Several people shot dead in Plymouth 12 August 2021

[LDC]

I can't honestly see myself in him and I genuinely believe what a lot of 'incels' need is to get together sexually. If you're that frustrated, and so is your mate, what the fuck are you complaining at each other for? Whip 'em out and have a wank together.

I know that sounds as flippant as fuck, and it is, but that has worked for generations of boys and young men. Stop demanding women sort you out, sort each other out then maybe find something else to talk to women about

You're right. That does sound quite flippant when we're talking about deep seated misogyny across society and how it often comes out as violence against women.

E2A: deleted something about the usefulness or not of calling this terrorism.

 

[Poot]

This might not be a popular view in some quarters, but when I hear about something like this happening, I often muse along "there but for the grace of something-or-other go I" lines. I was still a virgin at 22, and it's fair to say that that I was not at all happy about it, to the point of being pretty miserable and not a little resentful when I got friendzoned YET AGAIN. What makes the difference, I think, is that I lacked the sense of entitlement which seems to be a core part of the incel ideology. I assumed - and I still think this is true - that it must have been something about me that made situations pan out the way they did. Which was miserable and uncomfortable, and I can see how much easier it might have been just to externalise it all, and lay the blame on those horrible women and the culture that excluded me from all the fun. I don't know why I didn't go down that road - maybe I just choose the hard path - but I'm eternally grateful that I didn't.

But I'm not even sure that I can claim credit for being such a Nice Bloke that I didn't choose the blame-externalising route. It was probably luck. That, and, with the benefit of hindsight, the fact that my personality and upbringing didn't foster that sense of entitlement that seems to be a common factor in the incel, MRA, etc world. Maybe it was the lack of exposure to the cultural clues in film and TV that create a wholly artificial notion around the "boy meets girl" thing. Or perhaps I really was that Nice Bloke.

Whatever it was, I dodged a bullet there, and it does make it slightly harder not to just "other" pathetic individuals such as this one: perhaps quite a few of us weren't nearly as far away from what these people become than we'd like to admit?

Do you think anything would have been different if you'd discovered likeminded individuals on the internet, who maybe told you that you deserved more, and that it wasn't your fault, women were to blame? I'm curious as to whether that would provide enough of the sense of entitlement that you talk about.

On a different matter, when we talk about terrorism, we are generally talking about people who hate women. Most perceive that women should be put in their place, whether its their religion or a political viewpoint. Entire ideologies are built on this. Don't get me wrong, they frequently target gay people and others, but the women-hating is generally a common theme. When you're part of the group being targeted it all looks pretty similar, really. So it's really no wonder that people (women) are calling incels terrorists.

 

[tony.c]

Laura Bates' (Everyday Sexism project) book Men Who Hate Women is very good on this too

She has an article in yesterday's Telegraph which I won't link, but it is reproduced in Yahoo news.

I went undercover in the incel community to try to understand men like Jake Davison

"I hope the women of Plymouth collectively take some responsibility for this.” This was the shocking response of one man online after the tragic events of Thursday evening, when Jake Davison, 22, massacred five victims in the city, before taking his own life.

www.uk.yahoo.com

 

[Ax^]

*ponders

if they are making incels an illegal group does that mean having a wank will be mandated by law

 

[mojo pixy]

Hmm. I wonder if it's maybe less about sex than some perceived male identity idea? You know, "you're not a Proper Bloke if you're not squiring your way through the neighbourhood" kind of thing?

I'm sure, I think that's part of my point. If it were about sex and companionship, well then there are options for brave lads. Always have been. But some lads need to 'bed lasses' .. just need to, need to be known for it. It's not a sex thing even, it's a status thing. So 'reclaiming' a low status thing (in that context, virginity = unattractiveness to women) and making it a point of pride makes sense. But with all these lonely, horny lads feeling frustrated, I have to be honest .. an obvious solution does present itself. IMO it's only internalised homophobia that stops a lot of 'incels' from just errr relaxing in the company of each other.

I apologize for the flippancy on such a dark subject, but there is a serious point here. Male 'incels' don't need to exist, and it's not women's fault they do. I think it's patriarchy once again: everything is a competition, women are prizes to be won, boys wanking together is gay, and gay is bad.

It's still killing people.

