By David Futrelle
On Monday, I wrote about the gleeful reaction some commenters on the Incels.me forum had to news that one of the victims in Sunday’s mass shooting in Toronto was a ten-year-old girl.
Yesterday, I found a lengthy comment in the We Hunted the Mammoth moderation queue from a gentleman who thought that the “virtue signaling” commenters here were being too harsh towards the incels celebrating this girl’s death.
I didn’t let the comment through, but I thought I would share it here as a kind of extreme example of an argument a lot of people have been making about incels.
The would-be commenter, calling himself Skynet0225, began by accusing the commenters here of self-righteous cruelty:
Interesting responses on this subject, mostly by those who identify themselves as leftist on the political/social spectrum. A handicap I shed many years ago. The liberals of old would have sought to understand what could possibly drive a human being to express such shockingly hateful ideations. But they all died long ago I suppose, supplanted by the self righteousness of the modern SJW.
As you read the rest of his comment, you may notice just a teensy bit of self-righteousness from Mr. Skynet0225 himself.
Most of those spouting this nonsense, at least 95% are being extremely provocative to garner attention. They damn well know what they’re saying is disgusting, maybe even to themselves as the words escape their fingertips and into the great interube void. Raging silently they listen for an echo, either approbation or repudiation will suffice. Any human contact, repugnant hatred or a questioning curiosity will do.
There are several problems with this rather ancient “just kidding” argument, For one thing, I’m not quite sure there is much of a moral or practical distinction between someone who responds with glee to the news of a ten-year-old being murdered and someone who pretends to feel glee because he knows it will disturb people; in either case he is a moral monster and is making the world a worse place for everyone.
Second of all, these guys have been making these same arguments for years in forums mostly read by others who agree with them, none of whom are particularly shocked (or impressed) to see one of their compatriots say something like this. And many of the commenters I quote in these sorts of articles have posted hundreds or even thousands of comments to Incels.me and other forums. My guess is that very few of them can be considered trolls in any meaningful sense. This is quite likely what they honestly believe.
None of you have experienced life in their skin, but you see fit to pass judgement, which is not really surprising because that’s what most of you empty heads do 24/7.
Not true. Incels see themselves as special snowflakes of suffering, dealing with problems no one else has faced. But it’s not true. Hundreds of millions of people — including many of those commenting here — have deal with depression and anxiety bad enough to be diagnosed as such, and every single person who has ever lived has felt loneliness. I’ve been dealing with chronic, sometimes quite severe, depression and anxiety for most of my life; during one particularly bad year in grad school I felt so fragile and empty that any slightly awkward conversation would send me rushing home fighting back tears. Many of the commenters here — and many other people in my life — have dealt with worse.
Yes, most incels are dealing with serious shit. That does not excuse their abhorrent views.
Virtue signalling on cue, forever seeking the next oppressed class or cause to champion, no matter how banal or venal.
Feeling sad or angry about the murder of a ten-year-old isn’t “virtue signaling” nor is it “banal or venal.” It’s a basic human reaction to a genuine tragedy.
Which is not to say that some of these guys are not truly dangerous. They surely are, as I’ve little doubt that 5% are the pool that school shooters are drafted from, and some times monsters of an even worse nature.
I suspect it is quite a bit higher than 5%. Anyone who willingly steeps themselves in incel culture has the potential to turn violent. Some regulars on the forum brag about groping and otherwise assaulting random women. Already at least two men heavily influenced by incel culture have gone on mass killing sprees.
The weakest of their number are the most vulnerable, and the most dangerous. Seems to me that maybe reaching out to these guys would be the prudent course, the most humane to someone who as of yet has done no harm, but is a deeply wounded creature trying to make sense out of the world around them and experiencing ever diminishing results. You never know the power of a kind word, a voice from the darkness to hang on, that it will get better, maybe even a reference to someone who could help.
