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{{Short description|Online subculture}}
<noinclude>{{User:RMCD bot/subject notice|1=Incel|2=Talk:Involuntary celibacy#Requested move 25 April 2018 }}</noinclude>
{{Other uses}}
{{short description|controversial online subculture}}
{{Confusion|sexual frustration}}
{{Good article}}
{{Pp|reason=Persistent ] Restoring previous protection, there is no current disruption, apparent admin error|small=yes}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2024}}


'''Incel''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɪ|n|s|ɛ|l}} {{respell|IN|sel}}; a ] of "'''involuntary celibate'''"<ref name="Beever 2020">{{Cite book |last1=Beever |first1=Jonathan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FMbADwAAQBAJ&pg=PT20 |title=Understanding Digital Ethics: Cases and Contexts |last2=McDaniel |first2=Rudy |last3=Stanlick |first3=Nancy A. |publisher=Routledge |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-315-28212-1 |location=Abingdon, Oxon |page=20 |oclc=1123184308 |access-date=December 13, 2021 |archive-date=May 13, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240513095954/https://books.google.com/books?id=FMbADwAAQBAJ&pg=PT20#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref>) is a term associated with a (mostly ]) ] of people (racially diverse but mostly ],<ref name="often-white-citegroup">{{Multiref2
'''Involuntary celibacy''' or the '''incel''' (short for '''involuntary celibate''') ] consists of ] whose members define themselves by being unable to find a ] or ] despite wanting to, a state they describe as '''involuntary celibacy''' or '''inceldom'''.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/25/us/incel-rebellion-alek-minassian-toronto-attack-trnd/index.html|title=The Toronto suspect apparently posted about an 'incel rebellion.' Here's what that means|last=Mezzofiore|first=Gianluca|date=April 25, 2018|work=]|access-date=2018-04-26}}</ref> Self-identified incels are almost exclusively heterosexual and male, because, according to the incel worldview, females can only be voluntarily celibate.<ref name =guardianvanattack/><ref>{{cite web|title=Violent misogyny found in 'incel' is a form of terrorism, says author|
| {{cite web |title='Incels' are not particularly right-wing or white, but they are extremely depressed, anxious, and lonely, according to new research |url=https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/news/incels-are-not-particularly-right-wing-or-white-but-they-are-extremely-depressed-anxious-and-lonely-according-to-new-research |access-date=February 4, 2023 |website=liberalarts.utexas.edu |language=en |archive-date=February 4, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230204030731/https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/news/incels-are-not-particularly-right-wing-or-white-but-they-are-extremely-depressed-anxious-and-lonely-according-to-new-research |url-status=live}}
date=April 26, 2018|url=http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-26-2018-1.4636157/violent-misogyny-found-in-incel-is-a-form-of-terrorism-says-author-1.4636164|publisher=]}}</ref>
| {{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/04/25/inside-the-online-world-of-incels-the-dark-corner-of-the-internet-linked-to-the-toronto-suspect |title=Inside the online world of 'incels,' the dark corner of the Internet linked to the Toronto suspect |last1=Ohlheiser |first1=Abby |date=April 25, 2018 |newspaper=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180518040456/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/04/25/inside-the-online-world-of-incels-the-dark-corner-of-the-internet-linked-to-the-toronto-suspect |archive-date=May 18, 2018 |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}
| {{cite news |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-toronto-attack-online-misogynists-praise-suspect-new-saint-n868821 |title=After Toronto attack, online misogynists praise suspect as 'new saint' |last1=Collins |first1=Ben |author-link1=Ben Collins (reporter) |date=April 24, 2018 |work=] |access-date=April 25, 2018 |last2=Zadrozny |first2=Brandy |author-link2=Brandy Zadrozny |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180424224553/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-toronto-attack-online-misogynists-praise-suspect-new-saint-n868821 |archive-date=April 24, 2018 |url-status=live}}
| {{cite journal |last1=Hoffman |first1=Bruce |author-link=Bruce Hoffman |last2=Ware |first2=Jacob |last3=Shapiro |first3=Ezra |date=2020 |title=Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence |journal=] |volume=43 |issue=7 |pages=565–587 |doi=10.1080/1057610X.2020.1751459 |hdl=10023/24162 |s2cid=218781135 |issn=1057-610X |hdl-access=free}}
| {{cite web |date=September 10, 2020 |title=Online Poll Results Provide New Insights into Incel Community |url=https://www.adl.org/blog/online-poll-results-provide-new-insights-into-incel-community |access-date=December 26, 2021 |website=] |archive-date=January 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116200507/https://www.adl.org/blog/online-poll-results-provide-new-insights-into-incel-community |url-status=live}}
| {{cite journal |last1=Halpin |first1=Michael |last2=Richard |first2=Norann |title=An invitation to analytic abduction |journal=Methods in Psychology |date=December 2021 |volume=5 |pages=100052 |doi=10.1016/j.metip.2021.100052 |issn=2590-2601 |doi-access=free}}</ref> male and ]<ref name="mostly-male-and-heterosexual-citegroup">
| {{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/24/toronto-van-attack-facebook-post-may-link-suspect-with-incel-group |title=Toronto van attack: Facebook post may link suspect to misogynist 'incel' subculture |last1=Wilson |first1=Jason |date=April 25, 2018 |newspaper=] |location=London, England |access-date=April 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425010650/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/24/toronto-van-attack-facebook-post-may-link-suspect-with-incel-group |archive-date=April 25, 2018 |url-status=live}}
| {{cite news |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/toronto-van-incel/558836/ |title=ISIS Tactics Have Spread to Other Violent Actors |last=Wood |first=Graeme |author-link=Graeme Wood (journalist) |date=April 24, 2018 |magazine=] |location=Boston, Massachusetts |access-date=May 4, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180503180554/https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/toronto-van-incel/558836/ |archive-date=May 3, 2018 |url-status=live}}
| {{cite news |url=http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-26-2018-1.4636157/violent-misogyny-found-in-incel-is-a-form-of-terrorism-says-author-1.4636164 |title=Violent misogyny found in 'incel' is a form of terrorism, says author |date=April 26, 2018 |work=] |access-date=May 20, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180531223934/http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-26-2018-1.4636157/violent-misogyny-found-in-incel-is-a-form-of-terrorism-says-author-1.4636164 |archive-date=May 31, 2018 |url-status=live}} }}</ref>) who define themselves as unable to find a ] or ] despite desiring one, and who may blame, objectify and denigrate women and girls as a result.<ref name="Beauchamp-2018" /><ref name="Taub May 2018">{{Cite news |last=Taub |first=Amanda |date=May 9, 2018 |title=On Social Media's Fringes, Growing Extremism Targets Women |work=] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/world/americas/incels-toronto-attack.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180514031941/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/world/americas/incels-toronto-attack.html |archive-date=May 14, 2018 |issn=0362-4331 |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="Mezzofiore-2018">{{Cite news |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/25/us/incel-rebellion-alek-minassian-toronto-attack-trnd/index.html |title=The Toronto suspect apparently posted about an 'incel rebellion.' Here's what that means |last=Mezzofiore |first=Gianluca |date=April 25, 2018 |website=] |location=Atlanta, Georgia |access-date=April 26, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180426031738/https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/25/us/incel-rebellion-alek-minassian-toronto-attack-trnd/index.html |archive-date=April 26, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Originally coined as "'''invcel'''" around 1997 by a ] ] student, the spelling had shifted to "incel" by 1999, and the term rose to prominence in the 2010s in the aftermath of the misogynistic terrorist acts of ] and ].<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 6, 2019 |title=The word "incel" |url=https://www.lovenotanger.org/the-word-incel/ |access-date=January 7, 2024 |website=Love Not Anger |language=en-US |archive-date=December 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231216130240/https://www.lovenotanger.org/the-word-incel/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Taylor 2018" />


== History and organization ==
Discussions in incel ] are often characterized by ], ],<ref>{{cite news|last1=Beauchamp|first1=Zack|title=Incel, the misogynist ideology that inspired the deadly Toronto attack, explained|url=https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25/17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian|work=]|date=25 April 2018|quote=But it’s not just individual women that these radical incels hate — it’s society writ large, a society that allows their perceived sexual oppression to go on.}}</ref> ], ] and the endorsement of violence against ] ] and more sexually successful men.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/toronto-van-incel/558836/</ref><ref>https://globalnews.ca/news/4164340/alek-minassian-facebook-page/</ref><ref>https://nypost.com/2018/04/24/police-investigating-facebook-posts-allegedly-made-by-suspected-toronto-driver/</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/15/alt-right-manosphere-mainstream-politics-breitbart|title=We need to talk about the online radicalisation of young, white men {{!}} Abi Wilkinson|last=Wilkinson|first=Abi|date=2016-11-15|website=the Guardian|language=en|access-date=2018-05-02}}</ref><ref name = guardianvanattack>{{cite news|last1=Wilson|first1=Jason|title=Toronto van attack: Facebook post may link suspect to misogynist 'incel' subculture|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/24/toronto-van-attack-facebook-post-may-link-suspect-with-incel-group|accessdate=25 April 2018|work=]|date=25 April 2018|language=en}}</ref><ref name=npr>{{cite web|work=Weekend Edition Sunday|url=https://www.npr.org/2018/04/29/606773813/whats-an-incel-the-online-community-behind-the-toronto-van-attack|title=What's An 'Incel'? The Online Community Behind The Toronto Van Attack|last=Garcia-Navarro|first=Lulu|date=April 29, 2018|publisher=National Public Radio}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-the-incel-community-and-the-dark-side-of-the-internet/|title=The ‘incel’ community and the dark side of the internet|access-date=2018-05-02}}</ref> The ] has described the subculture as "part of the online ] ecosystem",<ref name=":11">{{cite web|last1=Janik|first1=Rachel|title="I laugh at the death of normies": How incels are celebrating the Toronto mass killing|url=https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/24/i-laugh-death-normies-how-incels-are-celebrating-toronto-mass-killing|date=April 24, 2018|website=Hatewatch|publisher=]|access-date=April 25, 2018|language=en}}</ref> and self-described incels have committed several ]s in North America.
The first website to use the term "incel" was "Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project", founded in 1997 by a Canadian university student known only by her first name, Alana, to discuss her sexual inactivity with others;<ref name="Alana 2019">{{Cite web |author=Alana |date=October 8, 2019 |title=My history with involuntary celibacy |url=https://www.lovenotanger.org/my-history-with-involuntary-celibacy/ |access-date=January 7, 2024 |website=Love Not Anger |language=en-US |archive-date=December 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231216130246/https://www.lovenotanger.org/my-history-with-involuntary-celibacy/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Taylor 2018">{{cite news |last1=Taylor |first1=Tim |title=The woman who founded the 'incel' movement |work=BBC News |date=August 29, 2018 |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45284455 |access-date=September 15, 2022 |archive-date=August 30, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830080840/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45284455 |url-status=live}}</ref> however, some media has incorrectly dated it to 1993, the date of a personal interaction that later inspired her to design the page.<ref name="Alana 2019" /> The site was used by people of all ] and ] to share their thoughts and experiences.<ref name="Alana 2019" /><ref name="dark-side">{{Cite news |last1=Ling |first1=Justin |last2=Mahoney |first2=Jill |last3=McGuire |first3=Patrick |last4=Freeze |first4=Colin |date=April 24, 2018 |title=The 'incel' community and the dark side of the Internet |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-the-incel-community-and-the-dark-side-of-the-internet/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180426031836/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-the-incel-community-and-the-dark-side-of-the-internet/ |archive-date=April 26, 2018 |access-date=May 4, 2018 |work=]}}</ref> During 1997, she started a ] on the topic that used the abbreviation INVCEL, later shortened to "incel", for "anybody of any gender who was lonely, had never had sex or who hadn't had a relationship in a long time".<ref name="Taylor Aug 2018">{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45284455 |title=The woman who founded the 'incel' movement |last=Taylor |first=Jim |date=August 30, 2018 |work=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830080840/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45284455 |archive-date=August 30, 2018 |url-status=}}</ref> During her college years and after, Alana realized she was ] and became more comfortable with her identity.<ref name="Baker-2016a">{{Cite news |last=Baker |first=Peter |date=March 1, 2016 |title=The Woman Who Accidentally Started the Incel Movement |url=https://www.elle.com/culture/news/a34512/woman-who-started-incel-movement/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180424080140/https://www.elle.com/culture/news/a34512/woman-who-started-incel-movement/ |archive-date=April 24, 2018 |access-date=April 24, 2018 |work=]}}</ref> She stopped participating in her online project around 2000 and gave the site to a stranger.<ref name="Alana 2019" /><ref name="Beauchamp-2019" /><ref name="Zimmer-2018">{{Cite news |last=Zimmer |first=Ben |author-link=Ben Zimmer |date=May 8, 2018 |title=How 'Incel' Got Hijacked |work=] |url=https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/05/08/intel-involuntary-celibate-movement-218324 |url-status=live |access-date=May 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180508130235/https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/05/08/intel-involuntary-celibate-movement-218324 |archive-date=May 8, 2018}}</ref> In 2018, Alana said of her project: "It definitely wasn't a bunch of guys blaming women for their problems. That's a pretty sad version of this phenomenon that's happening today. Things have changed in the last 20 years".<ref name="Taylor Aug 2018" /> When she read about the ], and that parts of the incel subculture glorified the perpetrator, she wrote: "Like a scientist who invented something that ended up being a weapon of war, I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it".<ref name="Bell Nov 2017">{{Cite news |last=Bell |first=Chris |date=November 9, 2017 |title=Reddit bans 'involuntarily celibate' community |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-41926687 |url-status=live |access-date=April 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180517184004/http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-41926687 |archive-date=May 17, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Baker-2016a" /> She expressed regret at the change in usage from her original intent of creating an "inclusive community" for people of all genders who were sexually deprived due to ], ], or ].<ref name="Kassam-2018">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/woman-who-invented-incel-movement-interview-toronto-attack |title=Woman behind 'incel' says angry men hijacked her word 'as a weapon of war' |last1=Kassam |first1=Ashifa |date=April 26, 2018 |newspaper=] |access-date=May 2, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180502063255/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/woman-who-invented-incel-movement-interview-toronto-attack |archive-date=May 2, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>


The message board love-shy.com was founded in 2003 as a place for people who felt perpetually rejected or were extremely shy with potential partners to discuss their situations.<ref name="Dewey 2015" /><ref name="Baker-2016b" /> It was less strictly ] than its counterpart, IncelSupport, which was also founded in the 2000s. While IncelSupport welcomed men and women and banned misogynistic posts, love-shy.com's userbase was overwhelmingly male. Over the next decade, the membership of love-shy.com and online fringe ] communities like ] increasingly overlapped.<ref name="Beauchamp-2019" /> In the 2000s, incel communities became more extremist as they adopted behaviors common on forums like 4chan and ], where extremist posts were encouraged as a way to achieve visibility.<ref name="Hoffman-2020">{{Cite journal |last1=Hoffman |first1=Bruce |author-link=Bruce Hoffman |last2=Ware |first2=Jacob |last3=Shapiro |first3=Ezra |date=2020 |title=Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence |journal=] |volume=43 |issue=7 |pages=565–587 |doi=10.1080/1057610X.2020.1751459 |hdl=10023/24162 |s2cid=218781135 |issn=1057-610X |hdl-access=free}}</ref> According to ] and colleagues writing in '']'', as "edgy" and extremist statements became more prevalent in incel communities, so too did extremist ] and "]".<ref name="Hoffman-2020" />
{{TOC limit|3}}


