Anincel (/ˈɪnsɛl/ ⓘIN-sel; aportmanteau of "involuntary celibate"[1]) is a member of anonline subculture of mostly male andheterosexual[2] people who define themselves as unable to find aromantic orsexual partner despite desiring one. They often blame,objectify, and denigrate women and girls as a result.[3][4][5] The term inspired a subculture that rose to prominence during the 2010s, later influenced by and associated withmisogynist terrorists such asElliot Rodger andAlek Minassian.[6]
The incel subculture's online discourse has been characterized byresentment,hostile sexism,anti-feminism,sexual objectification anddehumanization of women,misogyny,misanthropy,self-pity andself-loathing,racism, a sense of entitlement to sex,nihilism,rape culture, and the endorsement of sexual and non-sexual violence against women and the sexually active.[7]Incels tend to blame women and feminism for their inability to find a partner; their romantic failures are often attributed tobiological determinism, where women's preference for mating with high-status males (nicknamed "Chads") is seen as innate and unchangeable.[8][9][10]Incel communities have been criticized by scholars, government officials, and others for their misogyny, endorsement and encouragement of violence, andextremism.[11] Over time the subculture has become associated with extremism and terrorism, and since 2014 there have been multiplemass killings, mostly in North America, perpetrated by self-identified incels, as well as other instances of violence or attempted violence.
TheSouthern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes incels as "part of the onlinemale supremacist ecosystem" that is included in theirlist of hate groups.[12][13] TheGlobal Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) states that "the incel community shares a misogynistic ideology of women as beinggenetically inferior to men, driven by theirsexual desire to reproduce with genetically superior males, thereby excluding unattractive men such as themselves" which "exhibits all of the hallmarks of anextremist ideology"; GIFCT states that incel beliefs combine a wish for amythical past where all men were entitled to sex fromsubordinated women, a sense ofpredestined personal failure, and nihilism, making it a dangerous ideology.[14][15] Estimates of the overall size of the subculture vary greatly, ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of individuals.[16]
The first website to use the term "incel" wasAlana's Involuntary Celibacy Project, a blog and mailing list founded in 1997[a] by a female university student living in Toronto known as Alana,[18][19] in order to write about and discuss her own experiences of celibacy with like-minded people.[20] The blog was intended as a supportive and inclusive site for people who had difficulty forming romantic relationships,[21][18] and was used by people of allgenders andsexual orientations to share their thoughts and experiences[22] in order to overcome social barriers such asshyness.[23] Alana originally used the abbreviation "invcel" for "involuntarily celibate", later shortening it to "incel".[19] Her website was intended for "anybody of any gender who was lonely, had never had sex or who hadn't had a relationship in a long time".[24][25] She later said, "I was trying to create a movement that was open to anybody and everybody."[20][26]
During her college years and afterward, Alana realized she wasbisexual and became more comfortable with her identity.[26] As her own dating life improved, Alana stopped maintaining the website,[21] passing the site's contents on to someone else she did not know around the year 2000.[27][28] In 2018, Alana said of her project: "It definitely wasn't a bunch of guys blaming women for their problems. That's a pretty sad version of this phenomenon that's happening today. Things have changed in the last 20 years".[19]
After learning that the perpetrator of the2014 Isla Vista killings was being glorified by parts of the incel subculture, Alana wrote: "Like a scientist who invented something that ended up being a weapon of war, I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it".[20][26] She expressed regret at the change from her original intent of creating an "inclusive community" for people of all genders who were sexually deprived due tosocial awkwardness,marginalization, ormental illness.[16]
In 2003, the message board love-shy.com was founded as a place for people who felt perpetually rejected or were extremely shy with potential partners to discuss their situations.[29][30] It was less strictlymoderated than its counterpart, IncelSupport, which was also founded in the 2000s. While IncelSupport welcomed men and women and banned misogynistic posts, love-shy.com's userbase was overwhelmingly male. Over the next decade, the membership of love-shy.com and online fringeright-wing communities like4chan increasingly overlapped.[27]
In the 2000s, incel communities became more extremist as they adopted behaviors common on forums such as 4chan andReddit, where extremist posts were encouraged as a way to achieve visibility.[10] According toBruce Hoffman and colleagues writing inStudies in Conflict & Terrorism, as "edgy" and extremist statements became more prevalent in incel communities, so too did extremisttrolling and "shitposting".[10]
Ther/incels subreddit later became a particularly active incel community. It was known as a place where men blamed women for their inceldom, sometimes advocated forrape or other forms of violence, and were misogynistic and often racist.[31][32] Reddit banned the r/incels subreddit in 2017 following a new policy that prohibited "content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people", adopted in October 2017.[33][32] At the time of the ban, the community had around 40,000 members.[32][34]
The incel community continued to inhabit Reddit in other subreddits, such as on the subredditr/braincels. Although the tone of the subreddit was similar to r/incels, moderators of the r/braincels forum said that they did not endorse, support, or glorify violence or violent people, a distinction they made from the subject matter of its predecessor that resulted in its being banned from Reddit.[35] On September 30, 2019, the r/braincels subreddit was banned after Reddit again broadened its banning policy.[36][37] Incel communities began to migrate away from shared platforms and instead use their own closed forums dedicated specifically to the subject.[38][39]
In the 2010s, the subculture came to wider public notice with the banning of r/incels, and when a series of mass murders were committed by men who either identified as members of the subculture or shared similar ideologies.[30][40] Increased interest in incel communities has been attributed to feelings of "aggrieved entitlement" among some men who feel they are being denied rights they deserve and blame women for their lack of sex.[41]
Since around 2019, some self-identified incels have attempted to redefine their views to appear more mainstream, by writing blog posts and articles on subject-specificwikis and forums. These reject the more open expressions of misogyny within other segments of the subculture, highlighting the heterogeneity of incel communities, and reframing incels not as an online subculture but as those experiencing a life circumstance that applies even to individuals who are not members of the subculture.[42][43][44][45] In 2021, M. Kelly wrote for thePolitical Research Associates think tank that these attempts to redefine themselves contradicted the communities' self-identifications and moderation strategies, where members regularly challenge other users' "legitimacy" as incels, but have accepted as members individuals with sexual experience who nonetheless shared similar political ideologies.[42]
In 2017, the largest incel forum was founded by a previous moderator of the r/incels subreddit. The forum had almost 15,000 members as of October 2022[update].[38][39] It is composed of public and registeredmessage boards for self-described incels to discuss their personal experiences. Moderators ban women andLGBTQ individuals from joining, stating that the forum is oriented towardsstraight men.[46][47] In 2020,Talia Lavin in her bookCulture Warlords, described the site's culture as one of "one-upmanship", "barroom boast-off" andshock content.[48] In 2023,Rolling Stone described a vindictive site culture, giving an example of an ex-moderator who entered a romantic relationship and was subsequently rejected by site members as a "fake incel".[49] In 2019,Vox stated that the site has a culture of praising mass killers, which is treated lightly by the site's admins.[27]