People have been “reaching out” to incels for years. They’ve invariably been met with hostility and sometimes harassment. One of the basic tenets of incel ideology is that nothing — not therapy, not medication, not even the most basic self-help techniques — can help incels at all. When the topic comes up on incel forums, the response is generally something like this comment, found on the Braincels subreddit:
A few have gone further; I ran across one commenter on the now-banned Incels subreddit who thought that “conning [incels] into “therapy” should also be a stoneable offense.”
Still others have argued against medication because in their mind it is “too fucking effective,” threatening “to turn even the most suicidally depressed men into tax contributing good goys [sic].”
This is a bad thing, this particular incel argued, because
Depression like all other state of minds has a purpose. It is meant to hurt, weaken, and ultimately kill you. Trimming the fat from society so to speak. It is in the benefit of all to let the weak and disabled die off.
Only a small fraction of incels are open to help, and none of them hang out on Icels.me. As for the rest, I honestly have no idea how to reach these people. If you know some magic way that allows you to somehow get past this huge mountain of toxic bullshit, by all means go ahead and minister to them. I’m going to devote my attention to others who are more open to, and frankly, more deserving of, help.
Perhaps not as satisfying as a good old fashioned public denouncement, but maybe more productive. Even humane.
Mr. Skynet0225, I eagerly await your forthcoming report on all the incels you have saved from themselves.
It’s raining and cool today, so climate change is a hoax…. In the town I live in, between 1958 and 1966, it was over 100 degrees 14 times… it was over 100 degrees for more than one day 5 of those times.
Two years ago, it was over 100 degrees for six weeks straight… four years ago, it was over 100 degrees almost every day for three months straight
hipwaders? how ’bout a full-coverage toxic chemical hazard suit…!!!
Dear Skynet,
I’ll be succinct given that many people have given you their responses already, but contrary to what you rubes believe, having basic compassion for a murdered 10 year old girl is not “virtue signalling”.
Rightfully calling out people who cheer and celebrate the death of a little girl, based on the assumption that she would have “bullied” future incels, isn’t “virtue signalling”.
Anybody with an ounce of decency and empathy should feel nothing less than fury and anger at the messages these disgusting assholes put out.
What you assholes want isn’t understanding or empathy. What you want is complete and utter submission from women, and you and your ilk are willing to go to any lengths to achieve it, because you believe you can run around uncontested, dishing out violence until the rest of the world caves in.
But guess what? The rest of us are just as capable of violence as you, and our patience has nearly run out. So be careful in what you wish for, because this is a two way street.
Oh, for the love of all that is holy and unholy…
Call me a new skool, virtue signaling SJW if you like, but I really don’t feel the need to show any empathy to people who literally feel entitled to enslave half of the population to satisfy their sexual desires. Yes, I know how loneliness feels. I was in my late 30s before I found a relationship that had the potential to lead to something permanent. I don’t know how often I despaired that I would never find someone. I don’t know how many times I ranted to friends or family about wishing someone would give me a chance. You know what I never did? I never thought taking away the basic human rights of men was a viable solution to my problems.
Yes, I want to understand incels, just like I want to understand pathogens, but I do not owe them any empathy. Not only have they actively chosen to live outside the bounds of decent humanity, they revel in it.
You know, in light of the tragedy, I realized I’ve never actually been down to Greektown before. Taste of the Danforth is coming up August 10th… I think I’ll check it out this year just to get a sense of the community. I saw photos of the vigil that took place last night and it looks like the community is handling the tragedy as well as they can under the circumstances. It would have been nice if it didn’t require Premier Drug Dealer to be there too, but it is what it is.
Heather Mallick had a good take on the tragedy that outlines what can be done: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/07/24/how-to-dam-torontos-river-of-guns.html
Compared to the obnoxiously contrarian Rosie DiManno, Mallick is much better: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/07/24/prayers-programs-and-policing-are-all-fine-but-is-toronto-ready-to-take-gun-violence-seriously.html
God, why the Star continues to employ DiManno I have no clue. She’s sensationalistic and plays concern troll far too often as she does in the column above. I get that there’s a market for centrist dillholes as I indicated earlier, but those people are reading the Globe, not the Star.
