FROM BOYHOOD TO RADICALISED MASCULINITY: A rapid research response from the International Symposium on Incels
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Lin Prøitz, Fredrik Langeland & Henry Mainsah (Eds.)
FROM BOYHOOD
TO RADICALISED
MASCULINITY:
A rapid research response
from the International Symposium
on Incels
FUNDED BY
ISBN 978-82-92038-18-5
Published by Nora Forlag, 2021 ISBN 978-82-92038-18-5 Cover / cover photo: Kristoffer Eliassen This Rapid research response is part of the "From Boyhood to Radicalised Masculinity”-project, funded by MedieRlsynet and FriS Ord, 2021. Open access - Some rights reserved. The content of our Rapid Research Response may be reproduced without the authors’ permission in part or in its enRrety provided it is distributed and made available to the reader for free, without service charges or any other fee. The authors further sRpulate that the editors, individual writers, and visual arRsts all be credited for their work. ASribuRon — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. NoDerivaRves — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material. Suggested citaRon: Prøitz, L., Langeland, F. & Mainsah, H. (Eds). (2021) FROM BOYHOOD TO RADICALISED MASCULINITY: A RAPID RESEARCH RESPONSE FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON INCELS, Nora Forlag, Steigen.
FROM BOYHOOD
TO RADICALISED
MASCULINITY:
A rapid research response
from the International Symposium
on Incels
Lin Prøitz, Fredrik Langeland & Henry Mainsah (Eds.)
1Table of contents Introduc2on ............................................................................................................................................3 Dissec2ng the Black Pill: researching incels and the manosphere ..........................................................5 Incels, Online Misogyny and Psychoanalysis .........................................................................................10 Incels as hybrid masculini2es ................................................................................................................13 Are incel communi2es a security threat?..............................................................................................17 Interviewing Incels and Radicalisa2on ..................................................................................................22 Researching Incels and gender hate online: methodological and ethical challenges ...........................27 Male losers and solo moms: Incel discourse in Danish poli2cal mainstream .......................................31 Concluding remarks...............................................................................................................................35 Biographies............................................................................................................................................35 2
Introduction This Rapid Research Response is a reaction to the 12th of May 2021 online symposium: ‘From Boyhood to Radicalised Masculinity – Thematising Incels’. Incels (involuntary celibates) is an online subculture that recently has gained widespread interest internationally. Infamous for their misogynist and anti-feminist views, the community has since 2014 been linked to several acts of violence and terrorism. However, incels also represents a fairly diverse subculture that takes place across several digital fora. After the symposium, the contributors were invited to contribute with a 1500 words paper from their presentations, including some reflections from the debates that followed. The rapid research response consists of seven contributions: three papers provide theoretical perspectives on the complexities of the incel communities, and three reflect on ethical and methodological challenges when carrying out research in this field. One paper is a case study from one of the Nordic countries. In the theoretical part Debbie Ging, Jacob Johanssen, Fredrik Langeland and Lin Prøitz, reflect upon the impact of online media, social identities, subjectivity, and hybrid masculinities using psychoanalytical, critical feminist-, and cultural studies perspectives. Johanssen’s paper draws on the psychoanalytic thinkers Klaus Theweleit and Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, in his reflections of incels as obsessive characters whose hatred and desire of cis women is embodied on an affective level. Based on analyses of incels posts and the wider manosphere, Johanssen argues that incels present contradictory thoughts, desires and fantasies about women which include but also go beyond misogyny. These contradictories are further discussed in Langland and Prøitz’ response, where theories on hybrid masculinities are suggested as one way of grasping paradoxes and ambivalences in incel masculinities. In the methodological section Lisa Kati, Nazar Akrami and Amendra Shrestha provide some insights to three of the most well-known and active online platforms for incels. Their paper focuses on some characteristics of the platforms using a computational method called Digital 7, and examines the level of hate in the discussions and towards what the hate is directed. Shane Murphy reflects upon why some young men are drawn to incel communities and how the beliefs of those who continue to engage with these communities change over time. To understand this, Murphy make use of qualitative interviews with members of several incel communities, with particularly interest in hearing about members lives prior to joining these communities, and identifying common grievances or similar triggering events, which may provide a scaffolding for inceldom. In the final methodological paper, Mainsah and Proitz reflect upon what ethical and methodological challenges research on incels online involve for the participants and the researchers, emotionally, ideologically and morally. In the last text in this report Maia Lorentzen analyzes how ideas, ideology and even language that thrives on online incel forums is present in both the Danish language manosphere, as well as in mainstream political discourse in Denmark. 3
There is a need for multi-disciplinary and multi-methodological approaches in order to understand the complexity of online communities for incels. This report is one Rapid Research Response to this. The report is relevant for researchers in this field, health professionals, educators, psychologists, social workers, cultural workers, journalists, and politicians, as well as for people who work with children and adolescents. Lin Prøitz, Professor of communication and digital media, Østfold University College, Henry Mainsah, Researcher II, Consumption Research Norway-Oslomet, and Fredrik Langeland, Senior advisor, KUN Centre for Equality and Diversity (eds.) 4