The site has used severaltop-level domains since its creation, after being suspended by one domain registry due to violence and hate speech[50] and denied renewal by another.[51] The site owners also operate a wiki,[44][45] which has been described by researchers publishing inNew Media & Society ascherry picking academic papers to promotemisogynistic points.[43]
In September 2022, the UK-basedCenter for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) published a report about the largest dedicated incel forum, based on monthly visits, and a network of other sites run by the same two pseudonymous individuals. TheWashington Post,New York Times, and the CCDH identified them as Uruguay-based Diego Joaquín Galante and United States–based Lamarcus Small.[52][53][54][55] In December 2021, theNew York Times reported that it had identified 45 people, individually, who died in connection to a website calledSanctioned Suicide,[56] and estimated that the true number was likely much higher.[57][56] TheTimes reporters discovered that Galante and Small created and operated the suicide website, in addition to their several incel forums. The CCDH reported that Galante and Small also maintained forums for online communities dedicated tobody image and unemployment.[52][55]
Incel rhetoric invokes an idealizedpatriarchal society in which couples adhered to traditionalgender roles, married early, and were strictlymonogamous. During this mythologized "golden age", incels imagine that all men had nearly unencumbered access to women as romantic partners, thereby reducing the competition for sex.[9][58][59] Incels often disagree about precisely when this golden age occurred, but they concur that it was gradually destroyed byfeminism, thesexual revolution,women's liberation, and technological progress.[58] As a result, incels tend to blame both women and thefeminist movement for their inability to find a partner.[9][60]
Incel discourse is characterized by resentment and hatred, self-pity,hostile sexism,anti-feminism,racism,sexual objectification anddehumanization of women,misogyny,misanthropy, andnihilism.[7]Discussions often revolve around the belief that men are entitled to sex from women.[69][63][70][71] In the incel worldview, the only solution to male sexlessness is a rigidly patriarchal social structure encompassing enforced monogamy and the elimination ofwomen's rights, thereby increasing women's dependency on men.[76] Some incels also advocate forsexual slavery, legalizedrape, punishment for femalepromiscuity,redistribution of women, and violence against feminists.[76][60]
Other common topics include idleness,loneliness, unhappiness, suicide,sexual surrogates, andprostitution, as well as attributes they believe increase one's desirability as a partner such as looks, income or personality.[30][77][65] The incel community has a sharedvictimhood identity in which individuals fatalistically celebrate their failures and discourage each other from seeking romantic success.[78]
The metaphor of the "red pill" originates from the movieThe Matrix in which the protagonist must choose whether to remain in a world of illusion (taking the blue pill), or to see the world as it really is (taking the red pill).[58][63][10] In the widermanosphere, an online association of anti-feminist and male supremacist groups that includes incels along withmen's rights activists (MRAs),men going their own way (MGTOW) andpick-up artists (PUAs),[79] the "red pill" refers to the belief thatmale privilege is a feminist myth[80] and that feminism has instead granted women power and privilege over men.[9] To be "red-pilled" means to awaken to the realization that contemporary society has been engineered by feminists to reduce men's rights, and that men must fight against feministbrainwashing.[9] Endorsing these beliefs means that one has "taken the red pill".[36][81]
The concept of the "black pill"[b] or "blackpill"[84] developed on incel forums as a morenihilistic critique of the "red pill".[84] Expanding upon the red pill belief that men are an oppressed group, black pill ideology usespseudoscientific claims[85] to argue that society has been set up to benefit women and "alpha males" on the basis of physical attractiveness.[9] Both worldviews portray women as manipulative, superficial, andhypergamous.[84] The concept ofhypergamy was originally applied to the mating choices of animals, but incels use the term to argue that women seek high-status men in order to increase the social, economic and genetic potential of their offspring.[9] Most incels subscribe to the "black pill",[86] believing it is impossible for unattractive men to escape this social hierarchy.[87] Incels commonly identify as either "redpilled" or "blackpilled", whereas non-incels who uphold mainstream views about romance and dating are seen as being "bluepilled".[63]
Black pill ideology is defined bybiological determinism, in contrast to ideas ofpersonal agency andself-improvement often associated with red pill beliefs.[10][83][88][89] Selected ideas fromevolutionary psychology are used to reinforce the idea of "sexual market value" in a mating system controlled by the most desirable women.[9] Those who subscribe to red pill ideology believe they can use their knowledge of women's hypergamy to achieve success in the dating market[84] and increase their own sexual market value, such as by improving their social skills[63] or physical appearance ("looksmaxxing").[84][9][90] However, according to black pill ideology, improving one's looks is futile, since dating success is entirely determined by genetics, keeping most men from achieving sexual dominance.[91]
The black pill promotesfatalism[63][92] anddefeatism for men perceived to beunattractive.[9][62] According to the black pill, as long as women are able to freely choose their sexual partners, genetically inferior men will only find a wife once she is past her sexual prime, who will only use the man for financial security.[84] Researcher Angus Lindsay writes that the nihilistic worldview of the black pill appears to have influencedterroristic behavior by incels who have attempted violent retributions against those who are perceived to hold a higher social status.[9]
Hoffman et al. write that"'Taking the black pill' is critical to the incel identity, since it means recognizing 'inceldom' as a permanent condition".[10] Aja Romano writes atVox that black pill ideology "unites all incels".[36] According to theAnti-Defamation League (ADL), there are some incels who believe in the red pill and others who believe in the black pill. Those who believe they can improve their chances with women are adherents to the "red pill", whereas only incels who believe they have little to no power to change their position in society or chances with women are blackpilled. The ADL writes that, among incels, the beliefs summarized as "red pill" center around the idea that feminism has unbalanced society to favor women and give them too much power. Redpilled incels believe they have the opportunity to fight back against this system which disadvantages them, which they do by trying to make themselves more attractive to women.[83] Conversely, blackpilled incels are those who believe they can do nothing to change their situation. The ADL writes, "This is where the incel movement takes on characteristics of adeath cult". Those who have taken the black pill are left with few options, says the ADL: giving up on life (referred to by incels as "LDAR", an abbreviation for "lie down and rot"), dying by suicide, or committing mass violence.[83]
OnReddit, notable figures within the incel community are described as having taken the black pill, such as the mass murdererElliot Rodger.[82] On the former incel subreddit r/braincels, the term "blackpill" was used formeme images that criticized women as egocentric, cruel, and shallow.[35] The black pill has been described byVox correspondent Zack Beauchamp as "a profoundlysexist ideology that ... amounts to a fundamental rejection of women's sexual emancipation, labeling women shallow, cruel creatures who will choose only the most attractive men if given the choice".[27]
Many self-identified incels support their beliefs through citations to scientific studies in fields includingpsychology,sociology,evolutionary biology,evolutionary psychology, andeconomics.[89][93] Collections of research deemed to support their beliefs are sometimes named the "scientific blackpill".[44][94] Some evolutionary psychology researchers[who?] have disputed incels' interpretations of studies from their field, such as thestrategic pluralism (or "double-mating strategy") hypothesis.[94] Researchers at theInstitute for Strategic Dialogue have described incels' appeals to science as part of a strategy of "argument by exhaustion", where "large numbers of references of dubious quality are made to back up questionable assertions".[44]
