By David Futrelle
Incels seem to think that they are the only people on earth who have problems. They regularly claim that women are literally incapable of feeling real depression, feeling sad only when they’re temporarily denied the adoring attention they’ve come to expect. As if that’s how any of this works.
On the Braincels subreddit today, one incel brain genius argued that female “depression” — yes, with scare quotes — is “voluntary.”
Incels constantly complain that no one understands their pain, that no one else goes through what they go through. In fact, innumerable people go through the exact same things — feeling loneliness, despair, hopelessness — and somehow manage to do it without getting murderously angry and dismissing the problems of everyone else on earth as imaginary.
I’ve dealt with clinical depression, spending years of my life untreated and basically fumbling around in the dark. I’ve been close to a number of women (and men) who have also dealt with clinical depression and/or other mental illnesses, in some cases worse than mine even at its most severe. They all got better after they got help, though it sometimes took years. We all feel bitter at times, but none of us lashed out at the world and assumed that no one but us ever felt like shit or had to deal with real issues.
Incels, your depression is real, and not your fault. But it’s also not the fault of women, or feminism, or your height, or any of the other convenient scapegoats you like to yell about online. Your ideology is toxic. It makes your life worse. It makes the world worse. Unlike your depression, it’s something you chose. You don’t have to allow that shit into your head. It’s voluntary, and as long as you choose to believe it your life will remain shitty. Get off of Braincels. Get off of Incels.me. Get help. Fix yourselves.
I’m not convinced it is. I think one of the many obnoxious things about Incel culture is how they appropriate genuine suffering and mock it for their own amusement. Like all their ‘LDAR’ and ‘roping’ BS. It’s just like their vile slanders on autism.
“LDAR” and “roping”?
It’s always amazing to me that misogynists manage to simultaneously believe both that women are crazy and irrational and driven by emotion and that women can’t be mentally ill because their pain is not real and they do not feel suffering the way men do. It just depends on what is more convenient in the moment.
It’s not like only incels believe this either. It’s common for misgoynists of all stripes to claim this.
@Surplus. LDAR is lay down and rot, but roping can’t mean what it usually slangs as, unless maybe they’re complaining about jizz backup?
@Surplus: The gizoogle led me to Urban Dictionary for LDAR (“Lay Down And Rot”), but I had to search ‘roping incel’ to get a proper match there (to “rope” is apparently to hang oneself, and I’m so glad I googled that poem and didn’t go on attributing it to Dorothy Parker).
Well I guess it’s a good thing that they’re incels, as telling a girl what and how she feels is invalid is a GREAT way to not get dates or a girlfriend. In that case then, just leave women alone, stop whining about them, and move on.
It’s a shame that some girl could come along and think one of these guys was cute and be able to relate in some ways to how he feels, but get blown off because her own feelings “aren’t real.”
@ David,
Very heartfelt and wise comments on depression. 🙂
It’s very heartening to see that you want to help others too.
My usual friends and are I sitting around right now drinking beer. It’s awfully hot. To point at these people, and myself, I don’t think any of us has been seriously depressed. “Situationally depressed,” maybe. So someone like us may only know but an edge of it. Circumstantial things.
With that said, we were thinking about putting something on the ‘harassment thread’ here, but there is so, so much. A weird thing that came to mind, and our pal T here says it’s ok to relay it, – she was involved with some guy, fairly serious, met the parents and all that. Parents got a new dog.
Friend and this BF went to parents house and dog wagged tail and went up to our friend here, – and the BF BLEW UP! about it! Got extremely angry because the dog “liked her better”. Seriously?
This happened 10+ years ago, and if I didn’t know this woman, I’d be scratching my head.
And then today, I found these things:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Braincels/comments/8rpkt5/mogged_by_dogchad/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Braincels/comments/8rsp88/a_dog_named_chad/
They are literally jealous – of dogs. Including CARTOON dogs.
I don’t want to comment on any mental state, off the cuff I’d say these people might be wallowing in self pity.
Jealous of dogs?
And no kidding, T here, it happened! Guy blew up and went into a rage because his parents dog walked up to her first.