Dissecting the Black Pill: researching incels and the manosphere Debbie Ging Introduction This paper was presented at the international symposium ‘From Boyhood to Radicalised Masculinity – Thematising Incels’, which facilitated a range of academic and practical perspectives on the incel phenomenon, from Jacob Johanssen’s psychoanalytic approach to Naama Kates’ insightful interviews with members of the community. I consider here how incel formations sit within the broader network of anti-feminist men’s rights and male supremacist groups online. I also suggest that research on this topic needs to adopt more dynamic methodological approaches, and attempt to unpack some questions around gender- based violence, security threats and processes of radicalisation. The incel phenomenon is part of a much broader anti-feminist space known as the manosphere, which is comprised of disparate and sometimes conflicting, sometimes overlapping elements, including men’s rights activists or MRAs, pick-up artists or PUAs, men going their own way (MGTOWs), TradCons (traditional conservatives), NoFappers, and incels (Ging, 2019). Many of these groups have divergent agendas. For example, PUAs are heavily invested in the seduction of women, whereas MGTOWs advocate a life without them. NoFappers advocate abstinence from masturbation, while many other manosphere spaces are awash with hardcore pornography. Meanwhile, TradCons are likely to disagree with more technolibertarian MRAs on issues such as religion or sex work. The most dominant rhetorical tropes on incel forums are bio-essentialist ideas about gender, extreme misogyny, self-loathing, negative body image, a preoccupation with sex robots, antipathy toward sexually active people (referred to as Stacies and Chads, or normies) and a strong sense of what Michael Kimmel (2017) refers to as ‘aggrieved entitlement’. Incels can be broadly divided into two key categories: those who are still invested in the possibility of sexual success and those who have given up. The former still aspire to beta or alpha male status, usually by undertaking body improvement measures such as ‘gymmaxxing’, but sometimes also resorting to ‘steroidmaxxing’ (taking steroids), jelqing (penis-stretching), and mewing (chewing exercises to augment the jawline). Those who have given up, on the other hand, are characterised by a strong sense of defeatism, hopelessness and fatalism. These incels identify as ‘black pillers’, distinguishing them from the manosphere’s core philosophy of the ‘red pill’. Algorithmic radicalisation As Shane Murphy points out in his paper, there has been considerable concern about the role played by social media algorithms in radicalising men into these ideologies, although there are conflicting findings in the research on YouTube’s recommender function as a radicalisation pathway. However, O’Callaghan et al. (2015) found that YouTube draws users down increasingly extreme rabbit holes, Ribeiro et al. (2020) have shown that channels in the intellectual dark web and the alt-lite serve as gateways to fringe far-right ideology, with users consistently migrating from milder to more extreme content. Mamié et al. (2021) have also 5
found that there are significant radicalisation pathways from the manosphere to the far right, while Papadamou et al. (2020) conclude that the probability that a user will encounter an incel-related video via YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is 1 in 5. Tracking ‘pilling pipelines’ (Munn, 2019) is an important new direction in incel research, as it allows us to determine how incel ideologies travel and cross-fertilise, and how and where they become both more extreme and more mainstream. It also responds to a certain stagnation in the current research, with the same method (a large dataset of comment threads subjected to machine or manual analysis to determine key discursive themes) being repeated, and failing to deliver and particularly new insights. Such static, one-dimensional snapshots fail to capture any of the networked dynamism of these communities – and largely fail to address the complex socio-economic, cultural and psychological backgrounds of the individuals involved. Incels may be particularly vulnerable to radicalisation into other movements: they are socially isolated, lacking self-esteem and are often neuroatypical. As Michael Kimmel’s (2018) work has shown, the far right and other extremist groups are now adept at exploiting male anger and ‘aggrieved entitlement’ to further their own causes. Recently, hybrid racist-InCel communities have mushroomed, such as the CoalFax “project” identified by Stephane Baele & Lewys Brace (2021). Such cross-pollination of ideologies remains, however, insufficiently studied. According to Evans (2018), who has tracked the red pilling pathways of Fascist activists, there is ‘a steady spiral, from arguments in comment sections to far-right YouTube personalities to “the donald” subreddit to 4chan’s /pol/ board and eventually to fascist Discord servers’. Several of the far-right extremists in Evans’ study singled out Sargon of Akkad (British Youtuber Carl Benjamin) for special praise, considering him a major influence. Interestingly, he is a prominent anti-feminist, and was a central figure in Gamergate. ‘Antisocial sociability’ In addition to tracking pathways or pipelines, however, it is important to try to better understand the social psychological profiles of the men most prone to becoming red or black pilled. I refer here not to specific personality types or disorders, since there is no definitive profile of a radical, but rather to the complex constellation of social psychological, algorithmic, cultural and circumstantial factors through which a person becomes radicalised over time. Incel spaces are populated by socially isolated males, many of whom claim to be on the autism spectrum, and many of whom have histories of being bullied because of their introverted tendencies, lack of physical prowess, sporting ability and conventional good looks. They are also characterised by high levels of internet use, immersion in the gaming community, low self-esteem, high levels of inhibition and lacking in gender-normative traits of masculinity. In the narratives of ex-incels, this social isolation almost always goes back to school and to the failure to conform to heteronormative ideals of masculinity in relation to physical ability, sport, and popularity. Histories of bullying are common, and of a retreat into the mediated worlds of gaming and other online communities. From there the transition to NEET (not in education employment or training) is often relatively seamless, a precarious pace to be in a neoliberal, technocapitalist economy which fragments its subjects into expendable units of 6
