I thought that the term got pretty wide exposure during the aftermath of the Elliot Roger rampage.
These people suck at naming themselves. Why not "Almond Joy" (because no nuts)?
First read about them here:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n06/amia-srinivasan/does-anyone-have-the-right-to-sex
Leading with the incels was an unfortunately trolly way to get into what was an interesting discussion:
"The question, then, is how to dwell in the ambivalent place where we acknowledge that no one is obligated to desire anyone else, that no one has a right to be desired, but also that who is desired and who isn't is a political question, a question usually answered by more general patterns of domination and exclusion. It is striking, though unsurprising, that while men tend to respond to sexual marginalisation with a sense of entitlement to women's bodies, women who experience sexual marginalisation typically respond with talk not of entitlement but empowerment. Or, insofar as they do speak of entitlement, it is entitlement to respect, not to other people's bodies."
Heebie, it speaks well of that you don't recognize a term that became popular on 4chan and other sewers.
When I see this sort of thing, I get a bit of a there-but-for-the-grace-of-god feeling: I'm a socially awkward, poorly socialized man raised in a misogynistic culture. I've known people who hung out on 4chan (for the lolz, as always). I could imagine a series of events that could put me in this group.
Of course, very few of them, if any, are involuntarily celibate.
4: But less sense in terms of what to call the Incels.
7: I think the "Joy" part is more problematic than the nut part.
A person who is no longer an Incel is a spreadsheet.
Incel files are what you get when you don't enable active content.
I have some empathy for their situation, before they turn to entitlement and become completely awful. I wasn't getting any for much of my thirties. I distinctly remember the feeling of 'I have a deep human need that isn't getting met and the lack of it is making me physically not-right and my life is passing without this crucial thing and THIS IS DEEPLY WRONG FOR ME'. It was extremely motivating, this feeling.
Since the next step in my reasoning was not "because this is so wrong, other people owe me this thing", I did not get very angry at them for not providing it. It was a near miss, but I decided not to drive into a crowd of attractive men. I do still have empathy for the sense of deep wrongness and drive for a solution that involuntary celibacy causes.
It was a near miss, but I decided not to drive into a crowd of attractive men
Thanks for sparing me, Megan!
Don't assume it was a permanent decision. One dry spell, you could be gone.
For safety, only hang around with women and unattractive men.
Or as I call it, "Going to the office."
Not until you wear your trousers rolled.
I have heard the incels whining each to each.
I admit I'm grimly curious about the Toronto-specific story alluded to at the link.
10 is a thing of terrible beauty.
I hadn't connected Prufrock to the manosphere before, but yeah, I see it.
I've never even read the thing. I just know the line.
I mean, I never read the poem. I read the link in the OP.
I think part of the problem is with society. We tell people "Just be yourself." We should say, "Just be yourself for a couple of years. If, after that, you want to kill somebody, be somebody else."
I like Prufrock. Aggrieved, entitled me ruin everything.
Worst typo ever? Correcting it is like a crisis of masculinity.
We tell people "Just be yourself."
"Be yourself, except, like, slightly better. Get a haircut and some exercise. Try wearing something that isn't a tee shirt. Trim the beard at least. You have no idea how low the bar is!"
You have no idea how low the bar is!
Words to live by.
It's depressing that now the 1989 Montreal massacre is identifiable as part of a pattern.
I had seen "incel" in a few random places but didn't know what it meant and was too lazy to look it up. Thanks, I think.
I learned the term from following Jeet Heer on Twitter. He had a poll asking if Jesus was incel, volcel, or not cel at all.
I read some incel sites after Elliot Rodgers, and while some of them are awful, a lot of them struck me as sad sacks.
I'm sad that I got that dragon energy joke, and I wouldn't have gotten it like 24 hours ago. I know about so much stupid shit now that makes me wish for humanity to be ruthlessly exterminated.
37: That's the trick of these types -- they are so pathetic that you feel sorry for them, and it doesn't even seem possible they could be dangerous. "Behind Blue Eyes" (the Who song) captures this well.
Slate pitch: The Limp Bizkit cover was better.
I didn't even know it was a cover.
42: I'm going to assume that's a joke and no such thing exists.
Some of us aren't as old as others.
It can be easy to miss if, like yourself, one is footloose and fancy-free.
20: I do not think they will run over me.
The incel movement makes me wonder again about the intersection between people with sincerely held abhorrent beliefs and trolls. Here is a quote from a serious work by a serious author that's relevant and here is the "again" I'm talking about. I don't know how relevant that seems to anyone else, but it's what comes to mind to me at least.
Obviously lots of people are sincere about horrible beliefs, and at the point where trolls are encouraging things like the Toronto attack, it's impossible to make a meaningful distinction between them and sincere people. Which belief is more appealing, that significant numbers of people have basically the same grasp on the facts of the world as you and me but are complete sociopaths, or that significant numbers mean well but have bought into completely deranged conspiracy theories?
