Link (Archive)
Then, the subreddit — which was created in 2019 — already had 14,000 members. Today, it has 21,000. In the last two years, the divide between young men and women has only grown. New data shows that 56% of millennial and Gen Z men in the UK think we’ve gone ‘too far’ in promoting women’s rights and that we’re now actively discriminating against men. Donald Trump, a man who’s been accused of sexual misconduct, including rape, by at least 26 women, has been re-elected as US president, largely thanks to a boom in young male supporters. Meanwhile, violence against women and girls is growing, as is misogyny. The influence of the manosphere, men’s rights figureheads like Andrew Tate, and incel ideology on all of this can’t be overstated.
But, for obvious reasons, there aren’t many places on the internet (and beyond) where people who’ve experienced — and are conflicted about — this kind of radicalisation can speak frankly about it: its allure, its downsides, and their internal battle over their beliefs. And, although this topic floods the mainstream when radicalised men and boys commit horrific acts of violence, general conversations about inceldom tend to happen in shadow-y or more niche corners of the internet and the media. Now, though, a new four-part Netflix series, called Adolescence, is addressing the topic head on.
The show, which stars Stephen Graham and Ashley Walters, tells the story of 13-year-old Jamie (Owen Cooper), who’s accused of murdering his female classmate, Katie (Emilia Holliday), after she rejects his offer of a date and teases him about being an incel. The series has been lauded by critics, and has even sparked parliamentary debate, with Keir Starmer saying Adolescence has shone a light on an “emerging and growing problem” that needs to be tackled now.
So, with the dangers of incel ideology at the forefront of mainstream conversations, I thought I’d revisit the story of r/IncelExit (and its sister subreddit, r/ExRedPill), catching up with some of those I spoke to and reflecting on why more and more young men and boys are going down a dangerous path — and whether there’s a way out of it.
Like any teenager with time on their hands, Niall mostly lives on social media. And, like many extremely online young men, he’s found himself drawn to incel forums; hotbeds of resentment, anger, misogyny, and violence. “I only became an incel like three months ago,” he tells Cosmopolitan UK. “I used to make fun of them — I still do to some extent — only now I realise I relate to them.” Although he first learned about incels a long time ago, when a YouTuber he followed made a scathing video about them, it wasn’t until he started ruminating on the fact that nobody “crushed on” him that he became immersed in the community himself. “There are a lot of bitter misogynists, but some people who call themselves incels just struggle with dating like me. I really wish there was a non-toxic version of the community.”
It’s this desire that led Niall to join r/IncelExit. He asserts that he doesn’t hate women, but does feel a certain “bitterness” towards them, which can sometimes morph into “intrusive thoughts” about hatred. “What helps me [realise the ridiculousness of these thoughts] is imagining the scenario if the genders were switched; like a woman hating me because I don’t find her attractive.”
Niall’s story is part of a wider, more concerning picture when it comes to lonely men seeking out the community and interaction they’re missing in toxic and misogynistic spaces online. According to a 2023 study conducted by psychologists from the UK and Canada, social isolation is a key factor in driving young men towards incel ideology, fuelled by disengagement and self-critical rumination.
“Loneliness makes it easier to slip into online echo-chambers like the incel community,” continues Niall. “I feel like someone with a strong network of close friends wouldn’t become an incel. They don’t need a romantic partner for validation and support, as they get it from their friends. They might still want one, but it isn’t such a big deal.”
Then there’s the portrayal of masculinity in the media, to which sex is often a central tenet. This is part of the reason 27-year-old Tyler**, who’s been unlearning his radicalised views for nearly a decade, got into incel ideology as a teenager. “I was coming out of a rough year [of bullying and isolation], paired with insecurities about how I must be socially stunted if I’m not partaking in the massive sexual free-for-all that TV shows and movies insisted high school was,” he says of his incel indoctrination. “I was searching for information online on how to be romantically active in high school, and slowly started getting pushed down the radicalisation pipeline towards actively self-identifying as an incel.”
