture that surrounds it is certainly more outwardly destructive.
At its core, it's a feeling of inadequacy, and that inadequacy is a vulnerability exploited by others who either feel similarly as a way to elevate themselves or just because they're cruel enough to use it to benefit themselves. It can begin with poverty, with bad experiences, with neglect or abuse. It can begin in ignorance, or by being mislead. I think it's also a lack of self awareness, a lack of self care, and often a lack of time or energy for either.
In the end, there's not enough of the world that says it's okay to fail and it's okay to be vulnerable and that you can spend that time on yourself. People will always feel cheated, and there will always be experiences that leave you feeling alienated or hurt. What pains me is that too often it's easier to find anger and resentment in those moments than it is to find the support you need to build yourself back up and feel okay again.
Yes it's very much about the economy which is why we should have elected the party that isn't going to give more of your money to the rich, and isn't blaming problems on immigrants and minorities to draw attention away from the rich having all your money.
However, and I'm not saying you're in this category, men have free will and if any of them take the bait and start aiming their frustration and hate at women, they're still responsible for that.
There came to be an alternate term of 'volcel' for that, at least to the extent that you recognize that your situation isn't conducive to a relationship even if the causes are not really voluntary. It never really caught on in popular use though.
steal from shitty conservative businesses and families. stop being a victim. take what you want.
Incel is such an oddly self reinforcing thing. As I recall it the term started as a self identification (I can't get laid, there for am an involuntary-celibate), which ended up with these self ID people declaring someone else is at fault for their situation, then that attitude got so pervasive it became a given term (you can't get laid BECAUSE you're an incel).
Morphing of language and all, similar happened with 'woke'. Either way, if these folks could comprehend a simple fact that the one person you can demand change of is yourself then maybe they could get out of that cycle.
It is a sad story:
When Alana started a website for lonely people struggling to find love, she had no idea it would become linked to a community of hate and anger directed at women, which would ultimately lead to the deaths of several innocent people in her home city.
I first heard of it with the 4chan R9K board, but I guess it goes back even further than that. I suppose it's quite possible that by the time 4chan got a hold of the term that was at least the beginning of it becoming poisoned, or it may have already been taken over by that point.
it wasnt even hidden it happened real time on the front page of reddit everyone once ina while ppl would crusade their sub and youd watch their opinions morph, they like banned woman and said femcels arent real the first time I saw it I think
Not the onion. Check any of the forums on reddit, like r/mensrights, and they're furious indeed.
I had to explain to someone what the manosphere is, as a result of watching this show together. She had no idea that men were getting radicalized like this.
Imagine if the "manosphere" actually did things like raising awareness for testicular and prostate cancer, teaching men how to be good dads/husbands/sons, how to be financially sensible, how to build a career, etc. instead of blaming all their problems and all the world's problems on women and feminists lmao
The current manosphere is basically a pipeline to the alt-right and additional radicalization. The distance between incel to proud boys is quite small.
The problem is that any attempt to make a pro-men group with any of the positive agendas you list will attract the same people as an audience that are already in the manosphere. And then you have the Nazi bar problem.
Ironically feminism gets you closer to this than anything they've cooked up over a very long period of time
instead of blaming all their problems and all the world’s problems on women and feminists
Sometimes it is their fault. Protests against equal custody laws, for example. Kentucky was the first state to pass one that required the judge in contested custody cases to start from the position that equal custody is best for the child unless there is a reason it might not be. The closest other states had gotten before that were laws that required judges "consider" equal custody as a possibility, as opposed to having to work from it as a starting point.
Ever seen the Big Red angry feminist meme? She's a real person from Toronto and the meme started because she was protesting a talk on suicide in men at the University of Toronto by shouting a Jezebel article at the crowd, and if anyone tried to engage with her yelling "shut up fuckface!" or similar at them. A few different phrasings but she was fond of "fuckface" as an insult in particular. If you check out The Red Pill documentary (it's creator did a Kickstarter to fund finishing it) one of the interviews is of Big Red herself.
The organization behind that talk on suicide in men later went on to found what at the time (and possibly still is though I haven't checked) the only shelter for male victims of abuse in Canada.
