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By David Futrelle
Sullen teenagers have been yelling “I didn’t ask to be born” at their parents for, well, probably for millennia now. But leave it to the “involuntary celibates” of Incels.me to come up with a new twist on this ancient theme. In a recent post on the Incel,me forums — highlighted by the excellent Just Incel Things Twitter account — one bitter young man made this dramatic announcement:
Setting aside the fact that genetics is a complicated thing — conventionally attractive parents can have ugly kids and vice versa — one has to wonder how exactly Mr. Wizardcel managed to apportion the blame for his alleged bad looks between his parents — each of whom contributed equally to his genetic makeup.
Is his mother notably uglier than his dad, or does he just think she’s somehow more responsible for his looks because he lived in her womb? Or maybe his father is the ugly one — and Mr. Wizardcel blames her for marrying him? (Men’s Rights Activists and other reactionaries have made similar arguments blaming the mothers of violent men for existence of male violence in the world.) These guys are ingenious at figuring out ways to blame women for things over which they have no control.
So how did other incels react to Wizardcel’s announcement? Several called him out for taking out his frustrations with life on his mother and her genes. But others agreed with him wholeheartedly — and some went on to suggest that his existence was even more meaningless than he already assumed.
“There is no meaning of an incels existence,” wrote someone called Justshavebruh, because life is defined by “the ability to procreate and we’re not able to. We are not even alive per definition.”
Someone called Platypus took this weird evo-psych “argument” and ran with it, arguing that
for a biological being to fully express its life, it must make full use of its entire array of biological features. The less features you use, the closer to death you are. It’s self-evident looking at how old people become less and less physically able, until they die.
Not being able to procreate, is a deathlike existence.
Justshavebruh responded by declaring that
A virus is more alive than an incel. We also need an host to procreate. But we simply are not able to. Which means:
omae wa mou shindeiru
NANI?!
Just a word of advice, fellas: If you think of yourself as a virus (or something worse) and women as “hosts,” well, you aren’t going to get a lot of dates. And you shouldn’t get a lot of dates. Or any.
(That last little bit in the quote is a reference to an anime; according to Urban Dictionary the phrase “omae wa mou shindeiru” roughly translates to “you are already dead.”)
I don’t know what more to say to this line of argument than this:
I’ve heard people argue, in all seriousness, that we should be willing to overlook the violent misogyny that permeates incel culture because, well, that’s just a form of male bonding, and these communities provide support for depressed young men.
But that’s wrong, in every respect. We can’t dismiss the violent misogyny; not only is it awful and dangerous in itself, but, as the discussion above about viruses and hosts makes pretty clear, it’s also inextricably linked to the incels’ particular brand of self-hatred.
Incel communities like Incels.me aren’t “support groups.” They’re “kick-out-the-supports” groups. They lead already angry and depressed men to hate their lives even more — and to blame women for everything they think is wrong with them. This isn’t just a bunch of angry young men venting on the internet. Because nothing gets vented; the pressure just builds and builds. These communities are incubating future Elliot Rodgers and Alec Minassians.
As absurd as incel discussions often look — with their cracked anti-logic, their memes and jokes and anime references — this is what radicalization looks like, and it’s happening every hour of every day on the online venues where incels congregate.
This is the cringiest thing I’ve read all day. In this situation, the only person who thinks the writer is subhuman, is the writer himself.
You’ve a tail, an appendix, and a buncha other vestigial structures. Funny none of these types ever whine being being walking zombies on account of having their tonsils removed
I think Hexum is making the standard assertion about the relative fuckability of fat people, only worse.
wizardcel, on the other hand, is asserting that being wanted by his parents is the greatest crime they could have committed against him. Why does he think most people have children? For the Cause? What’s the cause he wishes he had been born for? This isn’t Ender’s Game. We’re not breeding the perfect general to fight the aliens. You were a wanted and presumably loved child, and now you get to live. Go and live.
Just about everybody copes with undesirable/annoying physical traits inherited from their parents. What makes them so special? If only perfect people were allowed to reproduce, the human race would die out quickly. Who gets to define what traits are adaptive and desirable, anyways?
What’s additionally irritating about this is that men get much more of a free pass from society at large when it comes to looks. Not an Adonis? Great, go be funny or smart or kind or charming or good at your career. Women face more of an uphill battle if they don’t meet the standard. Nothing is stopping these guys from leading a fulfilling life. Plenty of plain-looking guys find partners and reproduce.
Which is why this is perfect karmic retribution. Incels are among the most vicious judges of women’s looks, with their numeric ratings and livestock comparisons and roastie BS. “2/10, would not bang.” It seems fitting that their own unrealistic standards get turned on themselves and they get a taste of what women experience. Too bad it hasn’t made them more empathetic.
@Hexum7
Not. Fucking. Cool.
@Skylalalalalala
Please don’t advocate for violence. One, it’s against the comments policy. And two, physically assaulting one’s children has been shown to provide overwhelmingly negative impacts when used as a disciplinary tool despite how normalized it is in our culture.
When I was a kid, I did the math and figured out that my mom was already pregnant when my parents got married. I figured, correctly as it turns out that my conception was an accident. I went through an adolescent phase of being bitter and angry and convinced I was unwanted and unloved.