According to the aforementioned study, incels have lower rates of social support and more depressive and anxious symptoms than their non-incel counterparts. They’re also more likely to have insecure attachment styles, which may impact their platonic, as well as romantic relationships with others, thus contributing to their feelings of loneliness. “One can probably stomach a reasonable amount of romantic rejection if you have a solid friend group to support you,” explains Brandon Sparks, an assistant professor in forensic psychology at Canada’s St. Francis Xavier University and the study’s co-author. “But if that is lacking, each rejection has got to sting a little more, as it isn’t just the closing of a door to a romantic relationship or hook-up, it’s the closing of a door to an intimacy that is lacking in their lives.”
This lack of platonic intimacy can lead incels to put extra pressure on acquiring a romantic relationship. When this doesn’t come to fruition, they may be encouraged to lay the blame at women’s doors, and thus lean into misogynistic ideals. With no friends or romantic partners to speak of, incels often venture deeper into online communities, some of which can further cement their views.
Not just this, adds Sparks, but “such discussions can quickly devolve, losing the nuances associated with the original argument”. He posits that this floundering feeling, combined with internalising criticisms of masculinity may push young men towards incel culture by way of negatively impacting their self-image. “It’s possible [young men] get a message that they are not wanted by certain members of society,” he says, referring to the misinterpretation of valid criticisms of toxic masculinity as a rejection of men in general. “It’s a very simplistic interpretation, but one that nonetheless shakes one’s place in society.”
This is certainly true for Niall, who cites his low self-worth and insecurity as influential factors in his draw to inceldom. It’s also the case for 28-year-old* Nicolas**, who describes himself as well adjusted and socially calibrated, but whose interest in incel communities stems from his self-confidence and self-esteem issues, as well as the perceived vilification of men online.
“I feel like trash everyday,” Nicolas tells Cosmopolitan UK. “My inceldom and the fact that I can’t get with women is totally fucking me up. I also do something incredibly dumb; I doomscroll misandrist stuff on Twitter and Reddit, which is hurting my self-esteem horribly, as it confirms the bad feelings I already have about myself.”
Nicolas believes it’s “impossible to escape” misandry online, citing the prevalence of TikToks and tweets that, he says, peddle statements like: ‘Guys only think about sex’, ‘Men are trash’, and ‘I don’t like men, only their money’. (On the other side of the coin, as a woman online, it can be impossible to escape misogyny online — something that more viscerally seeps into our offline realities, too.) He also cites the “small jabs thrown at men every now and then” as equally “harmful”, including women saying they don’t feel safe around him “because all men are rapists”, even though “at night [he crosses] the street so they feel safe”. “I’m not looking for a trophy, of course, but I’m tired of being a constant menace everywhere I go.” Though, he adds, he does “understand why they react this way; it’s not easy being a woman”.
Tyler, who’s further along in his ‘depilling’ journey, rejects this line of thinking. “It feels like a dodge and an abdication of personal responsibility,” he explains. “While I do remember hearing some of that kind of stuff as a young teen, I never took it directly to heart as a personal attack. I believe that someone who may cite [misandry] as drawing them to bigoted communities still has work to do in nourishing a healthier mindset than the persecutory one they currently display.”
Niall, meanwhile, doesn’t blame ‘anti-men sentiment’ for his inclination to flirt with inceldom, but suggests that “a general apathy for [men’s] issues” has helped to steer him towards it.
Yet many of the issues men are struggling with, like loneliness, sexlessness, and despondency, aren’t unique to any particular gender. “It’s not about masculine vs feminine,” says Puccio. “We need to reframe the debate [to be about] how we can promote equality and understanding.”
Part of achieving this is for certain members of society — whether they’re men, white, heterosexual, or rich — to acknowledge that they benefit from particular privileges. As Sparks says, many people “have a hard time” doing this. “They believe it undermines the work it took to achieve something when in reality, it’s just saying that they had one less hurdle in the way.”
And yet, though tempted by this path, it’s encouraging that many young men, like Niall, Tyler, and Nicolas, do seem to be striving to avoid going down it — and are taking action to divert themselves. “I’m optimistic that r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill can help some people deradicalise,” says Joshua Thorburn, a PhD student at Melbourne’s Monash University who researches online misogyny and has authored a paper on the deradicalising potential of these subreddits. “The fact that there’s quite a few users who say they’ve left the manosphere is really promising, especially since they often provide advice to those who are less far along in that journey.”