The ] ], a forum on the website Reddit, later became a particularly active incel community. It was known as a place where men blamed women for their inceldom, sometimes advocated for ] or other forms of violence, and were misogynistic and often racist.<ref name="Solon">{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/reddit-incel-involuntary-celibate-men-ban |title='Incel': Reddit bans misogynist men's group blaming women for their celibacy |last=Solon |first=Olivia |date=November 8, 2017 |newspaper=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171108214200/https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/reddit-incel-involuntary-celibate-men-ban |archive-date=November 8, 2017 |url-status=live |access-date=April 25, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Hauser Nov 2017"/> On November 7, 2017, Reddit banned the r/incels subreddit following a new policy that prohibited "content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people" adopted earlier in October 2017.<ref name="Hauser Oct 2017">{{Cite news |last=Hauser |first=Christine |date=October 26, 2017 |title=Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/us/reddit-violence-policy.html |url-status=live |url-access=limited |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180421114636/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/us/reddit-violence-policy.html |archive-date=April 21, 2018 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref name="Hauser Nov 2017"/> At the time of the ban, the community had around 40,000 members.<ref name="Hauser Nov 2017">{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/technology/incels-reddit-banned.html |title=Reddit Bans 'Incel' Group for Inciting Violence Against Women |last=Hauser |first=Christine |date=November 9, 2017 |work=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171112161054/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/technology/incels-reddit-banned.html |archive-date=November 12, 2017 |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}</ref> The incel community continued to inhabit Reddit in other subreddits, such as on the subreddit r/braincels. Although the tone of the subreddit was similar to r/incels, moderators of the r/braincels forum said that they did not endorse, support, or glorify violence or violent people, a distinction they made from the subject matter of its predecessor that resulted in its being banned from Reddit.<ref name="Hosford">{{Cite news |last=Hosford |first=Paul |date=April 26, 2018 |title=What is the 'incel rebellion'? And who are those behind it? |work=] |url=http://www.thejournal.ie/incel-3979342-Apr2018/ |url-status=live |access-date=April 26, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180426144217/http://www.thejournal.ie/incel-3979342-Apr2018/ |archive-date=April 26, 2018}}</ref> The r/braincels subreddit was banned later, however, on September 30, 2019, after Reddit again broadened its banning policy.<ref name="Romano-2018" /><ref name="Robertson-2019">{{Cite web |last=Robertson |first=Adi |date=September 30, 2019 |title=Reddit has broadened its anti-harassment rules and banned a major incel forum |url=https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/30/20891920/reddit-harassment-bullying-threats-new-policy-change-rules-subreddits |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191001013721/https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/30/20891920/reddit-harassment-bullying-threats-new-policy-change-rules-subreddits |archive-date=October 1, 2019 |access-date=October 1, 2019 |website=]}}</ref> Incel communities began to migrate away from shared platforms and instead use their own closed forums dedicated specifically to the subject.<ref name="Baumgartner-Der_Spiegel" /><ref name="Halpin 2022">{{Cite journal |last=Halpin |first=Michael |date=2022 |title=Weaponized Subordination: How Incels Discredit Themselves to Degrade Women |journal=] |language=en |volume=36 |issue=6 |pages=813–837 |doi=10.1177/08912432221128545 |issn=0891-2432 |s2cid=252740108 |doi-access=free}}</ref>
==Terminology==
The term "involuntary celibacy" was first used in 1993. After a period of academic use, the term came to wider public notice with the banning of the ] ], and a series of mass murders committed by men who self-identified as involuntarily celibate or who shared similar ideologies.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=https://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/a33782/involuntary-celibacy/|title=What Happens to Men Who Can't Have Sex|last=Baker|first=Peter|date=February 29, 2016|work=]|access-date=April 24, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":4" />


The subculture came to wider public notice throughout the 2010s with the banning of r/incels and when a series of mass murders were committed by men who either identified as members of the subculture or shared similar ideologies.<ref name="Baker-2016b">{{Cite news |url=https://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/a33782/involuntary-celibacy/ |title=What Happens to Men Who Can't Have Sex |last=Baker |first=Peter |date=February 29, 2016 |work=] |access-date=April 24, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425115510/https://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/a33782/involuntary-celibacy/ |archive-date=April 25, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Burleigh-2014">{{Cite news |last=Burleigh |first=Nina |author-link=Nina Burleigh |date=May 27, 2014 |title=Inside the terrifying, twisted online world of involuntary celibates |work=] |url=http://observer.com/2014/05/hating-the-players-elliot-rodger/ |url-status=live |access-date=April 24, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180426080154/http://observer.com/2014/05/hating-the-players-elliot-rodger/ |archive-date=April 26, 2018}}</ref> Increased interest in incel communities has been attributed to feelings of "aggrieved entitlement" among some men who feel they are being denied rights they deserve and blame women for their lack of sex.<ref name="Tait Aug 2018"/>
=== Coinage ===
The terms ''incel'' and ''involuntary celibate'' are reported to have been coined by an anonymous college student with the alias Alana from Toronto, Ontario, in 1993, when she created a website in order to discuss her sexual inactivity with others.<ref name=":7">{{Cite news|url=http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/04/24/incel-sexual-frustration-rebellion-at-center-toronto-attack.html|title='Incel' sexual frustration 'rebellion' at center of Toronto attack|last=Schallhorn|first=Kaitlyn|date=2018-04-24|work=]|access-date=2018-04-25|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="dark side">{{Cite news|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-the-incel-community-and-the-dark-side-of-the-internet/|title=The ‘incel’ community and the dark side of the internet|last=Ling|first=Justin|date=April 24, 2018|work=]|access-date=2018-04-25|publisher=|last2=Mahoney|first2=Jill|last3=McGuire|first3=Patrick|last4=Freeze|first4=Colin}}</ref> The website, titled "Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project",<ref name="dark side"/> was used by people of all genders to share posts about the topic. During her college career and after, she realized she was ], and became more comfortable with her identity. She later gave the site to a stranger. After reading about the ], she wrote, "Like a scientist who invented something that ended up being a weapon of war, I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.elle.com/culture/news/a34512/woman-who-started-incel-movement/|title=The Woman Who Accidentally Started the Incel Movement|last=Baker|first=Peter|date=March 1, 2016|work=Elle|access-date=April 24, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref>
Alana has expressed regret at the change in usage, with her original intention being to create an "inclusive community" for men and women who were sexually deprived due to social awkwardness, marginalization or mental illness.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Kassam|first1=Ashifa|title=Woman behind 'incel' says angry men hijacked her word 'as a weapon of war'|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/woman-who-invented-incel-movement-interview-toronto-attack|website=the Guardian|accessdate=2 May 2018|language=en|date=26 April 2018}}</ref>


Since around 2019, some self-identified incels have attempted to redefine their views to appear more mainstream by writing blog posts and articles on subject-specific ] and forums rejecting the more open expressions of misogyny within other segments of the subculture, highlighting the heterogeneity of incel communities, and reframing incels not as an online subculture but as those experiencing a life circumstance that applies even to individuals who are not members of the subculture.<ref name="Kelly-2021" /><ref name="Halpin2023" /><ref name="Roser 2023" /><ref name="gizmodo2" /> M. Kelly wrote for the ] think tank in 2021 that these attempts to redefine themselves contradicted the communities' self-identifications and moderation strategies, where members regularly challenge other users' "legitimacy" as incels, but have accepted as members individuals with sexual experience who nonetheless shared similar political ideologies.<ref name="Kelly-2021">{{Cite journal |last=Kelly |first=M. |date=July 1, 2021 |title=The Mainstream Pill |url=http://www.politicalresearch.org/2021/07/01/mainstream-pill |access-date=July 27, 2021 |journal=] |archive-date=July 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210726095908/http://www.politicalresearch.org/2021/07/01/mainstream-pill |url-status=live}}</ref>
=== Popular usage ===
In popular usage, the term primarily refers to the online communities of people who self-identify as involuntarily celibate. These communities are characterized by misogyny, the glorification of violence, and racism.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/24/toronto-van-attack-facebook-post-may-link-suspect-with-incel-group|title=Toronto attack: Facebook post may link suspect to misogynistic online subculture|last=Wilson|first=Jason|date=April 24, 2018|website=The Guardian|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=April 25, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Solon">{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/08/reddit-incel-involuntary-celibate-men-ban|title='Incel': Reddit bans misogynist men's group blaming women for their celibacy|last=Solon|first=Olivia|date=November 8, 2017|website=The Guardian|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=April 25, 2018}}</ref><ref name=":12">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-toronto-attack-online-misogynists-praise-suspect-new-saint-n868821|title=After Toronto attack, online misogynists praise suspect as ‘new saint’|last=Collins|first=Ben|date=April 24, 2018|work=]|access-date=April 25, 2018|last2=Zadrozny|first2=Brandy|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":14">{{Cite news|url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gyj3yw/how-reddit-is-teaching-young-men-to-hate-women|title=How Reddit Is Teaching Young Men to Hate Women|last=Kini|first=Aditi Natasha|date=November 15, 2017|work=]|access-date=April 25, 2018|language=en-us}}</ref> According to '']'', involuntary celibacy is an adaptation of the idea of “male supremacy,”<ref name=":13" /> an ideology the ] has begun including in their list of hate groups.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nbc26.com/newsy/what-is-male-supremacy-according-to-southern-poverty-law-center|title=What Is 'Male Supremacy,' According To Southern Poverty Law Center?|last=Cliff Judy|first=Casey Mendoza|date=February 22, 2018|work=]|access-date=April 25, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref>


=== Extremism ===
In these online communities, the term "involuntary celibate" or "incel" is used alongside other terms, such as "love-shy" (] or excessive ] preventing romantic success)<ref name="Dewey2015">{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/10/07/incels-4chan-and-the-beta-uprising-making-sense-of-one-of-the-internets-most-reviled-subcultures/|title=Incels, 4chan and the Beta Uprising: making sense of one of the Internet’s most-reviled subcultures|last=Dewey|first=Caitlin|date=October 7, 2015|work=]|access-date=April 25, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Hudson|first1=Jennifer L.|last2=Rapee|first2=Ronald M.|title=The Origins of Social Phobia|journal=Behavior Modification|date=2000|volume=24|issue=1|pages=102–129|doi=10.1177/0145445500241006}}</ref> and "incelibacy".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thecut.com/2018/04/incel-meaning-rebellion-alex-minassian-elliot-rodger-reddit.html|title=When a Mass Murderer Has a Cult Following|first=David|last=Futrelle|publisher=}}</ref> The German author Maja Roedenbeck Schaefer uses the English-language term "Absolute Beginner" to describe individuals who are celibate, but not through personal choice.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/830345509|title=Und wer küsst mich? : Absolute Beginners - Wenn die Liebe auf sich warten lässt|last=Maja.|first=Roedenbeck,|date=2012|publisher=Ch. Links|isbn=9783861536888|location=Berlin|oclc=830345509}}</ref> Some online communities use more specific terms to quantify specific kinds of incels, such as "truecel", someone who has never had any form of physical intimacy, "mentalcel", someone whose involuntary celibacy is caused by a mental health issue, "fakecel", someone who pretends to be incel,<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.yourtango.com/2018312428/what-is-an-incel-why-involuntarily-celibate-men-banned-from-reddit-what-they-do-now-4chan-discord|title=What It Means To Be An 'Incel', Why Men Using This Label Were Banned From Reddit & Where They're Lurking Now|last=Stokes|first=Rebecca Jane|date=2018-04-25|work=]|access-date=2018-04-25|language=en}}</ref> or ethnicel, a person of color (or ]) who is incel.<ref>https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/05/01/the-foundational-misogyny-of-incels-overlaps-with-racism.html</ref>
The incel subculture's attitudes can be characterized by extremist resentment, hostility, ], ], ], ] and ], ], sense of entitlement to sex, blaming of women and the sexually successful for their situation (which is often seen as ] due to ], ] or a rigged game), ], ], and the endorsement of sexual and non-sexual violence against women and the sexually active.<ref name="Blackpill Science: Involuntary Celi">{{cite journal |last1=Burton |first1=Anthony |title=Blackpill Science: Involuntary Celibacy, Rational Technique, and Economic Existence under Neoliberalism |journal=Canadian Journal of Communication |date=December 2022 |volume=47 |issue=4 |pages=676–701 |doi=10.3138/cjc.2022-07-25 |s2cid=252937655}}</ref>{{refn|name=resentment-etc|<!-- BEGIN resentment-etc cite group -->
* Resentment, misogyny<ref name="Romano-2018"/><ref name="dark-side"/><ref name="Taub May 2018"/><ref name="Beauchamp-2018"/>
* Hatred<ref name="Baumgartner-Der_Spiegel" />
* Hostility and sexual objectification<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Grunau |first1=Karolin |last2=Bieselt |first2=Helena E. |last3=Gul |first3=Pelin |last4=Kupfer |first4=Tom R. |date=2022 |title=Unwanted celibacy is associated with misogynistic attitudes even after controlling for personality |journal=Personality and Individual Differences |volume=199 |pages=111860 |doi=10.1016/j.paid.2022.111860 |doi-access=free |hdl=2066/282240 |hdl-access=free}}</ref>
* Misanthropy<ref name="Beauchamp-2018"/>
* Self-pity<ref name="Dastagir-2018" />
* Self-loathing<ref name="fosterau">{{cite news |url=https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/dating/a-look-inside-the-group-of-men-addicted-to-hating-women/news-story/a48bbeac194041ac597c21fe5d54fc61 |title=A look inside the group of men 'addicted' to hating women |last1=Foster |first1=Ally |date=June 6, 2018 |work=] |access-date=June 6, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180606224817/https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/dating/a-look-inside-the-group-of-men-addicted-to-hating-women/news-story/a48bbeac194041ac597c21fe5d54fc61 |archive-date=June 6, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Baumgartner-Der_Spiegel" />
* Racism<ref name="dark-side" /><ref name="currycels"/><ref name="Romano-2018b" /><ref name="Baumgartner-Der_Spiegel" />
* Entitlement to sex<ref name="guardianvanattack"/><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://globalnews.ca/news/4164340/alek-minassian-facebook-page/ |title=What we learned from Alek Minassian's Incel-linked Facebook page – and what we'd like to know |last=Cain |first=Patrick |date=April 24, 2018 |work=] |access-date=May 4, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180503195227/https://globalnews.ca/news/4164340/alek-minassian-facebook-page/ |archive-date=May 3, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>
* Nihilism: ''"The incel movement relies heavily on the idea of ideological nihilism"''&nbsp;<ref name="gnetpurdue">{{cite web |url=https://gnet-research.org/2022/07/13/ideological-nihilism-and-aesthetic-violence-mass-shooters-and-online-antisocial-subcultures |title=Ideological Nihilism and Aesthetic Violence: Mass Shooters and Online Antisocial Subcultures |date=July 13, 2022 |last=Purdue |first=Simon |website=Global Network on Extremism & Technology |access-date=September 2, 2023 |archive-date=September 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230902075235/https://gnet-research.org/2022/07/13/ideological-nihilism-and-aesthetic-violence-mass-shooters-and-online-antisocial-subcultures |url-status=live}}</ref>
* Rape culture and sexual violence: ''"he incel community presents just one extreme example of rape culture"''&nbsp;<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/publications/resisting-rape-culture-in-digital-society |doi=10.4324/9781315270265-42 |chapter=Resisting rape culture in digital society |title=The Routledge International Handbook of Violence Studies |date=2018 |last1=Powell |first1=Anastasia |last2=Sugiura |first2=Lisa |pages=447–457 |isbn=9781315270265 |s2cid=149584002 |access-date=September 2, 2023 |archive-date=September 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230902092109/https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/en/publications/resisting-rape-culture-in-digital-society |url-status=live}}</ref>
* Endorsement of violence against women and sexually active people<ref name="dark-side" /><ref name="Wood-2018"/><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.npr.org/2018/04/29/606773813/whats-an-incel-the-online-community-behind-the-toronto-van-attack |title=What's An 'Incel'? The Online Community Behind The Toronto Van Attack |last=Garcia-Navarro |first=Lulu |author-link=Lulu Garcia-Navarro |date=April 29, 2018 |work=] |publisher=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180504211235/https://www.npr.org/2018/04/29/606773813/whats-an-incel-the-online-community-behind-the-toronto-van-attack |archive-date=May 4, 2018 |url-status=live |access-date=May 5, 2018}}</ref> <!-- END resentment-etc cite group -->}} Incel communities have been increasingly criticized by scholars, government officials, and others for their misogyny, the endorsement and encouragement of violence, and ].<ref name="criticized-by-scholars-citegroup">{{Multiref2
| {{cite news |last=Taub |first=Amanda |date=May 9, 2018 |title=On Social Media's Fringes, Growing Extremism Targets Women |work=] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/world/americas/incels-toronto-attack.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180514031941/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/world/americas/incels-toronto-attack.html |archive-date=May 14, 2018 |issn=0362-4331 |url-access=limited}}
| {{cite news |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/incels-looksmaxing-obsession_us_5b50e56ee4b0de86f48b0a4f |title=Inside Incels' Looksmaxing Obsession: Penis Stretching, Skull Implants And Rage |last=Cook |first=Jesselyn |date=July 24, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811220219/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/incels-looksmaxing-obsession_us_5b50e56ee4b0de86f48b0a4f |archive-date=August 11, 2018 |url-status=live}}
| {{cite news |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/online-extremism-radical-misogyny_us_5b491358e4b0bc69a787458f |title=Internet Giants Are Banning Extremists (Just Not The Ones Targeting Women) |last=Cook |first=Jesselyn |date=July 27, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811021553/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/online-extremism-radical-misogyny_us_5b491358e4b0bc69a787458f |archive-date=August 11, 2018 |url-status=live}}
| {{cite journal |last1=Hoffman |first1=Bruce |author-link=Bruce Hoffman |last2=Ware |first2=Jacob |last3=Shapiro |first3=Ezra |date=2020 |title=Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence |journal=] |volume=43 |issue=7 |pages=565–587 |doi=10.1080/1057610X.2020.1751459 |hdl=10023/24162 |s2cid=218781135 |issn=1057-610X |hdl-access=free}} }}</ref> Over time the subculture has become associated with extremism and terrorism, and since 2014 there have been multiple ], mostly in North America, perpetrated by self-identified incels, as well as other instances of violence or attempted violence.