Not the first such shelter, as that was Men's Alternative Safe Housing which was founded by Earl Silverman and had to be run entirely on his own resources and private donations because he couldn't get government funding for it because it was a men's shelter and not a women's shelter. Eventually he couldn't afford to keep it going, and when he had to shut it down hung himself in the garage of his now-defunct shelter the day after he sold it.
I remember back when no shave November was kind of a meme thing and it was used for mens health awareness. It was so wholesome and awesome! But yeah the closest we have now is that guy on YouTube who does the Dad videos.
Yep! And notice how you've been downvoted for saying that.
what the manosphere is
Literally coined by one person who wanted to lump all men's spaces online together to sell a book. Later used to equate the worst incel, PUA, and redpill spaces with people who oppose circumcision, separated fathers who want to see their kids more, people who call out law or policy that's biased against men either explicitly or in practice, etc in order to use the former to spite the latter by putting them in the same box.
You know, basically the thing that if you try to do with women's groups you get responded to with "feminism is not a monolith."
Manosphere is bullshit the same way sorority is.
Jesus, wtf is this subreddit yikes
Well.
Manchildren.
I had no idea that incel was a term that people used to self-identify.
I thought it was only a slur.
When the term was first coined, it was not an insult. It was from a support group for people who had trouble finding a partner.
It became an insult as a direct consequence of the incel community being as hateful and toxic as it is. As an insult term it doesn't actually have anything to do with not getting sex at all
As an insult term it doesn’t actually have anything to do with not getting sex at all
Ehh some definitely use it to insult those who aren't getting laid
Just like the n-word
It is a slur in some context. Like when you suggest that we take men's issues seriously. For fucks sakes its 2025 and the producer of The Boys talks about men being raped is funny. I am tired of hearing about there not being any good male role models when they are there, but liberals only ever talk about the Andrew Tates of the word and refuse to grasp that they are popular because they one of the few places that won't tell you horrible men are.
I hate myself for being a man. All I feel anymore is guilt and shame. And there is nothing that can be done.
I hate myself for being a man. All I feel anymore is guilt and shame. And there is nothing that can be done.
Um, that's not healthy there...
I mean, I'm a dude, and I realize most dudes suck... But that doesn't make me hate myself. It just makes me want to be "better" so I'm not "one of those men" or one of the dudes who when women are bitching about shitty men, they turn and say,"Well, not you, of course!"
I think this is where Reich Wingers distort the message: The message shouldn't make you hate yourself for being a dude, but should make you hate the toxic masculinity you were taught, and for you to rise above that.
Seriously, though, the toxic incel subculture didn't just happen all on its own. It had a lot of help from the other side (which I can't in good conscience categorize as either liberal or feminist, though it had some of those elements), and developed iteratively over the course of years. I've been online a long time, and remember when it started out as the gender-neutral "invcel." But our culture's black-and-white, polarized thinking couldn't handle the concept that there was a whole range of invcel men, from unattractive dorks at one end of the spectrum to raging misogynists at the other end.
Like, for example, if we complained that we treat women as people, with respect and kindness, but none of them want to date us, clearly we were self-entitled Nice Guys(tm) who felt that women were vending machines that you put in kindness and sex falls out. Never mind that "being ourselves" and treating women with respect and kindness was exactly what we were told to do to find a relationship, by parents, teachers, friends, and popular culture. And never mind that an alternate mental model exists to explain our expectations, one in which women like men, and want to be in relationships with men, and all else being equal, would choose to be in relationships with men that were nice to them.
But, of course, if we tried to talk about the shock of realizing that lots of what we'd been taught about women and relationships was just plain incorrect, obviously we were raging misogynists and should be shunned. Meanwhile, the actual raging misogynists were waiting with open arms to offer incel men a community with a sense of belonging, validation, and a coherent theory to explain their problems. (A theory, I must point out, bolstered by the hate-filled reaction to them from outside of the community. It's a dynamic that cults exploit to keep their members disconnected from the wider world.) Bam, that's how today's incel subculture was made, in a mutually-reinforcing cycle.