Self-identified incels regularly endorse the ideas of women's genetic inferiority,[60] "femalehypergamy", the "80/20 rule" (an application of thePareto principle, in which incels assert that 80% of women desire the top 20% of most desirable men), and the "just be white" (JBW) theory, which posits thatCaucasians face the fewest obstacles to relationships and sex.[85][82][95]
Self-identified incels also believe that people seeking a romantic or sexual partner participate in a cruel, mercenary, andDarwiniansexual selection, wherein incels are genetically unfit and where women hold an advantage for reasons ranging from feminism to the use ofcosmetics.[96][better source needed] Incels may attribute their lack of sexual success to factors such as shyness,sex-segregated work environments, negative body image,[97]penis size,[95] or their physical appearance,[98] and commonly believe that the only thing more important than looks in improving a man's eligibility as a prospective partner is wealth.[99] Some justify their beliefs based on the works offringesocial psychologist Brian Gilmartin andclinical psychologistJordan Peterson.[30][89][100]
Incel communities became more extremist and focused on violence from the late 2010s.[101][102][68] This has been attributed to factors including influences from overlapping onlinehate groups and the rise of thealt-right andwhite supremacist groups.[4][103][104][101] The misogynistic and violent rhetoric of some members of these communities has led to numerous bans from websites andweb hosts.[70][31][105][106]
Incel communities continue to exist on more lenient platforms including 4chan,8chan, andGab, as well as on web forums created specifically for the topic.[29][107][10] More extremist self-identified incels have increasingly migrated to obscure locations including gamingchat services (such asDiscord) and thedark web to avoid site shutdowns and the self-censorship that has developed among some incel communities as an effort to avoid drawing scrutiny from law enforcement or website service providers.[10]
Beginning in 2018 and into the 2020s, the incel ideology has been described by North American governments and researchers as a terrorism threat, and law enforcement have issued warnings about the subculture.[10][108][109] In May 2019, an American man was sentenced to up to five years in prison for making terrorist threats, posting on social media, "I'm planning on shooting up a public place ... killing as many girls as I see".[110] In September 2019, theU.S. Army warned soldiers about the possibility of violence at movie theaters showing theJoker film, after "disturbing and very specific chatter" was found in conversations among self-identified incels on the dark web.[10]
A January 2020 report by theTexas Department of Public Safety warned that the incel movement was an "emergingdomestic terrorism threat" that "could soon match, or potentially eclipse, the level of lethalness demonstrated by other domestic terrorism types".[111][38][112] A 2020 paper published by Bruce Hoffman and colleagues inStudies in Conflict & Terrorism concluded that "the violent manifestations of the ideology pose a new terrorism threat, which should not be dismissed or ignored by domestic law enforcement agencies".[10]
John Horgan, a psychology professor at Georgia State University who in 2019 received a $250,000 grant from theU.S. Department of Homeland Security to study the incel subculture, explained why the incel ideology equates to terrorism: "the fact that incels are aspiring to change things up in a bigger, broader ideological sense, that's, for me, what make it a classic example of terrorism. That's not saying all incels are terrorists. But violent incel activity is, unquestionably, terrorism in my view".[113]
In February 2020,an attack in Toronto that was allegedly motivated by incel ideologies became the first such act of violence to be prosecuted as terrorism, and theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police stated that they consider the incel subculture to be an "Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremist (IMVE)" movement.[114] In 2021, Jacob Ware wrote inCounter Terrorist Trends and Analyses that analysis of incels has been focused within the United States and Canada due to the concentration of incel-motivated attacks in those countries.[115] In March 2022, theUnited States Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center, published acase study titled "Hot Yoga Tallahassee: A Case Study of Misogynistic Extremism", to examine the2018 Tallahassee shooting at ahot yoga studio and draw attention to "the specific threat posed by misogynist extremism."[116]
Some discussions in incel communities endorse violence against sexually active women and more sexually successful men,[33][117] harassment of women,[118] and suicide.[118][119] According to theAnti-Defamation League, they form the most violent community within the manosphere.[120] In some incel communities, it is common for posts to glorify violence by self-identified incels such asElliot Rodger (perpetrator of the2014 Isla Vista killings) and Alek Minassian (perpetrator of the2018 Toronto van attack),[121][122][123] as well as by those they believe shared their ideology such asMarc Lépine (perpetrator of the 1989École Polytechnique massacre),[118]Seung-Hui Cho (perpetrator of the 2007Virginia Tech shooting),[124] and George Sodini (perpetrator of the2009 Collier Township shooting).[125]
Rodger is the most frequently referenced, often being referred to as their "saint"[122] with memes in which his face has been superimposed onto paintings ofChristian icons. Some incels consider him to be the true progenitor of today's online incel communities.[27] In 2020, theBBC described Rodger as "the founding father of the incel ideology".[126]
Some within these communities view violence as the only solution to what they see as societal oppression and abuse against them and speak frequently of incel "uprisings" and "revolts". Others take the more nihilistic view that nothing will change society, even violent acts, and focus their efforts on constructing a scientific justification for this nihilism.[62] Some support the idea of violence as revenge on society, without the hope it will lead to societal change.[58]
Other researchers[who?] have questioned the degree of violence found in incel communities, with some suggesting that "extreme inceldom looks more like suicidality than violence toward others".[78] Some violent posts may be motivated by status-seeking behavior by individuals on forums, rather than a desire to promote violence.[127]: 735 A 2021 study found that the overwhelming majority of self-identified incels themselves do not think that incel groups promote violence.[128][127]: 735 A 2022 study found that most self-identified incels surveyed (79%) rejected violence.[78][129]
A subgroup of self-identified incels who frequent websites founded byNathan Larson, who was aperennial political candidate and active participant in incel communities, work deliberately to convince other self-identified incels that they are justified in raping women if they are rejected sexually.[27] Some self-identified incels describe women's sexual rejection of them as "reverse rape", a phenomenon they consider to be equally harmful as rape.[120]
A September 2022 report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, about the largest dedicated incel forum, found that users posted about rape once every 29 minutes during their study period, and used the word "kill" 1,181 times in one month. During the study period, 89% of forum users expressed that they support rape in general. According to the report, some posters on the forum try to normalize the idea ofchild rape, and more than half the total forum during their study period supportedpedophilia.[55] The report also exposed that the incel forum site operators had changed a forum rule in March 2022, to allow for the sexualization ofpubescent minors, narrowing an existing rule to outlaw only the sexualization of "pre-pubescent" minors.[55][53]
Racism is generally considered[by whom?] to be common on incel forums,[22][67][68][38] though some researchers[who?] have questioned its prevalence.[130] In 2019, Jaki et al. estimated that 3 percent of comments on incel forums contained words from a list of racist words identified by the researchers.[47][130] Some researchers[who?] have questionedlinguistic analysis of incel forums as the primary methodology for studying the subculture, recommending that future researchers employ qualitative methods such as one-on-one interviews to obtain a more nuanced view and to avoid results being skewed by the prevalence ofshitposting on incel forums.[127]: 736 [131]