labour, and in which the social safety net is fast disappearing. For the NEET male, the hallmarks of traditional masculinity and marriageability – property ownership and career for life – are no longer available. Given all this, the alternative intimacies offered by the digital echo chambers of the red pill and black pill ‘philosophies’ are deeply attractive. Here incels find what Jacob Johanssen (2021) refers to as ‘antisocial sociability’, or the kind of ‘ambient intimacy’ described by Reichelt (2007), but in this case in the cultic milieu (Campbell, 1972) of various anti-woman, anti-globalist, anti-progressive, and anti-immigration formations. Many ex-incels also point out that the false security that comes from being told ‘it’s not your fault’ creates a detrimental holding pattern, delaying or preventing normal psychosexual development. In other words, time that should have been spent experimenting, experiencing rejection and learning from those experiences has instead been spent in a perpetual online ‘circlejerk’, which both excuses and fetishizes celibacy. Exiting the community usually requires an ‘intimacy breakthrough’ in the form of striking up a relationship with a real woman. Until then, however, incels are faced with the choice between an endless quest to ascend or resignation to a life of loneliness. In this last-stop psychic space of Blackpill, a false sense of intimacy is forged through ‘affectively charged personal narratives’ (Papacharissi, 2015) of despair, self-loathing and revenge. Displaying some striking similarities to pro-anorexia communities, blackpilled incels detach entirely from aspirations to sexual intimacy, turning their frustration and anxiety inwards, on their own bodily imperfections, and outward on sexually successful women and men. In this sense, we can consider Blackpilled incels as simultaneously a dangerous political faction of the Manosphere as well as part of the human collateral damage wrought by technocapitalism. Assessing the threat While incel discourse is frequently replete with extreme misogyny and performative or ironic violent ideation, most do not actually condone violence and many condemn the attacks perpetrated by Minassian and others. Indeed, incels are frequently at pains to point out that it is the chads or alpha males who are violent and abusive toward women, while incels remain undesirable precisely because they are not aggressive. This is not to say that they are harmless, but rather that the likelihood they will commit violence is both low and unpredictable. The sporadic attacks we have seen to date are forms of stochastic terrorism (Clover, 2019; Lindsay, 2020), whereby random lone wolves carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. In addition to this, several recent European far-right attackers have displayed incel tendencies, making to increasingly difficult to pin down specific ideological motivations. Importantly, however, while stochastic terrorism is especially concerning because it is both unpredictable and spectacular, the threat posed by incels to women must be considered in the broader context of everyday misogyny and anti-women violence. Worldwide around 90,000 women are murdered every year by men, 36% of these (or 137 every day) by a partner or member of their own family. In the UK a woman is killed by a man every three days. While not classified as terrorism, the underlying motives for the everyday murder and abuse of 7
women are not disconnected from the same set of beliefs that incels and other men’s rights activists hold about women. Indeed, unlike incels, who more often than not lack real conviction in these beliefs, as they are ultimately detached from women, there are a great many more men who have a genuine vested interest in upholding them. In this sense, othering gender-political terrorism onto an obscure online cult serves to distance anti-women violence and abuse from ‘normal’ society, despite this actually being it central locus. To conclude, the threat of incel-based terrorism is not negligible. It is likely that random attacks will continue to happen, and efforts to prevent them (as in the recent case of Gabriel Friel in Scotland) are to be welcomed. However, the broader amplification and mainstreaming of manosphere ideology and misogyny in spaces such as Reddit, Discord, Parler and Urban Dictionary (Ging et al., 2020) arguably poses a much greater threat to online democracy, women’s safety and progressive values more generally, especially when viewed in connection with the rise of the far right in Europe. Gender-political terrorism in this sense is not confined to arcane online subcultures which sporadically unleash unhinged martyrs. It is a constant threat to women in a society in which it is unsafe to express opinions online, or walk home alone and where domestic violence is rife. Tackling only the most extreme and spectacular manifestations of this phenomenon, while absolutely necessary, addresses the symptoms, but fails to tackle the root causes of gender-political violence. References Baele, S. J., Brace, L., & Coan, T. G. (2021). Variations on a Theme? Comparing 4chan, 8kun, and Other chans’ Far-Right “/pol” Boards. Perspectives on Terrorism, 15(1), 65-80. Campbell, C. (1972). The cult, the cultic milieu and secularization. na. Clover, J. 2019. “Four notes on stochastic terrorism,” Popula (3 April), at https://popula.com/ 2019/04/03/four-notes-on-stochastic-terrorism/ Evans, R. (2018). From Memes to Infowars: How 75 Fascist Activists Were Red- Pilled. Bellingcat, October. Ging, D. (2019). Alphas, betas, and incels: Theorizing the masculinities of the manosphere. Men and Masculinities, 22(4), 638-657. Ging, D., Lynn, T., & Rosati, P. (2020). Neologising misogyny: Urban Dictionary’s folksonomies of sexual abuse. new media & society, 22(5), 838-856. Johanssen, J. (2021). Fantasy, Online Misogyny and the Manosphere: Male Bodies of Dis/ Inhibition. ROUTLEDGE. Kimmel, M. (2017). Angry white men: American masculinity at the end of an era. Hachette UK. 8
Lindsay, A. (2020). Swallowing the Black Pill: A Qualitative Exploration of Incel Antifeminism within Digital Society. Mamié, R., Horta Ribeiro, M., & West, R. (2021, June). Are Anti-Feminist Communities Gateways to the Far Right? Evidence from Reddit and YouTube. In 13th ACM Web Science Conference 2021 (pp. 139-147). Munn, L. (2019). Alt-right pipeline: Individual journeys to extremism online. First Monday. O’Callaghan, D., Greene, D., Conway, M., Carthy, J., & Cunningham, P. (2015). Down the (white) rabbit hole: The extreme right and online recommender systems. Social Science Computer Review, 33(4), 459-478. Papacharissi, Z. (2015). Affective publics: Sentiment, technology, and politics. Oxford University Press. Papadamou, K., Zannettou, S., Blackburn, J., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., & Sirivianos, M. (2020). Understanding the incel community on youtube. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.08293. Reichelt, L. (2007). Ambient intimacy. Disambiguity blog, 1. Ribeiro, M. H., Ottoni, R., West, R., Almeida, V. A., & Meira Jr, W. (2020, January). Auditing radicalization pathways on YouTube. In Proceedings of the 2020 conference on fairness, accountability, and transparency (pp. 131-141). 9
