Content warning: this article contains discussions around violence, sexual assault and rape, suicide, and extreme misogyny that some readers may find distressing

‘Is rape actually traumatic for a female?’

What a fucking question to start my morning with. The single, jaw-dropping question, pulled from the first page of this particular incel forum, was my grim, nauseating introduction to this world of hatred. This wasn’t just your everyday, run-of-the-mill misogyny. It was a casual, pseudo-intellectualised discussion of sexual violence, which should have prepared me for just exactly what I was going to find on this website.

I went into this to investigate ‘involuntary celibates’ – aka incels – but what I found wasn’t an online support group or place for lonely guys to vent. It was a cesspit of weaponised self-hatred. A tightly locked echo chamber of dangerous rage, actively grooming young men, many living right here in the UK, towards a life of extremism and, more terrifyingly, frequent justification of sexual and lethal violence.

And the replies reflected it.

The black pill is pure poison for incels

Forget the 1990s origins of the term ‘involuntary celibate.’ Today, the word ‘incel’ has become something entirely different, shorthand for a radicalised, online terrorist movement where young men (usually straight, angry and isolated) have ‘swallowed the black pill,’ which makes them see women as the enemy, and violence the only way to fight them.

This ‘Black Pill’ is at the heart of this horror.

This fictional pill is the incel belief that, if you’re an unattractive guy, you are eternally doomed never to get laid and never to get a girlfriend. And on these forums, they frame it as a scientific truth, a medicine you have to swallow and say that looks are the only things that matter to women. This belief, that women only want the top few attractive men, which they call ‘Chads,’ means that this fate, for the vast majority on these websites, is inescapable. It is the ultimate rejection of hope, using it to justify their intense anger and violent outlook.

And it’s not just about self-pity, it’s a disgusting dogma that claims a man’s worth and entire future (his success, his happiness and access to a ‘mate’), are determined only by physical features such as his face and height. It is the ultimate cop out. A way to blame women for their own shortcomings, encouraged by over 34,000 other men on over 19 million posts.

They believe that society has become dominated by feminism and what they call a ‘gynocracy,’ which has created an impossible mating environment. Their core belief is sickeningly simple, built around the 80/20 rule.

The 80/20 rule

Incels claim, above all else, that 80% of women are all fighting over the same 20% of ‘Chads’ (those with superior genetics, handsome, who have high status). This leaves the other 80% – the incels – with nothing. This statistic is ripped from any form of context and twisted into gospel on these forums, used to justify a deep-seated hatred against women, as well as other men they perceive to be more successful than themselves.

This ideology provides a weird, perverted comfort, telling them their problems are inherent, that their issues with women and dating aren’t their fault. It’s society. Society and those women who have it so much easier than they do. Ironic, I thought, as I read how another one of them would like to violently rape a woman because she wore a skirt. In short, the Black Pill shifts the blame entirely away from reflecting on themselves and straight onto women.

Dehumanising slang and incel code

Reading through the thread on these forums is like walking through fucking minefield. I had to stop so many times, partially for my own mental health, partially because of the language they have adopted. They have developed a unique, disgusting language of their own, which functions as a tribal code, further detaching them from what they call ‘normie’ society.

They don’t call us women, they talk about ‘Femoids’ – a fucking disgusting shortening of the term ‘female humanoid organism.’ This term is deliberately clinical, utterly devoid of humanity, and it instantly tells you everything you need to know about the cold contempt they hold for the opposite sex. To these guys, we are not people, we are objects of sex or blame.

But women aren’t the only characters in this sick world of fiction they’ve created. I found the ‘Chad and Stacey,’ the supposedly genetic elite. These are what they call those they perceive to be beautiful, above them. And they fucking hate them, but it doesn’t stop them tracking their ‘success,’ like a weird, unreachable league table.

Oh, and then we have the ‘Becky.’ That’s the average woman, who you think would be safe from their hate, but they hate her purely because they believe she has more dating power than they do.

But some of the more chilling terms are those they direct towards themselves, reflecting their echo chamber’s absolute lack of hope.

An echo chamber of despair?