Incels believe that beingwhite makes one more attractive to potential mates, paralleling ideas ofrace science promoted by the far right. This often encourages racist attacks onBlack, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) members of incel forums.[9] Such "racepill" ideology portrays whiteness as the most desirable racial classification, often invoked using the phrase "Just be White" (JBW). Incels attempting to appear more white in order to attract a partner call this process "whitemaxxing".[63]
Antisemitic beliefs are regularly found on incel forums, with some posters going so far as to blame the rise of feminism on a plot masterminded byJews to weaken theWestern world.[27][10]
Incel communities are a part of the broadermanosphere, a loose collection of misogynist and anti-feminist movements that also includesmen's rights activists (MRAs),Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW),pickup artists (PUAs), andfathers' rights groups.[79][132][133] TheSouthern Poverty Law Center describes the incel subculture as "part of the onlinemale supremacist ecosystem", which they began including in their list of hate groups in 2018.[13][12]The New York Times describes involuntary celibacy as an adaptation of male supremacy, saying that incels "believe that women should be treated as sexual objects with few rights".[134][100]
While the self-identified incels believe they are inferior to the rest of society, often referring to themselves as "subhuman", they also espouse supremacist views: either that they are superior to women, or superior to non-incels in general.[58][65][93][135] A 2019 study published inTerrorism and Political Violence found that self-identified incels believe themselves to be the only ones who are "capable ofpro-social values and intelligent enough ('highIQ') to see the truth about the social world". The study determined that they followed a pattern that is typical of extremist groups, ascribing highly negative values toout-groups and positive values to in-groups, with the unusual caveat that despite seeing themselves as psychologically superior, they also view themselves negatively in terms of physical appearance.[58]
Incel communities sometimes overlap with communities such as Men Going Their Own Way,[82] men's rights activism, people who believe they are experiencing "true forced loneliness" (TFL),[77] and pickup artistry,[30][125] although at least one incel website has expressed hatred for pickup artistry and accused pickup artists anddating coaches of financially exploiting incels.[125][136][137] In 2019, media scholar Debbie Ging wrote that incels' discourse around "victimhood and aggrieved entitlement" began on 4chan and has spread into more mainstream groups such as men's rights activists and Men Going Their Own Way.[132]
Incel communities have also been observed to overlap withfar-right groups. In 2019, the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right noted that the subculture is "part of a growing trend ofradical-right movements" that are distressed byneoliberalism, especially women's empowerment and immigration.[138][10] In 2020, Hoffman and colleagues, inStudies in Conflict & Terrorism, stated that "a particularly worrisome trend is how seamlessly the militant incel community has been integrated into the alt-right tapestry, with common grievances and intermingling membership bringing the two extremisms closer together".[10] In March 2021,Der Spiegel reported on the overlap between the incel community and theFeuerkrieg Division, a group modeled after theAtomwaffen Division, aneo-Nazi terrorist network.[38]
The term "involuntary celibate" (shortened to "incel") refers to self-identifying members of an online subculture, based around the inability to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, a state they describe as "inceldom" or "incelibacy".[3][4][5][139] It is sometimes used interchangeably or alongside other terms, such as "love-shy" (describing those withsocial anxiety or excessive shyness preventing romantic success),[29][140] "FA" (short for "forever alone"),[141] "unfuckability",[142] "omegas",[143] "betas",[144] "betafags",[132] "the undersexed",[145] or "the sexless".[74] Alana, the coiner of the term "incel", initially considered using other terms such as "perpetually single" or "dating shy".[28]
Members of incel communities regularly usejargon and a distinct dialect.[82] They often use dehumanizing and vulgar terms for women, such as "femoids" (a portmanteau of "femalehumanoids",[146] sometimes shortened further to "foids") and "roasties" (a reference to thelabia minora, which incels falsely[147] believe changes shape and begins to resemble slicedroast beef after a woman becomes sexually active).[58][148] They refer to attractive, sexually active women as "Stacys" and less attractive sexually active women as "Beckys". Attractive sexually active men are referred to as "Chads", and race-based variations on the term include "Tyrone" for black men and "Chang" for Asian men.[18][31][149]
People who are average looking but not incels are "normies".[58] "Mogging" refers to the act of eclipsing another person in terms of physical appearance and thereby undermining them.Looksmaxxing is an attempt at enhancing one's appearance by methods including getting a haircut and dressing nicely, takingsteroids and working out, undergoingplastic surgery, or engaging in alternative techniques such asmewing in hopes of improving facial aesthetics.[77][120][150][151] The abbreviation "NEET" refers to people who do not have jobs and are not attending school: "not in education, employment, or training".[144]
Members of incel communities use many variations of the term "incel" to refer to subgroups within the community, such as "volcels" (voluntary celibate; someone who chooses to forego sexual intercourse), "fakecels" (those who claim to be incel, but in reality have recently had sex or been in a relationship), and "truecels" (true incels; men who have never had any sexual or romantic encounters).[120][89][152][153] There are a number of race-based variations of the term "incel", which refer to people who believe their race is the reason behind their inability to find a partner, including "currycels" (people of South Asian ancestry) and "ricecels" (those of Chinese or Southeast Asian backgrounds), or collectively, "ethnicels".[95][154][67]
"Incel" has also come to be used as an insult against people who do not necessarily identify with the subculture, but who are perceived to be sexually inexperienced, undesirable, or unpopular.[155][156]
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Self-identified incels are mostly male andheterosexual, and are often described as young and friendlessintroverts.[157] Estimates of the size of incel communities during 2018–2020 varied.[30][143][158] It ranged from the thousands, to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands.[16][27][159][160] A statistical analysis of the largest incel forum shows that only a few hundred accounts made up the vast majority of forum posts during all of 2021 and most of 2022.[55]
Incel communities are largely made up ofemerging adults who feel they have not met their sexual milestones "on time"[161] according togendered dating norms, resulting in agender role conflict.[162] In one study, approximately half of incels surveyed lived with their parents or grandparents, and 17.8% were not in employment, education, or training (NEET).[163]
Mainstream news media has often described incels as predominantlywhite.[164] In 2018, sociologist Ross Haenfler was quoted inThe Washington Post describing incels as primarily white.[165] In 2018, Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center toldNBC News that incels are "young, frustrated white males in their late teens into their early twenties who are having a hard time adjusting to adulthood".[106] More recent studies have described incel communities as ethnically diverse.[63][166][167] A 2024 study by Alyssa Maryn and colleagues states, "Recent research suggests that common perceptions that Incels are almost all White are inaccurate".[168] In June 2019, Sylvia Jaki and colleagues published alinguistic analysis of the most popular incel forum, arguing that "contrary to what is often reported", there was no definitive evidence that the group is predominantly white.[47] Hoffman and colleagues, publishing inStudies in Conflict & Terrorism, reported that a March 2020 survey of the same forum determined that 55% of respondents self-identified as Caucasian.[10] Incels who are not white often blame their race for their celibacy, using the acronym "JBW" (Just be white) to sardonically express the perceived advantages white men have in attracting women.[63][169][170]
