By David Futrelle
In the wake of the Toronto van attacks, the mods on Incels.me have apparently decided to hide some of the more incriminating discussions on the site. Like this little thread, which they deleted — but not before the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine grabbed a copy of it.
I guess this thread was just a little bit too enthusiastically pro-mass-murder for its own good. 
You may notice that some of the commenters accuse the OP of being a troll from the anti-incel IncelTears subreddit. But if you go to the archived thread (this isn’t visible in the screenshot) you’ll see that several of those agreeing most enthusiastically with the OP are prolific Incels.me posters with many thousands of comments between them. Because of course.
I want pockets, too. I pretty much wear jeans all the time for the pockets even though they don’t fit me that well any longer.
Not for adults, but this site puts pockets in all their clothes for girls: dresses, shorts, leggings.
https://princess-awesome.com/
And this one is starting to put them in skirts.
https://www.primary.com/
I also don’t think that we should give incels some kind universal moniker. Partially because of the reasons previously stated by other posters, and partially because whatever name we pick will almost certainly also be the name for some decent folks, and lumping in a name with some people as toxic as incels seems like it causes splash damage.
If they actually need a term beyond ‘incel’, which I think works just fine, something like Dipshit would work best, imo.
The MRAdjacent habit of using actual people’s names to represent the social archetypes of their ideology is something that I really dislike. It not only leads to essentialist thinking and the Fundamental Attribution Error, but also inevitably causes splash damage. I would prefer that we didn’t do it.
Also, re pockets, I heard a splendidly dorky cosmology joke from @jenniferemorrow on twitter, and I want to pass it on.
Thanks, Mish! It’s been an adventure for both my kitty and me.
And I agree that naming incels would be not so great. As Catalpa pointed out, plenty of decent people would be hurt by it. Daniel Ellsberg (Watergate whistleblower) and Daniel Berrigan (lefty Roman Catholic priest) both strike me as good guys.
Not to mention the fact that Stormy Daniels is scoring some important points against the Orange One. (Visualize a winking face here.)
My husband’s name is Daniel, and I think we’d both resent that.
I’m still annoyed about the whole handbag thing. Like, incels think we should wear basically a bodycon vest that doesn’t cover our butt, and then they criticise us for having a nice bag to carry our stuff in? Get your hands off my fucking handbags, incels, the patriarchy gave you pockets
Also, Chad is buying Stacey a genuine Gucci fucking handbag as a sign of his love. And I bet he let her pick the handbag she wanted, too. No handing out scratchy Ann Summers underwear in the wrong size for Chad; he’s actually thought about it and bought Stacey something he knows she’ll like. Maybe it was her birthday.
You know, I think Chad and Stacey are probably a really happy couple <3
@Violet
That made me feel ridiculously cheery for some reason. Thank you! 🙂
Actually, it doesn’t even say Chad bought the handbag. Maybe Stacey bought it herself out of her earnings as a partner in a law firm.
Since the name Dan came up, I just want to say that it’s my husband’s name, and he’s about the opposite of incels – while he didn’t have sex until his late 20s, that was because he felt he needed a strong emotional connection with someone to have sex with them (not knocking on anyone who enjoys casual sex, just as his own personal preference [and as it happens mine also]), and it took time to find that emotional connection, wwhich happened to be with me. He also realises that sex is a mutual thing, and generally has a super healthy sexuality, despite growing up in a religious family which I know can give some people weird hangups about stuff. He has clinical depression, and spent years hating himself, but never took that out on other people or believed that he was owed something by them. He’s caring and thoughtful and just altogether awesome.
So on top of the name thing being, as so many have said by now, a ridiculous concept in and of itself, can we please leave Dan out of it? 🙂
@shadowplay
You’re welcome!
Modest bit of goodish news. City worker who made fake porn of colleague who rejected him gets banged up.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-43967366
Re the pocket topic: I usually wear men’s clothes, although there are a lot of tight pants designed for men up here in Scandinavia. I still prefer tight men’s pants to tight women’s pants because a) better pockets – obviously you can’t keep too much in your pockets when the pants are tight, but they’re still more spacious than the pockets on most tight women’s pants, and b) more space in the crotch. Despite not having a dick I appreciate this. Don’t want seams grinding against my labia when I walk and sit.