Maybe if I were younger, I would've fallen into it. I don't know. I know that I did end up in some of the online spaces that tried to address men's problems without telling us we're horrible, and it's all our fault. It was wonderful while it lasted, but outrage and self-righteousness give people a much better emotional high, while nuance and empathy are passé, so those spaces are gone AFAICT.
"I hate myself for being a man" you know what is the worse about this? not the idiot saying it but the feminazis giving like.
Yeah, IIRC it was a reddit thing for awhile. Never really got into it myself since by the time I bumped into them they'd already gotten big into blaming women for not sleeping with them.
I dated an incel years ago for around 18 months. Dunno if anyone's interested in that, but just a random anecdote I have
Why? How?
It was before anyone had even heard of incels. He hid his women hating side, and I thought I could help him with his issues (spoiler: I could not). His sexual dysfunction was 😳😳😳 so I've no doubt he was sexually abused as a child. After we broke up he showed more of his true self like hating women and he was really petty and vindictive eg spreading really private info about me to people. From what I hear now he's drinking heavily.
Years later I read about incels online and was like "holy shit that's him!" Explained a lot.
Adolescence is an incredible and immersive experience. Stephen Graham deserves to be showered with awards for this. It's all about the micro-expressions in his performance.
The episode with Erin Doherty was amazing, the way her and Owen Cooper interacted was a roller coaster! And the fact they did the episodes as one continuous take blows my mind.
That one was disturbing. The final episode just ripped my heart out though.
That show is in my very exclusive list of "Best Things I Can Never Watch Again".
I'm not sure it was one take. There were a few shots that looked very useful for editing purposes. Unless they were just save points which maybe didn't get used?
I'll be honest, the acting was top-notch, but the scripting was not. The scripting for the children in episode 2 was good and believable, but Jamie's quips and remarks were way too quick (as in witty) and unnatural sounding for a 13-year-old.
Owen Cooper shines through for me, with an absolutely brilliant and nuanced performance. You expect Stephen Graham to be brilliant, but Owen should win an award for his work.
I don't have much free time to watch TV, but I'll check it out.
Huh, I always thought Incel culture was c. diff.
I snorted at this. Good on ya.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)
"This portrayal of the incel lifestyle and attitude is totally inaccurate! I think and act just like that guy and i'm not an incel..."
/s
They should be more mad at The Residence using 'The Fall of the House of Usher' for the first episode instead of one of Poe's actual mysteries.
sound of bat hitting baseball
Dude, how a useless piece of shit you have to be to not be able to even get a date with a woman. Dude, being ugly is not a complete excuse, ugly women have worse time in the dating scene.
Dude, how a useless piece of shit you have to be to not be able to even get a date with a man. Dude, being ugly is not a complete excuse, ugly men have worse time in dating scene.
Tomato potato... There exists ugly people.
Since you both disagree on who has it worse, I conclude that ugly non-binary people do better then both and date whomever they want.
It’s not a culture. Do they have their own songs and their own food and dishes? Maybe a folk lore or art?
Do they have their own songs
Yes. The subgenre is called epunk or incelcore depending on who you ask. Let me be real with you for a second, and please just hear me out: It is the only genuine counterculture in decades. I could explain in much greater detail how this is true but it's not worth the effort since practically everyone has unshakeable preconceived notions which make engaging with this topic in good faith impossible. Either way, here's a short list of songs.
The idea that incel culture begins and ends at hating women is beyond reductive. It's about acknowledging a sense of utter hopelessness and the feelings that come with it- despair, dejection, paranoia, hatred, etc. There is hardly any other context where raw emotions are laid so bare without it being sanitized for compatibility with the status quo. They know that it's misdirected, but the emotions are extremely real. If you pay attention, the music and the culture are a lot more self aware than you probably think. Everyone feels these things to varying degrees and more people are feeling it more intensely with each passing day. You know what I'm talking about. It's not just politics and economics. The social fabric of our reality is disintegrating. Inceldom is a culture of people who feel this disintegration to the most extreme, agonizing degree, and have found some small solice in each other.
I don't know why I typed so much. Whatever. Don't hang me.
Subculture if you will
Anime and tendies?