For the past little while, I've been working on a piece about Toronto's relationship to the alt-right, especially the "manosphere." Unfortunately that research has become relevant. I'm going to share as much as I can here for people who may not be familiar with these movements.
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"Incel" refers to "involuntary celibate," essentially meaning that a person can't get laid because of their looks/personality. The incels make up one segment of the broader "manosphere", a collection of online masculinist communities that interplay with one another.
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"Incel" was a term actually coined by a queer Toronto woman in the 90s to give a name to how she was feeling at the time. It morphed into something horrific. "I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it." https://www.elle.com/culture/news/amp34512/woman-who-started-incel-movement/ …
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Self-described incels today are almost entirely men who are laser-focused on their inability to have sex & blame women. Of the manosphere communities, incels are the most virulently misogynistic.
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Incels have a variety of memes & tropes that they return to constantly, such as "Stacy" (attractive women who have sex) & "Chad" (attractive men who have sex). Non-incels are described as "normies" & they're also derided.
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Elliot Rodger, the Isla Vista shooter, is worshipped (semi-ironically, but also semi-seriously) as a kind of god. His manifesto is shared & quoted & he's constantly deployed as a meme. https://www.facebook.com/SupremeGentlemanMemes/?ref=br_rs …
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Incels differ in important ways from Men's Rights Activists. While both movements are misogynistic at their core, MRAs deploy a human rights framework to argue men are oppressed. Incels don't talk about rights, they just hate.
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Incel language is often explicitly racist & they can be especially focused on interracial relationships. That element of racial panic is prominent in Elliot Rodger's manifesto.
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Incel to me is anti-racist and examines and criticises how race plays a role in sexual preferences (and how a lot of non-white men are incel as a result). Elliot Rodger's racism was itself a reaction to the racism of society and women against him as a mixed-race man.
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