The streaming site Twitch, in an attempt to reduce harassment on its platform, announced earlier this week that it would be banning the abusive use of the terms “incel,” “virgin,” and “simp,” three favorite epithets amongst the asshole set. So far at least one streamer has been temporarily banned for using “simp” as an insult.
Naturally, the incels have some thoughts on the matter. On Incels.co, the regulars took some solace in the bans on “incel” and “virgin,” despite the fact that they call themselves incels and frequent a site with Incel in its name.
“At least twitch thots can’t bully and virgin shame men anymore,” wrote blackpillforever, using a derogatory term that stands for “that hoe over there.”
“I see this as lifefuel,” agreed, er, JosefMengelecel. “No more virgin shaming on twitch. But simp should still be used since it doesn’t directly mean virgin.”
Incels generally love the insult “simp,” by which they basically mean any man who’s not a complete asshole to women; they regularly insult fans who donate to female streamers on Twitch as “simps” trying to curry favor from women they’ll never even meet. So they see the ban on “simp” as a sop to these men to keep them donating to women on the platform. As a commenter called LightningCel put it,
It’s because they want beta simps to feel comfortable on the site, so they can keep donating $$$ to female streamers. They want to normalize simping.
They don’t want simps to feel bad for being fucking simps. And since beta simps are usually virgins/incels, they banned those words too.
Added dirtykombatcel:
[T]hose rules are just a red herring. They don’t want the people putting in their live savings in twitch to be shunned off the website. Twitch at least partially lives off of thots and their simp audiences.
Others saw any censorship as bad.
“Banning words is gay and only a simp incel virgin n*gger k*ke g**k would do it” wrote Mainlander.
Someone called Strasser, meanwhile, urged his fellow incels to look at the bigger picture — at least as he sees it.
Twitch banning the word incel isn’t going to get you a girlfriend. They’re moving towards normalizing polygamy, where Chads get harems of prime pussy while bluepilled incels have to resort to OnlyFans and the like for female intimacy, this is far more dystopian than merely getting called a name.
Nah, what’s dystopian is an entire movement based on guys convincing themselves and each other that they have no chance with women and that because of this the world should burn.
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@Dalillama
I did and there is nothing in your source that state that the use of the word “simp” in the manosphere and the use of simp as a diminituve for simpleton are related. Giving a etymological root to two similar words due to their grammatical proximity is considered a “sin” of pseudo-linguistic. The word simp might also be the abreviation of other words like simper or simpering which are real words too that describe much more closely the behavior that manospherian revile about those they qualify of “simps”.
On the subject of ableism, I have just had my complaints about my disability limitations dismissed by being told that people on Social Security Disability surely have an income cap that allows us to “live decently.”
Clearly this Guy on The Internet knows more about trying to survive on disability than I, a disabled person, do. Clearly.
@Allandrel:
On the subject of ableism, I have just had my complaints about my disability limitations dismissed by being told that people on Social Security Disability surely have an income cap that allows us to “live decently.”
Shirley doesn’t live in the low-rent district—until, of course, it undergoes gentrification and they raze the front-yard vegetable gardens and turn the bodegas into trendy boutiques.
@Moon Custafer:
There was a story earlier this year about an online academic conference discovering the net-nanny software on the site they were using was set so tightly it even banned words like “bone.” Which was hilariously awkward, because it was a palaeontology conference.
They also had to refer to one well-known fossil bed as “the Heck Creek Formation.”
My favorite was the Net Nanny program my local public library system used in the late 90’s; I was heavily into anime and J-Rock at the time, and the algorithm would turn a perfectly innocuous word like “Yoshitsune” into “YoXXXXsune.”
@ full metal ox
Over here that’s called The Scunthorpe Problem.
Scunthorpe is a town in the East Riding of Yorkshire*; named after a cross eyed Viking supposedly.
But in the early days of popular internet, people living there encountered all sorts of issues. Even getting online in the first place could be difficult as some providers wouldn’t accept the name. Same with ordering stuff; or just trying to have a business webpage.
