Incel memes are fucking wild pic.twitter.com/cFKe7VxAOu— Ben’s problematic account for bad tweets (@BenIsYourHero) July 10, 2018
From "Incel Memes Aren’t a Joke/How playful propaganda can mask a dangerous and toxic culture" (Slate).
July 19, 2018
"Ben, who tweets from the handle @BenIsYourHero and declined to give his full name, found the image in a closed Facebook group called 'Incels say the darndest things,' a gathering place..."
"... where users mock and argue against the work of the 'involuntary celibate' community. Soon, his tweet went semi-viral, popping up on blogs, anti-incel Tumblrs, and incel subreddits."
From "Incel Memes Aren’t a Joke/How playful propaganda can mask a dangerous and toxic culture" (Slate).
From "Incel Memes Aren’t a Joke/How playful propaganda can mask a dangerous and toxic culture" (Slate).
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@Paul Zrimsek, thank you for that link. Is this incel culture a real thing? Or is it just a bunch of young nerds joking around on the internet until they find the right girl?
Tone deafness not to recognize abortion is also toxic and dangerous.
(Bad link fixed. Thanks for alerting me.)
The irony. What lurks beneath a veil of privacy and press. Separately, a trillon dollar, progressive social and medical effort to normalize toxic cultures.
To long, didn't read all of it. Incels are guys who are pissed off that the women they desire are out of their league. Life isn't fair, get over it.
Is this incel culture a real thing?
Have you met Chuck?
"Or is it just a bunch of young nerds joking around on the internet until they find the right girl?"
A lot of nerds are nerds because they think they are unable to find any girl.
And the internet, of course, makes it more likely that they won't figure out how.
A serious problem of basic human socialization in modern culture.
My go-to solution is dancing lessons.
People sure like making a very huge deal out of what is likely a very small subculture of antisocial misfits. The question is, why?
This meme is literally what has happened in China over the past couple of decades, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.
Dancing lessons are hit or miss. Most of the women there are there with BF or husbands. Or they're the wrong age group. Or, they're simply not interested.
And, the whole incel culture is a backlash to popular culture having degraded and devalued men for years. As well as a culture where many men grow up without fathers. As well as a culture where many men (and women too) do not learn confidence in themselves, or an optimistic view of life, or how to find existential meaning, and go through life enduring chronic anxiety and depression.
This doesn't have anything to do with the underwear ads in the Sears catalog, does it? Asking for a friend.
A serious problem of basic human socialization in modern culture.
I read awhile back that an attempt to measure the effect on men of watching porn on the internet. The study was not conducted because they could not find a control group. That is, they could not find any men who had not watched porn. Kids are growing up watching this stuff. Its got to be affecting them. I remember reading something from a biologist stating, "an orgasm is a very powerful thing." In the meantime women are fantasizing about grrl power while at the same time wanting a decent relationship, and their informed that they are absolutely perfect just the way they are.
This culture is real and largely sincere and has been around for years, in various forms. The men in it, contrary to popular (mostly feminist) portrayal, are not merely "entitled misogynists" but are mostly men who have been burned by false romantic ideals.
But our popular culture that loves to degrade and devalue men (and which coincidentally taught them the false ideals that set them up for failure) only heaps sociopathic abuse on such men if they express their disappointment. So of course these men will respond in one of a few ways. Either they will turn the abuse into motivation to improve their situation. Or they will lash out in kind against the world, and women in particular. They may start at one of these stages and progress to another.
Or they will take the abuse and just quietly feel like garbage while going about the routine of life until this either morphs into one of the above paths or they just kill themselves.
As this has been going on a long time, what is possibly the most fair and relevant take on what we now call "incel" was written four years ago and is still good reading:
Radicalizing the Romanceless
Man... I don't know which is the more dangerous and toxic culture between the sad and creepy incels and the mean and creepy anti-incels.
Probably the latter, because their active bullying of the former is actively evil while the majority of the former seem relatively harmless.
Meh. Most of these types both think way too highly of themselves ("I should really be dating cheerleaders but they're all over the arrogant jerks who don't really care about them, like I would") but at the same time are too immature and without any self-confidence to actually appeal to them ("I'm so much better for them than those arrogant jerks they date and marry; they just can't see why they should fall all over me without me doing a thing to appeal to them. Bitches.")