 

[kabbes]

I would be careful about assuming a unified motive. I suspect that there are many different types of background issues driving many different manifestations of the exhibited misogyny.

 

[hitmouse]

This might not be a popular view in some quarters, but when I hear about something like this happening, I often muse along "there but for the grace of something-or-other go I" lines. I was still a virgin at 22, and it's fair to say that that I was not at all happy about it, to the point of being pretty miserable and not a little resentful when I got friendzoned YET AGAIN. What makes the difference, I think, is that I lacked the sense of entitlement which seems to be a core part of the incel ideology. I assumed - and I still think this is true - that it must have been something about me that made situations pan out the way they did. Which was miserable and uncomfortable, and I can see how much easier it might have been just to externalise it all, and lay the blame on those horrible women and the culture that excluded me from all the fun. I don't know why I didn't go down that road - maybe I just choose the hard path - but I'm eternally grateful that I didn't.

But I'm not even sure that I can claim credit for being such a Nice Bloke that I didn't choose the blame-externalising route. It was probably luck. That, and, with the benefit of hindsight, the fact that my personality and upbringing didn't foster that sense of entitlement that seems to be a common factor in the incel, MRA, etc world. Maybe it was the lack of exposure to the cultural clues in film and TV that create a wholly artificial notion around the "boy meets girl" thing. Or perhaps I really was that Nice Bloke.

Whatever it was, I dodged a bullet there, and it does make it slightly harder not to just "other" pathetic individuals such as this one: perhaps quite a few of us weren't nearly as far away from what these people become than we'd like to admit?

Fwiw, I think it is worth bearing in mind that incels don't just blame the outside world, there does tend to be a sense that there is something internal to them that makes them unattractive, and crucially I think it tends to be something that's conceived of as fixed and essential. Hence terms like heightcel, ricecel, etc.

 

[agricola]

'Alpha males' are not a real thing. There's something inherently misogynistic about this trope whereby the ideal male is someone who is in a position to acquire and discard female attention at will. It's everywhere though, just another thing with no real basis to it that's still widely accepted and referred to in all walks of life.

IIRC the 'alpha male' concept is based on an assumption that humans behave like wolves. And also on a major misconception about how wolves behave.

Not sure about this bit tbh - I've always thought such talk of alpha males was (like eugenics) just a way for males with power or status to pretend to themselves there is some honest way in which they came by it.

 

[hitmouse]

By the way, been going back to the Dale Beran book and this stands out as being relevant (maybe there's not much new here for people who've read much Hannah Arendt, but I've not read that much Arendt):

When we reached a zenith of inequality in the 1920s, industrialization hadn't neatly divided people into classes of workers and owners, each united by a set of shared interests. Instead, modern existence produced a vast new anti-class composed of isolated, de-classed individuals torn from the traditional social structures that predated industrialization. More joined this group when, in the throes of industrialization, market changes, and crisis, they lost their jobs or perhaps their entire job sector and thus held no economic purpose and, by extension, no place in society...
Arendt's description of this group, what she called "the masses," could easily be applied to the otaku today: "The truth is that the masses grew out of the fragments of a highly atomized society whose competitive structure and concomitant loneliness of the individual had been held in check only through membership in a class... The chief characteristic of the mass man is not brutality and backwardness, but his isolation and lack of normal social relationships."
...Arendt described how, in the 1930s, groups of dispossessed people from the lower, middle, and upper classes all began to aspire to the cruel-minded values of a certain type of business man who, like Trump today, was "flattered at being called a power-thirsty animal."
It was this Social Darwinist viewpoint that made the industrialist Dale Carnegie's 1936 self-help book How to Win Friends and Influence People a bestseller. His ideological outlook flattened relationships among people into a business-like game of hierarchy and acquisition similar to contemporary bestsellers like The 48 Laws of Power...
Just as friends were not made but "won," a man, according to the pick-up artists' philosophy, does not enter into a relationship with a woman, but attempts to acquire as many women as he can to lift his status. In both schemas, people are approached not as fellow human beings, but as tools to be stockpiled, influenced, and manipulated.
This belief system soon engendered rankling enmity among all those who kept losing the perceived contest. People like Elliot Rodger suffered from its damning collary: if one couldn't "achieve" status, wealth, and women, one was doomed to be worthless.
In Arendt's view, it was this sort of thinking combined with a de-classed status that led to fascism. Fascism resulted when these previously apolitical masses dispossessed by capitalism began to rebel against it, without discarding its cruel-minded competitive way of thinking.