@Dr. Thang
He used to be decent to a bit. He always had a bit of bigot but it was tempered by having friends keep him in line.
After him not making much friend in college, that’s when it all went downhill.
I swear on the FSM above, any guy who says something about his being a dating/life outcast because of his FACIAL BONE STRUCTURE and is not literally afflicted by a condition such as the one the ‘elephant man’ had (in which case I would be very sympathetic and see if there might be ways in which that person can be supported with friendship-type-stuff out in the real world – and by me – but wouldn’t make them feel all condescended to etc…) is going to get launched out of Earth’s atmosphere in a glorified tin can with nothing they can use to return to solid ground on this planet.
Sorry, there’s no good damn reason to even attempt to understand where people who THINK IT’S FABULOUS FOR A CHILD TO BE KILLED are coming from. No. Point. At. All. If they’d just go their own way and not kill others, that would be just. peachy. Peachy I say! 😉
So many good comments already said what I had to say. My shorthand response to “virtue signalling” is someone who doesn’t understand why anyone would show basic human decency unless it’s for social points.
But I wonder if that’s the thing (that being Musicalbookworm’s comment) about that phrase “virtue signalling”, that they think liberals claim to have universal empathy and universal tolerance, and showing any limits to what we will tolerate or who we will empathize with “proves” we’re lying about all of it for social points.
We don’t tolerate fascists who want to oppress and exterminate groups of people, we don’t empathize with murderers or murderer-superfans who celebrate the deaths of children. Because they’re monsters (never mind the fact that we never claimed to tolerate or empathize UNIVERSALLY anyway).
But but but, homosexuals are “deviant pedophile monsters” and we empathize with them, doctors giving women bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom are “baby murdering monsters” and we tolerate them, black people are “inherently criminal savage monsters” and we have claimed to tolerate them since the Democrats stopped being the party of the KKK… so we MUST be lying about being empathetic or tolerant if we pick and choose which monsters we will an won’t support.
That’s kind of how I’m seeing it now, that phrase “virtue signalling”.
We want people to get told off for something they actually did. They want the death penalty for a 10 year old just for existing.
No, I don’t think we’re the judgemental ones.
@Weird Eddie I love that Laurie Penny quote.
Never mind the rebuttal of “Yes I fucking have, and in many cases a lot fucking worse”, I despise the underlying statement behind this, which is “If you had gone through the same things they have you’d be an Incel too.” which…well, no I fucking didn’t. I’ll admit as a youth that I did buy into some the Nice Guy (TM) bullshit arguments, but at no point did I ever decide that women are not actually human and deserve to die because they won’t get my dick wet.
@Surplus
You say you live in a reasonably-sized city, just not a metropolis. I assume therefore that you have a library?
Libraries and public parks make good activity spaces, depending on the activity type (and in the case of the parks, the weather). Book clubs are popular enough that they even have their own category on NextDoor; if you can’t find one, you should be able to start one at the local library. If you stick to books that are in the public domain, this will cost only as much as it costs to get to the library. (Although of course hours are at issue.)
Add’ly, librarians are experienced & trained at helping people find and use community resources.
@ JessicaRed –
Perhaps you’ve already seen this, but what you’re describing seems to similar to an explanation I’ve seen of conservative Christian views on sex.
We tend to grade sexual impropriety along a scale with adultery at one end and rape at the other, with consent and power differentials being the main things that determine how bad the action is. They tend to view sex-with-the-possibility-of-conception between a man and a woman who were married to each other in a church as the one kind of permissible sex, and everything else is not only bad, but *equally* bad: which is why they think we’re hypocrites for being ok with same-sex pairings between consenting adults, but not pedophilia; and also why they say stuff about ‘not casting the first stone” when a church member gets caught molesting his younger sisters, so long as he comes from a prominent enough family and sheds enough tears – they really don’t think he’s done anything worse than say, two middle-aged members of the congregation who find they’re more attracted to each other than to their respective spouses.