IOW, most (usually self-described) "nice guys" simply aren't.
Women want self-confidence. They often mistake arrogance for that. But they really can't stand whiners who just want to use them to prop up their status.
Why yes, I do speak from (past) experience.
Over the past couple of weeks, it's starting to be clear from Althouse linked articles, that a decent working definition for toxic masculinity is the masculinity of sexually unattractive men. And it's not a chicken and egg thing either. More like choking the chicken nowheres near the egg.
Re: Anthony:
Meh. Most of these types both think way too highly of themselves ("I should really be dating cheerleaders but they're all over the arrogant jerks who don't really care about them, like I would") but at the same time are too immature and without any self-confidence to actually appeal to them ("I'm so much better for them than those arrogant jerks they date and marry; they just can't see why they should fall all over me without me doing a thing to appeal to them. Bitches.")
IOW, most (usually self-described) "nice guys" simply aren't.
I think that's a complete misread of the situation. Sure there are some people like that, but the vast majority are -- as far as I can tell -- more or less like the slatestarcodex guy:
When I was younger – and I mean from teeanger hood all the way until about three years ago – I was a ‘nice guy’. And I said the same thing as every other nice guy, which is “I am a nice guy, how come girls don’t like me?”
There seems to be some confusion about this, so let me explain what it means, to everyone, for all time.
It does not mean “I am nice in some important cosmic sense, therefore I am entitled to sex with whomever I want.”
It means: “I am a nicer guy than Henry.”
Or to spell it out very carefully, Henry clearly has no trouble attracting partners. He’s been married five times and had multiple extra-marital affairs and pre-marital partners, many of whom were well aware of his past domestic violence convictions and knew exactly what they were getting into. Meanwhile, here I was, twenty-five years old, never been on a date in my life, every time I ask someone out I get laughed at, I’m constantly teased and mocked for being a virgin and a nerd whom no one could ever love, starting to develop a serious neurosis about it.
And here I was, tried my best never to be mean to anyone, pursued a productive career, worked hard to help all of my friends. I didn’t think I deserved to have the prettiest girl in school prostrate herself at my feet. But I did think I deserved to not be doing worse than Henry.
There's a lot of sneering at people who say they are "nice guys" -- a lot of it from conspicuously unpleasant women, by the way -- that fails to acknowledge that in fact, a lot of them really are nice guys, who lack the polish (or the aggressiveness) necessary to attract women. Those people exist!! And sneering at them and deriding them for not being able to get dates is why they turn to mens-rights-activists and pickup artists. Because at least those people won't shriek with laughter at their pain.
I mean, I don't know, Anthony, maybe you were sexually entitled in that way, but the vast majority of dateless young men don't seem to be (at least not where I can hear them). They're just desperate.
Female-to-Male Breeding Ratio in Modern Humans—an Analysis Based on Historical Recombinations
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2833377/
... These estimates are close to but greater than 1, suggesting some polygyny in the history of human populations.
... This implies that some males father more offspring than others and, by the same token, that in average more women than men contribute genetically to subsequent generations.
Winston Blackmore was found guilty last year of having 24 wives. He also has 149 children.
... Taken at their face value of 1.1–1.4 females per male, our β estimates do not indicate a great level of polygamy but rather conform to the image of our species as monogamist with polygynous tendencies.
"It’s not clear, for instance, that “Aborted GF,” a riff on the creepy “Ideal GF” meme, was created by an incel or even reflects the incel worldview."
More "fake but real" news, now from Slate.
Next up for PC scrutiny: The Daily Onion and its Readers: Menace or Threat?
"My go-to solution is dancing lessons."
Great way to meet guys who are thinking the same thing.
As per (very) reliable sources in the ballroom-swing dancing world, there are many more young women than young men at any given venue.
And then some young men are ... not interested, in THAT way, so the field is even more open.
Granted, this applies to the usual SF Bay Area and LA circles.
Aborted GF = aborted girl fetus or selective girl fetus, offspring, baby, honey. While the former is toxic as an election, the latter may be epicurean ("ideal") or toxic as a liberal realization.
This guy took matters in his own hands:
https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/18/man-90-covered-tattoos-penis-removed-interferes-look-7733391/
To Slate, nothing is funny.
how many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
That's NOT funny!