@Shadowplay: That’s funny, I have a couple of pants with loads of pockets on that I wear on hikes, and I call this style of pants “Leifeild pants”!
I’m the one who used ‘Ian Sell’ when writing the story of a specific imaginary incel. I certainly didn’t intend it to be used as a generic name for all incels, in the way incels use ‘Stacy’ to refer to all sexually active women. It was merely a storytelling device.
Unless someone can point out a sentence that would be improved by use of a generic name over just using the work ‘incel’, I’d also be in the ‘no’ camp.
I’m curious what sort of specific criteria these guys would give you if asked them how exactly to divide people into objective numerical categories of attractiveness. There are so many possible subtle variations of even the same human face that it seems impossible.
Also, weirdly enough, their idea of Becky looks exactly like one of my best friends from high school.
@Alan
Good! Was disappointed at first at the short sentence but the fine and his dismissal at work (under “misconduct” as well!) made me feel better. Good on the company for taking the right action.
Yes to pockets.
No to giving incels a name.
Yes to idli either changing their habits or going away.
Speaking as someone whose actual RL name is Stacy, I agree with not giving incels a group person name. Who would want to be associated with that toxic group?
As for me, I’m mostly bemused because l’m nothing like their Stacy stereotype.
@ sunnysombrera
Gross misconduct; which of course it was in both senses of the word.
Let’s not ruin Dan, please. Dans are awesome. (Except for that one kid in junior high school.)
Referring to all members of a group by the same name, like Tyrone or Muhammed, implies that their true name doesn’t matter. Erasing someone’s name is a form of power. It’s why bullies hand out nicknames.
That being said, at this point Chad, Stacey, Becky, and Katie feel like really awesome imaginary friends.
Um…hello, is this on?
I’m not sure anyone here will remember me, as I have not commented in months (and at some point during David’s long hiatus I stopped checking WHTM every day, so I have had to make some good getting-up-to-date in the past few days).
Of course what prompted me to come here was that you-know-what-event had incels suddenly being mentioned in mainstream Spanish press, and like most people have already expressed, I’m glad the good word is getting out but horrified it had to be like this.
Locally, in between the feminist strike in March 8 and the recent uproar against the “wolfpack” rape trial sentence, this might well be the year of a major feminist breakthrough in Spain, one could only hope.
And to think I was this close to getting sucked by the PUA vortex after my divorce.
Okay, I want to end this re-acquaintance post with a big kudos and thank you for James Fell, whose blog was the first place where I found a link to WHTM, and whose posts made me also swiftly get rid of wonky fitness and nutrition ideas as well as getting me again on the right path which I should have never strayed from.
Good day and nice to see you all again.
Further observation: as a fashion obsessive, I would like to point out that Becky is on fleek, thank you very much. The “nerdy bun” is massive right now, as are backpacks, ankle boots and normcore grey hoodies. That’s a girl who knows what’s hot. I would not be surprised if Becky works in fashion and spends her time off listening to cutting-edge techno with people who call themselves things like “Hoover” and “Betty Nadir”.
Stacey’s style game isn’t up there, but she does look like great fun. Stacey, if you ever want to grab a cocktail and swap stories of all the terrible dates you had with angry entitled men before you met Chad, let me know. We could ask Becky. I bet she knows the bar we’re all going to want to go to next year.
Haha sorry, I’ll stop making up lives for these two now. The pictures really grabbed my imagination!
Saw the other version of Stacey and Becky.
Hopefully the pic will post:
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/223/520/775.jpg
It’s a sad pic.
Though the one in the middle makes me laugh slightly – “What is this thing called boo – k?”
@shadowplay
I like to see that as a lovely story about one woman’s discovery of reading and comfortable footwear
@Violet
You have a good PoV. Again. Going to enjoy your story about them instead. 🙂
Edit to add:
If anyone wants to laugh at a Nazi (and hasn’t already seen this, tend to be late to these parties)
https://twitter.com/AshAgony/status/991560502810640385
Oh hey, Spaniard in the Works! I remember you. It’s great to see you again.