To expand on that, they interpret “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” to mean “if you’ve ever even had a passing thought about someone other than your wife, you have no right to call that guy out for being a rapist.” (The hypocrisy, I think, is that they only give this benefit of the doubt to members of their own religion, and usually only to men.)
@Weird (and tired of trumplings) Eddie:
I stand corrected! I confess, I had an image of people fishing, or engaged in agrarian activities. I wasn’t thinking industrial spill and full-on hazmat incident. But you are totally right.
These stews of misogyny, self-loathing, entitlement, and rage are definitely industrial spills that threaten public safety.
@Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
I agree with you that replacing misogyny with classism is a bad plan. And that most of the advice out there is written with a (white) middle-class audience in mind, which is problematic too. Frankly, I am not a Dr Nerdlove fan. I can appreciate the work he is doing, and his efforts to promote feminism. But his misogynistic roots shine through a little too much for my taste. Not that my opinion matters, because I am not his intended audience at all.
However, I am really surprised that what you’ve gotten out of the many advice thinkpieces (by Dr Nerdlove and others) to sadboner men is to concentrate on self-improvement by (1) better grooming and (2) cultivating hobbies/interests, and that both of these are not viable because too expensive and/or unachievable for working class and/or rural men. MeetUp doesn’t work everywhere! Membership fees! Adult interests permanently set by age 25! That seems awfully black and white, and terribly reductive and self-limiting thinking.
I am most definitely part of the growth mindset contingent. I am continuing to explore the world, learn new things, try new activities. That is the definition of fun to me. The thought of all my choices being predetermined after the age of 25 because my likes and preferences have been set in stone at that point? Horrifying. Yet I can see why people can fall into that trap. But even working within that incredibly self-limiting box there are opportunities to go out and do things and meet people without having to develop entirely new interests and hobbies.
People have suggested various volunteering opportunities even in more remote locations. I disagree that volunteering is inherently a free activity. It often is not because of travel/parking costs, supplies/equipment, and other forms of personal investment in whatever the cause. But it is possible to find *affordable* opportunities for volunteering. Just the same as it is possible to find affordable opportunities for hobby-type activities.
Sure, organized clubs have membership fees, etc. But often they sponsor free events that are open to the public. Other cheap/free activities that can be explored: local music festivals, local activities sponsored by local businesses, community picnics, film festivals/free screenings, art shows, free days at parks/museums, free tours geared toward visitors, free farm days, grand openings, poetry readings, car shows, animal adoption fairs, “window shopping” at book sales. Being a spectator is often cheap to free. And volunteering is often an option at many of these events.
Here’s an example of possibilities from the UK:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/oct/21/fun-for-free-cuts
Admittedly, some of these definitely have a class bias, but some don’t and could be applied in other situations.
I agree that people who are working multiple jobs too often simply don’t have the resources to pursue living because they are too focused on surviving. In which case, dating advice is irrelevant. The problem is not the advice itself, it’s the system.
But for sadboners who don’t fit into that category, there is an additional piece of advice: (3) stop trying. Take a break from trying to get laid/go on a date/find a girlfriend. Suffering comes from being attached to a particular outcome. So take a break from trying to achieve the sex/relationship goal. It takes the pressure off you. It takes the pressure off the people you interact with. Being just a little more relaxed that way makes it easier to make actual connections with people.
And in addition to that, CA recommends (4) consuming media by/for/about women: https://captainawkward.com/2012/07/12/296-how-do-i-start-to-date-a-counter-intuitive-primer/
In other words, learn to see women as individual human beings, instead of interchangeable cutouts to fit into the girlfriend-shaped hole in your life. This is the process of building empathy.
So there you go, useful tips for sadboner men effectively doubled. Not so impossible after all.
