By David Futrelle
If you’re wondering whether Godwin’s Law still has a role to play in a world that’s once again filled with actual Nazis, the answer is yes, because how else are we going to deal with the so-called involuntary celibates on the Incels.is forums who are currently comparing their lack of a sex life to the literal Holocaust, and concluding that what they’re dealing with is somehow worse.
A week ago, one regular Incels.is commenter called lifeisbullshit95 dropped this alleged truth bomb on his incel colleagues:
![[It's Over] Social media and dating apps have killed more men than both world war combined](https://i1.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Captureyg9hu08ji-.png?fit=600%2C384)
His message was somehow even more inflammatory than his headline, an all-caps wall-of-text rant, sans line breaks and even punctuation, declaring that all but the handsomest of men are suffering a “NEW HOLOCAUST” because of Facebook and Tinder.
“THIS IS THE NEW HOLOCAUST,” he began.
HITLER TARGETED THE JEWS TINDER AND SOCIAL MEDIA HAVE TARGETED SUB8 MEN WE’RE DYING A PAINFUL SEXLESS LIFE FULL OF SUFFERING AND DEPRESSION
Huh. Quick survey: Raise your hand if you’re a SUB8 MAN and you’ve had sex. Hell, raise your hand if you’re SUB8 and still alive, despite all the Holocausting from Tinder and Facebook.
Oh, but apparently you don’t have to be physically dead to count as a dude killed by social media.
HOW MANY LIFE TINDER,INSTAGRAM,FACEBOOK ECC HAVE CLAIMED YET? LIVING A SEXLESS LIFE ISN’T LIVING
Raise your hand if you’re not having sex at the moment but are somehow still living a life worth living.
ESPECIALLY AS MAN THEY DEFINITELY CLAIM MY LIFE AND THE SADDEST THING IS THAT NOBODY IS DOING ANYTHING WE’RE LEFT GETTING MURDERED
I can’t help but think of poor, rollerskating Terry on Reno 911.
Of course, Reno 911 was a comedy, and lifeisbullshit95, who has posted more than 700 decidedly non-humorous comments to Incels.is forums, isn’t kidding.
Like many incels lifeisbullshit95 is convinced that social media makes women too stuck up to even consider having sex with any but the most Chadly of men. This, as it turns out, is a widespread belief in the Manosphere, promoted by everyone from MRA douchebag Paul Elam to PUA douchebags like Roosh V to the denizens of MGTOWforums,,com. As these misogynistic men see it, women on dating sites and social media get so much flattery from thirsty men that they come to see themselves as better than the “looksmatched” men they should be dating. (Incels don’t really seem to understand how many of the “flattering” messages that women get online are literal dick pics or otherwise creepy as fuck.)
NOBODY FIGHT SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE DATING APPS THAT HAS GIVEN SO MUCH POWER TO WOMEN EVEN TALKING ABOUT THIS TOPIC IS TABOO
And so somehow we’re back in 1930s Germany, but this time women are Hitler.
HITLER CAME TO POWER BECAUSE THE GERMANS WERE AN- GRY AND WANTED A REVOLUTION WOMEN CAME TO POWER BECAUSE THEY FELT ANGRY ABOUT NOT HAVING EQUAL RIGHTS AND WANTED A REVOLUTION IT’S ALL SO SIMILAR
And now these Hitler-women are using dating apps to sex genocide all but the top 20% of men.
BOTH HITLER AND THE DATING APPS HAD AS A GOAL TO WEED OUT FROM EXISTANCE THE INFERIOR MEN
You may wonder how exactly not getting matches on Tinder is similar to being murdered in a death camp. Lifeisbullshit95 has this, er, answer:
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? DYING IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER IS STILL DYING WE’RE THE VICTIMS OF THE NEW HOLOCAUST MY FRIENDS.
Okey dokey then.
You may wonder if any of the other incels stopped for a moment and told lifeisbullshit95 that he was completely full of shit. The answer, of course, is no.
“my face is rotting each day and female hypergamy is only getting potentialized with dating apps,” wrote someone calling himself JeffGoldblumInTheFly, and perhaps taking his handle a little too seriously, “its fucking over.”
“Dating apps and social media not only killed men but it make us suffer,” declared someone called Cuyen.
JeffGoldblum and Cuyen have, together, posted more than 20,000 messages on Incels.is, so I’m pretty sure they’re not drive-by trolls.