The ] (SPLC) described the subculture as "part of the online ] ecosystem" that is included in their ].<ref name="Janik-2018">{{cite web |last1=Janik |first1=Rachel |title="I laugh at the death of normies": How incels are celebrating the Toronto mass killing |url=https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/24/i-laugh-death-normies-how-incels-are-celebrating-toronto-mass-killing |date=April 24, 2018 |website=Hatewatch |publisher=] |access-date=April 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425050544/https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/04/24/i-laugh-death-normies-how-incels-are-celebrating-toronto-mass-killing |archive-date=April 25, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Judy-2018">{{Cite news |url=https://www.nbc26.com/newsy/what-is-male-supremacy-according-to-southern-poverty-law-center |title=What Is 'Male Supremacy,' According To Southern Poverty Law Center? |last1=Judy |first1=Cliff |date=February 22, 2018 |work=] |access-date=April 25, 2018 |last2=Mendoza |first2=Casey |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425115908/https://www.nbc26.com/newsy/what-is-male-supremacy-according-to-southern-poverty-law-center |archive-date=April 25, 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The ] states that "the incel community shares a misogynistic ideology of women as being genetically inferior to men, driven by their sexual desire to reproduce with genetically superior males thereby excluding unattractive men such as themselves" which "exhibits all of the hallmarks of an extremist ideology", and that it is the combination of a wish for a mythical past where all men were entitled to sex from subordinated women, a sense of predestined personal failure, and nihilism, which makes the worldview dangerous.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://crestresearch.ac.uk/resources/a-short-introduction-to-the-involuntary-celibate-sub-culture |title=A Short Introduction To The Incel Sub-Culture |date=August 26, 2021 |last=Brace |first=Lewys |website=Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats |access-date=September 2, 2023 |archive-date=September 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230902080835/https://crestresearch.ac.uk/resources/a-short-introduction-to-the-involuntary-celibate-sub-culture |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="gnetpurdue"/> Estimates of the overall size of the subculture vary greatly, ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of individuals.<ref name="Kassam-2018" /><ref name="spectate">{{cite news |last1=Young |first1=Toby |author-link=Toby Young |date=May 5, 2018 |title=Here's what every incel needs: a sex robot |work=] |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/heres-what-every-incel-needs-a-sex-robot |url-status=live |access-date=May 23, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180516104652/https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/05/heres-what-every-incel-needs-a-sex-robot |archive-date=May 16, 2018}}</ref>
The term encompasses people who are in ] (or other sexless relationships) but who wish to be sexually active.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Donnelly|first=Denise|last2=Burgess|first2=Elisabeth|last3=Anderson|first3=Sally|last4=Davis|first4=Regina|last5=Dillard|first5=Joy|date=2001|title=Involuntary Celibacy: A life course analysis|url=http://cda.morris.umn.edu/~meeklesr/celibacy.html|journal=The Journal of Sex Research|volume=38|issue=2|pages=159–169|doi=10.1080/00224490109552083|via=}}</ref> It is considered to be distinct from ] and from voluntary ].<ref name=":2" />
Incel communities became more extremist and focused on violence from the late 2010s.<ref name="Cook-2018c">{{Cite news |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/incel-toxic-brotherhood-online-misogyny_us_5b490e5fe4b0bc69a7873ff0 |title=A Toxic 'Brotherhood': Inside Incels' Dark Online World |last=Cook |first=Jesselyn |date=July 27, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 8, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180807210710/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/incel-toxic-brotherhood-online-misogyny_us_5b490e5fe4b0bc69a7873ff0 |archive-date=August 7, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/25/17279294/toronto-massacre-minassian-incels-internet-misogyny |title=The internet is enabling a community of men who want to kill women. They need to be stopped |last=Hudson |first=Laura |date=April 25, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180812052453/https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/25/17279294/toronto-massacre-minassian-incels-internet-misogyny |archive-date=August 12, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Romano-2018b">{{Cite news |url=https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/14/13576192/alt-right-sexism-recruitment |title=How the alt-right's sexism lures men into white supremacy |last=Romano |first=Aja |date=April 26, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180810025059/https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/14/13576192/alt-right-sexism-recruitment |archive-date=August 10, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> This has been attributed to factors including influences from overlapping online ]s and the rise of the ] and ] groups.<ref name="Taub May 2018" /><ref name="urlThe alt-right is fueled by toxic masculinity — and vice versa">{{cite web |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/alt-right-fueled-toxic-masculinity-vice-versa-ncna989031 |title=The 'alt-right' is fueled by toxic masculinity – and vice versa |last=Futrelle |first=David |date=April 1, 2019 |work=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191124173015/https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/alt-right-fueled-toxic-masculinity-vice-versa-ncna989031 |archive-date=November 24, 2019 |access-date=March 13, 2020}}</ref><ref name="Cook-2018b" /><ref name="Cook-2018c" /> The misogynistic and violent rhetoric of some members of these communities has led to numerous bans from websites and ].<ref name="guardianvanattack" /><ref name="Solon" /><ref name="Kini-2017">{{Cite news |url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gyj3yw/how-reddit-is-teaching-young-men-to-hate-women |title=How Reddit Is Teaching Young Men to Hate Women |last=Kini |first=Aditi Natasha |date=November 15, 2017 |work=] |access-date=April 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425040159/https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gyj3yw/how-reddit-is-teaching-young-men-to-hate-women |archive-date=April 25, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Collins-2018">{{Cite news |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-toronto-attack-online-misogynists-praise-suspect-new-saint-n868821 |title=After Toronto attack, online misogynists praise suspect as 'new saint' |last1=Collins |first1=Ben |date=April 24, 2018 |work=] |access-date=April 25, 2018 |last2=Zadrozny |first2=Brandy |author-link2=Brandy Zadrozny |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180424224553/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-toronto-attack-online-misogynists-praise-suspect-new-saint-n868821 |archive-date=April 24, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Incel communities continue to exist on more lenient platforms including 4chan, ], and ], as well as on web forums created specifically for the topic.<ref name="Dewey 2015">{{Cite news |last=Dewey |first=Caitlin |author-link=Caitlin Dewey Rainwater |date=October 7, 2015 |title=Incels, 4chan and the Beta Uprising: making sense of one of the Internet's most-reviled subcultures |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/10/07/incels-4chan-and-the-beta-uprising-making-sense-of-one-of-the-internets-most-reviled-subcultures/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171110225334/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/10/07/incels-4chan-and-the-beta-uprising-making-sense-of-one-of-the-internets-most-reviled-subcultures/ |archive-date=November 10, 2017 |issn=0190-8286 |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="dailydot">{{Cite news |url=https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/reddit-incels-ban/ |title=Why Reddit finally banned one of its most misogynistic forums |last=Hathaway |first=Jay |date=November 10, 2017 |work=] |access-date=April 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171111023852/https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/reddit-incels-ban/ |archive-date=November 11, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Hoffman-2020" /> More extremist self-identified incels have increasingly migrated to obscure locations including gaming ] (such as ]) and the ] to avoid site shutdowns and the self-censorship that has developed among some incel communities as an effort to avoid drawing scrutiny from law enforcement or website service providers.<ref name="Hoffman-2020" />


Beginning in 2018 and into the 2020s, the incel ideology has been described by North American governments and researchers as a terrorism threat, and law enforcement have issued warnings about the subculture.<ref name="Hoffman-2020" /><ref name="DiBranco-2020">{{Cite report |url=https://icct.nl/publication/male-supremacist-terrorism-as-a-rising-threat/ |title=Male Supremacist Terrorism as a Rising Threat |last=DiBranco |first=Alex |date=February 10, 2020 |publisher=] |location=], ] |access-date=May 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200420024236/https://icct.nl/publication/male-supremacist-terrorism-as-a-rising-threat/ |archive-date=April 20, 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Beckett 2021">{{cite web |last=Beckett |first=Lois |date=March 3, 2021 |title=The misogynist incel movement is spreading. Should it be classified as a terror threat? |url=http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/mar/03/incel-movement-terror-threat-canada |access-date=April 4, 2021 |website=The Guardian |archive-date=March 27, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210327062142/https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/mar/03/incel-movement-terror-threat-canada |url-status=live}}</ref> In May 2019, an American man was sentenced to up to five years in prison for making terrorist threats, posting on social media, "I'm planning on shooting up a public place{{nbsp}}... killing as many girls as I see".<ref name="Bever Jan 2019" /> In September 2019, the ] warned soldiers about the possibility of violence at movie theaters showing the ] film, after "disturbing and very specific chatter" was found in conversations among self-identified incels on the dark web.<ref name="Hoffman-2020" /> A January 2020 report by the ] warned that the incel movement was an "emerging ] threat" that "could soon match, or potentially eclipse, the level of lethalness demonstrated by other domestic terrorism types".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Villarreal |first=Daniel |date=May 21, 2020 |title=Westgate Shooting Suspect Was an 'Incel' Who Wanted to Kill Couples, Prosecutor Alleges |work=] |url=https://www.newsweek.com/westgate-gunman-identified-incel-intended-shoot-couples-prosecutor-says-1505837 |url-status=live |access-date=June 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200522043036/https://www.newsweek.com/westgate-gunman-identified-incel-intended-shoot-couples-prosecutor-says-1505837 |archive-date=May 22, 2020}}</ref><ref name="Baumgartner-Der_Spiegel">{{cite news |last4=Rosenbach |first4=Marcel |last3=Müller |first3=Ann-Katrin |last2=Höfner |first2=Roman |last1=Baumgärtner |first1=Maik |date=March 10, 2021 |title=Hatred Against Women: The Dark World of Extremist Misogyny |url=https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/from-digital-hate-to-analog-violence-the-dark-world-of-extremist-misogyny-a-832ed3cb-21d1-4e84-8c28-089365e91a83 |access-date=March 25, 2021 |website=] |archive-date=December 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211204130424/https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/from-digital-hate-to-analog-violence-the-dark-world-of-extremist-misogyny-a-832ed3cb-21d1-4e84-8c28-089365e91a83 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="TX DPS-2020">{{Cite report |url=http://www.dps.texas.gov/director_staff/media_and_communications/2020/txTerrorThreatAssessment.pdf |title=Texas Domestic Terrorism Threat Report |date=January 2020 |publisher=Texas Department of Public Safety |page=3 |access-date=January 12, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200109000459/https://www.dps.texas.gov/director_staff/media_and_communications/2020/txTerrorThreatAssessment.pdf |archive-date=January 9, 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref> A 2020 paper published by Bruce Hoffman and colleagues in ''Studies in Conflict & Terrorism'' concluded that "the violent manifestations of the ideology pose a new terrorism threat, which should not be dismissed or ignored by domestic law enforcement agencies".<ref name="Hoffman-2020" /> ], a psychology professor at Georgia State University who in 2019 received a $250,000 grant from the ] to study the incel subculture, explained why the incel ideology equates to terrorism: "the fact that incels are aspiring to change things up in a bigger, broader ideological sense, that's, for me, what make it a classic example of terrorism. That's not saying all incels are terrorists. But violent incel activity is, unquestionably, terrorism in my view".<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Canadian teenager has been charged with terrorism inspired by the online 'incel' movement. What is an 'incel?' |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/05/21/canadian-authorities-incel-terrorism-toronto-massage/5226407002/ |last=Culver |first=Jordan |date=May 22, 2020 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200523024640/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/05/21/canadian-authorities-incel-terrorism-toronto-massage/5226407002/ |archive-date=May 23, 2020 |access-date=May 25, 2020}}</ref> In February 2020, ] that was allegedly motivated by incel ideologies became the first such act of violence to be prosecuted as terrorism, and the ] stated that they consider the incel subculture to be an "Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremist (IMVE)" movement.<ref name="Bell-2020" /> Jacob Ware publishing in ''Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses'' wrote that analysis of incels has been focused within the United States and Canada due to the concentration of incel-motivated attacks in those countries.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ware |first=Jacob |date=2021 |title=Beta Uprising: Is there an Incel Threat to Asia? |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27016616 |journal=Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=10–15 |jstor=27016616 |issn=2382-6444 |access-date=November 5, 2021 |archive-date=November 5, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211105005359/https://www.jstor.org/stable/27016616 |url-status=live}}</ref> The ]'s National Threat Assessment Center, in a March 2022 ] titled "Hot Yoga Tallahassee: A Case Study of Misogynistic Extremism", sought to draw attention to "the specific threat posed by misogynist extremism."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Staff of the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center |title=Hot Yoga Tallahassee: A Case Study of Misogynistic Extremism |url=https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2022-03/NTAC%20Case%20Study%20-%20Hot%20Yoga%20Tallahassee.pdf |website=United States Secret Service |publisher=U.S. Department of Homeland Security |access-date=March 16, 2022 |language=English |date=March 2022 |archive-date=March 15, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220315204227/https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2022-03/NTAC%20Case%20Study%20-%20Hot%20Yoga%20Tallahassee.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>
== Psychology ==
{{Further|Sexual frustration}}