I had a weird, and I think ultimately successful, conversation with Newt about troll-theory. (His fundamental politics are just fine, other than an annoying level of wokeness in all respects, but he does enjoy his dank memes.) He was trying to explain to me that memes like Pepe the Frog were, properly understood, pure absurdist nihilism, and that anyone reacting to them as actual politics was a old person who just didn't understand his generation.
And I pointed out that while he might be right about core dank-meme aficionados, that olds like me were a really large part of the population of the internet, and we pass things around too, except that when we pass them around we genuinely are talking politics. And that on the internet, nobody knows you're a Nazi (as opposed to a pure nihilist meme-appreciator.) Which got me to a thoughtful nod, which is about as well as I do in conversations with him generally.
It feels like the troll/sincere-believer-in-loathsome-things distinction has collapsed in the last few years. Or at least trying to draw the distinction has become pointless.
Angela Nagle's book is a good, if rushed, look at this topic.
I agree. I also think it's causal. If you're exposed to nihilistic thinking and awful thoughts long enough, and you're intentionally operating in a low empathy manner, it's not surprising that you would normalize what you're hearing and saying.
52: I think a lot, in this context, about Frank Zappa, of whom I'm a genuine fan. A lot of his lyrics are indefensible except in the terms that Newt describes.
That said, the Zappa fans that I know are, by-and-large, humane and decent geeks. The few 4chan people I know are pretty fucked up. I think they are different phenomena, though I'd have a tough time explaining why to Newt. (I think it has something to do with Zappa's genuine desire to create art, which is an anti-nihilist urge).
Life is really going off the rails when "Bill Cosby convicted of sexual assault" barely gets the air.
He was trying to explain to me that memes like Pepe the Frog were, properly understood, pure absurdist nihilism
But that is a political position. Fin de siécle Russia even had nihilist terrorists.
13: I resemble this comment except you can add my rapidly disappearing 40s as well. Last night leaving the pub I got an almost full-body hug from a long standing friend which immediately struck me as the nearest to anything I've had in a long time. The worst/best part is that this is a friend that in the past I fancied for ages despite his not being interested that way and I had to kill with fire the crush part of my friendship with him. Nevertheless it is often in danger of re-growing (must be emotional mint, or something).
Still won't be inflicting violence on other people because I can't have what I'd like.
13: I resemble this comment except you can add my rapidly disappearing 40s as well. Last night leaving the pub I got an almost full-body hug from a long standing friend which immediately struck me as the nearest to anything I've had in a long time. The worst/best part is that this is a friend that in the past I fancied for ages despite his not being interested that way and I had to kill with fire the crush part of my friendship with him. Nevertheless it is often in danger of re-growing (must be emotional mint, or something).
Still won't be inflicting violence on other people because I can't have what I'd like.
If you got a job that paid you for inflicting violence on other people, that would still be technically true.
I have invented a totally novel use of the doctrine of double effect.
OT: You had me at "bolt cutter applied to genitals. Call me.
But that is a political position. Fin de siécle Russia even had nihilist terrorists.
Also Gulf War era Los Angeles.
The original Nazis were also very ironic and devoted to amusing themselves by confusing others, like bullies everywhere. Sartre, 1945:
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for arguing is past.
Anyway, I blame South Park for the popular notion that you can spend 8 hours a day being a Nazi because ACTUALLY you're being ironic because ACTUALLY you believe in nothing. At least in the 90s annoying guys with no beliefs and bad politics were mostly apathetic instead of actively trolling people.
Yes. I see the same thing in Trump voters. They know Trump is fucked up and crooked. It's not just that they don't care, it's that Trump's being obviously fucked up makes it better for them because it lets them know anybody who supports Trump is not going become liberal because logic, reason, or decency persuaded them.
See also Kevin Williamson.
So this is what pwning someone feels like. I don't often get to do it.
Is that what that link goes to? I can't see Twitter at work.
There are very few authors as serious as Sartre.
There are very few authors as serious as Sartre.
In my very last French exam, I had to address the question of whether he has a sense of humour. Well, technically it was whether Hugo in Les Main Sales does. And, unfortunately, I misheard "sens d'humeur" for "sens du mort" (yes I know the gender is wrong). That did not go well.
52: I had a student use the stupid frog as his online classroom software avatar. I let it go, and then his classmates pounced later in the semester, and he explained that it was mocking the Nazis, or absurdist, or something. And then I could point out that maybe if it's that obvious that it's ironic, it's maybe not the best way to present yourself. He still has it as his avatar. So. Hmm.
OT: Was RedState a big deal? I'm just reading that they fired everybody who didn't support Trump, but I don't know if that matters in a real way or just as the next piece of evidence that Trump owns the entire party now.
73: I thought it was, but more like 8 years ago than now. Maybe this is a reboot to reinvigorate a declining site?
I haven't kept up with the wingnuts, but I thought Red State stopped being a big deal during the Obama years. The conflict between NeverTrumpers and Trump supporters didn't help but wasn't the start of their decline. IIRC The founder became a more-or-less conventional partisan pundit, and they lost the insanity competition to Glenn Beck and Alex Jones or whoever.
That's kind of what I thought. I knew the name, but hadn't heard it much lately.