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 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.
Yep and a big part of it is blame shifting onto women. The running theme I find in incel subs is that they don’t actually do anything about their issues, other than maybe some appearance based work sometimes. They just wallow in blame shifting and self pity
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
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
Crumble - for people looking for a squad of survivors to roll with for when society collapses
Or… People looking for a nice pudding.
Really nice idea in principle but will certainly be exploited by richer ppl
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.
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.
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’.
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?
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.