The Sandbox

With today’s technology, people from around the world can connect to each other fairly easily. With more people online today than ever before, there are bound to be many websites that allow users to talk and spread ideas. There are even organizations whose entire goal is the spreading of ideas, such as TED. There are many different social sites taylored to many different types of people, and with so many online, it is a given that not everyone is a good person. Stories of credit card scammers and predators with falsified account details are the ones most often told on the news. However, many forget to talk about or have no knowledge of the rise of incels and how the internet has contributed to this problem.
Incels, or involuntary celibates, are a subculture that has grown with the rise of the internet. Incels are mostly white heterosexual men who desire a sexual relationship but do not have one. These men than blame women for their celibacy and many feel entitled to sex(elenorhalls1 ). Because of this, many incels are vindictive against attractive women and men and feel like they have unjustly ignored. There are different types of incels, with the difference being on how they feel that they should go about their problems. The most well known type of incels are those that advocate for and commit violence against women(and sometimes other men). One example of this type of incel is Elliot Rodgers, a college student who went on a shooting spree in 2014 in Isla Vista, California. Rodgers killed seven and wounded 13 others before turning the gun on himself, and in his final upload to YouTube he explains why he carried out this massacre(Serna). Rodgers sees himself as “the supreme gentleman”, doesn't know why girls are not attracted to him, and plans to punish them for it. He states that he is “going to enter the hottest sorority house…[and] slaughter every spoiled, stuck-up, blond slut [he sees] inside there”(4, KRON).
There are also non-violent incels who “restrict their misogynistic views to online” and sometimes go to support groups(Reily). There are even female incels, which seemingly contradicts the incel belief that “women can get sex whenever [they] please”, which is of course not true(Sackville).
The rise of incels in numbers and actions has been aided by the increase in popularity and variety in social media websites. When one hears the term social media, the brain immediately thinks of services like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. However, there are many more obscure social media sites that are specifically made to cater to a certain, specific demographic. Many of these platforms are smaller subsections of broader services, such as chat rooms on places like Reddit and Tumblr. These smaller, more specific groups are the kind of places where incel culture thrives and grows, branching out into websites specifically dedicated to promoting toxic masculine and incel viewpoints. There are even social platforms and websites specifically for sexually frustrated men to voice their feelings. One such example is PUAHate, an website for people to rally against dating gurus and pickup artists and the “scams” they often pull(Wilstein). In addition to raging against so called seduction experts, PUAHate members often used to the platform to express their misogynistic views.
There are many dangers that come with the rise of incel culture, as clearly shown by the various attacks commited by this community. The Elliot Rodgers attack is the one that is thought to have kickstarter this current incel culture. Alek Minassian, who killed ten people in Toronto with his van in April 2018, hailed Rodgers as a hero on Facebook just before the attack (Chokshi). Another less obvious issue is the spread and normalization of misogynistic and sexist views caused by the spread of incel groups. The internet has allowed incels, along with many other hate groups, to spread their message both quick and far. One post or comment encouraging incel behavior can travel to countless other devices and people in the blink of an eye, and it is hard to contain the spread of these hateful views to a few websites.
With incel culture on the rise, many may feel overwhelmed and not think there is any way to combat these hateful views. However, some companies and people have made a stand against this kind of hateful speech. In November 2017, chatroom platform Reddit banned incels and their speech from their site, removing the subreddit after the group violated a policy banning “content that calls for violence or physical harm”(Hauser). Other social sites like Facebook and Twitter have taken similar action against the group and other hate organizations such white supremacy groups. Even the aforementioned incel website PUAHate went offline shortly after the Rodgers attack, fearing the site was about to get a massive amount of press” after the attack(Wilstein).
Highly public incidents of incel violence have shed light on this subculture and have many asking what society can do to fix this problem. Many see it as a mental health issue, as well as a sexism and misogyny issue. While there is no definite solution to help stop these vile and violent thoughts, it is clear that a conversation has to be had about this crisis and how to solve it. One way to start is by making people more aware of this issue so that it has a place among more well known hate groups in the public eye. The more people that take this problem seriously, the more diverse and creative solutions there are to fixing this problem. As with many other problems plaguing the world today, spreading the word is a crucial step towards a solution.