In other news, I remember seeing back in June that Lighthouse Books back in Edinburgh had to close their doors for a few days after receiving threats, but at the time they kept quiet about what the specific nature of the threats were. It turns out that "we caught the ire of a man for having @laura_bates__ vital Men Who Hate Women in the window. He posted pictures of us with vitriolic misogynistic captions & filmed himself with an axe, saying we had fucked with the wrong man."

 

[Aladdin]

Just read that his mother had only recovered from cancer and that she had been looking for help for him and with him for a while.

 

[extra dry]

Not saying this reporting is in any way indepth, however it does show some of the thinking going on.

 

[existentialist]

Just read that his mother had only recovered from cancer and that she had been looking for help for him and with him for a while.

That's another thing that jumped out at me from the original news reports. The reaction they described having got from the mental health system was both appalling, and depressingly familiar. In my work, I regularly encounter the "not unwell enough" response from both CAMHS and adult mental health services. We have a mental health care system that is creaking at the seams, and the number one intervention, almost without exception, is to kick the can down the road. Patients are regularly - too regularly for it to be purely subjective - dealt with on a "comply with us or we'll discharge you" basis, or are promised interventions that never happen.

It would be encouraging to think that, in the inevitable post hoc analysis of this event, and the distribution of blame, some meaningful conclusions were to be reached, and the role of our failing mental health system in what happened will be examined, and even addressed.

But it won't be. The blame will be conveniently dumped on one individual, and the mental health trust will shuffle backwards muttering something about it all being out of our hands, lessons learned, etc.

And this is the tip of the iceberg. For every case like this, there are hundreds where people, left without hope or any chance of help, will just quietly kill themselves - far less newsworthy, but the body count dwarfs that from atrocities such as these.

Ultimately, when someone does something like this, the responsibility has to rest with them...but that does not mean that the agencies and services whose inaction at least failed to attempt to prevent it happening should not be held accountable.

 

[A380]

That's another thing that jumped out at me from the original news reports. The reaction they described having got from the mental health system was both appalling, and depressingly familiar. In my work, I regularly encounter the "not unwell enough" response from both CAMHS and adult mental health services. We have a mental health care system that is creaking at the seams, and the number one intervention, almost without exception, is to kick the can down the road. Patients are regularly - too regularly for it to be purely subjective - dealt with on a "comply with us or we'll discharge you" basis, or are promised interventions that never happen.

It would be encouraging to think that, in the inevitable post hoc analysis of this event, and the distribution of blame, some meaningful conclusions were to be reached, and the role of our failing mental health system in what happened will be examined, and even addressed.

But it won't be. The blame will be conveniently dumped on one individual, and the mental health trust will shuffle backwards muttering something about it all being out of our hands, lessons learned, etc.

And this is the tip of the iceberg. For every case like this, there are hundreds where people, left without hope or any chance of help, will just quietly kill themselves - far less newsworthy, but the body count dwarfs that from atrocities such as these.

Ultimately, when someone does something like this, the responsibility has to rest with them...but that does not mean that the agencies and services whose inaction at least failed to attempt to prevent it happening should not be held accountable.

This. ^ the reality will be that this was the normal Swiss cheese model where a number of holes in delivery lined up (any one of which would have prevented this).

Of course the common denominator will be that - from the infant school teacher who didn’t follow up issues because they had a class of 36 and no classroom assistant for most of the relevant year, to the adult mental health team that couldn’t pick up the referral because they were running a case load three times over what they should have been holding, to the police firearms licencing officer who didn’t run down all lines of enquiry because they were the only one when the force used to have three, and they are also covering antisocial noise complaints because Devon and Cornwall had to scrap that post - all of the agencies were massively underfunded and getting by by professionals just keeping their heads above water through good will and risk of burn out.

 

[existentialist]

This. ^ the reality will be that this was the normal Swiss cheese model where a number of holes in delivery lined up (any one of which would have prevented this).