What’s more, adds Thorburn, there’s also users who “appear to have some knowledge of manosphere ideologies, yet don’t seem completely convinced by these ideas either, so they ask questions on the forum for an alternative point of view”. He continues: “This suggests that these forums may be able to help some individuals to avoid becoming radicalised by the manosphere’s extremist views in the first place.”
Though Thorburn is keen to point out that, while these subreddits offer clues as to what leads people to become radicalised andderadicalised, they aren’t a silver bullet. “Many users have complex challenges that are unlikely to be helped by using these forums alone,” he says. Still, the advice being given is undeniably useful, including highlighting the importance of respect and consent in dating. “It is critical that we are also getting this message out to where teenage boys and young men are engaging online.”
For a start, says Puccio, we need to calmly interrogate their views. “If we jump in and start attacking them, they’re going to shut down. [We have to] listen to them, allow them to be heard, and help them reason through what they’re saying,” she says, suggesting that many of Tate’s followers, for example, aspire to have his lavish lifestyle but, when pressed, end up finding fault with his misogynistic views.
A similar thing happened to Tyler, only this time it was incel violence that encouraged him to reconsider his views — specifically self-described incel Elliot Rodger’s now-notorious (and, for some incels, influential) 2014 misogynistic terror attack. “After reading the shooter’s manifesto, I realised I shared a lot of beliefs with him and made the connection that I was marching down a pretty dark path,” Tyler recalls. “I stopped visiting the forums where I was browsing these ideas, more or less cold turkey, and was assisted in this by [two teachers], who both assigned a lot of feminist texts, which helped me challenge my previous beliefs.”
Sparks is keen to assert that incels are a “heterogeneous group”, with many of them viewing the toxic ideology of inceldom as “complete nonsense”. Rather, he adds: “What unites them is their experience (or lack thereof). A lack of alternative options in terms of spaces to discuss their issues results in them staying in incel communities, if only just to read other people’s posts.”
Nicolas doubles down on this. “The discussion about incels is unhealthy, mean, and dismissive,” he says, referencing the r/IncelTear subreddit, in which members share screenshots from “hateful incels” (the subreddit says it doesn’t “condone blanket hatred of virgins or the romantically unsuccessful”). “The average incel hater has a meme’d version of what our lives are,” continues Nicholas. “We’re not all basement dwellers, and we don’t fantasise about raping and killing women.”
Sparks thinks that most incels have far more hatred towards themselves than to women, and are therefore more likely to pose a risk to themselves than anyone else — though that’s not to diminish the very real threat they can pose to women. And, when discussing the harm that incels and anti-feminist men can cause, we shouldn’t focus solely on extreme, physical violence. Misogynistic vitriol is prevalent online, and it’s hugely damaging; in fact, as per new Amnesty International UK stats, 73% of Gen Z social media users have witnessed misogynistic content online, with 44% of young women reporting that it’s had a negative effect on their mental health. Violence, then, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Still, Sparks is hopeful that young men can rewire their thinking and abandon the manosphere’s misogynistic teachings. “I’m not sure if they’ll ‘grow out of’ [these opinions], but I do see a desire to live a happy, meaningful life,” he says. “Once the realisation hits that a person can have non-relational aspirations, and a fulfilling life in the absence of a partner, we’ll see a breakthrough — but society doesn’t offer us many examples of individuals who have done this while single.”
As society becomes increasingly individualised, it also remains firmly structured around romantic and familial relationships, both of which are positioned as the central — if not only — source of love, care, and intimacy. In the UK, less and lesspeople feel a sense of belonging within their communities; and, unsurprisingly, those from the poorest neighbourhoods are the worst-off. Inceldom can’t be viewed in isolation from this. Society isn’t wholly responsible for individual experiences — plenty of women are lonely and involuntarily celibate and don’t resort to hating men or enacting violence — but there needs to be a more nuanced approach to the very real problem of incels. Especially as, the more isolated they feel, the further they may tumble into the dangerous well of incel ideology.