Balfegor said...
I mean, I don't know, Anthony, maybe you were sexually entitled in that way, but the vast majority of dateless young men don't seem to be (at least not where I can hear them). They're just desperate.
Well, I disagree, very respectfully. I certainly wasn't desperate for the cheerleaders (well, I mean, you know. . . .), but in my younger days I never tired of telling people I was a Nice Guy. Neither did a lot of the other Nice Guys I hung out with. Or the Nice Guys I knew in college. And graduate school. And after. And online. I've met lots of genuinely nice guys -- who would never say they were such -- and they had no problem finding wives and girlfriends*. But I still think that many if not most of the more vocal ones are looking to someone else to make them feel good about themselves. Women sense that. I've also talked with a a lot of women friends and they say pretty much the same thing about self-described Nice Guys. They don't necessarily hate 'em but who'd want someone who just wants them as a prop.
I do agree there are probably quite a few, maybe me included, who just never learned to present themselves well, for whatever reason. I think they're a minority though.
* I've been married/together with someone since 1990 though I did my share of kvetching about it before that.
Chad: Does not read stupid shit drawn by Quentin.
Oops.
There are other good qualities than niceness. Niceness is a pretty low level virtue. Why get stuck on niceness and believe it should get you somewhere? Do you want someone who’ll just be nice to you? It sounds like something you’d do for someone you feel sorry for. Who wants to be felt sorry for and how could it possibly be the basis of a sexual relationship? It inherently points to celibacy.
"How playful propaganda can mask a dangerous and toxic culture."
Describes both Incel and feminist cultures.
You don't get brownie points for basic human decency.
I love the internet.
I've seen other memes like this one. I don't think it is supposed to be people whining about not having a girlfriend. The other memes take humans from other roles, like older brother, little sister, best friend etc. The meme seems to be more about reminding people that aborted fetuses would have grown up and probably meant a lot to some people. It is a hidden cost of abortion that no one really counts because it was more of an opportunity cost rather than an actual loss of a relationship that someone had been experiencing.
Is this incel culture a real thing? Or is it just a bunch of young nerds joking around on the internet until they find the right girl?
No, it's not a real thing. It's a handful of guys on reddit the media has decided make good target's for today's two minutes of hate.
Fredo was generally nice (except when he wasn't). And smart!!
~
I agree with M Sablan. Basic human decency doesn't merit points in the evaluation. Sure it is better than NOT, but it's like selling a car by saying it has some brakes. The buyer isn't expecting you to seal the deal on that .... it may even generate unease to draw attention. All cars should have brakes. The fact that some asshole Dodge Charger let her down and went wildly into the ditch ....
"I've been burned before, and I know the score, so you won't hear me complain..."
"Well 'round here baby, I learned you get what you can get. So if yer rough enough for love..."
Hmm maybe the Boss was cribbing Mr D sometimes...
No, it's not a real thing. It's a handful of guys on reddit the media has decided make good target's for today's two minutes of hate.
There definitely are internet subcultures that have a large amount of overlap with what some of the journalists describe as "incel subculture'. The thing is it is essentially just an internet thing. If you are really curious you can check out 4chan.org. There are various different boards on there, but be forewarned that it contains an extraordinary level of gore, blatant sexism, and a degree of racism that would make a Phrenologist blush.
Ann at 6:09 - I agree completely.
If I were a woman, I would not care how nice (and even if they were nice at a genius level) Leopardi (the Italian poet who famously was extremely short and died without ever having a passionate kiss from a girlfriend), or Toulouse Lautrec, or Richard Rodgers (the rom-com Broadway guy who is a big deal in the torch song world) were, or could possibly be - niceness is just basic.
That being said, chemistry means something too. Katherine Hepburn and Susan Sarandon, to name two famous beauties of yesteryear, would not have been able to entice me - and I am no Cary Grant or George Clooney, believe me - into asking them out because they are coltish and there is no chemistry between me and coltish women, I do not like my women to remind me of horses.