===Forums===
Involuntary celibacy is not a medical or psychological condition, but some of those who identify as incels suffer from physical disabilities or psychological disorders. A 2001 ] study found that people who self-identified as incels tended to feel frustrated, depressed, and angry regardless of why they felt they were involuntarily celibate. These researchers found that involuntary celibacy was often correlated with ], ], ], and ].<ref name="Dewey2015"/>
The largest incel forum was founded in 2017 by a previous moderator of the r/incels subreddit. The forum had almost 15,000 members {{As of|2022|10|lc=y}}.<ref name="Baumgartner-Der_Spiegel" /><ref name="Halpin 2022" /> It is composed of public and registered ] for self-described incels to discuss their personal experiences. Moderators ban women and ] individuals from joining, justifying so by stating that the forum is oriented towards ].<ref name="Buzzfeed News">{{Cite web |last=Nashrulla |first=Tasneem |date=June 6, 2019 |title=Incels Are Running An Online Suicide Forum That Was Blamed For A Young Woman's Death |url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/incels-suicide-forum-woman-killed-herself |access-date=May 3, 2023 |website=] |language=en |archive-date=February 10, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210024445/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/incels-suicide-forum-woman-killed-herself |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Jaki">{{Cite journal |last1=Jaki |first1=Sylvia |last2=Smedt |first2=Tom De |last3=Gwóźdź |first3=Maja |last4=Panchal |first4=Rudresh |last5=Rossa |first5=Alexander |last6=Pauw |first6=Guy De |date=November 25, 2019 |title=Online hatred of women in the Incels.me forum: Linguistic analysis and automatic detection |url=https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jlac.00026.jak |journal=Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict |language=en |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=240–268 |doi=10.1075/jlac.00026.jak |issn=2213-1272 |s2cid=199183681 |access-date=June 19, 2023 |archive-date=May 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230501182125/https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jlac.00026.jak |url-status=live}}</ref> ] in her book '']'' describes the site's culture as one of "one-upmanship", "barroom boast-off" and ].<ref name="book">{{cite book |last=Lavin |first=Talia |url=https://www.engadget.com/hitting-the-books-culture-warlords-talia-lavin-hachette-books-163023083.html |title=Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy |date=October 13, 2020 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-30684-643-4 |location= |author-link=Talia Lavin |access-date=June 19, 2023 |archive-date=May 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230512235530/https://www.engadget.com/hitting-the-books-culture-warlords-talia-lavin-hachette-books-163023083.html |url-status=live}}</ref> '']'' describes a vindictive site culture, giving an example of an ex-moderator who entered a romantic relationship and was subsequently rejected by site members as a "fake incel".<ref name="Rolling Stone">{{Cite magazine |last=Klee |first=Miles |date=April 27, 2023 |title=The 'LeBron James of Incels' Swears He Has a Girlfriend Now — He Just Can't Prove It |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/incel-civil-war-girlfriend-komesarj-1234724278/ |magazine=] |access-date=May 19, 2023 |archive-date=May 19, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230519205443/https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/incel-civil-war-girlfriend-komesarj-1234724278/ |url-status=live}}</ref> ] states that the site has a culture of praising mass killers, which is treated lightly by the site's admins.<ref name="Beauchamp-2019" />


The site has used several ] since its creation, after being suspended by one over violence and hate speech<ref name="Mashable">{{Cite web |last=Binder |first=Matt |date=November 20, 2018 |title=Incels.me, a major hub for hate speech and misogyny, suspended by .ME registry |url=https://mashable.com/article/incels-me-domain-suspended-by-registry |access-date=May 1, 2023 |website=] |language=en |archive-date=May 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230501182124/https://mashable.com/article/incels-me-domain-suspended-by-registry |url-status=live}}</ref> and denied renewal by another.<ref name="Zimmerman">{{cite journal |last1=Zimmerman |first1=Shannon |date=October 26, 2022 |title=The Ideology of Incels: Misogyny and Victimhood as Justification for Political Violence |journal=] |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=166–179 |doi=10.1080/09546553.2022.2129014 |s2cid=253179777 |issn=1556-1836}}</ref>
== Online communities==
The misogynistic and occasionally violent rhetoric<ref name=":9" /><ref name="Solon" /><ref name=":14" /><ref name=":12" /> of Incel communities has lead to numerous bans from websites and webhosts. /r/incels was a ] community (known as a subreddit) that offered a forum for people who identified as involuntarily celibate. The subreddit was known as a place where men blamed women for their involuntary celibacy, sometimes advocated for rape or other violence, and were generally misogynistic and often racist.<ref name="Solon" /><ref name=":8">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/us/reddit-violence-policy.html|title=Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content|last=Hauser|first=Christine|date=October 26, 2017|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 25, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Members of the group described women as "femoids" or "stacys" and described men who were able to have sex with these women as "chads".<ref name="Solon" /><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://nypost.com/2018/04/24/police-investigating-facebook-posts-allegedly-made-by-suspected-toronto-driver/|title=Police investigating Facebook posts allegedly made by suspected Toronto driver|last=Tacopino|first=Joe|date=April 24, 2018|work=]|access-date=April 25, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref> One post titled "general question about how rapists get caught" was asked by a member pretending to be a woman, saying they wanted to know how a woman who was drugged and raped would begin finding her rapist.<ref name="Solon" /><ref name=":10">{{Cite news|url=http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-41926687|title=Reddit bans 'involuntarily celibate' community|last=Bell|first=Chris|date=November 9, 2017|work=]|access-date=April 25, 2018|language=en-GB}}</ref> Others glorified Elliot Rodger, the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings.<ref name=":10" />


The site owners also operate a ],<ref name="Roser 2023">{{Cite report |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Spitting-out-the-blackpill_Evaluating-how-incels-present-themselves-in-their-own-worlds-on-the-incel-Wiki.pdf |title=Spitting out the blackpill: Evaluating how incels present themselves in their own words on the incel Wiki |last1=Roser |first1=Meg |last2=Chalker |first2=Charlotte |date=January 30, 2023 |publisher=] |last3=Squirrell |first3=Tim |access-date=June 19, 2023 |archive-date=March 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326025159/https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Spitting-out-the-blackpill_Evaluating-how-incels-present-themselves-in-their-own-worlds-on-the-incel-Wiki.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="gizmodo2">{{cite web |last=Barr |first=Kyle |date=February 2, 2023 |title=This Violently Misogynistic Incel Community Is Rewriting Its Own History Through an Incel Wiki |url=http://gizmodo.com/incel-wiki-wikipedia-involuntary-celibates-1850064455 |access-date=June 9, 2023 |website=] |archive-date=May 13, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240513100014/https://gizmodo.com/incel-wiki-wikipedia-involuntary-celibates-1850064455 |url-status=live}}</ref> which has been described by researchers publishing in '']'' as ] academic papers to promote ] points.<ref name="Halpin2023">{{cite journal |last1=Halpin |first1=Michael |last2=Richard |first2=Norann |last3=Preston |first3=Kayla |last4=Gosse |first4=Meghan |last5=Maguire |first5=Finlay |date=June 6, 2023 |title=Men who hate women: The misogyny of involuntarily celibate men |journal=] |volume= |issue= |pages= |doi=10.1177/14614448231176777 |doi-access=free |issn=1461-7315}}</ref>
On October 25, 2017, Reddit announced a new policy that would ban "content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people."<ref name=":8" /> On November 7, 2017, the /r/incels subreddit was banned for violating this policy. At the time of the ban, the community had around 40,000 members.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/technology/incels-reddit-banned.html|title=Reddit Bans ‘Incel’ Group for Inciting Violence Against Women|last=Hauser|first=Christine|date=November 9, 2017|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 25, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>


==== Connection to suicide forums ====
Incel communities continue to exist on platforms more lenient of their content, such as ]<ref name="dailydot">{{Cite news|url=https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/reddit-incels-ban/|title=Why Reddit finally banned one of its most misogynistic forums|last=Hathaway|first=Jay|date=2017-11-10|work=]|access-date=2018-04-25|language=en-US}}</ref> and the message board ] on ].<ref name="Dewey2015"/> Such communities frequently overlap with topics such as ] and men's rights activism.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3" /> Incel communities are a part of the broader ].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/25/what-is-incel-movement-toronto-van-attack-suspect|title=Who are the 'incels' and how do they relate to Toronto van attack?|last=Hern|first=Alex|date=April 25, 2018|website=The Guardian|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=April 28, 2018}}</ref> Although there are mixed-gender forums that to cater to both male and female incels, such as Reddit's ForeverAlone.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://splinternews.com/women-dont-go-on-killing-sprees-1825746733|title='Unfuckable' Women Don't Go on Killing Sprees
{{See also|Sanctioned Suicide}}
|last=Alptraum|first=Lux|date=May 3, 2018|work=Splinter News|access-date=May 3, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref> Some incels have advocated for the allocation of ]s to incels.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2018/05/02/trending-is-the-robot-in-lost-in-space-hot-or-not/</ref>
In September, the UK-based ] (CCDH) published a report in September 2022 about the largest dedicated incel forum, based on monthly visits, and a network of other sites run by the same two pseudonymous individuals. The '']'', ], and the CCDH identified them as Uruguay-based Diego Joaquín Galante and United States–based Lamarcus Small.<ref name="Twohey-investigation">{{cite news |last1=Twohey |first1=Megan |author-link=Megan Twohey |last2=Dance |first2=Gabriel J.X. |date=December 9, 2021 |title=Where the Despairing Log On, and Learn Ways to Die |work=] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/09/us/where-the-despairing-log-on.html |url-status=live |access-date=September 24, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230214211928/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/09/us/where-the-despairing-log-on.html |archive-date=February 14, 2023 |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="incels-rape-murder-study">{{cite news |last1=Lorenz |first1=Taylor |author-link=Taylor Lorenz |date=September 23, 2022 |title=The online incel movement is getting more violent and extreme, report says |newspaper=] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/22/incels-rape-murder-study/ |access-date=September 24, 2022 |archive-date=February 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213094830/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/22/incels-rape-murder-study/ |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Twohey |first1=Megan |author-link=Megan Twohey |date=December 21, 2021 |title=Lawmakers Urge Tech Companies to 'Mitigate Harm' of Suicide Website |work=] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/technology/suicide-website-google.html |access-date=September 24, 2022 |archive-date=February 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213094826/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/technology/suicide-website-google.html |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="CCDH-2022" /> In December 2021, the ''New York Times'' reported that it had identified 45 people, individually, who died in connection to a website called '']'',<ref name="Twohey-2022">{{cite news |last1=Twohey |first1=Megan |title=Lawmakers Press Amazon on Sales of Chemical Used in Suicides |work=The New York Times |date=February 4, 2022 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/technology/amazon-suicide-poison-preservative.html |access-date=September 17, 2022 |archive-date=February 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213094824/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/technology/amazon-suicide-poison-preservative.html |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}</ref> and estimated that the true number was likely much higher.<ref name="NYTimes phone call">{{cite news |last1=Barbaro |first1=Michael |author-link=Michael Barbaro |last2=Twohey |first2=Megan |author-link2=Megan Twohey |last3=Dance |first3=Gabriel J.X. |date=December 9, 2021 |title='Kids are Dying. How Are These Sites Still Allowed?' |work=] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/podcasts/the-daily/suicide-investigation.html |access-date=September 24, 2022 |archive-date=February 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213094826/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/podcasts/the-daily/suicide-investigation.html |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="Twohey-2022" /> The ''Times'' reporters discovered that Galante and Small created and operated the suicide website, in addition to their several incel forums. The CCDH reported that Galante and Small also maintained forums for online communities dedicated to ] and unemployment.<ref name="Twohey-investigation" /><ref name="CCDH-2022">{{Cite report |url=https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/CCDH-The-Incelosphere..pdf |title=The Incelosphere: Exposing pathways into incel communities and the harms they pose to women and children |date=September 23, 2022 |publisher=] |access-date=February 16, 2023 |archive-date=February 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213101948/https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/CCDH-The-Incelosphere..pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>