Despite this, Tyler, at least, feels optimistic about his future. When we catch up again two years after our first conversation, he tells me that he’s since found a girlfriend and has lost his virginity. He’s happy and more confident. And, he says, now “incel ideology serves as a reminder of who I once was and to be grateful for my self-improvement”.
“These individuals need to feel a better sense of belonging,” asserts Sparks. “A lot of incels use incel forums as a part of their effort to learn more about themselves; they aren’t necessarily married to, or are as rigid in some of their beliefs as others may assume. They want to learn, they want to grow, and they want to be seen — and treated — as human beings.”
Perhaps what’s needed, then, is a new language to talk about men who subscribe to the incel ideology vs those who are lonely and genuinely struggling with involuntary celibacy. “A lot of us are just bitter, frustrated, and depressed about our situation because we don’t have the tools or the emotional or cognitive capacity to fix it,” concludes Nicolas. “I wish my life turned out differently; the incel ideology is ruining me. My dream would be to be a good boyfriend; to be the best man possible. I want it so bad.”
*Age at the time of interview
**Names have been changed
‘I want to be the best man possible’: Meet the manosphere-curious men trying to deradicalise themselves online
In 2023, I stumbled across a subreddit called r/IncelExit. It’s a self-described place “for people who got drawn into the incel community but want support and help with a way out”. With the aim of writing about the group, and the young men taking proactive steps to deradicalise themselves, I ended up chatting with a few members about their involvement in the incel community and their reasons for trying to shake its misogynistic mindset. Their struggles felt urgent at the time — they told me about their experiences of loneliness, anti-feminist thoughts, and a feeling of being rejected by society (often manifesting as a feeling of being rejected by women). And yet today, they feel even more pressing.Then, the subreddit — which was created in 2019 — already had 14,000 members. Today, it has 21,000. In the last two years, the divide between young men and women has only grown. New data shows that 56% of millennial and Gen Z men in the UK think we’ve gone ‘too far’ in promoting women’s rights and that we’re now actively discriminating against men. Donald Trump, a man who’s been accused of sexual misconduct, including rape, by at least 26 women, has been re-elected as US president, largely thanks to a boom in young male supporters. Meanwhile, violence against women and girls is growing, as is misogyny. The influence of the manosphere, men’s rights figureheads like Andrew Tate, and incel ideology on all of this can’t be overstated.
But, for obvious reasons, there aren’t many places on the internet (and beyond) where people who’ve experienced — and are conflicted about — this kind of radicalisation can speak frankly about it: its allure, its downsides, and their internal battle over their beliefs. And, although this topic floods the mainstream when radicalised men and boys commit horrific acts of violence, general conversations about inceldom tend to happen in shadow-y or more niche corners of the internet and the media. Now, though, a new four-part Netflix series, called Adolescence, is addressing the topic head on.
The show, which stars Stephen Graham and Ashley Walters, tells the story of 13-year-old Jamie (Owen Cooper), who’s accused of murdering his female classmate, Katie (Emilia Holliday), after she rejects his offer of a date and teases him about being an incel. The series has been lauded by critics, and has even sparked parliamentary debate, with Keir Starmer saying Adolescence has shone a light on an “emerging and growing problem” that needs to be tackled now.
So, with the dangers of incel ideology at the forefront of mainstream conversations, I thought I’d revisit the story of r/IncelExit (and its sister subreddit, r/ExRedPill), catching up with some of those I spoke to and reflecting on why more and more young men and boys are going down a dangerous path — and whether there’s a way out of it.
A lonely path
When 17-year-old* Niall** was younger, he had no trouble making friends. It wasn’t until he got to high school that he started to feel isolated. “I have a few friends now, but we don’t talk outside of school,” he says. “My autism makes it hard for me to make new friends — let alone a girlfriend — so I spend most of my free time alone.”Like any teenager with time on their hands, Niall mostly lives on social media. And, like many extremely online young men, he’s found himself drawn to incel forums; hotbeds of resentment, anger, misogyny, and violence. “I only became an incel like three months ago,” he tells Cosmopolitan UK. “I used to make fun of them — I still do to some extent — only now I realise I relate to them.” Although he first learned about incels a long time ago, when a YouTuber he followed made a scathing video about them, it wasn’t until he started ruminating on the fact that nobody “crushed on” him that he became immersed in the community himself. “There are a lot of bitter misogynists, but some people who call themselves incels just struggle with dating like me. I really wish there was a non-toxic version of the community.”
