“It’s a hit job,” said one Reddit user, who goes by the username DarkMageOfTruth99.
Oh geez I snorted so hard at the username I farted
I would have went with DarkMageOfTruth69, but maybe it was already taken
He's such a gentleman he prefers to cuddle, hence the 99.
I would call Adolescence a very surface-level view of incel culture. It's fairly accurate, but you'd need a much longer series to truly get the culture across. Contrapoints' video on incels is a really good breakdown of the mindset.
Yeah this was my main problem with it was it was just very surface-level. Like I'm glad it's being brought to the table for discussion for mainstream audiences, but it felt a bit glossed over like something I'd heard from an NPR story on video games; "did you know about this thing called incel culture? it's all the rage with the youths."
I don't know what the solution is or how I want to see it conveyed, but I recall Polytechnique doing a better job at instilling horror in me from incel culture than Adolescence, albeit it was more subtle, and that was from 2009.
The world doesn't guarantee you anything.
In the history of our species, only about 20-30% of males have managed to reproduce, so what's with the sad face?
You're not entitled to anything, so own your inceldom.
Human beings have brains that were forged during hardships and ice-ages to make us inclined to form groups for survival. Those same drives make us desperate for a social identity, to the degree that we literally can die without social identity. (A fascinating field of study btw.)
This has made the internet the most dangerous tool we've ever created, because it has allowed people to deconstruct the very notion of group identity and exploit the drives in our own brains to connect with others. This is why we have so much absurd bullshit now, so many conspiracy theories, flat earthers, incels and redpill grifters, science-deniers and chemtrailophiles. People are finding their own, almost random group identities to connect with, groups that often have no real connection to reality, and just offer validation for people's feelings.
Validation for feelings is the next most important thing for humans, because it reflects how our brains actually work. Most people are under the impression that the brain is the seat of intelligence, that brains are calculating machines that work out problems and come to logical conclusions. Even if you don't think this, you have most likely at least become comfortable in trusting what you work out in your head.
But brains are not reasonable or rational, there was no such thing in the ancient world that shaped our brains. That world was just threats and signs of threats. If your ancestor had a brain that could accurately connect the sign of a threat to an actual threat, they would likely be prepared and survive. See a paw-print by the watering hole? Maybe there's a predator around.
That same tool now functions the same way in a vastly different environment, and it tells us wild stories that aren't even connected with reality to explain the things we feel. The brain notices you feel fear, it looks around and pieces together things to explain that fear. Feel sad? Brain digs around and starts randomly tying strings together to explain it. No reason, no logic. This is where much of our mental health epidemic is coming from, unchecked brains doing what nature intended them to do, in a world nature never intended.
Obviously a parody site but Adolescence is a powerful drama worth watching.
Incel tv show = scroll reddit
Surely Reddit would be more like a book
Maybe a magazine with an ad between every other paragraph of bot generated content.
Time for some uBlock Origin goodness
Is it actually worthwhile or just another attempt to spark more conflict between men and women?
Because honestly I can hardly see as anything more than a way to profit off demonizing men that I assume already feel abandoned and, correct me if Im wrong, are not getting much support either
May I please get a summary on their take somewhere?
I dated an incel years ago for around 18 months. Dunno if anyone's interested in that, but just a random anecdote I have
Why? How?
It was before anyone had even heard of incels. He hid his women hating side, and I thought I could help him with his issues (spoiler: I could not). His sexual dysfunction was 😳😳😳 so I've no doubt he was sexually abused as a child. After we broke up he showed more of his true self like hating women and he was really petty and vindictive eg spreading really private info about me to people. From what I hear now he's drinking heavily.
Years later I read about incels online and was like "holy shit that's him!" Explained a lot.
I'm sorry you had to deal with that, and glad it wasn't a much worse experience.
On my side, I am an older guy now, I used to teach martial arts and volunteer coaching young men and then went on to be a mod of a big men's subreddit for a spell, and the incel problem online is a lot worse than any of us realize. I think my peers at the time thought incels, redpill, MGTOW and all the other word-salad men's groups online were a passing fad, a speedbumb on our path to the bright, shining future of better ideas and equality.
Holy shit were we all wrong. Humans are SO easy to exploit that I am legitimately concerned for our species' entire future. We may not survive the internet broadly, and this is before even talking about how AI will accelerate the problem a thousand-fold.
I used to be very good at talking incels down. I had people send me follow-ups years later thanking me for saving their lives. It felt like I was doing good, but there was always more. So, so many more. I would focus on one young guy for weeks, talking and being there and listening and prying apart his world-views with gentle care, and often it would work, but that kid would be replaced by twenty more, each more obstinate and willfully ignorant than the last. They feed each other, they validate each other's darkest feelings, and they spread because hate is contagious.
They think their "rising ranks" are some sign of truth or validity to their movement, but it's just that simple trick that brains do, where they invent (or attach to) stories to explain their feelings. The more people feel insecure and scared, the more their brains will invent or latch onto stories to explain those feelings, and it's created a cycle of reading/scrolling for explanations for their loneliness, connecting with dark stories about why they feel bad ("it's the fault of THAT group!") and then feeling worse, so digging deeper into that same narrative to guide their rumination. It's so bad and so addictive that men and women alike are now having an impossible time breaking free from it and everyone feels horrible and nobody knows how to escape, so they invent even more stories to explain why they feel the way they do.
I don't know the answer. I just keep telling people to get off the social internet as much as possible, every moment you're scrolling/chatting for escape from despair is a moment you COULD be using to better yourself and your life in even the most modest ways.
I'm very moved by your post. Thanks so much for what you did not just for the incels themselves but for women who are effected by them. I wish I could guild it!
Oh, the 'I can fix him' special. Been there, done that, good on you to leave, you are worth more than that is all I can say.
Thanks mate and right back at you
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