By Bo Min Keum
Incel communities raise concerns about their misogyny and its potential to take radical forms and inspire extremist violence. However, they also exhibit considerable self-loathing and suicidal thoughts, often discussing methods to end one’s life and their term ‘rope’ serving as a common reference to suicide.
I was curious to understand the full spectrum of their narrative and identify the ideological and emotional roots of hate that go both outward and inward. Do the oppositional ingroup-outgroup dynamics hold for Incels? How does ingroup negativity fit within the traditional understanding of ingroup-outgroup opposition? How does their ‘othering’ work? Is outgroup hostility a way to justify their self-derogation, or is something else at play?
Looking at both self-inflicted and other-inflicted extremist rhetoric could uncover different pathways to extremism beyond simply blaming the ‘other.’ We often associate Incels with misogynistic hate speech, but perhaps that’s not everything there is.
Data and Method
I applied Van Dijk’s (1995) us versus them framework and conducted a qualitative content analysis of the Incels.is and Incels.net forum posts from May 2019 and 2020, provided by the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre. I then mapped the thematic relationships through social network analysis. These time frames marked the peak of Incel posting activity and the year prior, offering context for how othering dynamics might have changed over time.
Findings: Othering, from Blame to Shame
| Theme (n) | Subtheme (n) | Definition | Representative Quote |
| Self-directed (1,499) | Helplessness (913) | Expressions of powerlessness and belief that Incel status is unchangeable | “[…] If other men could press a button which would torture you then kill you, 99% would. Most of your family probably would. And there’s nothing you can do about it.” – By Incels.is Account B, 2020-05-28 |
| Victimization (586) | Expressions of isolation and rejection. Unlike other-directed subtheme of ‘Blame’ focused on assigning a cause to blame, ‘Victimization’ subtheme focused on the conditions of being wronged | “[…] IT stupidly write off all the members of this forum as terroists and completely dismiss this very real issue. Again some of us are not violent and hateful we are just unfortunately ugly!!!!” – By Incels,is Account F, 2020-05-24 | |
| Other-directed (1,446) | Evil Cause (665) | Expressions of reasoning their suffering and ostracized conditions caused by the outgroup | “When I was young, she would always show my cousins love and attention when they came over and I would be treated as a second class citizen. BY MY OWN MOTHER! IN MY OWN HOUSE! […].I told her not to give any of this stuff to my cousins when I die, because that would be an insult to my memory, and she started crying. I can’t even commit suicide without my my mother guilting me into a life of suffering.” – By Account L in Incels.is, 2020-05-27 |
| Shameful other (528) | Discussions involving belittling and shaming the outgroup; often with the implicit goal of elevating the ingroup’s status by comparison | “[…] Afterall, we’re having to sleep with a creature whos ANUS is only 1 inch away from the vagina — you should not make this difficult. It’s unappetizing enough as it is. We’re doing you a favour.[…]” – By Incels.is Account O, 2020-05-22 | |
| Unfair Advantage (253) | Expressed frustrations behind the outgroup benefitting from privileges that are unfairly denied to Incels. | “A broke single mom who lives in a ghetto can end up dating an engineer or a lawyer. But her male counterpart doesn’t enjoy the same leverage. Foids are always one click away from Chad. Women can build up huge followings on social media and they don’t even have to be good-looking to achieve that […] ” – By Incels.net Account Q, 2020-05-28 | |
| Collective-directed (1,905) | Vision (686) | Expressions about the ideal future for Incels and society | “Note how much better women were back then. She’s 87, my mother is 91.This is how women were back then. They only has sex with their husband. No unwed mothers, no sex out of wedlock. There is a reason they were called The Greatest Generation.” – By Incels.is Account Z2, 2019-05-02 |
| Community (1,219) | Sympathizing with one another and finding community | “[…] everyone I’ve met on here is amazing. They can demonize us all they want, we know the truth.” – By Incels.net Account Y, 2020-05-02 |
Table 1. Overview of the definitions and examples of themes and subthemes identified through qualitative content analysis
Overall, there was a relatively balanced distribution among Self, Other, and Collective frames over time, with the exception of the shift seen for the subtheme Shameful Other. This shift in framing the ‘othering’ transitioned from a focus on blame to a focus on mockery (n= 403, 49.63% of total Other frame count in May 2020).