A 2024 survey of self-identified incels by researchers from the University of Texas found that incels tended to be slightlycenter-left. They were significantly left in questions about homosexuality, corporate profits and welfare benefits.[163] In a 2022 study, the University of Texas researchers ran a poll of self-reported incels, which found that 63.58% of those who responded identified as white, a smaller percentage than non-incels in the study. They found that 45% of incels who responded leaned to the left on thepolitical spectrum. 17.5% were centrists, and 38.9% leaned to the right, showing no differences between the incel and the control group of the study.[171][172] A 2025 survey found that incels tended to consider "feminists" and the "political left" at-large to be "enemies" of the incel community.[173]
Self-identified incels are mainly located in North America and Europe. There are also incel communities for people outside theAnglosphere, such as the Italian websiteIl Forum dei Brutti and theモテない男性 (motenai dansei ) board on the Japanese website5channel.[10][174] The English-language forums also receive much traffic from non-Anglophone countries. In 2020, research by theSwedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) on the three largest incel forums found that they had a total of about 20,000 users, with only about 1,000 who post actively. The FOI found that between 4.6 and 7.3% of the visitors to the forums originated from Sweden, though they caution this may not be accurate given the use of personalVPNs.[175] Brooks and colleagues found that areas with higher male-to-femalesex ratios, fewer single women, higherincome inequality, and lowergender pay gaps had higher rates of incel-related activity on Twitter.[127]
The first incel website,Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project, was inclusive of all genders.[20][176] There have been more contemporary female-specific incel orfemcel communities, such asr/TruFemcels[177] and its successorThePinkPill.[178][179] As of February 2020[update], the most popular female incel forum was the r/TruFemcels subreddit, with over 22,000 members.[177] It was banned in January 2021 for violating Reddit's rules against promoting hate.[179][178] Another subreddit reportedly associated with self-identified female incels is r/Vindicta, which contains beauty advice.[180][181] There are hashtags pertaining to the idea of female incels in use onTikTok, such as #femcel, #femcelcore and #femcelrights, which as of 2022, have over 250 million views.[182] There are reported to be tens of thousands of women self-identifying as female incels on the internet.[177]
There is disagreement in online incel communities on whether women can be incels, with some claiming that male incels grossly outnumber female incels,[183] others claiming that it is impossible for women to be incels at all,[30][180][184] others claiming that only "severelydeformed" women can be incels,[185] and others arguing that only unattractive women belonging to the "bottom percentile in terms of appearance" can be incels.[186] Members of male incel communities often reject the concept of a female incel, believing that all women can obtain sex from men, and believing that self-identified female incels are voluntarily celibate. Members of male incel communities may also troll female incels.[130]
In 2020, according to the Anti-Defamation League, the majority of self-identified incels do not believe women can be incels.[120] Journalists have written that outside of the female incels' own communities, few believe women can be incels.[177][187][188] In 2021, M. Kelly wrote for Political Research Associates that members of incel communities point to the existence of female incels as an argument against criticisms of them as misogynist, but that most incel communities do not accept them and ban them from using their forums.[42]
Like members of male incel communities, female incel community members tend to believe that they are victims to their ugliness and think that only unattractive men will date them. They call more attractive looking women "Stacys", who they believe decrease their chance of having sexual contact with men, similar to discussion of "Chads" in male incel forums. They have adopted the idea of the "pink pill", which has been likened to "red pill" and "black pill" terminology, and which describes a belief that some women are considered undesirable and thus are unable to engage in sexual relationships due to society's focus on certain aspects of female attractiveness.[130]
Some women identifying as incels believe they could havecasual sex, but fear it could only be with men who would abuse or disrespect them.[177][187][188] Within online female incel communities, misogyny and an impossiblefeminine beauty ideal are also perceived as reasons for female celibacy.[179][189][190] Other women may share similar concerns, but do not self-identify as female incels.[189]
Some female incel communities have been critical ofbody positivity and mainstream feminism, viewing them as unhelpful to female incels. In 2022 a former member of the r/TruFemcels community was quoted inThe Atlantic saying, "I'd rather be able to talk about being ugly than just try to convince myself that I'm pretty".[191] In 2022, an expert in psychology interviewed byEl País characterized female incel communities as overly insular and skeptical of outsiders (who are deemed "normies"), in what she described as "cognitive inflexibility". She stated that, "US culture is less sociable. In Spain, [female incels] would have completely different characteristics... I don't think it would have the same number of followers, to begin with, because in Spain we are more encouraging of interpersonal relationships, and the development of social skills."[180]
Women who identify as incels share some similarities with their male counterparts, such as belief that physical appearance is the most important factor in finding a partner. In other ways they tend to be different. Members of female incel communities are more likely to self-blame rather than blaming men for their dating and sexual difficulties. This may be due to gender stereotypes, such as the belief that women do not have a "natural" need for sex.[130] Journalist Isabelle Kohn wrote in 2020 that, rather than being angry at the men who reject them, they empathize with the men for not wanting to date them. Kohn notes the tendency for women identifying as incels to turn their rage inwards, rather than outwards like males.[177]
Female incel communities are generally overlooked within academic literature about incels. In 2020, journalist Arwa Mahdawi hypothesized that the fact that females who identify as incels do not go on violent rampages like some of their male counterparts is the most obvious reason why they have not received much attention in mainstream media.[187] In February 2020, Kohn wrote that she could find "mountains" of academic papers on male incels, but none on female incels. She says the assumption that female incels do not exist adds to their pain.[177] In 2024, an article inArchives of Sexual Behavior stated that "there has been almost no research on femcel communities or what the women who join them have to say."[192]
"Involuntary celibacy" is not a medical or psychological condition. Some people who identify as incel have physical disabilities or psychological disorders such asdepression,anxiety,autism, andbody dysmorphic disorder.[93] A 2022 study found that self-identified incels reported higher rates of depression, anxiety, and formal mental diagnoses than the general population: 95% reported depression and 93% reported anxiety. 38% had clinical diagnoses.[129][127]
Some posters to incel forums attribute their inability to find a partner to physical or mental ailments, while some others attribute it to extreme introversion. Many of those identifying as incels engage inself-diagnosis of mental health issues. Members of incel communities often discourage posters who post about mental illness from seeingtherapists or otherwise seeking treatment.[89][36][193] Some members of incel communities with severe depression are also suicidal. Some members encourage suicidal members to kill themselves, sometimes recommending that they commit acts of mass violence before doing so.[29][36][101][150]
Mass murders and other violent attacks have been committed or are suspected to have been committed by men who have self-identified as involuntarily celibate, or whose statements align with incel ideologies. Other intended attacks by such individuals have been thwarted by police before being carried out.