== Mass murders == == Ideology ==
Many incel communities are characterized by resentment and hatred, self-pity, racism, misogyny, and misanthropy.<ref name="resentment-etc" /> Discussions often revolve around the belief that men are entitled to sex; other common topics include idleness, ], unhappiness, suicide, ]s, and ], as well as attributes they believe increase one's desirability as a partner such as looks, income or personality.<ref name="Baker-2016b" /><ref name="tfl">{{cite news |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/unmaking-of-an-incel_us_5b11a9aee4b0d5e89e1fb519?guccounter=1 |title=The Unmaking Of An Incel |last1=Jeltsen |first1=Melissa |date=June 7, 2018 |work=] |access-date=June 8, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612143406/https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/unmaking-of-an-incel_us_5b11a9aee4b0d5e89e1fb519?guccounter=1 |archive-date=June 12, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Dastagir-2018">{{Cite news |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/04/26/incel-rebellion-alek-minassian-sexual-entitlement-mens-rights-elliot-rodger/550635002/ |title=Incels, Alek Minassian and the dangerous idea of being owed sex |last=Dastagir |first=Alia E. |date=April 26, 2018 |work=] |access-date=May 8, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180506004957/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/04/26/incel-rebellion-alek-minassian-sexual-entitlement-mens-rights-elliot-rodger/550635002/ |archive-date=May 6, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> The incel community has a shared ] in which individuals fatalistically celebrate their failures and discourage each other from seeking romantic success.<ref name="AHBaP">{{cite journal |author=Costello |first1=William |last2=Buss |first2=David M. |author-link2=David Buss |date=July 12, 2023 |title=Why isn't There More Incel Violence? |url= |journal=Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=252–259 |doi=10.1007/s40750-023-00220-3 |s2cid=259870508 |via=]}}</ref> Many self-identified incels adopt the "blackpill". Additionally some focus on the "scientific blackpill", a series of studies that purport to scientifically prove their victimization.<ref name="Blackpill Science: Involuntary Celi" /> Opposition to ] and ] is common, and some posters blame ] for their inability to find a partner.<ref name="Scaptura-2019">{{Cite journal |last1=Scaptura |first1=Maria N. |last2=Boyle |first2=Kaitlin M. |date=December 25, 2019 |title=Masculinity Threat, "Incel" Traits, and Violent Fantasies Among Heterosexual Men in the United States |journal=] |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=278–298 |doi=10.1177/1557085119896415 |s2cid=214333864 |issn=1557-0851 |doi-access=}}</ref> Some believe there was a ] in which couples married early, were strictly ], and adhered to traditional ]s. They believe that during this time, looks played less of a role in romantic pairings and men's "entitlement" to sex with women was never denied.<ref name="Hoffman-2020" /><ref name="Baele-2019" /> Those holding this belief often disagree about precisely when this golden age occurred, but they concur that it was gradually destroyed by feminism, the ], women's liberation, and technological progress.<ref name="Baele-2019" /> Racism is generally considered to be common on incel forums,<ref name="resentment-etc" /> though some researchers have questioned its prevalence. In 2019, Jaki et al. estimated that 3 percent of comments on incel forums contained words from a list of racist words identified by the researchers.<ref name="Jaki" /><ref name="Hart 2023">{{Cite journal |last1=Hart |first1=Gavin |last2=Huber |first2=Antoinette Raffaela |date=April 2, 2023 |title=Five Things We Need to Learn About Incel Extremism: Issues, Challenges and Avenues for Fresh Research |journal=Studies in Conflict & Terrorism |pages=1–17 |doi=10.1080/1057610x.2023.2195067 |issn=1057-610X |doi-access=free}}</ref> ] beliefs are also regularly found on incel forums, with some posters going so far as to blame the rise of feminism on a plot masterminded by ] to weaken the ].<ref name="Beauchamp-2019" /><ref name="Hoffman-2020" /> Alexei Podnebesny, whom the media calls the leader of the incel movement in Russia,<ref name="«Холод» 2024a">{{Cite web |url=https://holod.media/2024/08/19/lidera-dvizheniya-inczelov-zaderzhali/ |title=Лидера «движения инцелов» задержали после требования Мизулиной проверить его на педофилию |lang=ru-RU |website=«Холод» |date=August 19, 2024 |access-date=August 19, 2024}}</ref><ref name="«Холод» 2024b">{{Cite web |url=https://holod.media/2024/08/19/lidera-dvizheniya-inczelov-zaderzhali/ |title=Лидера «движения инцелов» задержали после требования Мизулиной проверить его на педофилию |lang=ru-RU |website=«Холод» |date=August 19, 2024 |access-date=August 19, 2024}}</ref> has developed his own theory of vaginocapitalism (from "]" and "]"), according to which men are deprived of the right to sex by women, every man is forced to pay for it in some way.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.thevoicemag.ru/sex-love/mens_mind/vaginokapitalizm-kak-muzhchiny-pridumali-chto-im-obyazany-dat-po-trebovaniyu/?ysclid=m01i9i5jvg871132953 |title=Вагинокапитализм: как мужчины придумали, что им обязаны «дать» по требованию |lang=ru-RU |website=www.thevoicemag.ru |access-date=August 19, 2024}}</ref><ref name="«Холод» 2020">{{Cite web |url=https://holod.media/2020/02/21/incel/ |title=Вагинокапитализм. Кто такие инцелы? |lang=ru-RU |website=«Холод» |date=February 21, 2020 |access-date=August 19, 2024}}</ref><ref name="Pravilamag 2023">{{Cite web |url=https://www.pravilamag.ru/articles/704237-ne-vsyakoi-tvari-po-pare-kto-takie-incely-i-pochemu-ih-nado-otmenit/ |title=Не всякой твари по паре: кто такие инцелы и почему их надо отменить |lang=ru-RU |website=Pravilamag.ru |date=August 9, 2023 |access-date=August 19, 2024}}</ref>
There have been a number of ]s in North America by men who have self-identified as involuntarily celibate, or whose statements align with "incel" ideologies.


Some researchers have questioned ] of incel forums as the primary methodology for studying the subculture, recommending that future researchers employ qualitative methods such as one-on-one interviews to obtain a more nuanced view and to avoid results being skewed by the prevalence of ] on incel forums.<ref name="Sparks-2022" />{{Rp|page=736}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Daly |first1=Sarah E. |last2=Reed |first2=Shon M. |date=October 19, 2021 |title="I Think Most of Society Hates Us": A Qualitative Thematic Analysis of Interviews with Incels |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-021-01250-5 |journal=] |volume=86 |issue=1–2 |pages=14–33 |doi=10.1007/s11199-021-01250-5 |s2cid=255008809 |issn=0360-0025 |access-date=June 20, 2023 |archive-date=June 20, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230620011559/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-021-01250-5 |url-status=live}}</ref>
The 2014 Isla Vista killings drew attention to the concept of involuntary celibacy, and particularly the misogyny and glorification of violence that is a mainstay of many incel communities. The perpetrator, ], self-identified as an incel and left behind a 137-page manifesto and YouTube videos discussing how he wanted revenge for being rejected by women.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/05/24/the-disturbing-internet-footprint-of-santa-barbara-shooter-elliot-rodger/#73cd7fad77c3|title=The Disturbing Internet Footprint Of Santa Barbara Shooter Elliot Rodger|last=Hill|first=Kashmir|date=May 24, 2014|work=]|access-date=April 24, 2018|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6" /> He had been an active member of an involuntary celibacy community called PUAHate (short for "pickup artist hate"), and referenced it several times in his manifesto.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/30/elliot-rodger-puahate-forever-alone-reddit-forums|title='PUAhate' and 'ForeverAlone': inside Elliot Rodger's online life|last=Woolf|first=Nicky|date=May 30, 2014|website=The Guardian|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=April 24, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://observer.com/2014/05/hating-the-players-elliot-rodger/|title=Hating Women Was His Disease|last=Burleigh|first=Nina|date=May 28, 2014|work=]|access-date=April 24, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite news|url=http://observer.com/2014/05/hating-the-players-elliot-rodger/|title=Inside the terrifying, twisted online world of involuntary celibates|last=Burleigh|first=Nina|date=May 27, 2014|work=]|access-date=April 24, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref>


=== {{Anchor|Blackpill ideology}}"Blackpill" ===
The perpetrator of the ], George Sodini, has been embraced by some of the involuntary celibacy communities.<ref name=":3" /> Although the involuntary celibacy forum where Elliot Rodger had been active, PUAHate, shut down soon after his attack, Rodger became something of a ] to some communities that remained, and to some of those that began later.<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.newsweek.com/elliot-rodger-toronto-alek-minassian-van-attack-hunger-games-peter-rodger-899955|title=Elliot Rodger's father "very sad" Toronto van suspect Alek Minassian referenced son|last=Fearnow|first=Benjamin|date=April 24, 2018|work=]|access-date=April 24, 2018|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":11" /> After the October 2017 ] by a man with unclear motive, some of the involuntarily celibate community celebrated the shooter, who they felt was a hero who was targeting "]".<ref name=":11" /> The trend has since continued—Alek Minassian, the suspect in the ], posted on Facebook shortly before the attack, "The Incel Rebellion has already begun! ... All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!"<ref name=":17" /> After the attack, a poster on a website created to supersede /r/incels wrote about Minassian, "I hope this guy wrote a manifesto because he could be our next new saint."<ref name=":11" /> The term "Incel Rebellion" is sometimes used interchangeably with the term "Beta Uprising", which refers to a violent response to incels' perceived sexual deprivation.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25/17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian|title=Incel, the misogynist ideology that inspired the deadly Toronto attack, explained|first=Zack|last=Beauchamp|date=April 25, 2018|website=]}}</ref>
{{redirect|Blackpill}}
The "blackpill" (sometimes written as "black pill") generally refers to a set of beliefs mostly held by incel communities, which include biological ], ], and ] for ] people.<ref name="Blackpill Science: Involuntary Celi"/> These beliefs are supported by ] in fields such as ], ], ] and ] (specifically studies about the dating ] that use data from ] services);<ref name="Williams-2018">{{Cite news |last=Williams |first=Zoe |author-link=Zoe Williams |date=April 25, 2018 |title='Raw hatred': why the 'incel' movement targets and terrorises women |newspaper=] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/raw-hatred-why-incel-movement-targets-terrorises-women |url-status=live |access-date=April 26, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180426014721/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/raw-hatred-why-incel-movement-targets-terrorises-women |archive-date=April 26, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Demetriou |first=Dan |title=Virgin Versus Chad: On Enforced Monogamy as a Solution to the Incel Problem |date=2022 |work=The Palgrave Handbook of Sexual Ethics |pages=155–175 |editor-last=Boonin |editor-first=David |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-87786-6_9 |access-date=November 29, 2024 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-87786-6_9 |isbn=978-3-030-87786-6}}</ref> labelling such studies collectively as the "scientific blackpill". Believers are referred to as being "blackpilled".<ref name="Lavin-2018" /> The black pill has been described by ''Vox'' correspondent Zack Beauchamp as "a profoundly ] ideology that{{nbsp}}... amounts to a fundamental rejection of women's sexual emancipation, labeling women shallow, cruel creatures who will choose only the most attractive men if given the choice".<ref name="Beauchamp-2019" /> The term was first popularized on the blog ''Omega Virgin Revolt'', where it represented a belief that the entire social system was broken and that one's place in the system was not something any individual could change.<ref name="qz" /><ref name="ADL-2019">{{Cite web |title=The Extremist Medicine Cabinet: A Guide to Online 'Pills' |url=https://www.adl.org/blog/the-extremist-medicine-cabinet-a-guide-to-online-pills |date=November 6, 2019 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200518234541/https://www.adl.org/blog/the-extremist-medicine-cabinet-a-guide-to-online-pills |archive-date=May 18, 2020 |access-date=May 26, 2020}}</ref> One who has "taken the black pill" has adopted the belief that they are hopeless, and that their lack of success romantically and sexually is permanent regardless of any changes they might try to make to their physical appearance, personality, or other characteristics.<ref name="elconfi" /><ref name="ADL-2019" /><ref name="Baele-2019">{{Cite journal |last1=Baele |first1=Stephane J. |last2=Brace |first2=Lewys |last3=Coan |first3=Travis G. |date=August 2, 2019 |title=From 'Incel' to 'Saint': Analyzing the violent worldview behind the 2018 Toronto attack |journal=] |volume=33 |issue=8 |pages=1667–1691 |doi=10.1080/09546553.2019.1638256 |s2cid=201361080 |issn=0954-6553}}</ref><ref name="Hoffman-2020" />


On the former incel subreddit r/braincels, the term "blackpill" was used for memes that criticized women as egocentric, cruel, and shallow.<ref name="Hosford" />
=== List of mass murders by self-identified involuntary celibates ===


==== Scientific studies used as justification ====
{| class="wikitable"
|+
!Date
!Location
!Country
!Description
!Main article
|-
|May 23, 2014
|], ]
|United States
|22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed 6 people and injured 14 others near the campus of ] before killing himself. He left a lengthy manifesto and YouTube videos detailing his hatred for women and his involuntary celibacy.<ref name=":6">{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/05/27/inside-the-manosphere-that-inspired-santa-barbara-shooter-elliot-rodger/|title=Inside the ‘manosphere’ that inspired Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger|last=Dewey|first=Caitlin|date=May 27, 2014|work=The Washington Post|access-date=April 24, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/us/elliot-rodger-killings-in-california-followed-years-of-withdrawal.html|title=Elliot O. Rodger’s Killings in California Followed Years of Withdrawal|last=Nagourney|first=Adam|date=June 1, 2016|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 24, 2018|last2=Cieply|first2=Michael|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|last3=Feuer|first3=Alan|last4=Lovett|first4=Ian}}</ref>
|]
|-
|October 1, 2015
|], ]
|United States
|26-year-old Chris Harper-Mercer shot and killed 9 people and injured 8 others at the ] campus before killing himself. He left a manifesto at the scene, outlining his interest in other mass murders including the Isla Vista killings, anger at not having a girlfriend, and animus towards the world. Before the attack, when someone on an online message board had speculated he was "saving himself for someone special," Harper-Mercer had replied, "Involuntarily so."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/us/chris-harper-mercer-umpqua-community-college-shooting.html|title=Oregon Killer Described as Man of Few Words, Except on Topic of Guns|last=Healy|first=Jack|date=October 2, 2015|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 24, 2018|last2=Lovett|first2=Ian|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y-MlDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22involuntary+celibacy%22+incel&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHje2c19TaAhVE0FMKHbt5AdMQ6AEIUjAH#v=onepage&q=incel&f=false|title=Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right|last=Nagle|first=Angela|date=June 7, 2017|publisher=John Hunt Publishing|year=|isbn=9781785355448|location=|pages=|language=en|quote=In a 2016 essay 'The New Man of 4chan', I wrote an account of the racist and misogynist incel mass shooter Chris Harper Mercer...}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/probe-in-college-slayings-peers-into-web-rants-and-possible-religious-rage/2015/10/02/d250007a-68ea-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html|title=Probe in college slayings peers into Web rants and possible religious rage|last=Shapiro|first=T. Rees|date=October 2, 2015|work=Washington Post|access-date=May 4, 2018|last2=Dewey|first2=Caitlin|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286|last3=Bernstein|first3=Lenny}}</ref> Several hours before the shooting, someone suspected to be Harper-Mercer posted a threat to a ] college to a involuntarily celibate 4chan board.<ref name="Dewey2015" /><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.ibtimes.com/4chan-comments-linked-oregon-shooter-chris-harper-mercer-under-federal-investigation-2124325|title=4chan Comments Linked to Oregon Shooter Chris Harper Mercer Under Federal Investigation|last=Gilbert|first=David|date=October 2, 2015|work=International Business Times|access-date=May 4, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/4chan-oregon-shooting-anonymous-warning-1.3262686|title=Warning posted to anonymous forum 4chan before Oregon shooting|last=Bowman|first=John|date=October 8, 2015|work=CBC|access-date=May 4, 2018|language=en-US}}</ref>
|]
|-
|April 23, 2018
|], ]
|Canada
|A van driver, suspected to be 25-year-old Alek Minassian, killed 10 people and injured 14 others. Minassian was arrested soon after the attack. Shortly before the attack, Minassian had posted on Facebook that "the Incel Rebellion has already begun" and applauded Elliot Rodger, the self-identified incel attacker in the 2014 Isla Vista killings.<ref name=":17">{{Cite news|url=http://thehill.com/policy/technology/384610-toronto-rampage-suspect-referenced-extremist-mens-movement-on-facebook|title=Toronto rampage suspect referenced extremist male 'incel' movement|last=Bowden|first=John|date=April 24, 2018|work=]|access-date=April 24, 2018|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":13">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/world/canada/incel-reddit-meaning-rebellion.html|title=What Is an Incel? Explaining a Term Used by the Toronto Van Attack Suspect|last=Chokshi|first=Niraj|date=April 24, 2018|work=]|access-date=April 25, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
|]
|}