[*There’s no such place as North Lincolnshire; it was just something they made up in the 70s; like Wombles]
@Alan Robertshaw
I imagine there’s a similar problem in the Scottish town of Shitterton. They also suffered from street sign theft so they had to replace the village sign with a giant rock one. I’m somewhat miffed that the town of Fucking, Austria has voted to change the spelling of their town to Fugging next year, but at least we’ll always have Shitterton.
@Naglfar: I feel that the town of Fucking missed a wonderful marketing opportunity. I’d have thought the T shirts and coffee mugs could have been flying off the shelves. But maybe that’s not what the locals wanted. You can pay too much for money after all.
@Sheila
Apparently they got tired of being the butt of jokes and of tourists stealing their signs. I don’t blame them, but I admit I’m still going to miss the name.
@Dalillama, @Epronovost:
The etymology issue is beside the point. Quibble all you like over whether we’d be shaming sexually submissive men or shaming intellectually disabled ones, either way we shouldn’t use the term here, except to quote and critique the manosphere’s use of it. Which means, without taking sides on the etymology of the term, I must side with Dali on the larger issue.
Funny thing is,there are a few communities I hang around where dudes fanboying over female characters proudly say that they’re simping for said characters, and I’m pretty sure that’s true of other communities. Not sure it counts as a slur then (then again I have no problems with calling myself an asshole when I know I’m being one so…).
Also, looks like we won’t be able to talk about our own virginities or types of olive oil anymore LOL.
Dalillama, I have performed the search you suggested and can easily get from “simp” to “simpleton” (though I confess I would have thought the current, misogynistic usage a corruption of “sympathizer”), but not from “simpleton” to specifically “person with Down’s syndrome” or indeed any other specific disability. It seems to be more of a general designation for a foolish person (as often found in folklore and humorous tales). While I’m sure the past wasn’t especially friendly to people with intellectual disabilities, I don’t see the rock-solid connection you seem to be citing. Can you point me at something more informative? Thanks!
I’ve very rarely commented here, but I found the discussion around the word “simp” interesting, mostly due to the speculation.
“Simp” has existed in the English language since the turn of the XX Century, as others speculated here as a reduction of “simpleton.” It is also a synonym in this context for “nincompoop” or more recent slang, “nutbar” or “wingnut.”
Several people asked for a source, some citing RationalWiki or KnowYourMeme, but I’m surprised no one went to the dictionary, or the urban legend it is an acronym for a not particularly savoury phrase.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simp
The term first appears in print in 1903.
The usage of words evolves however, and “simp” shifted meaning from a trend on TikTok called Simp Nation, which appeared in 2019.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/simp/
At that time, the word was then criticised for referring to certain men as “effeminate” or women who interact with them as “manipulative” (where incels get the term).
It has also been used in a more general sense to mean “fan” or the slang “stan.” An example of that usage doesn’t have to include women at all, such as someone responding to people praising Sen. Ted Cruz, “Who the hell simps for Ted Cruz?”
They need to do this on Facebook Twitter and Quora!
simp means giving large amounts of money to women because they are cute. and uncritically vouching for them, because they are cute. like women fangirls do for male celebrities.
like.. giving money to strippers in boomer times. except strippers in 2021 are in internet streams, and they do not take clothes off, they provide emotional comfort by being cute.
well, unless it’s onlyfans, then they take clothes off.
@redmanticore
I don’t see many women giving money to male celebrities. But even then, so what? People can give money to other people.
I don’t think someone can provide emotional comfort by being cute. My dog is cute, but she provides emotional comfort by coming over to me when I’m crying to cuddle me. or she brings me one of her favorite toys to cheer me up cause they make her happy. My cat is also cute, she couldn’t care less when I’m upset. You provide emotional comfort by doing emotional labor. not by just existing as cute. so the new guy is wrong.
So… fine? Being a “simp” is fine? Being a simp is like requesting a service and then paying for that service?
Also I’m not sure when “boomer times” were, but there are still strippers, and they still accept payment.