And of course, what is so irritating about all of this is the focus on men. What about all the women and NB who are not conventionally attractive, don’t have many opportunities to go on dates, rarely have sex, etc? Somehow all those thinkpieces ignore the existence of such people and their desires and that they have just as much right to seek happiness as sadboner men, yet somehow they’re invisible because all hail the sadboner.
Indeed, and as you say, same with SJW. And “politically correct” was originally applied by leftists to other leftists who toed the party line too dogmatically, and/or too themselves too seriously; while as H Bomberguy points out, “Cultural Marxist” is just recycled Nazi-speak.
*sigh*
Today’s right don’t even have the originality to make up their own insults, at any level of sophistication higher than “cuck”!
On the matter of “self-improvement”, it’s true that you can’t do it without spending some amount of time, money or other resources. However, that’s a rather irrelevant point, since literally nothing can be achieved without an investment of resources in some way. If you honestly have no time to spare, then how are you even reading this?
I don’t know about the circumstances of other people, but I’ve found that if you have just a little bit of time to spare, you can find productive things to do with that time, even if you’re broke as shit. Yes, poor people get a raw deal and most resources are not targeted at poor people. However, there are cheap options. E.g. recently I spent some time learning how to play Go. All necessary resources are free online.
If nothing else, just take a walk. That’s still free in most places and sometimes you meet some interesting people.
And this point was bothering me:
That’s true, as far as it goes. However, it’s very unlikely that you’ve encountered all possible hobbies at age 25. Chances are, there are many hobbies, games, and activities that you’ve never even heard of yet, much less tried out.
Here’s a game that people played thousands of years ago. I’m sure people today can manage.
Empathy is something you have to continuously practice. If you attack others for their empathy and call it false, you’ll start to second guess your emotional connections to people too. Nobody can divide themselves into such perfect boxes that how they behave in one setting won’t affect how they behave in another. I feel a lot of empathy for incels. I’ve been in dark places myself. But I don’t feel safe around them because they don’t feel any empathy for me, and I don’t want to be hurt. I don’t want to reach out to someone who will hurt me, and I don’t have to, because that isn’t my job. Any incels who are reading this, please find a therapist. You can even tell them that you don’t want medication. They will listen to you and will not turn you away because of your physical appearance. If you see a therapist who won’t respect your wishes to avoid medication, find another one. If you don’t feel respected by your therapist, they are not the right therapist for you. That doesn’t mean the therapy itself is wrong.
Those women aren’t shooting innocent bystanders, so I guess our dating experiences aren’t seen as enough of an “issue” as those of the men who murder others after years of perceived injustice. Quick! We must solve the bigger issue at hand before more lives are taken! No not shutting down incel sites, I meant coddling their feelings! /s
Also such “think”pieces can be written by men who are circling the MRA drainhole themselves, if not out and out sucked into it already *cough*Peterson*cough*. There is a pervasive myth that women “get sex easily” just by having a vagina. This is rooted in the myth that all men are horny all the time and will agree to sex with any woman at any moment. But my point is: a lot of incel-apologists simply might not believe that women even experience rejection or loneliness or long periods of celibacy like men can. (Or if we do, then it’s clearly our fault for Not Being Attractive Enough). Yet another symptom of seeing women as alien, not fully human.
Lukas Xavier
Here’s a game that people played thousands of years ago. I’m sure people today can manage
Holy cow, they figured out the rules to the Royal Game of Ur? New goal: Find a reproduction and bring it to Pennsic.
It’s not *totally* false. As long as a woman doesn’t mind being raped and\or killed, she will probably find someone willing to have sex with her. There are less painful ways to commit suicide though.
At the risk of being too simplistic, they don’t accept any insult that doesn’t target their masculinity. Any other insult will either go past them or they will embrace it.
From the time I was in junior high (during the “Summer of Love” for those interested in a time context) the predominate insult from male bullies has been some form of “gay”. I was simply pleased as punch to see the word qu**r RECLAIMED!!!