Incels, Online Misogyny and Psychoanalysis Jacob Johanssen Introduction Like any group and subculture, incels articulate complex and contradictory desires and fantasies. We may dismiss them as another form of misogyny, but the matter is often more complex. In this short piece, I explore some of their ideas and their underlying psychodynamics by drawing on psychoanalysis. Similarly to the other presenters who took part in the symposium From Boyhood to Radicalised Masculinity, organised by Lin Prøitz and Fredrik Langeland, I believe it is important to critically examine the (symbolic) violence of incels as well as to relate it to wider socio-historical contexts, as for instance Debbie Ging’s contribution exemplifies. Incels believe in a sexual hierarchy that structures society. They claim that they are at the very bottom, allegedly destined to be forever alone – this is known as the blackpill worldview: everything is doomed and nothing will improve. Chads, stereotypes of attractive alpha males, are at the top. Their hatred of women and certain other men is often coupled with discussions about mental health issues. Incels feel inferior compared to their brothers, fathers or peers. One can find many discussions about mental health, suicidal tendencies and a strong rejection of therapy or counselling, because any form of mental health treatment is designated as a pointless waste of time. Incels passionately engage in self-destruction and self-victimization. They deprive themselves of any potential or positive outlook on life and project everything onto females while also cultivating passionate self-pity. Desiring and destroying the Stacy Feelings of impotence and inadequacy are thus central for incels. They feel they have been castrated and made impotent by women and the superficial nature of society that places an excessive emphasis on looks and particular understandings of masculinity that they do not conform to. For psychoanalysis, the concept of the phallus (which is not the same as the penis) signifies symbolic power which is also always rooted in notions of patriarchy and sexism (Johanssen 2021). The phallus ultimately remains a myth and no one has the absolute power that it symbolises. Nonetheless, incels, and other men of the manosphere, constantly grapple with a desire for a phallic masculinity. While incel men construct and desire the fantasy of the Stacy, they are at the same time able to reject her because she remains unreachable. Incels articulate a sense of dependence on the other through their narratives which they simultaneously hate because it makes them less powerful and manly. They hate and love their need for women. Incels have thus created a vicious circle where they can hate and dream about women and yet bear no responsibility for taking any action and can remain lethargic because no woman wants to be with them anyway. The fantasy of woman is both constantly absent and present online. 10
But what kind of people describe themselves as incels? This can be analysed through Elisabeth Young-Bruehl’s classic work on prejudices (1996). Drawing on Freud’s character types, Young-Bruehl conceptualises prejudice (for instance racism or sexism) as a particular psychosocial phenomenon that expresses itself differently depending on basic character types that individuals embody. For instance, obsessionals, for Young-Bruehl, are well-organised, mentally lucid, have an attention to detail, are fixated on repeating tasks (creating lists, going through motions, obsessive-compulsive behaviour). I argue (2021) that such characteristics are also present in incels. ‘Obsessionals may rely on an idée fixe to organise themselves’ (Young-Bruehl 1996, 211). In the case of incels that idée fixe is women. ‘For obsessionals, women are impure, sullied creatures, oversexed, aggressive, and corrupting.’ (ibid, 239). In that sense, the kind of sexism that incels articulate has a history that goes back thousands of years and is firmly rooted in the proto-fascism of patriarchy (Theweleit 1987). Yet, it acquires a particular dangerous force online where it can be circulated and amplified. The narratives of misogyny, bodies and self-castration make incels trapped in their own discourses. Yet, they live out a symbolic agency online without having to make real changes to their own situations. I have further analysed this through my concept of dis/inhibition (Johanssen 2021). Becoming a fascist body Many incels also discuss getting revenge for all those alleged rejections or hurt feelings that women are supposedly responsible for. Similarly to racist and anti-Semitic fantasies, women come to occupy a position of a lustful and greedy Other who has all the fun. Such fantasies are not coincidentally emerging at times of the spreading of right-wing populism across many parts of the world. Incels actively make use of memes, words and images that have been popularised by the Alt-Right. Their growth has, at least in part, been enabled by the Alt-Right, a movement that is at its core not only fascist but highly misogynistic and anti-feminist. Incels can thus be seen as a particularly extreme symptom of wider (un)conscious currents within US and Western culture that emerge as responses to apparent cultural changes which have weakened the phallic power of white cis men. As a result, a particular form of masculine identity is constructed as a performative defense mechanism against feelings of rejection, inadequacy and impotence in relation to women. While incels predominantly focus on women in their discussions, other topics of the Alt-Right such as immigration are also discussed albeit less frequently. As a result, there is some overlap with the Alt-Right, something incels themselves often refute when they argue that they are not interested in politics. The incel identity is also responded to with an implicit and sometimes explicit desire and articulation of having a fascist body. Apart from women, fantasies of Chads are constantly mobilised by incels. The Chad is a white, muscular, strong body who is allegedly universally desired by women. Many posts by incels discuss genetics, family heritage, specific bodily shortcomings, and how cosmetic surgery and exercise at the gym can help them ‘ascend’ and leave ‘inceldom’ behind. Incels’ obsessions about surgery, strong jawlines, and pseudo-science about bodily strength reveal a 11
particular unconscious desire: of becoming a fascist body. The Chad bears resemblances to the fascist soldier. As Klaus Theweleit discussed (1987), the fascist soldier embodies a particular kind of masculinity that is driven by destructive affect. He kills others in order to defend against his own feelings of bodily disintegration. It is particularly the (fantasy of) woman that threatens the soldier. In killing her, he defends against his own female, soft, passionate and eroticised elements. It is the ideology of fascism that provides the soldier with a feeling of totality that keeps feelings of bodily disintegration at bay. The online communities that incels have created, like fascism, attempt to integrate their fragmented egos into a feeling of totality. The incel in us Many commentators have been quick to (rightfully) criticise incels for their misogyny and deeply destructive views on women and others. However, at the same time, incels serve as a perfect projection surface on to which everyone, and ‘progressive’ men in particular, can offload their own anxieties and discriminatory feelings in relation to women for example. By quickly condemning incels, we can reassure ourselves that ‘we’ are good subjects. The term ‘incel’ has also become a sort of joke in itself that is circulated on social media in relation to certain men. However, such an attitude is not helpful. Instead, a more analytical perspective on incels and other problematic male communities is needed today in order to understand the anxieties and fantasies that alienated men circulate online. Incels, and other men of the manosphere, have ostracised themselves but an ideological online culture in which perfect bodies are shown on social media platforms and spaces where genuine dialogue can occur remain rare have perhaps also added to their reclusion. Psychoanalysis teaches us that we all have elements of the incel in us: disruptive, destructive and discriminatory fantasies that are kept under wraps or may erupt, transferred onto another human being, or transformed into more benign and reflexive ways of relating, thinking and feeling. Acknowledging this is the first step towards a culture on the internet and beyond that may be more containing and welcoming. At the same time, and above all, incels need to leave their fantasy worlds and engage with others. References Johanssen, J. (2021). Fantasy, Online Misogyny and the Manosphere: Male Bodies of Dis/ Inhibition. London: Routledge. Theweleit, K. (1987). Male Fantasies. Volume 1. Women, Floods, Bodies, History. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Young-Bruehl, E. (1996). The Anatomy of Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 12