It’s this desire that led Niall to join r/IncelExit. He asserts that he doesn’t hate women, but does feel a certain “bitterness” towards them, which can sometimes morph into “intrusive thoughts” about hatred. “What helps me [realise the ridiculousness of these thoughts] is imagining the scenario if the genders were switched; like a woman hating me because I don’t find her attractive.”
Niall’s story is part of a wider, more concerning picture when it comes to lonely men seeking out the community and interaction they’re missing in toxic and misogynistic spaces online. According to a 2023 study conducted by psychologists from the UK and Canada, social isolation is a key factor in driving young men towards incel ideology, fuelled by disengagement and self-critical rumination.
“Loneliness makes it easier to slip into online echo-chambers like the incel community,” continues Niall. “I feel like someone with a strong network of close friends wouldn’t become an incel. They don’t need a romantic partner for validation and support, as they get it from their friends. They might still want one, but it isn’t such a big deal.”
Then there’s the portrayal of masculinity in the media, to which sex is often a central tenet. This is part of the reason 27-year-old Tyler**, who’s been unlearning his radicalised views for nearly a decade, got into incel ideology as a teenager. “I was coming out of a rough year [of bullying and isolation], paired with insecurities about how I must be socially stunted if I’m not partaking in the massive sexual free-for-all that TV shows and movies insisted high school was,” he says of his incel indoctrination. “I was searching for information online on how to be romantically active in high school, and slowly started getting pushed down the radicalisation pipeline towards actively self-identifying as an incel.”
According to the aforementioned study, incels have lower rates of social support and more depressive and anxious symptoms than their non-incel counterparts. They’re also more likely to have insecure attachment styles, which may impact their platonic, as well as romantic relationships with others, thus contributing to their feelings of loneliness. “One can probably stomach a reasonable amount of romantic rejection if you have a solid friend group to support you,” explains Brandon Sparks, an assistant professor in forensic psychology at Canada’s St. Francis Xavier University and the study’s co-author. “But if that is lacking, each rejection has got to sting a little more, as it isn’t just the closing of a door to a romantic relationship or hook-up, it’s the closing of a door to an intimacy that is lacking in their lives.”
This lack of platonic intimacy can lead incels to put extra pressure on acquiring a romantic relationship. When this doesn’t come to fruition, they may be encouraged to lay the blame at women’s doors, and thus lean into misogynistic ideals. With no friends or romantic partners to speak of, incels often venture deeper into online communities, some of which can further cement their views.
Misogyny, misandry, misinterpretations
This moment of mass loneliness runs alongside — and is potentially heightened by — a widespread identity crisis and purposelessness among men, which appears to be fuelling the flames of the manosphere. “Young people, particularly boys, don’t know how to define themselves anymore,” says Deana Puccio, former senior assistant district attorney, working in the sex crimes unit in New York and the founder of Educate. Engage. Empower., an organisation that delivers workshops on consent, sexual violence, healthy relationships, and online safety. “At one level, they’re being told that they have to be competitive and hyper-masculine, but then if they behave that way, they’re knocked down.”Not just this, adds Sparks, but “such discussions can quickly devolve, losing the nuances associated with the original argument”. He posits that this floundering feeling, combined with internalising criticisms of masculinity may push young men towards incel culture by way of negatively impacting their self-image. “It’s possible [young men] get a message that they are not wanted by certain members of society,” he says, referring to the misinterpretation of valid criticisms of toxic masculinity as a rejection of men in general. “It’s a very simplistic interpretation, but one that nonetheless shakes one’s place in society.”
This is certainly true for Niall, who cites his low self-worth and insecurity as influential factors in his draw to inceldom. It’s also the case for 28-year-old* Nicolas**, who describes himself as well adjusted and socially calibrated, but whose interest in incel communities stems from his self-confidence and self-esteem issues, as well as the perceived vilification of men online.