On August 4, 2009, George Sodiniopened fire at anLA Fitness health club inCollier Township, a suburb ofPittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Three women were murdered and nine other people were injured before Sodini killed himself.[194][195] He purportedly expressedsexual frustration and complained of constant rejections by women on a website registered in his name.[196] Sodini and his actions have been embraced and glorified by some members of incel communities, who sometimes refer to incel violence as "going Sodini".[125][197]
On May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodgerkilled six people and injured fourteen others before killing himself inIsla Vista, California, near the campus ofUniversity of California, Santa Barbara. These killings drew media attention to the concept of involuntary celibacy, and particularly the misogyny and glorification of violence that are a mainstay of many incel communities. Rodger self-identified as an incel and left behind a 137-pagemanifesto andYouTube videos in which he detailed his involuntary celibacy and discussed how he wanted revenge for being rejected by women.[28][198][199][125] He had been an active member of a community popular among incels called PUAHate (short for "pickup artist hate"), and referenced it several times in his manifesto.[125][200][201][40] Although PUAHate shut down soon after the attack, Rodger became something of amartyr to some communities that remained, and to some of those that emerged later.[12][40][202] It is common to see references to "E.R." in incel forums, and mass violence by incels is regularly referred to as "going E.R.".[120][10] Rodger has been referenced by the perpetrators or suspected perpetrators of several other mass killings, and is one of several attackers who are regularly praised by members of incel communities.[122][125]
On October 1, 2015, Chris Harper-Mercer killed nine people and injured eight others before killing himself in ashooting at the Umpqua Community College campus, inRoseburg, Oregon. He left a manifesto at the scene, outlining his interest in other mass murders including the Isla Vista killings, his anger at not having a girlfriend, and his animus towards the world. In his journal writings, he had related to Elliot Rodger and other mass shooters, describing them as "people who stand with the gods".[106] Before the attack, when someone on an online message board had speculated Harper-Mercer was "saving himself for someone special", Harper-Mercer had replied: 'involuntarily so".[30][203][204][205] Several hours before the shooting, someone suspected to be Harper-Mercer posted a threat to aPacific Northwest college to /r9k/, a 4chan board with many incel posters.[29][206]
On July 31, 2016, Sheldon Bentley robbed and killed an unconscious man in an alleyway inEdmonton, Alberta. During his trial, Bentley said he killed the man by stomping on his abdomen because he was frustrated with stress from his job as a security guard and with being an incel for four years.[207][208]
On December 7, 2017, William Atchison killed two people before killing himself, inAztec, New Mexico, in ashooting at Aztec High School, where he had previously been a student. He had used the pseudonym "Elliot Rodger" on several online forums and praised "the supreme gentleman" (a term Rodger had used to describe himself, which has since become a common reference among incel communities).[122][209] Atchison had also posted far-right content online.[120]
On February 14, 2018, Nikolas Cruz killed seventeen people and injured seventeen others, in ashooting at Stoneman Douglas High School inParkland, Florida. Allegedly also motivated by other extremist views, Cruz had allegedly previously posted online that "Elliot Rodger will not be forgotten".[106][120][210]
After an April 23, 2018vehicle-ramming attack in Toronto, Ontario, Alek Minassian was convicted of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder.[123] Shortly before the attack, Minassian had allegedly posted onFacebook that "the Incel Rebellion has already begun" and applauded Rodger.[28][134][211][212] The term "Incel Rebellion" is sometimes used interchangeably with the term "Beta Uprising", which refers to a violent response to incels' perceived sexual deprivation.[3] Following the attack, a poster on a website created to supersede r/incels wrote about Minassian, "I hope this guy wrote a manifesto because he could be our next new saint".[12] Following the attack, police claimed that Minassian had been radicalized by incel communities. A video interview was released inSeptember 2019 showing Minassian being interrogated by police shortly after the attacks. In the video, Minassian is shown telling police that he was a virgin, and that he was motivated by a resentment of "Chads and Stacys", as well as women who gave "their love and affection to obnoxious brutes" rather than to him. The video also showed Minassian saying that he hoped the alleged attack would "inspire future masses to join me" in committing acts of violence as a part of the "Beta Uprising".[213] The judge who found Minassian guilty on all counts wrote in her decision that Minassian had attempted to tie his attack to the incel community as a way of increasing his notoriety, and that "working out his exact motivation for this attack is ... close to impossible". She found that Minassian had "lie[d] to the police about much of the incel motivation he talked about and that the incel movement was not in fact a primary driving force behind the attack".[214]
On November 2, 2018, Scott Beierle killed two women and injured four women and a man before killing himself in ashooting at the Hot Yoga Tallahassee studio inTallahassee, Florida.[215] He had been a follower of incel ideologies for a long time, and had a history of arrests for grabbing women's buttocks.[10][216] In 2014, he posted several YouTube videos of himself espousing extreme hatred for women and expressing anger over not having a girlfriend, mentioning Elliot Rodger in one video. In the months leading up to the shooting, he posted numerous misogynistic, racist, violent, and homophobic songs toSoundCloud.[215][216][217]
In January 2019, Christopher Cleary was arrested for posting on Facebook that he was "planning on shooting up a public place soon and being the next mass shooter" and "killing as many girls as I see" because he had never had a girlfriend and was a virgin. He has been described as an incel in the media.[110][218][219] In May 2019, Cleary was sentenced to up to five years in prison for an attempted threat of terrorism.[220]
On June 17, 2019, Brian Isaack Clyde began what wasintended to be a mass shooting at theEarle Cabell Federal Building and Courthouse inDallas, Texas. He was shot and fatally wounded by officers from theFederal Protective Service before he injured anyone. Clyde had shared incel memes on social media, along with other posts referencing right-wing beliefs andconspiracy theories.[221][222] Following the incident, theJoint Base Andrews military base briefed its personnel on certain online behaviors among "introverted, sexless individuals", with a spokesman describing them as "a very real threat to military members and civilians".[223]
Self-identified incels have praised attackers with unclear motives, who they believe to be incels. After the2017 Las Vegas shooting, some of the incel community celebrated the shooterStephen Paddock, who they felt was a hero who was targeting "normies".[12] After the2018 Toronto shooting, posters on an incel message board expressed excitement with the possibility that the perpetrator might be an incel, although no motive was identified.[118]
