I spent some time lurking on an incel forum a while ago, back when, for some reason, I was reading about the manosphere. I’m not at all surprised to learn about Alek Minassian.
It can be remarkably difficult to penetrate. There’s a kind of Schrodinger’s Incel thing going on whereby they all concurrently worship *and* despise Elliot Rodger.
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And they do this constant, weird micro-analysis of their own “failings” (which are often minor ways in which the men deviate from commercial, Western representations of male attractiveness).
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One of the principle traits of their grammar, thereby, is suffixing various nouns with “cel” in order to communicate the cause of their incel-ness. A “jawcel”, for example, can’t get laid because he has a weak jawline.
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A “framecel” is someone cursed with narrow shoulders. “Fatcel” is an obvious one. As is “braincel”. They particularly deride “gymcels”, i.e. incels who mistakenly believe that working out will increase their “sexual market value”.
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[CW: suicide] Another quirk of their language is the phrase “sui fuel”, which is usually accompanied by an image of, say, a happy-looking couple, intended to inspire (/encourage?) suicidal behaviour because incels will - and here’s another common phrase - “never have this”.
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Of course, the most infamous aspect of their language are the two terms “Chad” (jockey, sexually successful male) and “Stacey” (promiscuous, shallow, vain women). These words always used pejoratively, all tied up with deeply conservative moral values surrounding sex, marriage etc
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Even these words have an odd grammar attached to them. “Chad” and “Stacey” never take a grammatic article. It’s never “a Chad”, or “a Stacey”. They are always used singularly, as if they are referencing a specific individual, even though they all know they’re talking about a type
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So where you might expect an incel to say “I saw a Chad in the bar last night”, they will always construct is as “I saw Chad in the bar last night”, as if all these mentions of Chad are one person. It’s very odd.
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Not sure why this is. It seems more than just a convenient short hand. Partly, I suspect, this shared grammar provides them with a sense of community. After all, incel-dom is about nothing if not the group reinforcing their individual prejudices.
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I guess it also helps root out “tourists” who might try to infiltrate their message boards (incels seem particularly wary of this).
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I know that, in light of their horrible beliefs and actions, incel grammar is probably an insignificant aspect of the subculture. But it all comes back to the manosphere thing of these self-reinforcing hate groups shutting down outsiders and dissenters. So toxic.
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Don't really have anything to contribute/add really. This was all just a thing I noticed about the message board I read (for reference, it was the now-defunct Reddit sub r/incels)
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End of conversation
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