Of course the common denominator will be that - from the infant school teacher who didn’t follow up issues because they had a class of 36 and no classroom assistant for most of the relevant year, to the adult mental health team that couldn’t pick up the referral because they were running a case load three times over what they should have been holding, to the police firearms licencing officer who didn’t run down all lines of enquiry because they were the only one when the force used to have three, and they are also covering antisocial noise complaints because Devon and Cornwall had to scrap that post - all of the agencies were massively underfunded and getting by by professionals just keeping their heads above water through good will and risk of burn out.

And, right there, there's the aggravating factor.

The ones in these jobs who give a shit are the ones most likely to burn out (or bale out), leaving a rump that is over represented by people who give less of a shit. Most of the MH people I encounter are still of the give-a-shit persuasion, but there are undeniably those who have either developed a protective shell, or who really don't care. Particularly as you look further up the chain of command.

So it's not just that there's a copper there doing the work of 3 - they're probably also the copper who's less bothered by things falling through the cracks, or who couldn't get a job elsewhere. Essentially, it's market forces.

 

[A380]

And, right there, there's the aggravating factor.

The ones in these jobs who give a shit are the ones most likely to burn out (or bale out), leaving a rump that is over represented by people who give less of a shit. Most of the MH people I encounter are still of the give-a-shit persuasion, but there are undeniably those who have either developed a protective shell, or who really don't care. Particularly as you look further up the chain of command.

So it's not just that there's a copper there doing the work of 3 - they're probably also the copper who's less bothered by things falling through the cracks, or who couldn't get a job elsewhere. Essentially, it's market forces.

And it won’t be a copper. Pound to a penny it will be a police staff member on £18 to £24 k…. (Maybe a retired cop although than often means someone who fucked up their retirement planning…)

 

[existentialist]

Do you think anything would have been different if you'd discovered likeminded individuals on the internet, who maybe told you that you deserved more, and that it wasn't your fault, women were to blame? I'm curious as to whether that would provide enough of the sense of entitlement that you talk about.

It's probably impossible to say, given that the notion of such a group would have been in the realm of fantasy at the time! But, thinking back, I generally didn't identify at all with entitlement (and I say that as a kid who got a free place at a grammar school, so was surrounded by people with a very well-entrenched sense of entitlement), so I suspect I'd never have gravitated to such groups.

Which is not to deny that plenty of people would have, if such groups existed then.

All the more reason to make sure that society has strategies to deal with this "new" phenomenon.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Fwiw, I think it is worth bearing in mind that incels don't just blame the outside world, there does tend to be a sense that there is something internal to them that makes them unattractive, and crucially I think it tends to be something that's conceived of as fixed and essential. Hence terms like heightcel, ricecel, etc.

Thanks for posting that link, I'm going to pass this on to our Safeguarding team.

 

[glitch hiker]

That's another thing that jumped out at me from the original news reports. The reaction they described having got from the mental health system was both appalling, and depressingly familiar. In my work, I regularly encounter the "not unwell enough" response from both CAMHS and adult mental health services. We have a mental health care system that is creaking at the seams, and the number one intervention, almost without exception, is to kick the can down the road. Patients are regularly - too regularly for it to be purely subjective - dealt with on a "comply with us or we'll discharge you" basis, or are promised interventions that never happen.

It would be encouraging to think that, in the inevitable post hoc analysis of this event, and the distribution of blame, some meaningful conclusions were to be reached, and the role of our failing mental health system in what happened will be examined, and even addressed.

But it won't be. The blame will be conveniently dumped on one individual, and the mental health trust will shuffle backwards muttering something about it all being out of our hands, lessons learned, etc.

And this is the tip of the iceberg. For every case like this, there are hundreds where people, left without hope or any chance of help, will just quietly kill themselves - far less newsworthy, but the body count dwarfs that from atrocities such as these.

Ultimately, when someone does something like this, the responsibility has to rest with them...but that does not mean that the agencies and services whose inaction at least failed to attempt to prevent it happening should not be held accountable.

I would also like to believe there will be a change in social media. I like to think of myself as fairly open minded - let people have their channels and accounts to speak their minds. But in truth there is so much toxicity that I'm becoming far more authoritarian (if perhaps that's the right word). Like I said before social media is a rabbit hole of such frightening depth and toxicity that I really don't think the government has a clue. All they would know is the odd silly tweet sent to one of their accounts ("Boris you're a cunt hee hee!"). Just look at their tone deaf attitude in exacerbating the racist response to the football.