Then I grew up and got the fuck over out because both my parents do love me. Does it really matter how or why I was conceived?
I bet this guy would be just as pissy if he was the result of an unplanned pregnancy. Maybe even more so.
I think a big part of incel’s problem is that they are willfully stuck in adolescence. This is the flip side of our culture perpetually infantalizing privileged young men. Some of them grow up to be Brett Kavanaugh, gliding through life because he’s forever too young and promising to be held accountable. Some of them become these guys, spending well into adulthood whining about how girls only like popular jocks and mommy and daddy never really loved me.
So according to Justshavebruh, babies aren’t alive “per definition”?
Sounds like there’s a problem with your definition, bruh….
I can’t help but think of what was mentioned in the last Incel thread about Brett Kavanaugh, where Cyborgette mentioned “masochistic epistemology.”
This is it on full display, inflamed by a misogynistic feedback loop.
“Whatever hurts is true.” Oh, I’ve had my fair share of that feeling. Related to my weight, my artwork, my writing… it’s hard to accept that things really aren’t as bad as you can imagine. And to have it continually reinforced in this matter and weaponized against people… as David said, it’s how we get Alek Minassians and Elliot Rodgers.
@Gaebolga
I thought of mules when reading that.
Edit window ran out just as my post showed up. I’d also like to hear from Hexum7 what’s repulsive about people with eating disorders. And how he’s able to determine who has one.
You say “standard assertion” like it’s not a completely and thoroughly disgusting sentiment.
These incels are just the opposite of feminists in that while feminists recognise the biological roles their body plays, they refuse to be shackled by biology. They understand that the fundamental role of any living organism is to procreate, but refuse to be defined by it. Whereas incels seem to wilfully chose to be enslaved by biology. Upon realising the fundamental role of living organisms them immediately adopt it as their own mantra and fail to see that humans have the power to define the meaning and purpose of life.
@Silly-Bollocks But…but with power comes (gasp!) RESPONSIBILITY!!! Can’t have that…. /s
Right until they magically flip and instead are too old to be held accountable.
@kupo: I meant to translate, not defend. Of course it’s a disgusting statement. It’s also very, very boring. We’ve all heard it before. Dressing it up in extra layers makes it grosser, but not more interesting. I’m sorry that didn’t come across in my earlier comment.
Indeed. On top of which there’s a lot of adults who are, for one reason or another, incapable of procreation and yet are still both alive and able to give their existence meaning.
In fact, given the potential problems of global overpopulation, humanity as a species would probably be better off with a little less procreating.
His parents must be wondering what went wrong in how they raised him.
I know teenagers and young adults just love to do and say things to torque off their parents, but this is horrible. This incel IS horrible. No wonder girls won’t go near him.
Calling your own mother a foid……. I don’t even know what to say to that.
Am I imagining it but is there a sexual undertone towards his mother. Almost oedipal
I don’t even have kids and my heart breaks for this guy’s mom. She just wanted a baby, and look at what she wound up with.
Reminds me of a guy I know who blamed his misery and lack of luck with women on his “weak chin” and blamed his weak chin on his father.
Bizarrely, it wasn’t primarily genetics he was blaming but rather “being raised to be a pushover lowers your testosterone and leaves you with a weak chin as an adult” i.e. “my father could have made me more handsome if he didn’t suck so much”.
People are very strange these days.
@Castrating Harpy
I can see her, sitting in her chair, thinking “Why oh why didn’t I have that abortion?”
@Bmacs,
Welcome! I have to disagree with you here.
I know you’re saying that they need someone to give them structure and a direction, but a strict regimen of push-ups and jogging and getting shouted at isn’t a panacea. There are loads of people who go into the military as assholes and come out as assholes with murder training.
There’s not a thing in military training that will punish their misogyny, and quite a bit that could reinforce it. Giving these fuckers confidence and a firearm is the last thing we want.
(In my stupid opinion,) they need to go work a physical job in mixed company or something; something that exposes them to other people so they can see that it isn’t society that’s a cesspit of lazy entitled people, they are.
Sorry, I’m super cranky today! Mea culpa. I know you weren’t trying to say anything contentious, I just think that “they should join the army” is trotted out whenever someone needs their head put on right, and military service doesn’t always have that effect.
Castrating Harpy:
What she wound up with is an adult-sized baby.
Incels are bizarrely fixated on chins and jawlines as the ultimate power to decide whether you’ll have a successful life. The ContraPoints incel video talks about this, noting how it’s not really any different from nineteenth century physiognomy and phrenology pseudosciences. So it’s not so much people are very strange these days as people these days are very strange to be aping the debunked strangeness of their ancestors.
The second part is its own kind of weird, though. Even nineteenth century physiognomy enthusiasts thought that you were stuck with the character-defining bone structure you were given. Even if you could lower a kid’s testosterone through unmanly parenting techniques (which is a whole can of weird in itself), how would testosterone levels effect the shape of your skull and jaw bone?
That obsession reminds me of the Nazis, of course.
So I point out to neo-Nazis that an Aryan is:
tall, like Goebbels
slim, like Goering
blond, like Hess
heterosexual, like Rohm and Funk
intelligent, like Rust
chaste, like Streicher
honest, like Rosenberg
and heroic, like Hitler…