The term “incel” is a portmanteau of the words “involuntary” and “celibate,” and incels as a group represent a new emergent Internet subculture. Often, they’ve been connected to viewpoints and language that promote toxic masculinity, while encouraging violence against women and minorities. Previous research has often highlighted incels’ views on women and the language used to perpetuate their antifeminist viewpoints and ideology. However, little research has been produced on how incels view themselves and other men. This research uses popular conversations from various incel message boards to qualitatively analyze the discourses incels use to convey the stratification of doing gender within their subculture. Incels use sex as a central metaphor to convey ideas about how power and resources should be distributed in society.
Incel (involuntary celibates) have recently garnered media attention for seemingly random attacks of violence. Much attention has centered around the misogynistic and violent discourse that has taken place in online incel forums as well as manifestos written by incels who have perpetrated deadly attacks. As the name suggests, “involuntary celibates” refers to a loose collection of individuals who are experiencing sexlessness despite their desire to be active. Alana soon discovered that she was not alone in her frustration and Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project became a hub for individuals with similar experiences.
One of the fundamental tenets of incel ideology is the belief that society is organized along a looks-based hierarchy that dictates much of social (and sexual) relations. At the top of the structure are the most highly attractive men and women, referred to as “Chads” and “Stacys,” respectively, in incel parlance. The “Alpha” status that is ascribed to these individuals is much sought after among individuals both for themselves and the people they date. This is particularly the case with “normies,” who occupy the middle and most populous tier in the hierarchy. The bottom rung of the social ladder is occupied solely by incels, a classification that is exclusive to males despite its gender neutral origins.
The Slang Term "Chad" Explained
The slang term Chad has historically been applied in different contexts. The slang term Chad is based on the male given name Chad. In the early 2000s it began to be used as a humorous generic term for a stereotypical frat boy or jock, and also as a slang insult with the meaning “loser, idiot, jerk.”
By the 2010s, the Internet incel community adopted Chad as a stereotype for a particular kind of so-called ‘alpha male’: built, handsome, swaggering, and unjustly irresistible to women (who were referred to using a sexist counterpart stereotype of Stacey). In this subculture, Chad and Stacey became used in memes and other content, bitterly attacking their perceived antagonists. In the early 2020s, the word developed a positive sense, used to praise a man seen as impressive-though often traditionally masculine-in some way. The use of Chad varies greatly based on speaker and context. While often used as a noun, it is also sometimes used attributively (‘chad behavior’), functioning more like an adjective.
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Within the manosphere and internet culture, Chads are generally viewed as constituting the top decile in terms of genetic fitness. In online animation drawings in the manosphere, a Chad is often depicted as a muscular blond man with very pronounced masculine features. One such depiction, in the "Virgin vs Chads are sometimes portrayed as the opposite to "omega" or "beta" males, and as physically attractive. "Gigachad" is a related internet meme that uses black-and-white photographs of a muscular male model.
The Internet slang term Chad (or chad) is a generic name used to refer to several types of supposedly dominant male figures: a strong, handsome man who attracts women; an obliviously entitled man; an effortlessly formidable man, and an exceptional instance referred to as a Gigachad.
In internet slang, a Chad is typically a confident, attractive, muscular, outgoing guy who easily gets attention - especially from women. In the incel community online, Chad remains used to disparage men and women blamed for various grievances. For example: “Women say they are attracted to sensitive guys, but they all just want Chads.” This use of Chad may be considered offensive due to this community’s connection to misogyny and violent extremist incidents. Outside of the incel community, it may be used as a mild insult for behavior associated with a hypermasculine or heedlessly cocky man (“That Chad took credit for my idea in the meeting”).
The development and use of Chad is closely associated with an online community known as incels, involuntarily celibate men associated with misogynistic beliefs and extremist ideologies.
What is an INCEL? | Involuntarily Celibate Mental Health & Personality
The Ideologies Within the Incel Community
In the incel community, one’s ideology is reflected in what color pill they have supposedly taken. This is a metaphorical reference to the movie The Matrix in which the protagonist, Neo, is given the option between taking a blue pill or a red one. If Neo takes the former, he will experience an artificial state of blissful ignorance. In taking the red pill, he would be exposed to the cruel realities that are inherent in life.
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Incels considered their unique insights into the dating world as a product of being “RedPilled.” Such wisdom is lost on Normies and Alphas, who are seen as subscribers to the “BluePill” ideology. In adopting a so-called RedPill ideology, incels are also put in a position to game the system to be seen as a more desirable mate, since they believe themselves to hold the (short) playbook that women abide by.
This has led to self-enhancement practices referred to as looksmaxxing and gymmaxxing where individuals undergo plastic surgery or rigorous exercise routines in order to improve their appearance. Recently, a new ideology has taken hold that has been dubbed the BlackPill. It is similar in many ways to the tenets of the RedPill perspective with the added caveat that one cannot transcend the boundaries of the looks-based hierarchy.