You have channels like the dangerously stupid Jesse Lee Peterson, a black american social commentator who regularly and openly supports white supremacy, whose 'catchphrase' is to yell 'Beta!' (as in beta male) at anyone who isn't, well, 'alpha'.

Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, who has spent 10 years spouting racism and cashing in on the misogynist bullying that was Gamergate (the harassment still hasn't ended afaict). An event that spawned the 'careers' of many others, including Milo Yanoupolis who, prior, was just a gobshite tech writer at Breitbart. Benjamin is also responsible for the career of Mark Meecham, aka, Count Dankula. Both attempted to become actual politicians as well, thankfully getting nowhwere.

These people, and many others, spout easy answers to people like Jake. I feel, in part, immensely sad for him. In part; I'm also shocked and appalled at the shootings. But it's inevitable. It will happen again as well. All over the world. Anders Breivik name checked Melanie Philips in his manifesto and writers like the appalling Peter Hitchens regularly write stuff that's equally provocative to people like Breivik and (possibly) Jake. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to mention both in the same paragraph. Both committed acts of violence due to radicalisation from similar sources. Hitchens regularly writes so absurdly his pieces read like the manifestos of shooters - and that isn't me being sarcastic. His language is dripping in completely batshit provocation about the 'fall' of culture, the decline of Britain, how the 'left' are in charge (because Boris doesn't immediatley jail potheads for a hundred years).

These people need to be shut down. Their accounts closed. This will be seen as more of cancel culture, but at this point all that can be done is minimise the damage. If the big tech social media giants had acted promptly and not wavered in the face of ad revenue from these scumbags then it might have been different. Instead we live in a world where a bland comedian and MMA commentator called Joe Rogan, whose credulousness is boundless, has the world's most successful podcast. Spotify bought the rights for tens of millions making him phenomenally wealthy. He uses that platform to unquestioningly air the views of Jordan Peterson and the like. It needs to stop.

E2A: I forgot to mention that, while these hateful channels persist on Youtube (at least), content creators from the left, often the only ones trying to redress the balance and provide actual facts on issues, are marginalised. Aside from the mob that follows these awful people who will drown out comment sections and abuse the dislike function, making content hard to find, Youtube itself is complicit in marginalising left creators, resulting in them being unfairly banned or moderated. It's dysfunctional algorithms end up favouring the worst people in the discourse

 

[hitmouse]

Thanks for posting that link, I'm going to pass this on to our Safeguarding team.

Looking over that link again, a few bits stand out as being relevant to some of the earlier discussion on this thread about showering, soap, etc:

Blackpill​

The Red Pill's nihilistic cousin. The idea behind "redpilling" is that men recognise that the world is unfair and stacked against them in favour of women. From there, they can game the system by becoming an "alpha" male, going to the gym, treating women poorly, and so on. The blackpill rejects this, saying that there can be no personal solutions to systemic problems, and that the world was, is and always will be stacked against men who are "genetically inferior", and that women are inherently wired to prefer men with particular kinds of facial features, bone structure, and body type.

Cope​

The blackpill says that there can be no personal solutions to structural problems, and so no amount of working out, dieting, showering and self-improvement can improve the lot of the incel. Anything that they attempt to do is necessarily a "cope" - a temporary way of making themselves feel better about their situation. This mindset becomes self-perpetuating, as it leads to thinking that any path to self-improvement is ultimately doomed, and therefore there is no need to try.

jfl - just fucking lol​

E.g. "JFL at normies thinking incels could have sex if they took a shower". Used to indicate incredulity.

The same writer seems to have a fair few detailed articles on this subject, if anyone feels the need to explore this sewer any further.

 

[LDC]

FFS that's really grim, never come across the term 'blackpilling' before.

 

[pogofish]

*ponders

if they are making incels an illegal group does that mean having a wank will be mandated by law

From what I’ve seen, a substantial proportion of incels are actually furiously anti-wanking - they look on it as another hideous admission of defeat at the hands of women/society or some sort of dilution of their precious manly essences. Have a look at the intertwined (but not fully incel) “Nofap” culture for another rabbit hole those guys can go down.

Similarly when it comes to sex itself, they tend towards the most incredibly staid/straight-laced definition. Anything where the woman is involved any more than as the receptive participant or acting at the direct behest of the “man” seems to be viewed as aberrant or with at least great mistrust - like it is the women are either “damaged goods”/fucked-up by previous lovers or is doing it as a tool for getting more ”control” than than they should be allowed to.