Incels as hybrid masculinities Fredrik Langeland & Lin Prøitz Paradoxes and contradictions Several of the speakers in the From boyhood to radicalised masculinity symposium indicated that they see incels as a diverse subculture, that takes place on several digital fora. The complexities within the incel culture manifests itself also in a sometimes complicated representation of gender and masculinity. Take the example of incelebrity Toby Reynholds (aka: Eggman/Egg White), who streams on a weekly basis on his own YouTube channel. In one video, titled “Egg White Alek Minassian Live”, he is in his own basement, sitting on a couch, while performing a rap “hit song”. The lyrics clearly have the intention of shocking the viewer with the line “Hoes suck my dick while I run over pedestrians”. With reference to Canadian mass murder Alek Minassian, the performance seems aggressive and suggestive. The comments from the audience are varied, but not surprisingly, several of them celebrate the song. With reference to this clip, Kaitlyn Regehr (2020) notes that “many in the [incel] community seem very happy to cheer on and celebrate those who have committed mass killings through music videos, memes and fan art” (p. 10). Eggman and many of his followers are deeply integrated in the black pill ideology, performing an often dysfunctional, violent, and aggressive masculinity. However, in several other videos and live-streams on YouTube, Eggman displays other sides of himself, and different kinds of emotions and affects besides aggression. Some of his videos have a more tender tone and focuses on his loneliness and isolate situation. Thus, Eggman also put himself in the position as marginalized and vulnerable. In other videos he performs an odd kind of dance accompanied by contemporary and retro music videos, often (ironically?) wearing a suit jacket, while addressing the audience with remarks and gestures. In one clip, he dances with a trans-woman to stage an imaginary prom dance. Eggman thus plays out a variety of masculinities available within the incel culture. He performs a violent masculinity one the one hand, one the other he plays out a marginalized, potentially vulnerable, and even a sensitive and trans-inclusive man. In addition, he stands out as a performer with his own signature style. Thus, he borrows styles and aesthetics from other cultures while distancing himself from normative masculinity, and well as fortifying boundaries to other communities at the same time. The masculinities performed by Eggman seems to be somewhat paradoxical, and probably not the kind of display one would normally associate with white aggressive masculinity. In her now seminal article “Alphas, Betas, and Incels”, Debbie Ging (2019) analyzes a set of inconsistencies in the subculture. Firstly, Ging points out that incels legitimizes their position as subordinated and marginalized by blaming women, other men, and the society in general for their misery as involuntary celibate. Secondly, Ging argues that this process of legitimation is strategic, in the sense that the community obscure the reproduction of a toxic 13
and antifeminist discourse, by self-positioning as victims. According to Ging (2019), incel discourse – and the manosphere more broadly – produces at set of “ostensible contradictions” that distance incels from representations of a more traditional “patriarchal” masculinity (p. 4). These kinds of “ostensible contradictions” are visible as incel culture produces a “rich toxic cultural tapestry” that involves irony, creativity and art-making, as Regehr (2020 ) has described it . Hybrid masculinities So how can we grasp these contradictions in the representation of masculinities in the incel culture? The incel community off course reproduces quite a lot of misogyny and aggression, as the lyrics of Eggman’s “Alek Minnasian” is but one of many examples of. Aggression and violence are clearly an integrated part of the incel legacy, and incels are connected to several shootings and homicides (Hoffman et al., 2020). On the other hand, the subculture has similarities with the geek culture that focuses on “socially awkward” men as marginalized outsiders (Salter & Blodgett, 2017, p. 6). Incels both criticize and mock normative ways of being a man in the contemporary western culture in their continuous attacks on chads. But Incels also seem to admire the chad figure, and thus reproduce both hypermasculinity and a subordinated masculinity. One way of grasping these paradoxes and ambivalences when it comes to incel masculinities, is through the theory of hybrid masculinities (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014). Ging notes that incels and “beta males” can be described as “hybrid masculinities, whose self- positioning as victims of feminism and political correctness enables them to strategically distance themselves from hegemonic masculinity, while simultaneously compounding existing hierarchies of power and inequality online” (Ging, 2019, p. 14). According to Bridges and Pascoe (2014), hybrid masculinity “refers to men’s selective incorporation of performances and identity elements associated with marginalized and subordinated masculinities and femininities”. Theories of hybrid masculinities represent a critical analysis of gender relations and ask whether the changes in practices and representations really point to a “new, more liberating direction” (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014, p. 246). Bridges & Pascoe (2014) point out that “normative constraints [for men] are shifting” and that “hybrid masculinities may be best thought of as contemporary expression of gender and sexual inequality” (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014, p. 247). Hybrid masculinities symbolically distance men from hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995), while fortifying existing social and symbolic boundaries in ways that often work to conceal systems of power and inequality in historically new ways (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014). By obscuring symbolic and social boundaries between identities, hybrid masculinities further entrench and conceal systems of inequality along racial, sexual, gendered, and class boundaries (Segalewicz, 2020). There are several practices involved in the process of constructing hybrid masculinities. Strategic borrowing – or cultural appropriation – is one defining character. It situates the 14