Many self-identified incels justify their prejudices using interpretations taken from concepts such as ] and ].<ref name="elconfi">{{Cite news |url=https://www.elconfidencial.com/alma-corazon-vida/2018-03-06/incel-hombres-insultan-mujeres-machismo_1528947/ |title=De paseo por el infierno sexual: los hombres que se reúnen para insultar a las mujeres |last=Barnés |first=Héctor G. |date=June 3, 2018 |work=] |access-date=June 9, 2018 |language=es |trans-title=Walking through sexual hell: the men who meet to insult women |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612141332/https://www.elconfidencial.com/alma-corazon-vida/2018-03-06/incel-hombres-insultan-mujeres-machismo_1528947/ |archive-date=June 12, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Tait-2018" /> Self-identified incels also regularly endorse the ideas of "female ]"; genetic superiority of men over women; the "80/20 rule" (an application of the ]) which suggests that 80% of women desire the top 20% of most attractive men; and, among non-white men within the subculture, the "just be white" (JBW) theory, which suggests that ] face the fewest obstacles to relationships and sex.<ref name="Scaptura-2019" /><ref name="spiked">{{cite web |url=http://www.spiked-online.com/spiked-review/article/incels-the-ugly-truth/21562 |title=Incels: the ugly truth |last=Myers |first=Fraser |date=July 2018 |website=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180709231936/http://www.spiked-online.com/spiked-review/article/incels-the-ugly-truth/21562 |archive-date=July 9, 2018 |url-status=live |access-date=July 17, 2018}}</ref><ref name="qz" /> Self-identified incels also believe that people seeking a romantic or sexual partner participate in a cruel, mercenary, and ] ], wherein incels are genetically unfit and where women hold an advantage for reasons ranging from feminism to the use of ].<ref name="FTMay2018">{{cite news |url=https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/05/08/1525779677000/-Sex-redistribution--and-the-means-of-reproduction/ |title='Sex redistribution' and the means of reproduction |last=Scaggs |first=Alexandra |date=May 8, 2018 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180809184139/https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/05/08/1525779677000/-Sex-redistribution--and-the-means-of-reproduction/ |archive-date=August 9, 2018 |access-date=August 9, 2018}} {{registration required}}</ref> Incels may attribute their lack of sexual success to factors such as shyness, ], negative body image,<ref name="georgia">{{cite news |date=July 24, 2001 |title=For many, sexless lifestyle is not a choice |publisher=] |url=http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwexa/news/archive/2001/01_0724-invcelrel.htm |url-status=dead |access-date=June 8, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180530131149/http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwexa/news/archive/2001/01_0724-invcelrel.htm |archive-date=May 30, 2018 |last=Sutton |first=Stacie}}</ref> ],<ref name="spiked" /> or their physical appearance,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.theweek.co.uk/93167/what-is-the-incel-movement |title=What is the Incel Movement? |date=April 25, 2018 |work=] |access-date=June 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180530175748/http://www.theweek.co.uk/93167/what-is-the-incel-movement |archive-date=May 30, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> and commonly believe that the only thing more important than looks in improving a man's eligibility as a prospective partner is wealth.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://thevision.com/attualita/incel-maschilismo/ |title=Il vero nemico degli incel è il maschilismo stesso |last=Guerra |first=Jennifer |date=June 1, 2018 |website=The Vision |language=it |trans-title=The real enemy of incels is masculinity itself |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181208115632/https://thevision.com/attualita/incel-maschilismo/ |archive-date=December 8, 2018 |url-status=live |access-date=June 8, 2018}}</ref> Some justify their beliefs based on the works of ] ] Brian Gilmartin and ] ].<ref name="Baker-2016b" /><ref name="elconfi" /><ref name="Bowles May 2018">{{Cite news |last=Bowles |first=Nellie |author-link=Nellie Bowles |date=May 18, 2018 |title=Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the Patriarchy |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style/jordan-peterson-12-rules-for-life.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190120182313/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/style/jordan-peterson-12-rules-for-life.html |archive-date=January 20, 2019 |issn=0362-4331 |url-access=limited}}</ref>
==Ideology of the "black pill"==
Beliefs that are common in incel communities, such as ] and ] for ] people, are collectively referred to as the ''black pill''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/raw-hatred-why-incel-movement-targets-terrorises-women|title=‘Raw hatred’: why the 'incel' movement targets and terrorises women|last=Williams|first=Zoe|date=2018-04-25|website=The Guardian|language=en|access-date=2018-04-26}}</ref> Many male incels also believe that modern society is ], and that women are predisposed to ].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ging|first=Debbie|date=May 10, 2017|title=Alphas, Betas, and Incels: Theorizing the Masculinities of the Manosphere|url=|journal=Men and Masculinities|volume=|pages=|doi=10.1177/1097184X17706401|via=}}</ref>


=== "Red pill" ===
The concept of the "black pill" distinguishes incels from the ] and their popular reference to the ], an allusion to the dilemma in the movie '']'' where the protagonist must choose to remain in a world of illusion (taking the blue pill) or to see the world as it really is (taking the red pill).<ref name="independent.co.uk">{{cite news |last=Squirrell |first=Tim |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/incels-alek-minassian-mra-mens-rights-terrorism-toronto-van-attack-a8323166.html |title=Don't make the mistake of thinking incels are men's rights activists – they are so much more dangerous |date=April 26, 2018 |work=] |accessdate=April 27, 2018}}</ref> In the context of men's rights activism, "taking the red pill" means seeing a world where women hold power over men.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.gq.com/story/mens-rights-activism-the-red-pill|title=What Kind of Man Joins the Men's Rights Movement?|last=Sharlet|first=Bruce|date=February 3, 2014|work=]|access-date=April 27, 2018|language=en}}</ref> In comparison, "taking the black pill" was described by ] as meaning "I will now espouse violence, hatred and misogyny."<ref name=":15" />
{{see also|Red pill and blue pill}}
The "]" is an ] that is common among manosphere communities, as well as some communities outside of the manosphere.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Read |first=Max |date=February 8, 2019 |title=How The Matrix's Red Pill Became the Internet's Delusional Drug of Choice |url=https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/the-matrix-red-pill-internet-delusional-drug.html |access-date=August 16, 2020 |website=] |archive-date=May 23, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200523061157/https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/the-matrix-red-pill-internet-delusional-drug.html |url-status=live}}</ref> It originates from the dilemma in the movie '']'' where the protagonist must choose whether to remain in a world of illusion (taking the blue pill) or to see the world as it really is (taking the red pill).<ref name="Hoffman-2020" /><ref name="Hodapp xvi">{{Cite book |last=Hodapp |first=Christa |title=Men's Rights, Gender, and Social Media |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-4985-2617-3 |location=Lanham, Md. |page=xvi}}</ref> Among communities that use the term, the "red pill" often refers to the core set of beliefs of that community, and people who are "redpilled" or who have "taken the red pill" are those who hold those beliefs. In manosphere communities such as men's rights groups and, according to some researchers, in incel communities as well, "taking the red pill" means seeing a world where feminism has given women too much power over men and ] does not exist.<ref name="Romano-2018" /><ref name="Hodapp xvi" /><ref name="Zuckerberg p11">{{Cite book |last=Zuckerberg |first=Donna |title=] |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-674-97555-2 |location=Cambridge, Mass. |page=11 |oclc=1020311558}}</ref><ref name="ADL-2019" /> The "black pill" is an extension of the red and blue pill analogy. There is some disagreement among researchers and journalists over which beliefs are "red pill" and which are "black pill", and whether the black pill ideology is a distinguishing belief of the incel ideology or if there are self-identified incels who do not subscribe to black pill ideas. Some researchers and journalists use the term "red pill" to refer to the set of beliefs commonly held by men's rights' activists, and the term "black pill" to summarize the incel ideology as a whole.<ref name="Romano-2018" /><ref name="spiked" /> Hoffman et al. have said that {{" '}}Taking the black pill' is critical to the incel identity, since it means recognizing 'inceldom' as a permanent condition".<ref name="Hoffman-2020" /> Aja Romano writing for '']'' has said, "what unites all incels is something known as the black pill".<ref name="Romano-2018" /> Researchers at the ] (ADL) write that there are some incels who believe in the red pill and others who believe in the black pill.<ref name="ADL-2019" />


Researchers at the ADL have said that some incels follow the red pill ideology. Those who believe they can improve their chances with women are adherents to the red pill, whereas only incels who believe they have no power to change their position in society or chances with women are blackpilled. The ADL writes that, among incels, the beliefs summarized as "red pill" center around the idea that feminism has unbalanced society to favor women and give them too much power. Redpilled incels believe they have the opportunity to fight back against this system which disadvantages them, which they do by trying to make themselves more attractive to women. Conversely, blackpilled incels are those who believe they can do nothing to change their situation. The ADL writes, "This is where the incel movement takes on characteristics of a ]". Those who have taken the black pill are left with few options, says the ADL: giving up on life (referred to by incels as "LDAR", an abbreviation for "lie down and rot"), dying by suicide, or committing mass violence.<ref name="ADL-2019" />
The term ''black pill'' was coined on the blog Omega Virgin Revolt, where the term commended despondency in order to distinguish incels from the pickup artist communities.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://qz.com/1092037/the-alt-right-is-creating-its-own-dialect-heres-a-complete-guide/|title=The alt-right is creating its own dialect. Here’s the dictionary|last=Sonnad|first=Nikhil|date=October 30, 2017|work=]|access-date=2018-04-26|last2=Squirrell|first2=Tim|language=en-US}}</ref> According to an incel ] subforum called /r/braincels, someone who has metaphorically "swallowed the black pill",<ref name=":15">{{Cite web|url=http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/04/25/incel-toronto-van-attack-suspect|title=Toronto Van Attack Suspect's Facebook Post References Misogynistic Online Group|last=Young|first=Robin|date=April 25, 2018|website=]|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|dead-url=|access-date=2018-04-26}}</ref> been "blackpilled",<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.yourtango.com/2018312914/what-does-chad-mean-incel-slang-definitions-history-terms-on-forums-reddit-4chan|title=What Does 'Chad' Mean? The Odd Way Incel Men On Reddit And 4Chan Use It To Describe Certain Guys|last=Jeret|first=Arianna|date=2018-04-25|work=YourTango|access-date=2018-04-26|language=en}}</ref> or LDAR (which stands for "lay down and rot")",<ref name="dailydot" /> has come to "the real or perceived socially unspoken realisations that come from being a longtime incel."<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.thejournal.ie/incel-3979342-Apr2018/|title=What is the 'incel rebellion'? And who are those behind it?|last=Hosford|first=Paul|work=]|access-date=2018-04-26|language=en}}</ref>


=== Promotion of violence ===
==See also==
] (pictured) and consider him their "saint"]]
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
Some discussions in incel communities endorse violence against sexually active women and more sexually successful men;<ref name="Hauser Nov 2017" /><ref>{{cite web |last=Howard |first=Miles |date=May 7, 2018 |title=Has Mainstream Misogyny Created Space For The 'Incel Rebellion'? |url=http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/05/07/incel-rebellion-miles-howard |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180514213641/http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2018/05/07/incel-rebellion-miles-howard |archive-date=May 14, 2018 |access-date=May 14, 2018 |website=]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Abcarian |first=Robin |date=May 8, 2018 |title=The idea of an 'incel rebellion' would be laughable if it hadn't already resulted in so many murders |url=http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-incels-20180508-story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180514054326/http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-incels-20180508-story.html |archive-date=May 14, 2018 |access-date=May 14, 2018 |website=] |url-access=limited}}</ref> harassment of women,<ref name="Cook-2018" /> including activities such as ].<ref name="Cook-2018" /> According to the ], they form the most violent community within the manosphere.<ref name="ADL-2020">{{Cite web |date=July 30, 2020 |title=Incels (Involuntary celibates) |url=https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/incels-involuntary-celibates |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731020712/https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/incels-involuntary-celibates |archive-date=July 31, 2020 |access-date=August 1, 2020 |website=]}}</ref> In some incel communities, it is common for posts to glorify violence by self-identified incels such as ] (perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings) and Alek Minassian (perpetrator of the ]),<ref name="BBC Incel Hero">{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43892189 |title=Elliot Rodger: How misogynist killer became 'incel hero ' |date=April 26, 2018 |work=BBC News |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180512075225/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43892189 |archive-date=May 12, 2018 |url-status=}}</ref><ref name="Branson-Potts">{{cite web |url=http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-elliot-rodger-incel-20180426-story.html |title=How Elliot Rodger went from misfit mass murderer to 'saint' for group of misogynists — and suspected Toronto killer |last1=Branson-Potts |first1=Hailey |last2=Winton |first2=Richard |date=April 26, 2018 |website=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180513152607/http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-elliot-rodger-incel-20180426-story.html |archive-date=May 13, 2018 |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="Gillies-2021">{{Cite web |last=Gillies |first=Rob |date=March 3, 2021 |title=Man who used van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto guilty |url=https://apnews.com/article/world-news-toronto-alek-minassian-coronavirus-pandemic-15af231df8d4727d78c2456eeebef29a |access-date=March 19, 2021 |website=] |archive-date=April 12, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412151507/https://apnews.com/article/world-news-toronto-alek-minassian-coronavirus-pandemic-15af231df8d4727d78c2456eeebef29a |url-status=live}}</ref> as well as by those they believe shared their ideology such as ] (perpetrator of the 1989 ]),<ref name="Cook-2018" /> ] (perpetrator of the 2007 ]),<ref name="Pennacchia Feb 2016">{{Cite magazine |url=http://bust.com/feminism/15551-mo-beta-blues.html |title='Beta Males' Want To Kill Women Because They Can't Get Laid |last=Pennacchia |first=Robyn |magazine=Bust |date=February–March 2016 |issn=1089-4713 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180507103333/http://bust.com/feminism/15551-mo-beta-blues.html |archive-date=May 7, 2018 |url-status=}}</ref> and George Sodini (perpetrator of the ]).<ref name="Woolf 2014" /> Rodger is the most frequently referenced, often being referred to as their "saint"{{r|Branson-Potts}} with ] in which his face has been superimposed onto paintings of ]. Some incels consider him to be the true progenitor of today's online incel communities.<ref name="Beauchamp-2019" /> The ] described Rodger in 2020 as "the founding father of the incel ideology".<ref>{{Cite news |date=December 14, 2020 |title=Gabrielle Friel: Terror accused 'idolised' Californian spree killer |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-55302122 |access-date=January 29, 2024 |work=] |language=en-GB |archive-date=January 29, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240129163433/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-55302122 |url-status=live}}</ref>
* ]

Some within these communities view violence as the only solution to what they see as societal oppression and abuse against them and speak frequently of incel "uprisings" and "revolts". Others take the more ] view that nothing will change society, even violent acts, and focus their efforts on constructing a scientific justification for this nihilism.<ref name="Blackpill Science: Involuntary Celi"/> Some support the idea of violence as revenge on society, without the hope it will lead to societal change.<ref name="Baele-2019" />

However, other researchers have questioned the degree of violence found in incel communities, with some suggesting that "extreme inceldom looks more like suicidality than violence toward others".<ref name="AHBaP" /> Some violent posts may be motivated by status seeking behavior by individuals on forums, rather than a desire to promote violence.<ref name="Sparks-2022" />{{Rp|page=735}} A 2021 study found that the overwhelming majority of self-identified incels themselves do not think that incel groups promote violence,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Speckhard |first1=Anne |last2=Ellenberg |first2=Molly |last3=Morton |first3=Jesse |last4=Ash |first4=Alexander |date=2021 |title=Involuntary Celibates' Experiences of and Grievance over Sexual Exclusion and the Potential Threat of Violence Among Those Active in an Online Incel Forum |journal=] |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=89–121 |doi=10.5038/1944-0472.14.2.1910 |issn=1944-0464 |jstor=27026635 |jstor-access=free |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Sparks-2022" />{{Rp|page=735}} and a 2022 study found that most self-identified incels surveyed (79%) rejected violence.<ref name="AHBaP" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Moskalenko |first1=Sophia |last2=González |first2=Juncal Fernández-Garayzábal |last3=Kates |first3=Naama |last4=Morton |first4=Jesse |date=January 31, 2022 |title=Incel Ideology, Radicalization and Mental Health: A Survey Study |url=https://journals.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/jicw/article/view/3817 |journal=The Journal of Intelligence, Conflict, and Warfare |language=en |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=1–29 |doi=10.21810/jicw.v4i3.3817 |issn=2561-8229 |doi-access=free |access-date=February 27, 2023 |archive-date=February 27, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227023032/https://journals.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/jicw/article/view/3817 |url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Sexual violence ====
A subgroup of self-identified incels who frequent websites founded by ], who was a ] and active participant in incel communities, work deliberately to convince other self-identified incels that they are justified in raping women if they are rejected sexually.<ref name="Beauchamp-2019" /> Some self-identified incels describe women's sexual rejection of them as "reverse rape", a phenomenon they consider to be equally harmful as rape.<ref name="ADL-2020" />

