By David Futrelle
So this is a thing that exists. Take a moment to soak it in. It’s perfectly fine if you react like this:
The good news? It’s probably a joke — a pitch-perfect parody of incel logic rather than an example of it. At least that’s my guess. The meme (a version of the “ideal girlfriend” meme) seems to have originated on 4chan — the reference to “anon” is a bit of a giveaway — and has made it to Reddit and Twitter as well.
So far the reaction on Braincels, the main incel subreddit, has been a bit muted; some of the regulars are befuddled by it, others see it, as they see every bit of “evidence” that life sucks for them, as “suicide fuel.” Though they may be joking when they say that too.
I haven’t seen it show up on Incels.me — at least not yet.
Weirdly, the meme got a much more enthusiastic hearing in the ProLife subreddit.
“Not gonna lie, this got my all teary-eyed,” admitted someone called TheEmeraldCrusader.
“I’ve seen this popping up in some sections of social media that are probably less-visited by people in this sub,” wrote Yesofcoursenaturally,
and it’s been getting a good chunk of positive feedback.
Obviously there’s a layer of (dark) humor to it. But really, this is making some people think more about the issue in a good, if hard to describe way.
OnAllLevelsIAmBoJack agreed:
Anything that gets people talking about it, honestly. The government has “made up its mind” in my country. Anyone who dissents is considered a misogynist by default… That’s why it’s critical women share things like this
EpistemicClosure thought it might be an effective recruiting tool:
This will be good for attracting “incels” into the pro-life movement. They already lean sympathetic too, so it’s very fertile ground.
But not everyone on the subreddit was thrilled by the prospect of incels joining their movement.
“We don’t want them!” declared leathercanid.
“Yeah I don’t know if men who believe they’re entitled to sex and angry that they aren’t getting it are ones to seek out for a pro-life cause,” justtotossit suggested, noting that women tend to be “even pickier” when sex could easily lead to an un-terminatable pregnancy.
Incels don’t care about that. They don’t think they’re ever going to have sex anyway. They’re happy to support anything that hurts women, even if it (theoretically) hurts them too.
H/T — This tweet from @BenIsYourHero that alerted me to the existence of this thing.
All I can say is, “Ew!”
Guess what? It’s still misogynistic horseshit when women post anti-choice garbage.
@Kate: Yup! Women who agree with sexist bullshit doesn’t make it not sexist bullshit. Internalized misogyny is a thing.
Welp, I’m now officially fired up for this weekend’s PP Greeter (they don’t use the term ‘escort’ for the volunteers) shift. Thanks, David!
But… slightly more than half of all births are to baby boys. If abortion were banned, then the can’t-get-laids would have *even more* competition for wimminz’ attentionz.
@Paradoxical Intention
I struggle with that so much in my life…that is trying to sort of what’s internalized misogyny and internalized sexism from what is who I am and who I want to be. And I’m not sure I can. I cry about it sometimes but other times I try to be like Artemis and be brave.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I just thought it was cutesy image with the twins thing, and then I saw the “aborted girlfriend title” and the rest of it and ahhhhhhhhh
I’m trying to think of a reaction to this that isn’t tasteless or incoherent. I got nothing.
Excuse me, I need some brain bleach.
“On all levels I am Bojack”
Except, I imagine, on the level “actually achieved something one in their life”.
“Meow me Obi-Wan Kenobi, meow my only meow!”
Being pro-choice = pro murder
Being a member of a subculture that celebrates mass murder = obvious pro-life ally
If anyone still thinks anti-choicers are just concerned about the lives of babies rather than punishing and control women’s bodies, well, they’re probably the same people who think Trump is honest. Beyond help or hope.
So the meme, I use that word lightly, is about a girl who was aborted as a fetus. Hence she can’t be an incel’s girlfriend? The hamster in my skull hasn’t got the wheel up to speed yet.
Ugh. Are these dorkuses even aware that sex-selective abortion is not a thing, outside of maybe India and China?
Also, what proof on Earth is there that they’d have a girlfriend if some woman they never met was denied an abortion?
Dudes, THIS is why you’re girlfriendless. You’re idiots about absolutely EVERYTHING to do with sex! And if you think denying women abortion is gonna get you girlfriends (let alone ones who’ll live to serve you), you’re (a) incredibly grotesque, and (b) dead wrong.
By their own logic, this poorly drawn girl would have been out riding the cock carousel with all the aborted, poorly drawn chads and tyrones.
@Gijoel Pretty much. This meme is probably a joke, but apparently there is a subset that resent women who have had abortions for not potentially providing them with girlfriends because it’s hard for them to not despise women in every single context at all times ever, even to the point of basically embracing Calvinistic predestination lol.