masculinities available to young, White, heterosexual men as somehow less meaningful compared with various marginalized and subordinated Others (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014, p. 252). Secondly, the integration of elements of style and performance borrowed from other subordinated masculinities – such as queer or rap culture – into the repertoire of white masculinities, is one way of fortifying boundaries “perpetuating hierarchies in new (and ‘softer’) ways” (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014, p. 255). Thirdly, discursive distancing creates distance between straight white men, and hegemonic masculinity while also – paradoxically – aligning themselves with it (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014, p. 250) Hybrid masculinities understood in this way are first and foremost common among young men from privileged social backgrounds. This relates to the ways that men are increasingly incorporating elements of other subordinated groups into their identity projects (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014; Schmitz & Haltom, 2017). However, this line of analysis does not automatically apply to incels, who mostly do not come from positions of privilege. Even so, other researchers have recently applied what they describe as a «hybrid masculinities framework» (Glace et al., 2021), to get insight into the ways that incel masculinities develop online. There are good reasons to do so, because several of the practices that relate to hybrid masculinities seem to be quite useful for analyzing the various procedures that can be observed in the incel community. A useful tool The connection between incels and hybrid masculinities – as Ging, (2019) and Glace et al., (2021) observe – is fruitful to analyze the often conflicting and contradictory representations of gender and masculinity in the incel community. The concepts of strategic borrowing, fortifying boundaries and discursive distancing are useful to analyze how incels perform aggression and violence, while at the same time play the part as vulnerable victims; how their geeky image integrates style elements from other subcultures such as rap culture, and how they distance themselves from normative masculinity and mainstream society. It is vital to address the complexities within the representations of masculinities in the incel culture, and to still be able to comprehend the generally misogynist rhetoric that is employed. Incels often portray themselves as sensitive “nice guys”, looking for love and connection in a society that misrepresent them as merely objectifying women and engaging in obscene sexual fantasies. One member of the community has recently been outspoken in public, in order to reframe some of the common (mis)understandings of incels. The seeming openness to dialogue between the subculture and a mainstream audience seems to be a positive development. It appears to be important to somehow engage with the community and to do what is possible to help these men to improve their lives as a means of reducing the risks of incels harm to self or others (see Morton et al., 2021). Certainly, this is an important task, but it is equally important not to lose sight of the dehumanizing process of misogyny that is taking place within this “toxic cultural tapestry” (Regehr, 2020). 15
I do follow Debbie Ging’s analysis of the “ostensible contradictions” in the incel culture, and agree that that we need a sophisticated interpretation of the hybrid masculinities at play. It is crucial to understand the complexities and nuances, and to find a sufficient vocabulary to describe the representation of gender and masculinity within this community. For that task the theory of hybrid masculinities seems to be a useful tool. References Bridges, T., & Pascoe, C. (2014a). Hybrid Masculinities: New Directions in the Sociology of Men and Masculinities. Sociology Compass, 8. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12134 Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. University of California Press. Ging, D. (2019). Alphas, Betas, and Incels: Theorizing the Masculinities of the Manosphere. Men and Masculinities, 22(4), 638–657. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X17706401 Glace, A. M., Dover, T. L., & Zatkin, J. G. (2021). Taking the black pill: An empirical analysis of the “Incel”. Psychology of Men & Masculinities, 22(2), 288–297. https://doi.org/ 10.1037/men0000328 Hoffman, B., Ware, J., & Shapiro, E. (2020). Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 43(7), 565–587. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2020.1751459 Morton, J., Ash, A., Reidy, K., Kates, N., Ellenberg, M., & Speckhard, A. (2021). Asking Incels (Part 1): Assessing the Impacts of COVID-19 Quarantine and Coverage of the Canadian Terrorism Designation on Incel Isolation and Resentment. Regehr, K. (2020). In(cel)doctrination: How technologically facilitated misogyny moves violence off screens and on to streets. New Media & Society, 1461444820959019. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1461444820959019 Salter, A., & Blodgett, B. (2017). Toxic Geek Masculinity in Media: Sexism, Trolling, and Identity Policing. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66077-6 Schmitz, R. M., & Haltom, T. M. (2017). “I Wanted to Raise My Hand and Say I’m Not a Feminist”: College Men’s Use of Hybrid Masculinities to Negotiate Attachments to Feminism and Gender Studies. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 25(3), 278–297. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1060826516676841 Segalewicz, J. (2020). “If You’re Ugly, the Blackpill is Born with You”: Sexual Hierarchies, Identity Construction, and Masculinity on an Incel Forum Board. Joyce Durham Essay Contest in Women's and Gender Studies. https://ecommons.udayton.edu/wgs_essay/20 16
Are incel communities a security threat?
Lisa Kaati, Nazar Akrami, & Amendra Shrestha
Incels online
The Incel subculture is a primary internet phenomenon. It is in the digital space that incels
meet and communicate. While some incels form communities on major social media
platforms and forums, most of them interact on forums exclusively dedicated to the incel
culture. The dedicated forums serve as a “safe space” for incel individuals. One of the early
discussion forums for incels was PUAHate that was created in 2009. The forum attracted men
who felt being unable to find a romantic partner and found that traditional methods to seduce
women did not work. On PUAhate, members communicated ideas that men who did not have
the right appearance would never find a female partner. On May 24, 2014 the forum was shut
down since one of the members, Elliot Rodger, committed a series of deadly attacks in Isla
Vista, California, United States. After the closedown of PUAhate, several forums for incels
have appeared, disappear, and reappear under different names.