And even if JeffGoldblumInTheFly is joking about his face rotting away like, well, Jeff Goldblum’s face in “The Fly,” incels do believe that as each day passes they become ever less likely to ever validate their lives by having sex with a woman. More importantly, his comment here serves to offer its own sort of validation — of lifeisbullshit95’s hyperbolic, hateful rhetoric blaming women for essentially every problem in men’s lives.
Social media and dating apps don’t kill, but depression does, and sites like Incels.is add to the problem by steering young, desperate men away from real help and into a hateful, self-destructive fantasy world. That’s the real danger here.
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When there’s harm. Here’s a more thorough definition, if you like:
https://www.sociology.org/toxic-socialization/
But even ignoring the term toxic, as that wasn’t really the point of my question, if the poster is displaying poor behavior, does it matter whether they are a troll or not in how we should respond to them? This is a sincere question; I’m curious what your thoughts are.
Thanks for the link, I’ll look over it.
Well, speaking for myself, if they were a semi-regular commenter who has a history of commenting productively and in good faith, I’d personally give them a little more leeway before (say) calling them “garbage” when they say something problematic.
You can see this in my responses to Chris Oakley, who has a tendency to use ableist language in his comments. My call-outs went from “Not cool” to “No.” to “No, and fuck you”* only after I saw that he was unwilling to change his language even after having this repeatedly pointed out to him.
*I guess I unconsciously give regular commenters three strikes?
If yo think the situations i have described are equivalent to safe spaces, i’m not sure how to explain it to you. (But i will try, i guess.)
The politeness i am talking about is the social standard that says someone needs to stay in a situation that something is making them feel is dangerous, because if they leavee there will be social consequences.
A safe space shouldn’t be making someone feel afraid.
Two cis women saying FUCK THAT SHIT, PROTECT YOURSELF AND FUCK THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES AND FUCK POLITENESS is something powerful.
Those situations are definitely unsafe, and I apologize if I gave the impression that I believed that they were not.
Absolutely.
I totally agree.
But are we talking about Kiwiwriter’s behavior towards the women in his anecdotes (and how he seems to be unaware that he was causing them to feel unsafe), or are we discussing the way in which he described it in the comments section?
I was under the impression that @nowherepants was discussing the latter, and my comments are made with that in mind, but I see that you’re discussing the former (where Kiwiwriter made women feel unsafe by his behavior).
In any case, my original point was wrong in the first place, because WHTM is emphatically not meant to be a safe space, and that therefore “politeness” is not expected.
Again, sorry for the confusion.
(“politeness” is in quotes to indicate that it is being used in the sense you described of “putting yourself in unsafe situations due to societal pressures to be deferential”, and is not an attempt to minimize it in any way. I should probably stop digging now. Thank you for your time, have a good one.)
I think that there generally tends to be a distinction between a regular being called out and a troll being called out. See: the difference in the way that kiwiwriter was addressed versus the way that nowherepants is being addressed.
From where I’m standing, it generally seems like call-outs for regulars are more serious and less playful, because regulars are expected to behave better, whereas trolls are expected to continue being awful and responding to them is more of a sport/performance for the sake of the audience.
@Lainy –
Exactly. Socially awkard =\= being an a-hole. *Offering* biscuits and tea when you don’t want biscuits and tea =\= trying to *force* you to have sex with you when don’t want sex.
As for #5 on your second list – I didn’t know you’ve met the president!
Technically, I think discussing the comments policy itself is forbidden here, but as I see many others doing it I will say (only) one thing about it.
I think the comments policy is this blog has certain problems, in particular it is rather vague at places. But it is a private blog by someone else, so while I can *offer* changes, I can hardly violate the comment policy and say I am just “correcting” it.
Some people come to post here and think that if they *disagree* with a certain comments policy section, they have a right to *violate* it. This is a far bigger problem than anything in the comments policy, and I agree they should be banned (of course, again, this being a private blog, the owner can ban anyone he wants).
One thing about abortion. The problem with many who oppose abortion is that only nominally do they do it b/c they care for the baby. They really do it b/c they want to make sure a woman who has sex w/o their permission will be punished with an unwanted child. This is why so many of them are also against sex education, for abstinence-only policies, and lenient toward rapits. That hardly fits with any true comcern to minimize the number of abortions!