That might be a sign of an anger problem also.
This guy though, friends exBF, this guy is a textbook example of a manure spherian. This is how the rest of us figured it out, and only because she offhandedly mentioned that ‘this guy’ listened to Tom Leykis on the radio.
That’s where I started on all this, researching. And (these types) TELL MEN to act like assholes!
A lot of them will “cry depression” too. They are not depressed, they are co opting serious depression.
It’s an attempt to trigger emotions to see who will stick around. Some people do it subconsciously, some do it deliberately, from what they see on these sites.
ETA to fix a typo and, clarity.
*warning for suicide discussion*
Yeah, they’re always going on about ‘roping’ but just in a facetious way. They’ve been on about a petition that Dignitas should accept inceldom as a qualifying criteria. Not in the slightest bit genuine of course. Having lost someone to depression it does somewhat piss me off that they just use suicide as a ‘meme’.
(As you may have noticed I’m not a huge fan of incels anyway)
I suspect it is because they do not think of women as sapient beings at all. They consider women in the same way that assholes consider animals or insects- creatures that are driven entirely by instinct and completely incapable of actual emotion or suffering in the way that a real person is.
Diagnosed with clinical depression many years ago – still fighting it. I never sat around wondering if someone else’s feelings were “real” or “faked.” My problem is a matter of brain chemistry, no one’s fault. Why do these guys believe they are wise enough to judge and understand others when they clearly have no understanding of themselves?
Oh my god! Just the other day a guy was telling me I couldn’t possibly be depressed because I laugh and smile too much! I find it ironic because laughing easily is actually a skill I’ve had to teach myself to deal with social anxiety.
@Catalpa You’re exactly right. I’ve seen manospherians claiming women are incapable of love, sadness, loneliness and sexual pleasure. They are under the illusion that if they’ve never felt or experienced something, it must be a massive conspiracy because they, angry (usually) white guys, are representative of the human experience. Even if they do get a date, they won’t experience real romantic connection with a woman until they learn to see women as fully human people.
Sooo….
ICE is promoting some program for veteran employment on their Twitter with the Orwellian name HERO and it features a picture of a blond dude with a fucking iron cross tat on his elbow
https://twitter.com/ICEgov/status/1000032995384807425
I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but what the actual fuck?
It’s a few weeks old but it’s just going viral now. It’ll be interesting to see if this gets the attention of the mainstream media at all. I mean, they are literally looking for good Gestapo members here.
So glad that these guys, who know nothing about anything, incel-splain women to me.
I had no idea that society worshiped me!
Nor did I realize that I was having sexxxy sex with Chad all the time and was never lonely!
Also previously unrealized: I am never truly sad. Maybe I’m sad. But sadness that is worthy of an incel? I’ll never experience that because I lack a certain essential je ne sais quoi.
All women have boyfriends? Is this what life is like in the Berenstein/Shazam universe?
I KNEW there was something I forgot to do this weekend. I didn’t ride the Cock Carousel! Sheesh, no wonder I’m depressed! Silly, flaky lady brain, always forgetting the important stuff. It’s a good thing I have all these boyfriends coddling and worshiping me to make me feel oh so much better.
Because people who have sex NEVER feel depressed. /s
If people want me to stop dropping off topic politics stuff in thread, please do let me know and I’ll try to keep it to a weekly thing or wait for a related post or something.
But since nobody has expressed annoyance yet, I’m gonna just go on about it some more because there’s something on my mind.
I was watching Westworld tonight and thinking about how I loved it and how it keeps getting better and better. Seriously, if you’re not watching it yet, do start. Anyway, it lead me to think about how we don’t know what, popular culture wise Trump likes. Most of the time, presidents will mention their favorite things, show their humanity. Trump never does. I know that Obama likes Game of Thrones, House of Cards and basketball. What the fuck is Trump interested in besides money and power? Has he ever mentioned favorite movies, TV shows, sports? He has no pets. As much as evangelicals love him, he doesn’t appear to be religious. He doesn’t seem to have an interest in a science, in literature, in any art that isn’t a portrait of him. Maybe he likes golf given that he frequently does it, but golfing is the way business bros make deals in a relaxed setting. I’ve seen no indication that he’s passionate about golf, I think he does it just because it’s what rich men do. The only other person he seems to care for is Ivanka and he pretty clearly sees her as a younger, prettier, female extension of himself. There’s just, nothing there. I think it might be the most chilling thing about him.