Anyway, Freud once said some weird thing in German about how nobody understands what women want. He was so so wrong about that! Lots of people, particularly people who have lived in the world for a long time, understand, but we are too polite to explain. (I was tempted to write a 400 or 500 word comment explaining what someone like me could say on the subject of "what women want" in a way that would be interesting to people interested in the incel question - after all I grew up with 2 sisters, 4 brothers, all alpha males (not me though, I am many things, and I have been called an alpha male, but I certainly am not.... despite looking like a younger Henry Fonda (poor guy) and being very very funny when I want to be ....)
anyway, if you are reading this, and know what I am talking about, feel free to explain what poor Freud (who, in any event, considered sex after the age of 45 to be an insignificant and intellectually unpoetic sort of thing) failed to understand about the comparative advantages young men (easily charmed) and young women (not easily charmed, but charmed more often, and in different ways - similarly sad ways, by the ways) have in the World of human Love.
Or just, as so often happens to me on these contraptions, say something rude and explosively witty. I have heard it all before, I have even been called "retarded" !!!! Can you imagine, short bus jokes directed at the person who wrote this comment ???? But such things have happened ......
The linked column broke the unintentional comedy scale. The quality of the BS was exceptional but does require fumigation. The author found websites where nutjobs gather. Newsflash: this is nothing new. Some young guys just can't get laid and they resent the hell out of it (until they do). Um, I think there are carvings on cave walls about this.
You can go in the comments section of any NYT and Post story and see nutjobs. sometimes they use memes. That says zero about people reading the stories. But you can sure write a lengthy piece on it.
Some young guys just can't get laid and they resent the hell out of it (until they do).
"It’s not clear, for instance, that “Aborted GF,” a riff on the creepy “Ideal GF” meme, was created by an incel or even reflects the incel worldview."
The Vault Dweller nails it. It's pretty clear that it has everything to do with the real but difficult to perceive cost of abortion. As one of the youngest kids of a very large family, I know that had I been born post Roe v Wade, you might have been denied my sparkling commentary. Of course the people writing and editing this article find that point of view so incomprehensible that they missed what seems pretty obvious.
Can anybody imagine, BTW, anybody in any publication with an actual masthead, calling any article about "ideal boyfriends" "creepy."
"People sure like making a very huge deal out of what is likely a very small subculture of antisocial misfits. The question is, why?"
To bash men. It's the latest trendy thing for feministas to whine about incels, even though they've probably never met one.
Incels, huh. #TooManyLabels #Judgment
They're not antisocial, but rather trans-social. They diverge from the "cis" social model, but they do have social models that work for them. Has anyone been aborted or recycled by this trans-social community? Embrace the rainbow, I guess. So, normalize, tolerate, or reject?
Oh... #HateLovesAbortion
To bash men. It's the latest trendy thing for feministas
There is an ad on Youtube by a group that wants to redefine the masculine (i.e. gendered) attributes of the male sex. First, they selected the fetuses, offspring, babies...
PC culture, along with 3rd wave feminism, is a toxic surveillance and totalitarian snitch culture.
Why get stuck on niceness
They're listening to women complain the men they're sleeping with aren't nice.
They're listening to women complain the men they're sleeping with aren't nice.
Yeah because they are wasting their time going after women who are out of their league. Instead of talking to the plain looking, slightly chubby, quiet girl, they're going after the hot chick. They find a girl who maybe shares a few interests with them who happens also be really hot, but they forget she has standards and preferences too and may not really be interested in a short, pudgy nerd and may be hoping to hook up with the somewhat brash, 6'3" athletic guy in the office.
“anyway, if you are reading this, and know what I am talking about, feel free to explain what poor Freud (who, in any event, considered sex after the age of 45 to be an insignificant and intellectually unpoetic sort of thing) failed to understand about the comparative advantages young men (easily charmed) and young women (not easily charmed, but charmed more often, and in different ways - similarly sad ways, by the ways) have in the World of human Love.”
Well, I did read that, but all I can say is that all my adult life, I’ve considered sex very important and I’m 67. And I dearly love my husband.
"Granted, this applies to the usual SF Bay Area and LA circles."
I have a friend who hooked up via this stuff.
Presumably this could help the incels. But, they'll need to go non-anon to get on the Chattanooga choo choo.
Thinking outside the box, there was a short story or play or something (quick google look tells me its Vonnegut), about how two basic nerdy incels, a male and female, interact via local theatre, continuing their stage personas in real life. That would be a great money generator. Like Arthur Murray, only with beds, after dancing of course (nothing low class). I'm already thinking franchise. Anybody want to get in on the ground floor? Thinking of a continentally recognizable franchise name...