Through social network analysis, I looked at theme-subtheme relationships, focusing on where strong thematic associations lay and their content.
|
Top 6 Other Subtheme-code Edge Weights | |||
|
May 2019 |
May 2020 | ||
|
Evil Cause-Women |
70 |
Shameful Other-Women |
86 |
|
Evil Cause-Seeking sympathy |
33 |
Evil Cause-Women |
59 |
|
Evil Cause-Looks |
25 |
Shameful Other-Normies |
47 |
|
Evil Cause-Looks |
23 |
Evil Cause-Ostracised |
31 |
|
Unfair Advantage-Seeking sympathy |
21 |
Shameful Other-Seeking sympathy |
28 |
|
Unfair Advantage-Women |
20 |
Shameful Other-Racial stereotyping |
24 |
Table 2. Top 6 edge weights of “Other” subthemes. Edge weight corresponds to the number of times a code (discussion topic) was associated with the node (subtheme).
Looking at the thematic associations of Other subthemes, there were strong associations between the subtheme Evil Cause and the topic of Women, with these connections being stronger than other observed patterns. This indicates that, in both time frames, women were the primary focus of othering, and discussions surrounding them were predominantly framed through blame in May 2019 and mockery in May 2020.
Initially, in May 2019, I noticed strong links shared by the Evil Cause and Unfair Advantage subthemes. By May 2020, four of the top six edge weights involved Shameful Other frames. This shift demonstrates that mockery has become central to Incel’s othering discourse. Specifically, the use of shaming appears to reinforce the perceived value of being enlightened, establishing a contrast to the Normies, Incels’ term for those who fail to acknowledge the true reality. While the othering of women or Chads aligns with the misogynistic and lookist beliefs characteristic of Incel ideology, shaming Normies involves devaluing men who may also be in the social margins for being “average” looking. This highlights yet another internalized demoralization, primarily through shaming, diverging from the typical outward hostility centred on blame often highlighted in extremism literature. There appear to be varied dynamics of othering, where devaluing the outgroup through shaming, rather than seeking accountability, plays a key role in reinforcing the distinctions between ingroup and outgroup members.
Why Shame?
Some theoretical explanations can help explain what shaming narratives do for Incels. Cohen’s (1955) reaction-formation theory provides that when a valued goal seems unattainable, some subcultures respond by devaluing that goal. By viewing the goal as unworthy, they no longer see it as worth pursuing, a dynamic that could be made possible through narratives of shaming. They express a sense of pride in resigning themselves to a lack of sexual intimacy, using phrases like ‘seeing the light’ and ‘manfully acknowledging reality’ which they believe others in society like Normies cannot understand.
The dimension of humiliation in sexual violence also appears relevant. Feelings of sexual inadequacy can drive individuals to reassert their claims to masculinity, a process Juergensmeyer (2017) refers to as ‘dehumiliation.’ Motivations behind Elliot Rodger’s rampage have been viewed not only as a violent act of revenge against those he perceived as oppressors but also as an attempt to restore his sense of righteousness.
Shaming appears helpful in framing Incel’s mentality in ways that address the ‘dehumiliation’ and feelings of helplessness. By shaming both the perpetrators of their suffering and those who conform to the allegedly suppressive norms, shaming functions as a coping mechanism that transforms feelings of inferiority into a form of resistance against societal norms. It positions Incels as enlightened individuals who have recognized the ‘truth’ about their inevitable circumstances, in contrast with the supposedly oblivious others and Normies. Extending this even further, shaming could play a role in embracing self-destruction –not merely as an act of despair but as a dignified and even proud resolution to their suffering, though more research would need to attest to this link.
Externalized, and Internalized Hate?
Addressing Incel misogyny and the associated risk of extremist violence is undeniably critical. It is also important, however, to examine the dynamics of self-hate, feelings of powerlessness, and the coping mechanisms that perpetuate these harmful patterns. A part of this coping involves shaming related to ‘dehumiliation’ which warrants further research into narrative dynamics that go beyond mere blame. Effectively disrupting these patterns would require understanding the full scope of emotional and psychological drivers behind how violence is constructed, targeting both inward and outward.
Bo Min Keum is a PhD student at the International CyberCrime Research Centre, Simon Fraser University. This blog post is a condensed version of her master’s thesis completed at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology, which was presented at the 2024 British Society of Criminology Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, 2024 Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism Symposium in Melbourne, Australia, and 2024 Cambridge Cybercrime Centre Symposium in Cambridge, UK.
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