“I feel like trash everyday,” Nicolas tells Cosmopolitan UK. “My inceldom and the fact that I can’t get with women is totally fucking me up. I also do something incredibly dumb; I doomscroll misandrist stuff on Twitter and Reddit, which is hurting my self-esteem horribly, as it confirms the bad feelings I already have about myself.”
Nicolas believes it’s “impossible to escape” misandry online, citing the prevalence of TikToks and tweets that, he says, peddle statements like: ‘Guys only think about sex’, ‘Men are trash’, and ‘I don’t like men, only their money’. (On the other side of the coin, as a woman online, it can be impossible to escape misogyny online — something that more viscerally seeps into our offline realities, too.) He also cites the “small jabs thrown at men every now and then” as equally “harmful”, including women saying they don’t feel safe around him “because all men are rapists”, even though “at night [he crosses] the street so they feel safe”. “I’m not looking for a trophy, of course, but I’m tired of being a constant menace everywhere I go.” Though, he adds, he does “understand why they react this way; it’s not easy being a woman”.
Tyler, who’s further along in his ‘depilling’ journey, rejects this line of thinking. “It feels like a dodge and an abdication of personal responsibility,” he explains. “While I do remember hearing some of that kind of stuff as a young teen, I never took it directly to heart as a personal attack. I believe that someone who may cite [misandry] as drawing them to bigoted communities still has work to do in nourishing a healthier mindset than the persecutory one they currently display.”
Niall, meanwhile, doesn’t blame ‘anti-men sentiment’ for his inclination to flirt with inceldom, but suggests that “a general apathy for [men’s] issues” has helped to steer him towards it.
Yet many of the issues men are struggling with, like loneliness, sexlessness, and despondency, aren’t unique to any particular gender. “It’s not about masculine vs feminine,” says Puccio. “We need to reframe the debate [to be about] how we can promote equality and understanding.”
Part of achieving this is for certain members of society — whether they’re men, white, heterosexual, or rich — to acknowledge that they benefit from particular privileges. As Sparks says, many people “have a hard time” doing this. “They believe it undermines the work it took to achieve something when in reality, it’s just saying that they had one less hurdle in the way.”
Steps to deradicalisation
Through his social media posts promoting traditional gender roles (men should be men) and ventures targeted at “the modern man”, it’s clear people like Tate do blindly prioritise ‘men’s issues’ — an attractive prospect if you’re resistant to acknowledging your privilege, for fear that doing so may result in you relinquishing it. Who cares if this feeling of being seen comes with murky undertones?And yet, though tempted by this path, it’s encouraging that many young men, like Niall, Tyler, and Nicolas, do seem to be striving to avoid going down it — and are taking action to divert themselves. “I’m optimistic that r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill can help some people deradicalise,” says Joshua Thorburn, a PhD student at Melbourne’s Monash University who researches online misogyny and has authored a paper on the deradicalising potential of these subreddits. “The fact that there’s quite a few users who say they’ve left the manosphere is really promising, especially since they often provide advice to those who are less far along in that journey.”
What’s more, adds Thorburn, there’s also users who “appear to have some knowledge of manosphere ideologies, yet don’t seem completely convinced by these ideas either, so they ask questions on the forum for an alternative point of view”. He continues: “This suggests that these forums may be able to help some individuals to avoid becoming radicalised by the manosphere’s extremist views in the first place.”
Though Thorburn is keen to point out that, while these subreddits offer clues as to what leads people to become radicalised andderadicalised, they aren’t a silver bullet. “Many users have complex challenges that are unlikely to be helped by using these forums alone,” he says. Still, the advice being given is undeniably useful, including highlighting the importance of respect and consent in dating. “It is critical that we are also getting this message out to where teenage boys and young men are engaging online.”
Beyond the manosphere
So, beyond their own self-guided efforts, how can we — parents, teachers, friends, governments — help manosphere-curious young men divert away from these toxic beliefs?For a start, says Puccio, we need to calmly interrogate their views. “If we jump in and start attacking them, they’re going to shut down. [We have to] listen to them, allow them to be heard, and help them reason through what they’re saying,” she says, suggesting that many of Tate’s followers, for example, aspire to have his lavish lifestyle but, when pressed, end up finding fault with his misogynistic views.