Incels will remain incels, normies will remain normies. If the RedPill ideology is seen as pessimistic, then the BlackPill is its nihilistic successor that promises no hopes of upward mobility unless the looks-based hierarchy collapses and a new (patriarchal) order is established. A recent survey indicated that roughly 95% of incels believe in the BlackPill, although less than half feel this is a requirement of being an incel.
Incel Experiences with Dating and Rejection
There is emerging evidence that incel activity may be an active response to the local dating market. Brooks and colleagues analyzed over 321 million tweets posted between 2012 and 2018 and found that areas with a greater male:female sex ratio (indicative of greater competition for mates) had a greater volume of incel-related tweets. Incel tweets were particularly high in areas that paired competitive sex ratios with fewer single women, high income inequality, and lower gender income gaps.
A lack of opportunity has also been identified in a recent study on incels’ dating app experiences. For instance, despite being more liberal in their selection (opting for wider age ranges and geographic radius, swiping right on a larger percentage of people), incels reported matching with only 4.5% of individuals compared to non-incel men who reported matching with roughly one-third of individuals. When matches do occur, allowing users to communicate with one another, incels reported not receiving a response 75% of the time, nearly twice the rate of non-incel men.
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This aligns with a large discrepancy in the frequency of positive dating app outcomes: prevalence rates of going on dates, being in a relationship, and having sex with someone met through a dating app were 33%, 0%, and 13% among incels compared to 62%, 29%, and 58% for non-incel males, respectively. What compounds this further is that incels report being more sensitive to rejection than their male counterparts, and experience a greater fear of being single, and that their self-esteem (which is also much lower) is more heavily influenced by their relationship status.
Their lack of popularity on dating apps has also been associated with higher levels of depression and dating anxiety and lower levels of self-esteem and secure attachment, all of which incels report higher and more problematic levels of than non-incel males. In a recent survey, the prevalence rate of depression and anxiety among incels was 95% and 93%, respectively, trumping national figures (gathered by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention) of 28% and 36%, respectively. Formal diagnoses (38% for both) were also higher than the national averages.
Coping Mechanisms and Social Isolation
How incels respond to their celibate situation has recently emerged as an area of interest for researchers. Three rhyming domains have been identified based on incel slang: hope, cope, and rope. In the latter, rope references suicide by hanging, but is shorthand for suicide by any means. It has become a prevalent enough discussion in incel forums that Daly and Laskovstov were able to conduct an analysis of 80 incel suicide posts. In some instances, incels were encouraged by one another to follow through on their suicidal ideation. Their analysis found that rope posts tended to be characterized by feelings of despair and hopelessness.
Several researchers have explored how incels cope with their sexless status and a pattern has emerged wherein incels are engaging in either solitary (reading, watching TV, lifting weights) or concerning (using drugs, consuming pornography) practices. With respect to romantic rejection, incels engaged in more self-critical rumination as well as externalization of blame than non-incels.
Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of inceldom is the social isolation they experience. In the largest survey of incels conducted to date, the moderators of incels.co found that only one-third of the nearly 300 respondents reported that they had at least one friend. In Maxwell et al.’s analysis of r/Braincels, loneliness emerged as one of the more prominent themes.
Manosphere Language
Thot. White knight. Red pilled. Cuck. Beta. Soyboy. Unicorn. To many people, these words won’t mean much. Many (though not all) manosphere communities have become spaces where explicit anti-women and anti-feminist sentiment abound. These include incels, men’s rights activists, red-pillers, pick-up artists and male separatists.
Understanding what manosphere terms mean can help teachers and parents start conversations with young men who are engaging with manosphere and male supremacist content. Recognising how language and ideology are connected can help with deradicalisation efforts, or ideally prevent radicalisation in the first place. For police and other authorities, language can be an early warning system to identify men at risk of carrying out male supremacist violence.
It is difficult to give a comprehensive overview of every instance of manosphere language. It is a constantly evolving collection of terms, sometimes in response to new issues that emerge, or in an attempt to subvert social media moderation efforts (abbreviations and acronyms are good examples of this).
In the manosphere, those who have been “red-pilled” see the world as it really is, understanding the so-called “real” nature of women’s behaviour and dating preferences. The manosphere is obsessed with status, power, prestige and hierarchy. The idea of alphas and betas is central to this.
Becoming an alpha is an aspirational goal for many men who engage with manosphere content. Alphas are in charge, have their pick of sexual partners and have ultimate control, both of themselves and others. Betas are the polar opposite: physically and psychologically weak, sexually unattractive, timid, submissive, meek and generally lacking in the qualities necessary to attain “real” manhood. Chads are the “ultimate alpha” - the ultra-masculine, virile, powerful and sexually attractive man to whom Stacys and other women flock. The term “gigachad” refers to the most alpha of alpha males.
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