(I coded that because I don’t know if the mods would bust me for using that word)
@Weird Eddie: Yes, I’m so glad we’ve taken that word back!! BTW, loved your Steppenwolf reference awhile back
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I know this is repeating a lot of people, but ARRRRRGGGGHHH!!!! I refuse to feel sorry for you, skynet!!! We are not bullying you, we are calling you out on your bullshit! Maybe your feelings are hurt but that little girl is dead. If you can’t empathize with that, I can’t help you.
@WWTH:
Fascism growing right under everyone’s noses, and most people still seem to be oblivious …
@Passagère clandestine
Rape is not sex. Repeat after me: Rape is not sex. Rape is not sex. Rape. Is. Not. Sex.
Repeat until it’s seared into your brain.
“Sexual assault is an act of violence, not sex. This is an important distinction because by framing sexualized violence as about sex and not about violence we focus on the perpetrator’s narrative and not the survivor’s. Focusing on the perpetrator’s narrative leads society to blame the victim and to not hold the perpetrator accountable for their actions. Remember, sexual assault happens because perpetrators exert power over the survivor to take away any control the survivor has in choosing whether or not to engage in a sexual situation. Thus, sexual assault is not sex to the survivor – it is an act of violence.”
Source:
Surplus: One of the lines in your post stood out to me, that hasn’t been addressed yet (you’ve also received a LOT of solid advice from folks sympathetic to the money issues–libraries and political volunteering are both excellent options, unless you literally have no time to do anything but work, in which case, no, you won’t have time to date even if she’s paying). You dismissed going online (outside of dating sites) because those people were not geographically near you.
First off, there are sites out there that are specifically geared towards local communities. Do some Googling and you should be able to find one set locally.
But more (much more importantly), from a life-improvement angle, that should be a secondary concern. I’ve got friends around the country precisely because when my long-ago toxic relationship blew up, instead of going off and joining a group of bitter, angry men online, I started going into chat rooms and forums for games, comics and so forth. (One of my first online communities was a forum for fans of Doonesbury, for pity’s sake!)
Those friendships formed and developed organically, over shared interests. And a key part of it was being there not because I was looking for a date, but because I wasn’t. Instead of having some sort of end-goal in mind that every interaction would ultimately be measured against (Does befriending this person lead me closer to getting laid? No? Then no reason to spend time talking with them about gardening/knitting/TTRPGs/this webcomic we both like!)
It’s not intentional, but you still seem to be falling into the trap of viewing befriending people as a means to an end, rather than as an end in and of itself. If you set platonic friendships as your primary goal, then if and when something non-platonic does arise, it’s a happy surprise, rather than the payoff for your efforts.
I was actually asking in connection with Dr. Thang’s past experience; that being said, the last paragraph of two of your advice could be amended to read “then if and when something non-platonic does arise, neither of you will be able to do anything about it unless one of you can afford to spend quite a lot of money on bus, train, or plane tickets”. Maybe not such a happy surprise after all.
I’ve seen much of the city I’m in and can’t recall seeing any sort of local NDP headquarters within where I might inquire about volunteering. There’s a library I’ve been in once or twice but I don’t recall seeing any evidence of them organizing anything social. Most of what social events I do see banners or other things strung up for around downtown tend to be geared to the middle class. So once again I think the evidence indicates that smaller cities might not reliably have some of these options that larger ones do — or if they do, they are sometimes well hidden and poorly advertised, and if no-one can discover them they might as well not exist.
I wonder if this might also to some extent be a regional-culture thing. I get the impression smaller cities in Europe have more to do and such, particularly for those without cars or large sums of cash. Here in Ontario it seems it may be different?
The one thing that someone mentioned that is here in abundance: churches. Which just brings up a whole additional dimension of privilege, since these provide a whole set of additional social opportunities and even services for the faithful of their congregations, but there are few such amenities outside the biggest cities for Jews or Muslims or other minority faiths, and more or less by definition such things don’t exist at all for atheists.
Presented without comment