A similar thing happened to Tyler, only this time it was incel violence that encouraged him to reconsider his views — specifically self-described incel Elliot Rodger’s now-notorious (and, for some incels, influential) 2014 misogynistic terror attack. “After reading the shooter’s manifesto, I realised I shared a lot of beliefs with him and made the connection that I was marching down a pretty dark path,” Tyler recalls. “I stopped visiting the forums where I was browsing these ideas, more or less cold turkey, and was assisted in this by [two teachers], who both assigned a lot of feminist texts, which helped me challenge my previous beliefs.”
Sparks is keen to assert that incels are a “heterogeneous group”, with many of them viewing the toxic ideology of inceldom as “complete nonsense”. Rather, he adds: “What unites them is their experience (or lack thereof). A lack of alternative options in terms of spaces to discuss their issues results in them staying in incel communities, if only just to read other people’s posts.”
Nicolas doubles down on this. “The discussion about incels is unhealthy, mean, and dismissive,” he says, referencing the r/IncelTear subreddit, in which members share screenshots from “hateful incels” (the subreddit says it doesn’t “condone blanket hatred of virgins or the romantically unsuccessful”). “The average incel hater has a meme’d version of what our lives are,” continues Nicholas. “We’re not all basement dwellers, and we don’t fantasise about raping and killing women.”
Sparks thinks that most incels have far more hatred towards themselves than to women, and are therefore more likely to pose a risk to themselves than anyone else — though that’s not to diminish the very real threat they can pose to women. And, when discussing the harm that incels and anti-feminist men can cause, we shouldn’t focus solely on extreme, physical violence. Misogynistic vitriol is prevalent online, and it’s hugely damaging; in fact, as per new Amnesty International UK stats, 73% of Gen Z social media users have witnessed misogynistic content online, with 44% of young women reporting that it’s had a negative effect on their mental health. Violence, then, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Still, Sparks is hopeful that young men can rewire their thinking and abandon the manosphere’s misogynistic teachings. “I’m not sure if they’ll ‘grow out of’ [these opinions], but I do see a desire to live a happy, meaningful life,” he says. “Once the realisation hits that a person can have non-relational aspirations, and a fulfilling life in the absence of a partner, we’ll see a breakthrough — but society doesn’t offer us many examples of individuals who have done this while single.”
As society becomes increasingly individualised, it also remains firmly structured around romantic and familial relationships, both of which are positioned as the central — if not only — source of love, care, and intimacy. In the UK, less and lesspeople feel a sense of belonging within their communities; and, unsurprisingly, those from the poorest neighbourhoods are the worst-off. Inceldom can’t be viewed in isolation from this. Society isn’t wholly responsible for individual experiences — plenty of women are lonely and involuntarily celibate and don’t resort to hating men or enacting violence — but there needs to be a more nuanced approach to the very real problem of incels. Especially as, the more isolated they feel, the further they may tumble into the dangerous well of incel ideology.
Despite this, Tyler, at least, feels optimistic about his future. When we catch up again two years after our first conversation, he tells me that he’s since found a girlfriend and has lost his virginity. He’s happy and more confident. And, he says, now “incel ideology serves as a reminder of who I once was and to be grateful for my self-improvement”.
“These individuals need to feel a better sense of belonging,” asserts Sparks. “A lot of incels use incel forums as a part of their effort to learn more about themselves; they aren’t necessarily married to, or are as rigid in some of their beliefs as others may assume. They want to learn, they want to grow, and they want to be seen — and treated — as human beings.”
Perhaps what’s needed, then, is a new language to talk about men who subscribe to the incel ideology vs those who are lonely and genuinely struggling with involuntary celibacy. “A lot of us are just bitter, frustrated, and depressed about our situation because we don’t have the tools or the emotional or cognitive capacity to fix it,” concludes Nicolas. “I wish my life turned out differently; the incel ideology is ruining me. My dream would be to be a good boyfriend; to be the best man possible. I want it so bad.”
*Age at the time of interview
**Names have been changed