What the hell is this? If women outnumbered men ten to one, these so-called Incels would still be alone.
Kinda funny the pro-life crowd don’t seem to want their support. I thought they’d take anyone.
It takes a bit of mental contortion but I think this comes down to, the reason I am a rage-filled dude constantly cursing the world that I don’t get everything I want – or apparently even know how to feed myself – is because some woman I’ve never met didn’t want to be pregnant.
Because of course whatever that fetus turned out to be would have been sweet, pretty, a perfect ten, a great cook, and entirely attuned to doing my will, and nothing else.
Or, shorter version, the only decent woman is the one I just made up who by definition has never lived.
All the actually existing women are bad and are preventing me having that non-existent one.
It’s been tricky, but I think I’ve cracked the code.
This is of a kind with the anti-abortion argument, “but what if you just aborted the next Einstein/the person who’s going to cure cancer/the next Beethoven?”
But, y’know, more selfish. As one would expect from the incel crowd.
Abortion might just as easily have eliminated the eeeevil gold digging harpy that was destined to grow up to rake them over the coals in divorce court and make off with all their hard earned apex $$$.
Or the baby who would one day grow up to be a Safeway cashier and take out a restraining order against them.
Or any one of the 99.999% of women who they never even approach, who invariably disappoint and anger them from afar.
It’s the flip side to the “you just aborted Beethoven” fallacy.
But one thing they can agree on is that my body isn’t mine. Jerks.
Incels are definitely anti-choice because they think I’m not allowed to choose who I have sex with… or even whom I talk to.
In the end it’s always always always my body isn’t really mine. Well yes it is assholes and here it is and here I am!
Please talk about Roosh and his failed flight to UK, and/or Heartsite talking about mind control by magnets
Yeah, if only that fetus could have been born. Then she would have saved some incel’s sorry ass by cooking him dinner and providing him with sex and sympathy. With no effort on his part, he would have become A Better Man. But because some woman wanted to abort the fetus forced on her by her rapist or leave her battering husband or delay childbearing until after she got her PhD or after she got off welfare or after she turned 21, some incel somewhere isn’t getting laid.
When will women start putting incels first!
I couldn’t help myself.
Mind control by magnets?
BRB, whipping up a solenoid that will shut down Shartiste’s testicles once and for all.
It’s actually quite easy to describe! “I’m opposed to abortion because an aborted fetus might have been useful as a live-in, unpaid cook/sex worker/baby factory for some man.” See? Easy peasy.
There are three and a half billion women in the world. If they all agree you’re a creep, the problem isn’t the absence of one more potential women that might have existed. The problem is you.
“Hey, we’re twins, let’s fuck(and make babies)!”
I wonder why incels assume the “GF” would go for them if only she’d had a chance to grow up. Isn’t the received wisdom that all girls raised in Western society grow up to ride the cock carousel? Why would the aborted girl be any different?
This one just kinda irritates me. A lot of people I follow on Twitter have been using this meme format to describe themselves and I thought it was kinda cute, but now this meme has kinda soured that. They really won’t let anything cute exist in the world, will they?
@Talonknife
I know, right!? I love cute stuff! It should be allowed to thrive! Free of meanies and creeps!
Thank you for saying it. 🙂
My only response to this meme was a “WTF” of pure confusion, and I don’t see myself coming up with a better one.
Gah.
Sex selective abortion is a HUGE problem in India and China.
Because of the rampant misogyny in those cultures.
And the less women there are, the worse it gets.
Plenty of women in India are forced to have abortions by their in laws.
Still doesn’t change the fact that nobody, no matter the age, can use my body against my will.
Well, I for one fully support the idea of all incels being supplied with an Aborted Girlfriend. She’s perfect for them, after all. She’ll never get older, never stray, never ask for money or basic needs or common courtesy, never be anything other than exactly what they fantasize about. It’s easy to not have any flaws when you don’t exist. They can even have all the
imaginarysecond generation aborted children their little hearts desire, since those children will also have no needs or flaws and will never be taken away by protective services.The hot meal might be a little more difficult to get out of an Aborted Girlfriend, but maybe she can make her incel boyfriend a nice steaming plate of imaginary corn. I hear that stuff is delicious.
@Catalpa
At the risk of seriously dating myself (or confusing a lot of people), may I suggest a bowl of hot grits instead?
Haha, it’s not like my imaginary corn Welcome to Night Vale reference was much less confusing. At least you provided context for yours!
I mean, if there’s any people who can drive imaginary, non-existent women into preparing a bowl of hot grits, it would probably be the incels.