I am all in favor of sex education, availability of contraceptives, and severly punishing rapists. I think, in other words, that as much as possible should be done to minimize the number of women that have unwanted pregnancies. Someone who does not accept this simply does not have the moral standing to debate what should happen if a woman has such a pregnancy nevertheless.
It is exactly analogous to many other situations, such as – off the top of my head – wars of self-defense, or what to do with the homeless. Are some wars necessary? Are some homeless responsible for their own plight? Perhaps so, but one has no right to speak about these issues at all unless one first supports doing anything reasonable to minimize both.
I know quite a few autistic young men (comes from being in a support group for autistic people in a university environment, go figure). I’ve never seen them or heard them be anything other than polite and respectful to any of the women in the group, or indeed to anyone female at all. Okay, they don’t make eye contact when you look at them – but hells, nine times out of ten, neither do I, because I’m on the autism spectrum myself (and I’m female).
I’m fully aware there are rude and badly behaved autistic men out there. But given there are rude and badly behaved allistic[1] men as well, I doubt that rudeness and poor behaviour toward women are necessarily closely correlated with autism per se.
[1] non-autistic
@arbilester – just for the record, this is what i was responding to. It had no relation to kiwiwriter at all, since it was nowherepants describing the “women” on this site/in feminist places/in general.
I hope you are having a good day!
Ah, I see now. Yes, @nowherepants is way off the mark with that comment. Sorry again.
I’m fine, thanks, and I hope you are too ?
With the prevalence of “social media” dating apps placing emphasis on a man’s looks (and nothing else), how are men with a sub-8.5 appearance men to find sexual partners?
Do ugly men deserve to get sex and love? If not, do ugly men deserve to LIVE?
Would you consider it equally fair if women were evaluated solely on appearance?
@Contract JACK
Oh God, this is the greatest troll we’ve have in ages. I’m actually giddy.
Do you think he’s real, or is it one of our favorite socks come back to haunt us?
@ rabid rabbit
Well, the deliberate refusal to blockquote just to be annoying is a familiar hallmark.
I’d vote to keep him, if it wasn’t for his racist shit over in the yoga pants thread. But I’m holding off on wanting him gone for the sake of the forthcoming erudite troll smackdowns, which I don’t want to miss.
Oh dear, it’s gotten worse for the incel. It used to be that it was only sub-8 men that were oppressed by the hot-police. Now it’s sub-8.5!
Suggestion: Try avoiding dating apps and using, you know, social skills.
And if you don’t have those – (it’s okay, lots of people don’t!) – practice and learn them! They’re skills like any other.
@Scildfreja Unnyðnes
You’re so kind to the poor troll’s sensibilities, making sure the ponies you present are decently attired. Though I suppose the one on the left is shamelessly hatless.
so uncouth!
Do you mean ugly in personality?
I don’t think someone who’s upset by yoga pants has any right to wank about men being judged based on appearances.
Nobody deserves sex and love. Unless you mean “love” in the broader sense of basic consideration and respect, in which case everybody deserves it.
As much as anyone. Why do you think these points are related? Why would you think physical attraction is related to basic human rights?
I’m enjoying watching Contract Jack get batted about like a cat-toy by the folks here. Popcorn, anyone?
@Ariblester
I don’t know who you are at all, but I’m gonna assume that for you talking around someone you have an issue with is about you and not a statement on the individual.
So I’m gonna ask myself a question I wish you’d asked me. I’m not being a bitch. I really, truly wish you’d brought your problem with me to me instead of talking to the side of me.
Well aspect-of-Sandra-pretending-to-be-Ariblester, I could have toned my language down. I could have been dandelion rainbows with someone who’d just insulted me and every other autistic on earth. But I absolutely should not have done that. Turnabout is fair play, and I am not required to follow codified rules of politeness as a response to being insulted.
I was angry. I admitted that, and despite that anger I was very clear on the issue I had, how it needed to be addressed, that I would not tolerate that behavior and could never be brought to tolerate the behavior, and that the source of my anger was being thrown under the bus to excuse someone else’s poor behavior. Which, frankly, is the kind of move a person who is garbage in that moment performs.
Now, I asked myself a question, so I’d like you to ask yourself one. If I had a masculine ‘nym, would you still want to police my tone?
No one deserve love and sex. Well a child deserve love but that’s a about it. These are things that happen by chance and if they don’t happen it’s not the end of the world.