A September 2022 report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate on the largest dedicated incel forum found that users posted about rape once every 29 minutes during their study period and used the word "kill" 1,181 times in one month. During the study period, 89% of forum users expressed that they support rape in general. According to the report, some posters on the forum try to normalize the idea of ], and more than half the total forum during their study period supported ].<ref name="CCDH-2022" /> The report also exposed that the incel forum site operators had changed a forum rule in March 2022 to allow for the sexualization of ] minors, narrowing an existing rule to outlaw only the sexualization of "pre-pubescent" minors.<ref name="CCDH-2022" /><ref name="incels-rape-murder-study" />

=== In context of related communities ===

Incel communities are a part of the broader ], a loose collection of misogynist movements that also includes ]{{Nbsp}}(MRAs), ]{{Nbsp}}(MGTOW), ]s{{Nbsp}}(PUAs), and ] groups.<ref name="Ging">{{Cite journal |last=Ging |first=Debbie |year=2019 |title=Alphas, Betas, and Incels: Theorizing the Masculinities of the Manosphere |journal=] |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=638–657 |doi=10.1177/1097184x17706401 |s2cid=149239953 |issn=1097-184X |doi-access=}}</ref><ref name="Jones 2020">{{Cite journal |last1=Jones |first1=Callum |last2=Trott |first2=Verity |last3=Wright |first3=Scott |date=2020 |title=Sluts and soyboys: MGTOW and the production of misogynistic online harassment |journal=New Media & Society |volume=22 |issue=10 |pages=1903–1921 |doi=10.1177/1461444819887141 |s2cid=210530415 |issn=1461-4448 |doi-access= |quote=The Manosphere is now home to several different groups, including pickup artists, the more radical 'Incels', father's groups, Men's Rights Activists (MRAs) and the Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) group and each has important differences that need to be unpacked.}}</ref> Journalists for the ''New York Times'' in 2018 wrote that involuntary celibacy is an adaptation of the idea of "male supremacy" and that the communities have evolved into a movement "made up of people—some celibate, some not—who believe that women should be treated as sexual objects with few rights".<ref name="Chokshi Apr 2018">{{Cite news |last=Chokshi |first=Niraj |date=April 24, 2018 |title=What Is an Incel? Explaining a Term Used by the Toronto Van Attack Suspect |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/world/canada/incel-reddit-meaning-rebellion.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425023131/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/world/canada/incel-reddit-meaning-rebellion.html |archive-date=April 25, 2018 |issn=0362-4331 |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="Bowles May 2018" /> The ] (SPLC) also described the subculture as "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem", which they began including in their list of hate groups in 2018.<ref name="Judy-2018" /> While the incel ideology involves the belief that one is physically inferior to the rest of society, often referring to oneself as "subhuman", researchers have agreed that self-identified incels also espouse supremacist views: either that they are superior to women, or superior to non-incels in general.<ref name="Baele-2019" /><ref name="Dastagir-2018" /><ref name="Tait-2018">{{cite web |last=Tait |first=Amelia |date=May 8, 2018 |title=We must try to understand how unwanted virginity leads self-hating incels to murder |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/2018/05/we-must-try-understand-how-unwanted-virginity-leads-self-hating-incels-murder |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180528133904/https://www.newstatesman.com/2018/05/we-must-try-understand-how-unwanted-virginity-leads-self-hating-incels-murder |archive-date=May 28, 2018 |access-date=May 28, 2018 |website=]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Sisley |first=Dominique |date=December 13, 2019 |title=The Story of the Incel Is the Story of the 2010s |url=https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/m7qqen/what-is-an-incel-how-incel-culture-grew-2010s |access-date=May 26, 2020 |website=] |archive-date=May 15, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200515225419/https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/m7qqen/what-is-an-incel-how-incel-culture-grew-2010s |url-status=live}}</ref> A 2019 study published in '']'' found that self-identified incels believe themselves to be the only ones who are "capable of ] values and intelligent enough ('high ]') to see the truth about the social world". The study determined that they followed a pattern that is typical of extremist groups, ascribing highly negative values to ] and positive values to in-groups, with the unusual caveat that despite seeing themselves as psychologically superior, they also view themselves negatively in terms of physical appearance.<ref name="Baele-2019" />

Incel communities sometimes overlap with communities such as Men Going Their Own Way,<ref name="qz" /> men's rights activism, people who believe they are experiencing "true forced loneliness" (TFL),<ref name="tfl" /> and pickup artistry,<ref name="Baker-2016b" /><ref name="Woolf 2014" /> although at least one incel website has expressed hatred for pickup artistry and accused pickup artists and ]es of financially exploiting incels.<ref name="Woolf 2014" /><ref>{{cite web |last=Sherwell |first=Philip |date=May 31, 2014 |title=Elliot Rodger: How Hollywood tried and failed to save a mass killer |url=https://www.smh.com.au/world/elliot-rodger-how-hollywood-tried-and-failed-to-save-a-mass-killer-20140601-zru5n.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612162040/https://www.smh.com.au/world/elliot-rodger-how-hollywood-tried-and-failed-to-save-a-mass-killer-20140601-zru5n.html |archive-date=June 12, 2018 |access-date=June 10, 2018 |website=]}}</ref><ref name="busi_Onli">{{cite web |last=Gell |first=Aaron |date=May 24, 2014 |title=Online Forum For Sexually Frustrated Men Reacts To News That Mass Shooter May Be One Of Their Own |url=http://www.businessinsider.com/ucsb-shooting-forum-associated-with-elliot-rodger-reacts-2014-5 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612143614/http://www.businessinsider.com/ucsb-shooting-forum-associated-with-elliot-rodger-reacts-2014-5 |archive-date=June 12, 2018 |access-date=June 10, 2018 |website=]}}</ref> Media scholar Debbie Ging writes that incels' discourse around "victimhood and aggrieved entitlement" began on 4chan and has spread into more mainstream groups such as men's rights activists (MRAs) and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW).{{r|Ging}} Incel communities have also been observed to overlap with ] groups, with the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right noting that the subculture is "part of a growing trend of ] movements" that are distressed by ], especially women's empowerment and immigration.<ref name="Gilmore Nov 2019">{{Cite web |last=Gilmore |first=Justin |date=November 11, 2019 |title=Incels: The New Politics of Indifference |url=https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2019/11/11/incels-the-new-politics-of-indifference/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200605095822/https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2019/11/11/incels-the-new-politics-of-indifference/ |archive-date=June 5, 2020 |access-date=May 26, 2020 |website=Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right}}</ref><ref name="Hoffman-2020" /> Hoffman and colleagues, publishing in ''Studies in Conflict & Terrorism'', stated that "a particularly worrisome trend is how seamlessly the militant incel community has been integrated into the alt-right tapestry, with common grievances and intermingling membership bringing the two extremisms closer together".<ref name="Hoffman-2020" /> {{Lang|de|]}} reported in March 2021 on the overlap between the incel community and the ], a group modeled after the ], a ] terrorist network.<ref name="Baumgartner-Der_Spiegel" />

== Lexicology ==
The term "involuntary celibate" (shortened to "incel") refers to self-identifying members of an online subculture based around the inability to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, a state they describe as "inceldom" or "incelibacy".<ref name="Beauchamp-2018">{{cite news |url=https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25/17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian |title=Incel, the misogynist ideology that inspired the deadly Toronto attack, explained |last1=Beauchamp |first1=Zack |date=April 25, 2018 |website=] |publisher=] |location=New York City |access-date=May 5, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180505073901/https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25/17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian |archive-date=May 5, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Taub May 2018" /><ref name="Mezzofiore-2018" /><ref>{{cite web |title=When a Mass Murderer Has a Cult Following |url=https://www.thecut.com/2018/04/incel-meaning-rebellion-alex-minassian-elliot-rodger-reddit.html |last=Futrelle |first=David |date=April 27, 2018 |website=] |publisher=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180506145559/https://www.thecut.com/2018/04/incel-meaning-rebellion-alex-minassian-elliot-rodger-reddit.html |archive-date=May 6, 2018 |access-date=May 5, 2018}}</ref> It is sometimes used interchangeably or alongside other terms, such as "love-shy" (describing those with ] or excessive shyness preventing romantic success),<ref name="Dewey 2015" /><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hudson |first1=Jennifer L. |last2=Rapee |first2=Ronald M. |date=2000 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224826363 |title=The Origins of Social Phobia |journal=] |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=102–129 |doi=10.1177/0145445500241006 |pmid=10641370 |s2cid=2067720 |access-date=February 20, 2020 |archive-date=May 13, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240513100016/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224826363_The_Origins_of_Social_Phobia |url-status=live}}</ref> "FA" (short for "forever alone"),<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/columnists/andreatta/2018/05/04/loneliest-generation-social-media/581306002/ |title=Andreatta: Feeling lonely? You're not alone |last=Andreatta |first=David |date=May 4, 2018 |work=] |access-date=May 16, 2018 |archive-date=September 20, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200920074816/https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/local/columnists/andreatta/2018/05/04/loneliest-generation-social-media/581306002/ |url-status=live}}</ref> "unfuckability",<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Srinivasan |first=Amia |author-link=Amia Srinivasan |date=March 22, 2018 |title=Does anyone have the right to sex? |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n06/amia-srinivasan/does-anyone-have-the-right-to-sex |url-status=live |journal=] |volume=40 |issue=6 |pages=5–10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612141359/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n06/amia-srinivasan/does-anyone-have-the-right-to-sex |archive-date=June 12, 2018 |access-date=June 10, 2018}}</ref> "omegas",<ref name="janicet"/> "betas",<ref name="psmagberan"/> "betafags",{{r|Ging}} "the undersexed",<ref>{{Cite news |last=Long |first=Camilla |author-link=Camilla Long |date=April 29, 2018 |title=Kanye West always turns out to know best. So don't patronise him for loving Trump |work=] |url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kanye-west-always-turns-out-to-know-best-so-dont-patronise-him-for-loving-trump-drqrd66gj |url-status=live |access-date=August 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180810010742/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kanye-west-always-turns-out-to-know-best-so-dont-patronise-him-for-loving-trump-drqrd66gj |archive-date=August 10, 2018 |issn=0140-0460 |url-access=limited}} {{registration required}}</ref> or "the sexless".<ref name="Wood-2018">{{Cite news |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/toronto-van-incel/558836/ |title=ISIS Tactics Have Spread to Other Violent Actors |last=Wood |first=Graeme |author-link=Graeme Wood (journalist) |date=April 24, 2018 |magazine=] |location=Boston, Massachusetts |access-date=May 4, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180503180554/https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/toronto-van-incel/558836/ |archive-date=May 3, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Alana, the coiner of the term "incel", initially considered using other terms such as "perpetually single" or "dating shy".<ref name="Zimmer-2018" />

Members of incel communities regularly use ] and a distinct dialect.<ref name="qz">{{Cite news |url=https://qz.com/1092037/the-alt-right-is-creating-its-own-dialect-heres-a-complete-guide/ |title=The alt-right is creating its own dialect. Here's the dictionary |last1=Sonnad |first1=Nikhil |date=October 30, 2017 |work=] |access-date=June 8, 2018 |last2=Squirrell |first2=Tim |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180307194831/https://qz.com/1092037/the-alt-right-is-creating-its-own-dialect-heres-a-complete-guide/ |archive-date=March 7, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> They often use dehumanizing and vulgar terms for women, such as "femoids" (a portmanteau of "female ]",<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kelly |first1=Megan |title=Misogynist Incels and Male Supremacism: Overview and Recommendations for Addressing the Threat of Male Supremacist Violence |last2=DiBranco |first2=Alex |last3=DeCook |first3=Julia R. |date=February 18, 2021 |publisher=] |chapter=Increasing Rhetoric of Dehumanization |chapter-url=https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/misogynist-incels-and-male-supremacism/increasing-rhetoric-of-dehumanization |access-date=June 20, 2023 |archive-date=March 23, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230323230450/https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/misogynist-incels-and-male-supremacism/increasing-rhetoric-of-dehumanization/ |url-status=live}}</ref> sometimes shortened further to "foids") and "roasties" (a reference to the ], which incels falsely<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Clerico |first1=C. |last2=Lari |first2=A. |last3=Mojallal |first3=A. |last4=Boucher |first4=F. |date=March 10, 2017 |title=Anatomy and Aesthetics of the Labia Minora: The Ideal Vulva? |journal=] |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=714–719 |doi=10.1007/s00266-017-0831-1 |pmid=28314908 |s2cid=4738537 |issn=0364-216X}}</ref> believe changes shape and begins to resemble sliced ] after a woman becomes sexually active).<ref name="Baele-2019" /><ref name="Waśniewska p76">{{Cite book |last=Waśniewska |first=Małgorzata |title=Cultural Conceptualizations in Language and Communication |publisher=Springer Nature |year=2020 |isbn=978-3-030-42734-4 |editor-last=Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk |editor-first=Barbara |location=Cham, Switzerland |page=76 |chapter=The Red Pill, Unicorns and White Knights: Cultural Symbolism and Conceptual Metaphor in the Slang of Online Incel Communities |series=Second Language Learning and Teaching |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-42734-4_4 |s2cid=226470277}}</ref>{{anchor|AnchorBecky}} They refer to attractive, sexually active women as "Stacys", less attractive sexually active women as "Beckys"<!-- Not wikilinked to ] because that describes a different usage of the term -->, and attractive sexually active men as "]" (and recently, "Tyrone" - black men equivalent).<ref name="Solon" /><ref name="Lavin-2018">{{Cite news |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/05/03/the-harpy-someone-please-tell-the-times-that-incels-are-terrorists/ |title=Someone Please Tell the Times That Incels Are Terrorists |last=Lavin |first=Talia |date=May 3, 2018 |work=] |access-date=May 14, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180514142143/https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/05/03/the-harpy-someone-please-tell-the-times-that-incels-are-terrorists/ |archive-date=May 14, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> People who are average-looking but not incels are "normies".<ref name="Baele-2019" /> "Mogging" refers to the act of eclipsing another person in terms of physical appearance and thereby undermining them. ] is an attempt at enhancing one's appearance by methods including getting a haircut and dressing nicely, taking ] and working out, undergoing ], or engaging in alternative techniques such as ] to improve facial aesthetics.<ref name="tfl" /><ref name="ADL-2020" /><ref name="allieconti">{{cite web |url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xmaze/learn-to-decode-the-secret-language-of-the-incel-subculture |title=Learn to Decode the Secret Language of the Incel Subculture |last=Contie |first=Allie |date=June 26, 2018 |website=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180710021620/https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xmaze/learn-to-decode-the-secret-language-of-the-incel-subculture |archive-date=July 10, 2018 |url-status=live |access-date=July 17, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/d3medj/mewing-is-the-fringe-orthodontic-technique-taking-over-youtube |title=Mewing Is the Fringe Orthodontic Technique Taking Over YouTube |date=March 11, 2019 |website=Vice.com |last=Cresci |first=Elena |access-date=November 5, 2022 |archive-date=November 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221105135722/https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/d3medj/mewing-is-the-fringe-orthodontic-technique-taking-over-youtube |url-status=live}}</ref> The abbreviation "]" refers to people who do not have jobs and are not attending school: "not in education, employment, or training".<ref name="psmagberan">{{Cite news |url=https://psmag.com/news/who-are-the-incels-of-4chan-and-why-are-they-so-angry |title=Who Are the 'Incels' of 4chan, and Why Are They So Angry? |last=Beran |first=Dale |date=May 3, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180812022039/https://psmag.com/news/who-are-the-incels-of-4chan-and-why-are-they-so-angry |archive-date=August 12, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