Today, the three most prominent and most well-known incel forums available online are
incels.is, lookism.net and looksmax.me. During late 2019 and 2020 a number of new forums
were created. These new forums have significantly fewer members and visitors. However,
incel communities have recently attracted more visitors. For example, while incels.is had 53
000 visitors in December 2019, the same forum attracted 2.5 million monthly visitors in May
2021 (according to statistics from Similar Web). Similarly, Lookism and Looksmax had 41
000 and 39 000 visitors in December 2019, while the number of visitors in May 2021
increased to 613 000 and 1.3 million visitors. Interestingly, despite the increased number of
visitors to the forums, the number users that actively engage in discussions (active users) have
not increased. For example, the number of active users on incel.is was 1031 in December
2019, while a total of 787 users were active in April 2021. One reason for the increased
number of visitors might be the attention that incels and incel forums have received recently
in media and among researchers..
Table 1 shows visitor statistics for the different incel forums (from the webanalysis tool
SimilarWeb).
Table 1. Statistics for some of the incel forums.
Forum/Addressa Registeredb Visitorsc Geography of visitors (%)d
Looksmax 2018-08-09 2.80M United States 31.6, United
https://looksmax.org Kingdom 12.4, Germany 7.1,
Portugal 7.1, France 5.2
Incels 2018-09-21 2.50M United States 44.2, Brazil 7.4,
https://incels.is United Kingdom 5.7, Poland
5.3, Turkey 5.1
17Lookism 2015-06-27 667.20K United States 28.1, Germany
https://lookism.net 10.0, United Kingdom 8.5,
Canada 7.7, New Zealand 6.0
Lookmaxxing 2018-11-19 187.60K United States 25.1, Germany
https://forum.looksmaxxing.com 7.0, United Kingdom 7.0,
Australia 6.0, Czech Republic
5.8
Incels.net 2017-11-08 66.60K United States 33.6, Brazil 19.2,
https://incels.net United Kingdom 8.2, Canada
3.8, Germany 3.6
Blackpill 2019-11-13 N/A N/A
Blackpill.club
Looks theory 2019-10-16 N/A N/A
https://lookstheory.org
Non Cucks United (NCU) 2020-11-10 N/A N/A
https://ncu.su
Youre not alone 2020-03-29 N/A N/A
https://yourenotalone.co
a2021-06-08. bAccording to whois. cMay 2021. dTop 5. N/A = Statistics were not available
due to lack of data.
Incels as a security threat
One of the most challenging threats to the security of society is violent attacks from
individuals that act more or less alone. During the last years, there have been attacks from
actors who self-identify as incels and have been engaging in digital incel environments. Law
enforcement and security authorities around the world consider violent attacks committed by
incels as a growing terror threat. In Canada, a violent attack with incel motives has been
prosecuted as terrorism (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2020).
Recent research shows that a large share of the communication in incel forums is offensive
(Jaki et al., 2019), and a study on the level of hate in incel communities (Fernquist et al.,
2020) showed that between 20-30% of the posts on Incels, Lookism, and Looksmax were
hateful. The most common direction of hate was toward women. Incel communities share
some basic elements with other extremist environments (Baele, Brace, & Coan, 2019). Incels
have developed their own characteristic language, their own areas of interest, and speculative
theories that strengthen their members' cohesion and sense of belonging. Specifically, in incel
communication, violence towards women is justified by describing women
as femoids or foids or as sneaky herd animals who either bully or ignore incels. The term
femoid is a contraction of the word female, and android (robot) used to emphasize women's
unkind nature. Hate toward women is coupled with incitement to violence by calls for action,
for example, by encouraging members to "go ER" a term that refers to Elliot Rodger and his
violent attack that was followed by a suicide. Another way to incite violence and encourage
18members to act is the endorsement and glorification of previous offenders that are glorified
and receive status as heroes and icons.
Assessing the risk of violent behavior
To assess the risk of violent behavior of an individual that engages in the digital incel
communities, we used a threat assessment method called Digital-7 (see Shrestha, Kaati, &
Akrami, 2020). Digital-7 consists of seven profiling indicators that can be used for threat
assessment of written communication (see Table 2). By analyzing digital communication, we
can assess the risk of violent behavior without direct access to the person. The indicators of
Digital-7 can be assessed either manually, with computer support, or a combination of both.
In the present case, we use computer support. Each indicator can be assigned a value of zero
(0) or one (1), based on the profiling of the text. As psychological characteristics are latent
constructs and have no absolute values, we use a normal population as a reference and
implement thresholds that we have identified in our previous research. An indicator value is
set to 1 when the measure exceeds a threshold. By summing up each indicator, each text is
assigned a total score ranging between 0 (zero) and 7 (seven), indicating no risk of violent
behavior and high risk of violent behavior, respectively. The author of a text that receives a
value of 7 can be regarded as an individual that has an increased risk of violent behavior.
From each forum listed in Table 1, we selected all users that have written more than 15 posts
to assure that the results are reliable and reflect a consistent behavior of the author. As a
normal population, we use samples from a variety of digital environments consisting of blogs,
discussion forums, and social media platforms. The normal population consists of writings
from a total of 52,498 individuals.
Table 2. Profiling indicators of the Digital-7
Indicator Explanation
Anger Expression of anger.
Grievance A perception of having been wronged or treated unfairly or
inappropriately.
Othering A clear division into “we” and “them
Leakage Communication of intent to harm a specific target.
M i l i t a r y Use of military terminology may indicate a desire to be a "pseudo-
terminology commando” or have a warrior mentality.
Influence Identification with a role model or inspired by previous offender.