Maybe Chuck Tingle is actually right about him being crabs from the void in a human suit? Because what real human being has no interests, hobbies or passions?
@WWTH
Unfair! The president has one all-consuming interest, hobby, and passion: Donald J. Trump.
He’s also a big fan of raping young girls.
(I apologise for the dark snark, but I don’t know of any other way to deal with the US being ruled over by a paedophile and the media not giving one single solitary damn.)
I’m AFAB agender.
Last year I spent four months in hospital due to depression.
It took that, a ton of therapy afterwards, and serious medication to get me back on an even keel.
Not sure if I’ll ever go beyond partial remission.
And I’ll never be able to live without medication.
But sure, incels, tell me what REAL depression is like.
@Z&T
The manosphere has some funny ideas about dogs, doesn’t it? There’s even a few articles on here…
Replace women’s brains with dog brains so they’ll have sex with us, Incel proposes
Hot dead chick reveals dark female secrets to Return of Kings, including the dog stuff
@weirwoodtreehugger
There was a semi-humorous article I remember reading a little while ago, suggesting that Trump was a zombie (in the p-zombie sense). Everything he appears to like or want seems to come from some cliche of american society that could be readily copied by something with no internal life. Steak, supermodels, seething contempt for everyone not white or male, etc etc. All just adaptive camoflage.
Can’t find it now though, which is irritating.
I’ll just leave these here
Part one
https://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html
Format fail. Dunno why. Both parts seem to be here though.
Re the “jealous of dogs” thing, the incels were also jealous of a statue.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2017/09/13/reddits-incels-are-furious-at-a-literal-statue-for-getting-more-action-than-them/
oh, and on the off-topic stuff, I never mind it, but if people want I can put open threads up more, I’ve kind of slacked off on that.
@WWTH
I also think it’s weird that it is possible for people to simultaneously think that women are “emotional creatures” but also that their feelings aren’t real. Maybe it’s the Women-are-hormonal-trope? Like, when a man is angry it’s because he is angry. When a woman is angry, it’s because it’s that time of the month again. Men’s feelings are pure and real, whereas women’s are artificial, produced by hormones.
Even though everyone has hormones, and everyone’s hormones can have effects on all kinds of bodily functions with direct and indirect effects on mood and feelings, it is only women who are so drugged by their own hormones they can no longer function. There are a multitude of hormones, and every one’s hormonal levels change constantly, to keep the body functioning in an ever-changing world, but only women have “cycles”!
It is not normal physiology to be incapacitated by ones hormones. I mean, one can be, but in that scenario, one has an endocrine/gynecological/psychiatric disorder, it is not “just being a woman”.
But I guess it is very convenient to say that somebody’s anger is just silly hormone feewings and not real anger. That means you don’t have to listen to them.
@WWTH
No, *thank you* for posting that Twitter link, people need to see it. It gives me some hope how many people are calling it, but holy fuck, things are scary right now.
I’m remembering a thing a former friend told me, about FBI work back in like 2012 that found white supremacist groups infiltrating law enforcement up to a very high level – not just Nazi beat cops, but Nazi cops getting higher up in the power structure. By now that infiltration would be quite complete.
This is very bad. There needs to be complete noncooperation from citizens, on a massive scale.
@Everyone who’s dealt with depression
Been there. 🙁 Without my psych med and HRT regimens I’m pretty useless. The level of social gaslighting though, oh my gods, my freaking therapist used to give me grief about how my feelings weren’t real because depression. And the level of denial about the role trauma plays in it. It’s fucking terrible.
I can understand why people do this – bringing yourself eye to eye with a depressed person is REALLY hard, exhausting work, and the boundaries you need to set are not intuitive – but oh my gods. It just hurts so much. And my depression is well managed now, but honestly I don’t know how people without depression even exist