What Are Incels?
Incel stands for “involuntary celibate,” a term used to describe guys who feel like they are unable to get a girlfriend or have sex. They often claim that they are too short, too heavy, or otherwise have factors out of their control blocking them from having sex.
The guys in the incel movement tend to harbor a lot of resentment towards their dating life. Incel online forums often turn into an echo chamber of misogyny where men tend to rage about their dating lives, often to the point of egging men towards sexually violent actions. At times, it’s even led to mass shootings—often spun as a sick revenge against women’s perceived slights.
The rage is real with these guys, and in most cases, it’s not actually something that makes sense. For example, a lot of guys who are incels tend to assume that women are not capable of love or that the size of their wrists can prevent them from getting a date.
Though the term “incel” was not coined on Reddit or 4chan, most people associate the incel movement with forums on those sites
Why Are Incels A Thing?
It is my belief that we are at a critical period of American history. Women’s voices are starting to be heard and listened to when it comes to the disparities they face. Women are able to be financially independent as the career and education potential for women has grown. Because they don’t necessarily have to rely on anyone for financial support, they don’t have to settle on a partner or have one at all. This combined with online dating has led to a lot of major changes in how people date. Many of the typical venues men used to find girls are no longer appropriate to attempt to pick up women. For example, most girls won’t want to meet guys at the gym or at random public events.This means that men often have to rely on internet dating.
Online dating has allowed men and women to have an endless supply of singles to talk to. Undesirable men are often skipped over. To make matters worse, men, especially young ones, are very susceptible to getting toxic advice when it comes to dating. When you pair bad info with bad outlooks, it’s easy to see where men may feel like women are incapable of love. And so, the incel movement became increasingly popular.
Are Incels Dangerous?
Yes, they are. incels are known for trying to recruit men and boys who feel like they are unjustly unlucky in love. From there, they tend to radicalize into woman-hating men who stop seeing women as people.
It’s not unusual to hear about incels who have become violent towards women. Sadly, we can point out several famous examples that involve incels taking their online vitriol into the real world. The effects are deadly.
One of the most famous cases includes Elliot Rodger, who shot up a sorority house in California claiming that it was “revenge” for them refusing to sleep with him. Another incel by the name of Alek Minassian ran 10 people over with his van in a similar stunt.
How Did Incels Use The Net To Spread?
Incels started off on Reddit, but it quickly spread to other social media sites. The r/incels subreddit has been deleted, however incel culture and topics still exist on the site. The movement became famous as a major portion of 4chan culture, and to a point, it became popular among alt-right sites as well. There are also toxic individual sites dedicated to incel topics
Since the shooting incident involving Elliot Rodger, the term “incel” quickly spread among news groups. It became a major symbol of the problems that come with internet culture.
What Is r/IncelTears?
In the beginning, people began to realize that something was very, very wrong with the incel movement. They started to keep an eye on it, often deriding the comments from the users as a way of dissuading others from buying into it. And so, Reddit’s subreddit r/IncelTears was born. However, it was hijacked and quickly shuttered.
r/IncelTear is the reincarnation of r/IncelTears. However, other than the name, it is the same. It claims to be a part-comedy, part-watchdog community that both pokes fun at how awful misogyny among incels are and also raises awareness of this toxic mindset.
Why Is r/IncelTears A Countermovement?
These days, with the amount of sex that is being marketed to youner and younger audiences, it is fairly normal to feel like virginity is stigmatized. Incels are a movement of men who lack social skills and also lack a support network that would have made it easier for them to tolerate that stigma.
Incels are not healthy and people are bound to lash out at them as a result of the stuff they’ve done. To a point, r/IncelTear was bound to happen; people were getting angry with what incels had to say—not to mention alarmed at what they were espousing.
How Widespread Is The Incel Tears Movement?
The Incel Tears movement started on Reddit as a small community. Eventually, the r/IncelTears subreddit grew to 350,000 followers before it was taken down. The current r/IncelTear subreddit boasts 71,000 followers and counting. The movement has also spread to other social media outlets. @inceltear on Twitter which claims to be an extension of subreddit has 1709 followers at the time of this article. The #inceltear or #inceltears has a number of mentions on Instagram, TikTok, and Tumblr.
If that isn’t crazy enough, there are even shirts poking fun at drinking incel tears online.
Is Incel Tear Movement Effective?
Since its inception, r/IncelTear has become pretty hard to ignore. It’s been a major turning point about the conversation of incels. Some people have noted that r/IncelTear (previously r/IncelTears), as a forum, is a good thing because it brings awareness to this alarming trend among men. It also, to a point, shows how illogical and hate-filled their vitriol is.
However, on Medium, Juanita Chavez points out that some members of the forum have become almost as problematic as the incel movement itself. It’s certainly difficult to moderate all the controversial comments and members of the group. The antics can get out of control and unwanted members can slip through and join the subreddit.
It is of note that r/IncelTear has become an important internet community. It acts as a sanity check. Other times, it acts as a source of comfort for people who were victimized by misogynists. Overall, through our personal investigation, it seems to be positive—albeit, a little clickbaity.
Studying The Incel Tears Movement
So far, there have been numerous studies on “incels” and the damage that they can do. It’s to be expected, considering that the FBI pointed out that incels are a major threat to national security.
Incel tears has received enough attention that an entire academic paper was dedicated to dissecting r/IncelTears’ use of humor to critique Incels. Written by Marta Dynel at the University of Łódź, she dives deep into the effectiveness of r/IncelTears humor as a means to oppose and troll incels. Many realizations about humor, trolling, inicels and Reddit were reached.
Of note, the paper highlights the subreddit’s use of absurdity and humor to discredit incels. Moreover, the existence of the subreddit seems to increase the propensity for trolling those who are incels. It seems there is a genuine community built around using humor and mockery to critique incels, as well as the worry that the movement may spread.
Is the Incel Tears Movement Harming More Than It Helps?
If there is one thing that r/IncelTear gets a lot of flack for, it’s the potential propensity for bullying incels. To a point, it’s true. r/IncelTear is a subreddit that makes fun of incels. No one likes to be made fun of, and it may actually be a driving reason as to why many incels feel as isolated as they do.
While this is a comment that many people have mentioned in passing, the truth is that there really isn’t much evidence to suggest that people on r/IncelTear are bullying incels. Or rather, they are not doing so directly. However, there’s a fear of that chance that it could make incels want to dig their heels in deeper.
So, What’s Going To Happen To The Incel Tears Movement?
As of now, the r/IncelTear subreddit is still going strong. They have daily posts and a lot of engagement. The @inceltear Twitters posts multiple times a day, mostly content from the subreddit page.
Mentions of #inceltears or #inceltears on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr don’t get daily mentions and have never trended but their mentions do happen. It seems the Incel Tears movement isn’t as large as the Incel movement itself and we’re doubtful that’ll change anytime soon. In the meantime investigate both movements for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments below.