Dark personality Personality traits associated with antisocial behavior (Psychopathy,
Narcissism, & Machiavellianism)
The results of our assessment are presented in Table 3. As can be seen in the table, Blackpill is
the forum that has the highest amounts of users that have scored 7 out of 7 risk indicators.
19Looksmaxxing and Youre not alone do not have any users that have scored 7 out of 7
indicators.
Table 3. The assessment of individuals that have written more than 15 posts on the different
forums.
Forum # number of users # users with % users with
7/7 risk indicators 7/7 risk indicators
Blackpill 201 5 2.5
Incels.is 5040 51 1
Incels.net 944 5 0.5
Looks theory 550 3 0.5
Looksmax 4327 8 0.2
Non Cucks United (NCU) 92 2 0.2
Looksmaxxing 183 0 0
Youre not alone 69 0 0
Total 11 406 74 0.6
Conclusion
The incel communities serve as a safe space for many incels. Meeting others who are in the
same situation and who validate one's feelings can contribute to a sense of belonging. It is
most likely an important and positive experience to be part of a community that both
understands and offers explanations for why some people are living in involuntary
celibacy. While most incels are harmless, the online incel environments provide both
justification and incitement of violence, in particular towards women. Our threat assessment
shows that around 0.6% of the individuals in the digital incel communities have an increased
risk for violent behavior.
References
Akrami, N., Shrestha, A., Berggren, M., Kaati, L., Obaidi, M., Cohen, K. (2018).
Assessment of risk in written communication: Introducing the profile risk assessment tool
(PRAT). Europol. https://www. europol.europa.eu/publications-documents/assessment-of-
riskin-written-communication. Accessed 2 Feb 2020
Baele, S. J., Brace, L., & Coan, T. G. (2019). From 'Incel' to 'Saint': Analyzing the
violent worldview behind the 2018 Toronto attack. Terrorism and Political Violence, 1-25.
doi:10.1080/09546553.2019.1638256
Fernquist, J., Pelzer, B., Cohen, K., Kaati, L. & Akrami, N. (2020) Hope, cope & rope
[On Swedish]. Swedish Defence Research Institute, FOI Memo 7040.
20Jaki, S., De Smedt, T., Gwóźdź, M., Panchal, R., Rossa, A., & De Pauw, G. (2019).
Online hatred of women in the Incels. me forum: Linguistic analysis and automatic
detection. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict, 7(2), 240-268.
Shrestha, A., Kaati, L., & Akrami, N. (2019, December). PRAT-a Tool for Assessing
Risk in Written Communication. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big
Data) (pp. 4755-4762). IEEE.
Shrestha, A., Kaati, L., & Akrami, N. (2020, December). Introducing Digital-7: Threat
Assessment of Individuals in Digital Environments. In 2020 IEEE/ACM International
Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM).
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (2020) Updated Charge, Young Person Charged with
First-Degree Murder and Attempted Murder, Updated to First-Degree Murder - Terrorist
Activity and Attempted Murder- Terrorist Activity, Homicide #12/2020, Dufferin and Wilson
Avenue. https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/news/2020/dufferin-and-wilson-avenue
Texas Fusion Center. (2020). Texas Domestic Terrorism Threat Assessment.
Intelligence & Counterterrorism Division, Texas Department of Public Safety.
21Interviewing Incels and Radicalisation Shane Murphy This report will begin by briefly unpacking the phenomenon of “non-violent radicalisation”, a useful concept to understand when engaging with non-violent members of extreme communities, which I believe applies to the overwhelming majority of incels. Following this, a case will be made for using interviews to better understand the process of online radicalisation. The report will end with a brief look at two issues frequently discussed in relation to conducting interviews with members of extremist communities – the secrecy of extremists groups, and potential dangers to researchers. Non-Violent Radicalisation Bartlett and Miller (2012) define radicalization as a process through which ‘‘individuals are introduced to an overtly ideological message and belief system that encourages movement from moderate, mainstream beliefs towards extreme views’’. Radicalization, in this case, involves an individual moving away from, or rejecting the status quo, but not necessarily in a violent manner. They explain “Some radicals conduct, support, or encourage terrorism, whilst many others do no such thing, and actively and often effectively agitate against it.” (p2). This distinction is important, as it allows researchers to distinguish between violent and non- violent radicalisation. In the case of incels, it is not uncommon to see members who explicitly reject violence, but who nonetheless hold beliefs that could be considered radical or extreme. Why Interviews? Jensen, Atwell and James (2018) contend that in order to understand radicalization, it is necessary to view it not as a linear process, but rather an inherently complex set of causal processes, including psychological, emotional, material and group based mechanisms. “Simple models of radicalization” they argue “distort the complex reality of extremism (…) and can provide misguided solutions to a problem that is multifaceted, contextually driven, and constantly evolving” (p18). This understanding of radicalization as a complex set of processes is one that is too often ignored in discussions of online radicalisation. Researchers have highlighted the fact that much of the literature concerned with online radicalisation has addressed the broad phenomenon of online radicalisation, while ignoring individual experiences. As a result, much of the focus has been on how the content of extremist forums contributes to radicalisation. Whittaker and Herath (2020) note that when trying to understand pathways of radicalisation there is an availability bias towards online data, which tends to be public and persistent, allowing this data to be collected years after the fact, without the need for the authors consent. An unintended consequence of this reliance on extant material, is that it can begin to appear self-evident that extreme content has a direct influence on those who consume it. Further, Whittaker and Herath (2017) write that “a persistent focus on online activity may cause researchers, policymakers, and the media to overrate the importance of the Internet at the expense of offline factors, believing phenomena like “online radicalisation” are present and persistent problems”. Of 231 cases of radicalisation examined, the authors find just five which they believe can reasonably be described as examples of radicalisation which occurred 22
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