“Congratulations, mrs Gatecrasher, the fetus you’re carrying will be a baby girl. And the technology has progressed that far, that we have these really cool future-seeing devices, and so we can predict your future daughter’s future! She’s going to be a HB10 without own feelings and thoughts, the perfect empty shell basically, so beautiful, and she’s going to marry this very sad and angry man who otherwise wouldn’t get any sex or romance, and live her whole life with him as his baby machine/sex slave! Congratulations yet again, mrs Gatecrasher!”
I think their logic is actually an argument for abortion.
Urg, maybe my work in computer science affects me too much, but when i read “aborted gf”, i think of an app which just had crashed… Sorry, i really miss social skills.
Alternatively, if these jerks had been aborted they wouldn’t be around to post creepy gross memes.
“You’re not eating healthy. I could have cooked you a hot meal…”
Wait, is this an imaginary girlfriend or an imaginary mother replacement?
Oh yeah, they don’t generally distinguish between the two.
OT but I have nothing to add to the above awfulness.
Today a certain Emblem Of All That Is Terrible arrives in the UK. The British people are rolling out the only appropriate welcome mat for him, by organising protests up and down the country.
I’ll be at the Women’s March tomorrow in London, if any Mammotheers are also attending. I may also go to my local one in Brighton this evening.
As you may have gathered, my reason for protesting is not limited to the man’s personal awfulness, his cavalcade of terrible policies, his slapdash approach to diplomacy and his normalisation of fascist beliefs in the US (all of which ought to be reason enough). I see him as an emblem of a rising tide of ugly hate-filled politics in the developed world (and maybe wider, but I’m pretty ignorant of much of world politics, so I’m trying not to over-generalise). Which is why I’ll be re-using the Audre Lorde quote* I made for a previous protest, but putting my favourite tweet on the back which, from memory, says:
“You know sitting in history, you thought if I was there, I would have –
What you’re doing now is what you would have done.”
That is why I’m protesting.
Bizarrely the US Embassy has suggested that Americans in the UK “keep a low profile” over the next few days. As if the protests are anti-American?!
* “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognise, accept & celebrate those differences.”
How does an unwanted child grow up to be the perfect gf exactly? She will be subject to the same cultural influences as everyone else – she doesn’t grow up in a bubble, and indeed may have a harder childhood because she was unwanted.
And what about all those aborted boys? Don’t the incels give a shit about them?!
@Pie: And they don’t get this novel idea that they could, maybe, learn to cook and fix their own damn hot meals!
There’s this Italian movie called ‘Pane e Tulipani’. It’s amazing.
In it, a woman gets left behind at a rest stop by her family. She tries to reach them, but they don’t answer. So she says to herself ‘Fuck it, I’m going to Venice’ and tramps there.
Finds out that living live free of the demands of her husband and children is awesome. And decides to stay and build herself a life.
The best scene, however, is this:
Husband is hungry. And out of socks. So he asks his girlfriend if she could make him something to eat, and maybe wash his socks.
Her reply:
‘No! I’m your girlfriend and not your wife!’
And anti abortion people use that as a cosh to hit us pro choice people because it is apparently rank hypocrisy to complain about a specific gender being targeted.
It has actually caused some terrible problems:
@Weatherwax
Perhaps there are Americans planning counter-protests, and the Embassy is trying to preempt any ugliness that may arise from this. Or it’s out of genuine, if misplaced, concern that certain opportunists may try to carry out violence against Americans during this period.
I feel like this fawning sycophant is living in the wrong country:
https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/11/pub-rebrands-trump-arms-ahead-us-presidents-uk-visit-7705370/
Won’t somebody, please, think of the american people?
@ellesar
Just wanted to share a word that you may or may not have. Things such as widespread abortion of female fetuses could be called ‘gendercide’.
sounds like conservatives in general….
@ Ariblester
Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s an attempt to paint the protests as anti-American, rather than admit how out of step with liberal democracies Trump has strayed. When looking at press coverage afterwards, please note the distinct lack of flag-burning, the portrayal of popular symbols of the US (Uncle Sam, Lady Liberty) as Trump resisters rather than supporters.
I was on the Women’s March in London last year; a lot of Americans attended. The mood was entirely welcoming of them and I think they appreciated the opportunity to protest what was being done in their name, despite being abroad. I see no reason to believe tomorrow will be any different. Plus, as several Americans of colour have already commented online, they feel a lot safer in London (even in the middle of a heavily policed protest) than back home (not that British policing is perfect, but your chances of being shot are significantly lower).
… I thought +++melon melon melon. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++