One of the worst/wildest flame wars I’ve ever seen was on that old board, when one of the (non-incel) established posters started discussing how he liked some (fairly mild) consensual domination/anal with his wife. This was much more than just jealousy - the flood of sheer hatred that brought-on, mainly from the incel contingent, including very graphic/explicit death threats - as much for betraying their fellow “men” as for the acts themselves, plus very particular forms of the vilest misogyny was the exact point I realised there was a much darker and more disturbing undercurrent to the whole incel thing and thought fuck-this and quit!

 

[bellaozzydog]

I spent a year living in Plymouth. It's an odd place. Feels very isolated from the rest of the world, moors on one side and sea on the other. An hour's drive to even get to a motorway. I've written elsewhere on here about the physical structure of the city, which is not human-friendly at all and which lacks social spaces. Then there's economics, which is not a pretty picture. Health resources in particular are pretty bare-bones in the south west generally.

Of course something like this could happen anywhere, but I'm not at all surprised to see it happen in one of the UK's many degraded, forgotten places.

I don’t think I’ve read a clearer description of Plymouth than that

 

[pogofish]

Exactly., but it's incels' perception of other men.

There is some other letter of the Greek alphabet-male (I completely forget which), which incels seem more drawn toward. It’s more the “lone wolf alpha”, who can get his end away without any of the social nicety/hierarchical interactions they associate with the alpha-male.

 

[pogofish]

Not sure about this bit tbh - I've always thought such talk of alpha males was (like eugenics) just a way for males with power or status to pretend to themselves there is some honest way in which they came by it.

The original Evolutionary Biology studies that they base their alpha-beta-omega ideas upon were indeed carried out on captive populations of wolves - which is also where the fundamental flaws in the thinking occur. Captivity itself changes behaviour from in the wild.

Of course other aspects of eugenic-related thinking/justification are common currency as well - although I did wonder if this was because of the facist/far-right elements that prey on them but either way they have become largely accepted/undisputed shibboleths of their “‘culture”.

 

[A380]

I would also like to believe there will be a change in social media. I like to think of myself as fairly open minded - let people have their channels and accounts to speak their minds. But in truth there is so much toxicity that I'm becoming far more authoritarian (if perhaps that's the right word). Like I said before social media is a rabbit hole of such frightening depth and toxicity that I really don't think the government has a clue. All they would know is the odd silly tweet sent to one of their accounts ("Boris you're a cunt hee hee!"). Just look at their tone deaf attitude in exacerbating the racist response to the football.

You have channels like the dangerously stupid Jesse Lee Peterson, a black american social commentator who regularly and openly supports white supremacy, whose 'catchphrase' is to yell 'Beta!' (as in beta male) at anyone who isn't, well, 'alpha'.

Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, who has spent 10 years spouting racism and cashing in on the misogynist bullying that was Gamergate (the harassment still hasn't ended afaict). An event that spawned the 'careers' of many others, including Milo Yanoupolis who, prior, was just a gobshite tech writer at Breitbart. Benjamin is also responsible for the career of Mark Meecham, aka, Count Dankula. Both attempted to become actual politicians as well, thankfully getting nowhwere.

These people, and many others, spout easy answers to people like Jake. I feel, in part, immensely sad for him. In part; I'm also shocked and appalled at the shootings. But it's inevitable. It will happen again as well. All over the world. Anders Breivik name checked Melanie Philips in his manifesto and writers like the appalling Peter Hitchens regularly write stuff that's equally provocative to people like Breivik and (possibly) Jake. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to mention both in the same paragraph. Both committed acts of violence due to radicalisation from similar sources. Hitchens regularly writes so absurdly his pieces read like the manifestos of shooters - and that isn't me being sarcastic. His language is dripping in completely batshit provocation about the 'fall' of culture, the decline of Britain, how the 'left' are in charge (because Boris doesn't immediatley jail potheads for a hundred years).