Coty Scott Taylor abducted 6-year-old Faye Marie Swetlik on February 10, 2020, inCayce, South Carolina. Three days later, both Taylor and Swetlik were found dead. It was determined that Taylor had suffocated Swetlik and then killed himself by cutting his throat.[224] Friends reported that Taylor was a self-described incel and that he had often said he "lived without hope".[225]
On February 24, 2020,a female spa worker was stabbed to death in an attack that also severely injured her female coworker at anerotic massage parlor in Toronto. On May 19, theToronto Police Service declared the attack was being treated as a terrorist incident after evidence pointed to the stabbings being motivated by incel ideology, and police laid charges against a 17-year-old male alleged to have committed the stabbings. This was the first time violence thought to be motivated by incel ideologies was prosecuted as an act of terrorism, and is also believed to be the first act of violence not perpetrated by anIslamist extremist to be prosecuted as terrorism in Canada.[114] On September 14, 2022, the perpetrator entered a guilty plea to murder and attempted murder.[226][227][228] The attack was ruled a terrorist attack during sentencing proceedings.[229]
Armando Hernandez Jr. opened fire on May 20, 2020, atWestgate Entertainment District, amixed-use development inGlendale, Arizona, before being arrested by police. A 19-year-old man was critically injured, while a 30-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl suffered minor injuries. According to theMaricopa County prosecutor, Hernandez identified himself as an incel and claimed he wanted to target couples and shoot at least ten people.[230][111] The prosecutor said, "Mr. Hernandez is a self-professed incel ... He was taking out his anger at society, the feeling that he has been bullied, the feeling that women didn't want him". The prosecutor also alleged that Hernandez sent a video of the attack to a woman he wished to impress.[120]
Between January and the end of July 2020[update], five self-identified incels were arrested in separate incidents in North America for killing or planning to kill women.[120] Among them was Cole Carini, a man who was charged with making false statements to law enforcement in June 2020 after claiming serious injuries to his hands had been caused by a lawnmower accident. Police alleged that Carini was actually injured while trying to make a bomb, and that he had written a note threatening violence against women and referencing Elliot Rodger.[231]
In April 2021, Malik Sanchez, a 19-year-old self-described incel who praised Elliot Rodger,[232] was arrested on federal charges after allegedly videotaping himself approaching women sitting outside a restaurant inManhattan, New York and telling them he was going to detonate a bomb.[233] The man had previously been arrested several times for harassing others, often while recording orlivestreaming, and for multiple assaults withpepper spray.[234]
In July 2021, a 21-year-old self-identified incel from Ohio was charged with attempting ahate crime and illegally possessing a machine gun. The man was a frequent poster on a popular incel website, where he wrote posts venerating Elliot Rodger. He wrote a manifesto in which he expressed his desire to "slaughter" women, and in another document he allegedly wrote about his goals to kill 3,000 people in a mass casualty attack.[235]
On August 12, 2021, Jake Davison, a 22-year-old man who referenced "inceldom" in online videos and expressed similar views, perpetrated amass shooting inPlymouth, England. He killed five people, including his mother, and injured two others before killing himself.[236]
On December 27, 2021, 47-year-old Lyndon McLeod committed the2021 Denver and Lakewood shootings, murdering five people before being killed by a police officer. McLeod had self-published a trilogy ofscience fiction novels under thepen name Roman MccClay, in which the protagonist of those books, named after himself, was depicted as killing three of the people McLeod eventually targeted.[237][238][239]
On 21 March 2022,a stabbing took place at Malmö Latin School inMalmö, Sweden, during which 18-year-old Fabian Cederholm stabbed and killed two female teachers with an axe and a knife before disarming himself, calling emergency services and being arrested by first responders. Cederholm had previously praised Elliot Rodger online.[240]
On May 6, 2023, 33-year-old self-identified incel Mauricio Martinez Garcia went on aspree shooting in a mall in Allen, Texas. Garcia killed eight people and injured at least seven others before he was killed by a police officer.[241]
On October 4, 2024, 19-year-old Semih Çelikkilled Ayşenur Halil and İkbal Uzuner (both women aged 19) during which he threw Uzuner's severed head off theWalls of Constantinople before committing suicide himself.[242][243][244] Çelik was in contact with incel groups onDiscord,[243][244] where he received praise for his actions.[245] Turkish police began monitoring incel groups in response.[246] Following a decision by an Ankara court,Turkey blocked Discord in the aftermath of the murders.[243][247]
Incel communities have been criticized in the media and by researchers as violent, misogynist, and extremist.[3][4][165][118][104] Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst working for the Southern Poverty Law Center, has cautioned that exposure to violent content on incel forums "play[s] a very large role" in the radicalization of their members, and describes incel forums as having "more violent rhetoric than I'm used to seeing on even white supremacist sites".[101] Journalist David Futrelle has described incel communities as "violently misogynistic", and is among critics who attribute worsening violent rhetoric on incel forums to the growth of the alt-right and white supremacy, and the overlap between incel communities and online hate groups.[101][118][104][248]
Psychologist and sex researcherJames Cantor has described incels as "a group of people who usually lack sufficient social skills and ... find themselves very frustrated". He has said that in incel forums "when they're surrounded by other people with similar frustrations, they kind of lose track of what typical discourse is, and they drive themselves into more and more extreme beliefs".[249] Senior research fellow at theInstitute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD),Amarnath Amarasingam, has criticized some incel communities where calls for violence are commonplace, saying "under the right set of psychological and personal circumstances, these kinds of forums can be dangerous and push people into violence".[22]
In August 2018, another researcher at the ISD, Jacob Davey, compared the radicalization of men in incel forums to teenagers being urged to go to extreme measures on onlineforums that promote anorexia and other eating disorders, and to online campaigns convincing people to joinISIL. Speaking about their feelings of entitlement to sex, Davey said the attitude "can go as far as the justification of rape".[41]
While generally agreeing with critics' concerns about misogyny and other negative characteristics in the incel subculture, some commentators have been more sympathetic. In April 2018, economistRobin Hanson wrote a blog post likening access to sex with access to income, writing that he found it puzzling that similar concern had not been shown to incels as to low-income individuals. Hanson was criticized by some for discussing sex as if it was a commodity; others wrote more positively about his opinions.[96]
In May 2018,The New York Times columnistRoss Douthat wrote a similarly controversial op-ed, titled "The Redistribution of Sex" in which he suggested sex robots andsex workers would inevitably be called upon to satisfy incels' sexual desires.[250][251] ColumnistToby Young argues that sex robots could be a "workable solution";[252] others[who?] have criticized the column for objectifying women and for legitimizing the incel ideology.[253][254]