Maybe not "Who am I this Time" but maybe "Who, What, Where am I this Time" trademarked of course.
Ann - you are one of the lucky people, God bless you, even if you and me disagree on so much. I was not trying to explain anything to you!
About 30 years ago I stopped trying to communicate with lucky people, they do not need to listen to what I have to say. I mean, I am willing to try and make them laugh, but ..... when I try and explain my view of the world, the lucky people often think to themselves, what the f***, and then think about something else ,,,,
For the record, in my opinion, Freud was wrong with his 45 and plus thing - it was the poor hygiene of the Austro-Hungarian Empire - and his own addictions to tobacco and junk food, both of which, in excess, are inimicable to male/female relations that led him to his incorrect view on such things - I mean, try and imagine the love life of Churchill in his 50s, the mind boggles ... Sorry I was not clear about that. The point I was trying to make was that the foolish man who we all think is so bright about the human psyche, and who said "nobody understands what women want" (a quote with which I disagree) is the same foolish man who thought "hey nobody cares about companionship and bodily love after 45". I was trying to be helpful to incels and to those who care about them, and to be helpful to the women who experience, from the female vantage point, what male incels experience .... there are a lot of women who do not think they are attractive who are way hotter than Susan Sarandon and Katharine Hepburn .....
That being said, Freud wrote a lot of things, maybe he said some smart things that I have never been smart enough to understand ,,, probably not though, I have often stayed up late reading the Book of Proverbs and have read a lot of Freud, the Book of Proverbs is the Yankees and Freud is that annoying kid who lives down the block .... imho
This meme is literally what has happened in China over the past couple of decades, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.
It's literally there.
To bash men. It's the latest trendy thing for feministas
If that's the latest trend for feminists, there haven't been any new trends since at least the early '90s.
I was involuntary celibate in high school, as were most of my male classmates. It's not that we didn't try, it's just that most of the girls in the late 50's and early 60's didn't put out. That situation was corrected in '63 when I got to college.
Buwaya is correct. The best way for incels to meet girls, female nerds in particular, is dancing. I had a nerdy but pretty girlfriend who once pressured me into swing dancing lessons. Requires little sense of rhythm, just memory, which geeks usually have in spades. About 50% of the girls were nerds in 50’s or 60’s outfits. Charming, unthreatening for the shy, easy and fun. I can see Althouse excelling at it.
You have to have a heart of stone to not feel sad for some of these incels. I read the subreddit /braincels a while back, when this first came out. Some of these young kids are lonely and hurting through no fault of their own, and despite doing their best to take corrective action, like hitting the gym and going to group activities.
Some incels on that sub have maybe been bitter long enough that they’ve become malignant. They’re in the minority eyeing the sub’s limited data points.
If I ever caught someone mocking one of the innocents, I’d take them apart. I’m appreciative of my advantages and aware of those who have none. Perhaps because I’ve been lonely myself, I’m particularly sensitive to how shitty it can be.
There was about a two-week period where some incels hung out at Instapundit. Thank god it didn't last. Bunch of whiny, self-absorbed losers blaming women for all their problems. No wonder nobody wants to sleep with them.
That's a nice thought, sodal. But there's someone for everyone. If they can't get a date, it's because they are undatable. And that's a choice.
Todd Galle said...
"Maybe not "Who am I this Time" but maybe "Who, What, Where am I this Time" trademarked of course."
Here you go. Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon. Saw it when it was orginally aired and never forgotten it.
https://www.amazon.com/Who-Am-I-This-Time/dp/B00VWPPPFW
More on the history of it. Well worth watching:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Am_I_This_Time%3F_(film)
Ann said: "There are other good qualities than niceness."
This is so true. There is a sense of humor, adventurousness, confidence, being a good conversationalist, good grooming, good posture, a sense of style, intelligence, interesting or shared hobby or vocation, and many other traits that are attractive.
Life isn't fair, but it is short. Seize the day! Make things happen. Accept failure and rejection. Keep your head up. Don't waste time on the Internet weeping. And keep trying.
Appropriate for the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf-AmedKfRc
Lonesome Loser, The Little River Band.
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