These people need to be shut down. Their accounts closed. This will be seen as more of cancel culture, but at this point all that can be done is minimise the damage. If the big tech social media giants had acted promptly and not wavered in the face of ad revenue from these scumbags then it might have been different. Instead we live in a world where a bland comedian and MMA commentator called Joe Rogan, whose credulousness is boundless, has the world's most successful podcast. Spotify bought the rights for tens of millions making him phenomenally wealthy. He uses that platform to unquestioningly air the views of Jordan Peterson and the like. It needs to stop.

E2A: I forgot to mention that, while these hateful channels persist on Youtube (at least), content creators from the left, often the only ones trying to redress the balance and provide actual facts on issues, are marginalised. Aside from the mob that follows these awful people who will drown out comment sections and abuse the dislike function, making content hard to find, Youtube itself is complicit in marginalising left creators, resulting in them being unfairly banned or moderated. It's dysfunctional algorithms end up favouring the worst people in the discourse

Sadly I think elements behind this current government understand social media very well and seek to manipulate it to achieve there aims ( brexit and Bojo being the two recent examples) I imagine they think they can control it. Wether they are more successful than the German aristocraticy who took a similar line towards National Socialism in Wiemar remains to be seen.

 

[hitmouse]

From what I’ve seen, a substantial proportion of incels are actually furiously anti-wanking - they look on it as another hideous admission of defeat at the hands of women/society or some sort of dilution of their precious manly essences. Have a look at the intertwined (but not fully incel) “Nofap” culture for another rabbit hole those guys can go down.

Yeah, it's one of the membership requirements for the Proud Boys for instance (again, not the same thing as incels, but a related cesspit).

There is some other letter of the Greek alphabet-male (I completely forget which), which incels seem more drawn toward. It’s more the “lone wolf alpha”, who can get his end away without any of the social nicety/hierarchical interactions they associate with the alpha-male.

I wish I did not know this, but I think the letter you're looking for is sigma. As memorably parodied here:

 

[8ball]

Thanks for posting that link, I'm going to pass this on to our Safeguarding team.

There's something about internet communities that leads to them creating their own weird lexicon. Guess it's something young people always did but it was very linked to locality (hence urbandictionary etc.), whereas now it is stratified by websites frequented.

Very useful for anyone wanting to monitor this stuff as you say, and also useful for seeing how the ideas fit together. You can see the outline of the links to the far right.

I noticed that "simp" wasn't on there (which I came across on an online gaming site). The pessimistic part of me thinks maybe this wasn't worth putting in due to becoming common parlance.

 

[glitch hiker]

Sadly I think elements behind this current government understand social media very well and seek to manipulate it to achieve there aims ( brexit and Bojo being the two recent examples) I imagine they think they can control it. Wether they are more successful than the German aristocraticy who took a similar line towards National Socialism in Wiemar remains to be seen.

The takeaway just seems to be that nothing will change. This culture, it seems to I, to have been building for some years and has snowballed. Hence the stochastic terrorism aspect.

Already the incel community appears to be lionising this guy.

This is not a pleasant tweet, content warning:

 

[hitmouse]

There's something about internet communities that leads to them creating their own weird lexicon. Guess it's something young people always did but it was very linked to locality (hence urbandictionary etc.), whereas now it is stratified by websites frequented.

Very useful for anyone wanting to monitor this stuff as you say, and also useful for seeing how the ideas fit together. You can see the outline of the links to the far right.

I noticed that "simp" wasn't on there (which I came across on an online gaming site). The pessimistic part of me thinks maybe this wasn't worth putting in due to becoming common parlance.

Oh, I think that's cos the glossary's from 2018, which is the other thing, the fast-moving and evolving nature of this stuff. I don't think simp became a thing till like 2020, end of 2019 at the earliest. There was a good few weeks/months around then where I just innocently thought it meant simpleton. All the urbandictionary definitions seem to be from 2020, a google trends search shows people only started using it around then as well.

 

[8ball]

The takeaway just seems to be that nothing will change. This culture, it seems to I, to have been building for some years and has snowballed. Hence the stochastic terrorism aspect.

Already the incel community appears to be lionising this guy.

This is not a pleasant tweet, content warning:

Fuck me, that is weird.

I had read that a lot of incels believe their lack of success with women is down to a lack of money, and their idea that women can be bought* (having the right car, the clothes, etc.etc.). Makes me wonder whether this pseudo-libertarian angle is part of the main thrust of things.

* - some, like Elliott Rogers (sp?) being notable exceptions