Journalist Zack Beauchamp has expressed concern about other types of harm inflicted by incels that may be lost in the attention paid specifically to mass violence; he points to forum posts in which users brag about yelling at, catfishing, and sexually assaulting women.[27]University of Portsmouth lecturer Lisa Sugiura has described incel forums as a "networked misogyny", and urged the posts in such forums be taken seriously not only in the context ofhate speech but also as a form ofgrooming that could radicalize "impressionable and vulnerable disillusioned young men".[41] Some sociological research on incel communities has analyzed them as ahybrid masculinity, in which privileged men distance themselves fromhegemonic masculinity while simultaneously reproducing it.[132]
Criticism has also been directed against platforms that host or have hosted incel content, including Reddit (which banned the r/incels community in 2017, and banned most of the remaining incel communities in September 2019, but is still home to some identifying as incels) andTwitter.[104][37]Cloudflare, which provides services includingDDoS protection,caching and obsfucation of the source host of the content,[255] has also been criticized for protecting incel websites againstdowntime even when webhosts have terminated service.[256]
Reporting on incels by media outlets following the incel-related attacks during the 2010s has been criticized for its "breathless" coverage, for normalizing incel communities by describing them only as "sexually frustrated", and for directing readers to incel communities.[257] Some reporting has also been criticized for giving attackers notoriety by reporting on them at length, or forvictim blaming by implying that women who had rejected the attackers' romantic or sexual advances held some responsibility for provoking the attacks.[258][259] Those who have written sympathetically about incels have faced criticism for legitimizing the incel ideology, such as from Samantha Cole inVice who condemned media outlets who "cove[r] and amplif[y] toxic internet culture as if it's valid ideology".[254]
In a 2021 report published by Political Research Associates, M. Kelly wrote about recent attempts by various self-identified incels to "rebrand" their communities and stated that "incels' attempts to reframe their identity have also been helped along by researchers, journalists, and 'counter-violent extremism' experts, who, in their attempts to investigate and understand incels, have given them larger, more mainstream platforms. These new platforms have allowed self-identified incels to reframe the public narrative about them; minimize the threat their community poses; and have amplified—or even endorsed—their hate-laced grievances, centering their self-perceived victimhood at the hands of women who deny them sex".[42]
Kelly criticized a podcast titledThe Incel Project for platforming incel ideologies without challenging or fact-checking their statements. She said the creator, Naama Kates, was "no longer just reporting on incels' misogyny, but justifying and sharing it with the world". Kelly criticized the International Center for Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE), who published several reports on incels co-authored by Kates and by the founder and lead moderator of a major incel forum, writing that "while previous ICSVE reports have drawn from primary data, including interviews and surveys with members of the community being studied, this seems to be the first time—at ICSVE or in academic research more broadly—that someone actively involved in a community that regularly expresses bigoted or violent ideology has co-authored the resulting study".[42]
A 2024 report commissioned by the UK Commission for Countering Extremism concluded that incel participation is driven primarily by mental-health difficulties andsocial isolation rather than ideological extremism, and recommended that public responses focus on support services instead of counter-terrorism approaches.[260]
In his debut novelWhatever (1994), French writerMichel Houellebecq seems to portray early examples of incels. However, the term did not yet exist at the time; neither did the online communities. The unnamed, 30-year-old protagonist looks unattractive, lacks social skills and suffers from depression, which means that despite his excellent job as an IT professional, he is not popular with women. Things are much worse for his colleague, who is downright ugly and still a virgin at 28. The main character tries to seduce his friend into killing a young woman who has rejected him, which his friend refuses at the last moment. In this novel, the main protagonist philosophizes about the disastrous consequences of the sexual revolution. Because of sexual liberalism, the market mechanism has come to determine human relationships; as a consequence, beautiful people get everything, ugly people get nothing.[261][262][263]
Two episodes of the American crime dramaLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit are based on incels. Inseason 16, the episode "Holden's Manifesto" (2014) is based on Elliot Rodger and the 2014 Isla Vista killings.[264][265] Inseason 20, the episode "Revenge" (2018) features a group of incels who attack the targets of each other's obsession to exact revenge while creating alibis for one another, the plotline which in itself is inspired by a 1950s novel,Strangers on a Train.[266] An episode of the American medical seriesChicago Med also focused on an incel patient who is injured in adrive-by shooting targeting hospital staff.[267]
Fair Warning, a 2020thriller novel byMichael Connelly, features a company that buysgenetic test data on women genetically identified as vulnerable tosex addiction. The company sells their names and addresses to incels, one of whom is aserial killer.[268][269]
The 2023 science fiction filmThe Beast also features a character based on Elliot Rodger.[270]
The British miniseriesAdolescence, released onNetflix in 2025, directly explores incel culture. Told across four episodes, the series follows Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old boy arrested for the murder of his classmate, Katie. Through police interrogations and psychological evaluations, it is revealed that Jamie had been influenced by online ideologies associated with the manosphere and incel communities. The series examines the impact of social media, toxic masculinity, and adolescent radicalization.[271]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license.The incel movement relies heavily on the idea of ideological nihilism
This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license.Today's 'incel' discourses—short for 'involuntary celibate'—blame feminism for their celibacy, claim that women are genetically inferior, and complain that women prefer more 'genetically superior' men
This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license.[T]he incel community presents just one extreme example of rape culture
This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license.The Manosphere is now home to several different groups, including pickup artists, the more radical 'Incels', father's groups, Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) and the Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) group and each has important differences that need to be unpacked.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under theCC BY 4.0 license.IncelWiki's "femcel" page, which, along with the vocal majority of incels, largely denies the notion that women can be incels, states that "it is generally accepted that involuntarily celibate women don't exist."
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