‘Lay down and rot,’ seems to be the incel’s horrific mantra. It’s the way in which they acknowledge defeat, absolutely submitting themselves to the Black Pill. On every single one of these forums, it is discussed with a matter-of-fact acceptance and even encouragement of self-harm.

But that is nothing on ‘rope/roping.’ It was when I came across these particular discussions that I needed to close my computer, grab a drink and go for a walk. To put it simply, this is a popular term in the ‘manosphere’ which they use to imply suicide, a devastating reflection of the poor mental health of their disgusting community. And to make it worse, it’s actively encouraged as these men act as a fucked-up catalyst to push people to end it, actively discouraging seeking mental health support.

And lastly, ‘Looksmaxxing’ – the desperate pursuit of improving your own looks. This isn’t harmless preening; it’s the active encouragement of extreme, often medically obscure procedures. One such one I came across was ‘bonesmashing,’ or dangerous self-administered surgeries, which seems to be driven by the fucked up belief that having a slightly stronger jaw will somehow unlock their destiny. This terrifying bullshit proves that, although these men are evidently suffering, the only cure they seek is more poison.

From online rant to UK terror

But don’t mistake that tiny scrap of empathy for me validating them. This isn’t just venting from these men. These forums are an incubation chamber for extremism, and we have seen the lethal consequences of them on both sides of the Atlantic.

The name Elliot Rodger haunts so many threads on these forums. The disgusting US perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista massacre is held with a god-like status by incels, calling him the ‘Supreme Gentleman.’

Rodger didn’t just kill six people and injure fourteen; he provided the incel manifesto, the template for the violent and misogynistic retribution these men seem to crave. They rally under his name; his ‘Day of Retribution’ is a dark holiday for them.

And this poisonous ideology has landed right on our doorstep.

Jake Davison

Possibly the most crucial example is Jake Davison, who carried out the 2021 Plymouth mass shooting and murdered five people in cold blood. Davison was steeped in the Black Pill rhetoric. He spent a lot of time on these forums, spoke about Rodgers frequently and was quoted as saying, ‘This is why incels were more prone to killing themselves – or going on a killing spree.’ This was not a random act of madness; this was fucking inevitable.

And it isn’t just me saying this is dangerous. UK Counter-Terrorism Policing now explicitly classifies incel-driven violence as a terror threat. The US Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center also recognises the gravity of this threat. This rhetoric is only rapidly picking up speed, with a recent study analysing the language on these forums found a near 60% increase in the use of the terms/codewords relating to acts of mass violence. The stats are undeniable – this hostility and violence are growing.

Furthermore, this hatred is pretty much entirely focused on women, with 89% of users found to be explicitly supportive of sexual violence against women.

How does a British bloke fall down this incel hole?

So how the fuck does a young, isolated man end up internalising an ideology that celebrates suicide and calls for mass murder?

The path to radicalisation isn’t fast. It’s a slow, isolating descent that begins with genuine pain.

It begins with vulnerability and isolation, with many incels who report experiencing high rates of social trauma. 86% of them report being bullied, over double the 33% the general population reports, coupled with 48% of them reporting being as lonely as they possibly can. These monsters were once men, desperate, lonely, and craving a community.

So they turn to their computers for comfort. They search forums and websites for answers to their problems and perceived failures, ultimately drawing them into the broader Manosphere ecosystem. And it’s comforting there. They are told that their problem isn’t their behaviour, but a world full of women, feminists, and a society that hates them. On these forums, they are radicalised, forced to swallow the Black Pill and their own self-hatred is externalised and turned on women.

This constant barrage of reinforcement from the community is the killer blow to their sanity. It’s a closed-feedback loop of utter bullshit and pseudo-science where peers constantly celebrate extreme views, hatred, and violence.

And this cycle will continue.

Right now, there’s a young lad online, his mind being warped by twisted fuckers behind disgusting display pictures. I’ve worked with so many of them, and in my next article, I am going to tell you some of the changes I have seen in the younger generation over the last few years. We are going to break down why young men are falling foul of Inceldom and what we can do to combat it in a world that is chronically online.

Featured image and additional images via the Canary

By Antifabot

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