{{anchor|AnchorVariants}}Members of incel communities use many variations of the term "incel" to refer to subgroups within the community, such as "volcels" (voluntary celibate; someone who chooses to forego sexual intercourse), "fakecels" (those who claim to be incel, but in reality have recently had sex or been in a relationship), and "truecels" (true incels; men who have never had any sexual or romantic encounters).<ref name="ADL-2020" /><ref name="elconfi" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=O'Haver |first=Hanson |date=February 13, 2017 |title=What Swearing Off Sex Does to Your Brain |work=] |url=https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/j5epex/what-abstinence-does-to-your-brain |url-status=live |access-date=June 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612141720/https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/j5epex/what-abstinence-does-to-your-brain |archive-date=June 12, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://dailyhive.com/toronto/incel-rebellion-information-toronto-van-attack |title=What you need to know about 'The Incel Rebellion' |last1=Nolan-Smith |first1=Peter |date=April 24, 2018 |work=] |access-date=June 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612144011/http://dailyhive.com/toronto/incel-rebellion-information-toronto-van-attack |archive-date=June 12, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> There are also a number of race-based variations of the term "incel" which refer to people who believe their race is the reason behind their inability to find a partner, including "currycels" (people of South Asian ancestry) and "ricecels" (those of Chinese or Southeast Asian backgrounds), or collectively, "ethnicels".<ref name="spiked" /><ref name="jenningsracked">{{Cite news |last=Jennings |first=Rebecca |date=August 6, 2018 |title=Incels' Obsession With Looks Is Based on Fake Math |work=] |url=https://www.racked.com/2018/8/6/17616870/incels-looksmax |url-status=live |access-date=August 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180826043900/https://www.racked.com/2018/8/6/17616870/incels-looksmax |archive-date=August 26, 2018}}</ref><ref name="currycels">{{cite web |url=https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/currycels-and-the-unsurprising-racism-of-the-incel-community |title='Currycels' and the Unsurprising Racism of the Incel Community |last=Kesvani |first=Hussein |date=July 9, 2019 |work=] |url-status=live |access-date=December 28, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191227193417/https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/currycels-and-the-unsurprising-racism-of-the-incel-community |archive-date=December 27, 2019}}</ref>

There are also disease-based terms such as "gynocel" or "gynecomastiacel" (a man who is an incel because he suffers from ]).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Prażmo |first=Ewelina |date=June 24, 2024 |title=Affixmaxxing or the emergence of new derivational affixes in online discourse: A construction morphology approach |url=https://topling.ukf.sk/index.php/topling/article/view/143 |journal=Topics in Linguistics |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=70–82 |doi=10.17846/topling-2024-0005}}</ref>

Incels refer to their own amateur scientific (sometimes ]) experiments where they use a very good looking man's pictures on online dating apps as "Chadfishing".<ref name="Halpin 2022"/>

"Incel" has also come to be used as an insult against people who do not necessarily identify with the subculture, but who are perceived to be sexually inexperienced, undesirable, or unpopular.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Orland |first1=Kyle |date=December 17, 2020 |title="Simp," "incel" part of newly banned insults on Twitch |url=https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/12/twitch-will-ban-incel-and-virgin-as-sexual-insults/ |access-date=October 8, 2022 |website=Ars Technica |archive-date=December 18, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201218014248/https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/12/twitch-will-ban-incel-and-virgin-as-sexual-insults/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Chen |first=Lauren |date=January 22, 2020 |title=The trouble with designating 'incels' a terror threat |url=https://thespectator.com/topic/trouble-designating-incels-terror-threat/ |access-date=June 20, 2023 |website=] |language=en-US |archive-date=June 20, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230620010346/https://thespectator.com/topic/trouble-designating-incels-terror-threat/ |url-status=live}}</ref>
== Demographics ==
Self-identified incels are mostly male and ], and are often described as young and friendless ].{{refn|<ref name="guardianvanattack">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/24/toronto-van-attack-facebook-post-may-link-suspect-with-incel-group |title=Toronto van attack: Facebook post may link suspect to misogynist 'incel' subculture |last1=Wilson |first1=Jason |date=April 25, 2018 |newspaper=] |location=London, England |access-date=April 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425010650/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/24/toronto-van-attack-facebook-post-may-link-suspect-with-incel-group |archive-date=April 25, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Wood-2018" /><ref name="Ohlheiser-Talbot-CBC-Rouner">{{Multiref2
| {{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/04/25/inside-the-online-world-of-incels-the-dark-corner-of-the-internet-linked-to-the-toronto-suspect |title=Inside the online world of 'incels,' the dark corner of the Internet linked to the Toronto suspect |last1=Ohlheiser |first1=Abby |date=April 25, 2018 |newspaper=The Washington Post |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180518040456/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/04/25/inside-the-online-world-of-incels-the-dark-corner-of-the-internet-linked-to-the-toronto-suspect |archive-date=May 18, 2018 |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}
| {{cite news |url=http://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/04/24/incel-rebellion-van-facebook-post |title='Incel Rebellion has already begun': Expert explains van suspect's cryptic Facebook post |last=Talbot |first=Michael |date=April 24, 2018 |website=] |publisher=] |location=Toronto, Ontario, Canada |access-date=May 28, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180529011602/http://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/04/24/incel-rebellion-van-facebook-post |archive-date=May 29, 2018 |url-status=live}}
| {{cite news |url=http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-26-2018-1.4636157/violent-misogyny-found-in-incel-is-a-form-of-terrorism-says-author-1.4636164 |title=Violent misogyny found in 'incel' is a form of terrorism, says author |date=April 26, 2018 |work=] |access-date=May 20, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180531223934/http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-26-2018-1.4636157/violent-misogyny-found-in-incel-is-a-form-of-terrorism-says-author-1.4636164 |archive-date=May 31, 2018 |url-status=live}}
| {{cite news |url=http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/the-myth-that-incels-want-sex-10443838 |title=Incels Want Gender Terrorism, Not Sex |last=Rouner |first=Jef |date=May 3, 2018 |newspaper=] |location=Houston, Texas |access-date=May 29, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180529202940/http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/the-myth-that-incels-want-sex-10443838 |archive-date=May 29, 2018 |url-status=live}} }}</ref><ref name="Beauchamp-2019" /><ref name="Solon"/><ref name="Kini-2017" /><ref name="tfl"/>}} Estimates of the size of incel communities during 2018–2020 varied,<ref name="Baker-2016b" /><ref name="janicet">{{cite news |last1=Turner |first1=Janice |author-link=Janice Turner |date=April 28, 2018 |title=Self-hating 'incel' men are the new jihadists |work=] |url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/self-hating-incel-men-are-the-new-jihadis-5rz37h9s9 |url-status=live |access-date=June 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180606061307/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/self-hating-incel-men-are-the-new-jihadis-5rz37h9s9 |archive-date=June 6, 2018 |url-access=limited}} {{registration required}}</ref><ref name="ross">{{cite news |url=http://theconversation.com/how-a-masculine-culture-that-favors-sexual-conquests-gave-us-todays-incels-97221 |title=How a masculine culture that favors sexual conquests gave us today's 'incels' |last1=Haenfler |first1=Ross |date=June 6, 2018 |work=] |access-date=June 6, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180610123327/http://theconversation.com/how-a-masculine-culture-that-favors-sexual-conquests-gave-us-todays-incels-97221 |archive-date=June 10, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> and ranged from the thousands, to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands.<ref name="Kassam-2018" /><ref name="Beauchamp-2019">{{Cite web |url=https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/4/16/18287446/incel-definition-reddit |title=The rise of incels: How a support group for the dateless became a violent internet subculture |last=Beauchamp |first=Zack |date=April 16, 2019 |website=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191008003701/https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/4/16/18287446/incel-definition-reddit |archive-date=October 8, 2019 |url-status=live |access-date=April 24, 2019}}</ref><ref name="Williams-2018" /><ref name="ADL">{{Cite web |date=September 10, 2020 |title=Online Poll Results Provide New Insights into Incel Community |url=https://www.adl.org/blog/online-poll-results-provide-new-insights-into-incel-community |access-date=December 26, 2021 |website=] |archive-date=January 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116200507/https://www.adl.org/blog/online-poll-results-provide-new-insights-into-incel-community |url-status=live}}</ref> A statistical analysis of the largest incel forum shows that only a few hundred accounts made up the vast majority of forum posts during all of 2021 and most of 2022.<ref name="CCDH-2022"/>

Incel communities are largely made up of ] who feel they have not met their sexual milestones "on time".<ref name="j054">{{cite web |last=Justin |first=Kyle J |last2=Shepler |first2=Dustin K. |last3=Kinel |first3=Joseph R |date=June 27, 2022 |title=She’s Just Not That Into Me: Sexual Self-Concept Among Heterosexual Men Who Identify as Involuntary Celibates |url=https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/jsbhs/vol16/iss1/9/ |access-date=November 25, 2024 |website=ScholarWorks}}</ref> Approximately half of incels live with their parents or grandparents.<ref name="Whittaker 2024" />

Many sources describe incels as predominantly ]. Sociologist Ross Haenfler was quoted in ''The Washington Post'' describing them as primarily white.<ref name="Ohlheiser Apr 2018">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/04/25/inside-the-online-world-of-incels-the-dark-corner-of-the-internet-linked-to-the-toronto-suspect |title=Inside the online world of 'incels,' the dark corner of the Internet linked to the Toronto suspect |last1=Ohlheiser |first1=Abby |date=April 25, 2018 |newspaper=The Washington Post |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180518040456/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/04/25/inside-the-online-world-of-incels-the-dark-corner-of-the-internet-linked-to-the-toronto-suspect |archive-date=May 18, 2018 |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}</ref> Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center echoed this to ], saying they are "young, frustrated white males in their late teens into their early twenties who are having a hard time adjusting to adulthood".<ref name="Collins-2018"/> Jaki and colleagues, publishing ] of a large incel forum in ''The Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict'' in June 2019, contended that "contrary to what is often reported" there was no definitive evidence that the group is predominantly white, and that "it is impossible to say whether the majority of users are white men, but our data implies that this may be less true than expected". They suggested that the various mentions of race on the forum "may reflect, to some extent, the ethnic variety of the forum".<ref name="Jaki" /> Hoffman and colleagues, publishing in ''Studies in Conflict & Terrorism'', reported that a March 2020 survey of the same forum determined that most respondents self-identified as Caucasian.<ref name="Hoffman-2020" />

A survey of self-identified incels by researchers from the University of Texas found that incels tended to be slightly ]. They are significantly left in questions about homosexuality, corporate profits and welfare benefits.<ref name="Whittaker 2024">{{cite web |url=https://labs.la.utexas.edu/buss/files/2024/02/140224SISNETIncelReport.pdf |title=Predicting Harm Among Incels (Involuntary Celibates): The Roles of Mental Health, Ideological Belief and Social Networking |author=Joe Whittaker, William Costello & Andrew G. Thomas |date=February 2024 |publisher=University of Texas |access-date=February 20, 2024 |archive-date=February 20, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240220111602/https://labs.la.utexas.edu/buss/files/2024/02/140224SISNETIncelReport.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref> In an earlier study, researchers from the University of Texas ran a poll of self-reported incels, which found that 63.58% of those who responded identified as white, a smaller percentage than non-incels in the study. They also found that 45% of incels who responded leaned to the left on the ], 17.5% were centrists, and 38.9% leaned to the right, showing no differences between the incel and the control group of the study.<ref name="UTexas-2022">{{Cite web |title='Incels' are not particularly right-wing or white, but they are extremely depressed, anxious, and lonely, according to new research |url=https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/news/incels-are-not-particularly-right-wing-or-white-but-they-are-extremely-depressed-anxious-and-lonely-according-to-new-research |access-date=February 4, 2023 |website=liberalarts.utexas.edu |language=en |archive-date=February 4, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230204030731/https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/news/incels-are-not-particularly-right-wing-or-white-but-they-are-extremely-depressed-anxious-and-lonely-according-to-new-research |url-status=live}}</ref>
Self-identified incels are mainly located in North America and Europe, although there are also incel communities for people outside the ], such as the Italian website {{lang|it|Il Forum dei Brutti}}.<ref name="spectate" /><ref name="Hoffman-2020" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=April 26, 2018 |title=Chi sono gli Incel, i single che odiano le donne come l'attentatore di Toronto |language=it |trans-title=Who are the Incels, the single people who hate women like the Toronto bomber |work=] |url=https://www.esquire.com/it/news/a20069389/chi-sono-gli-incel-i-single-che-odiano-le-donne-come-lattentatore-di-toronto |url-status=live |access-date=September 1, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190424004501/https://www.esquire.com/it/news/a20069389/chi-sono-gli-incel-i-single-che-odiano-le-donne-come-lattentatore-di-toronto |archive-date=April 24, 2019}}</ref> The English language forums also receive much traffic from non-Anglophone countries. Research published in 2020 by the ] (FOI) on the three largest incel forums found they had a total of about 20,000 users, with only about 1,000 who post actively. The FOI found that between 4.6 and 7.3% of the visitors to the forums originated from Sweden, though they caution this may not be accurate given the use of personal ]s.<ref name="EklundMar2020">{{cite web |url=https://www.gp.se/nyheter/sverige/sverige-kan-vara-incel-t%C3%A4tast-i-v%C3%A4rlden-1.24906869 |title=Sverige kan vara incel-tätast i världen |last=Eklund |first=Henning |date=March 4, 2020 |website=] |language=sv |access-date=March 11, 2020 |archive-date=November 27, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201127143112/https://www.gp.se/nyheter/sverige/sverige-kan-vara-incel-t%C3%A4tast-i-v%C3%A4rlden-1.24906869 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Some media outlets depict incels as unemployed or NEET ("not in education, employment, or training") and living with parents.<ref name="Dewey 2015" />

== Female incels ==
The first incel website, Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project, was gender-inclusive.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.voanews.com/a/toronto-van-attack-spotlights-extremist-mens-movement/4376624.html |title=Canada Van Attack Spotlights Online Men's Movement |last=Farivar |first=Masood |date=May 3, 2018 |work=] |access-date=June 6, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612135949/https://www.voanews.com/a/toronto-van-attack-spotlights-extremist-mens-movement/4376624.html |archive-date=June 12, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> There have been more contemporary female-specific incel (or "femcel") communities, such as ]<ref name="Kohn Feb 2020">{{cite web |last=Kohn |first=Isabelle |date=February 10, 2020 |title=Inside the World of 'Femcels' |url=https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/femcels-vs-incels-meaning-reddit-discord |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200221002903/https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/femcels-vs-incels-meaning-reddit-discord |archive-date=February 21, 2020 |website=] |publisher=Dollar Shave Club}}</ref> and its successor ''ThePinkPill''.<ref name="Schofield Mar 2021">{{Cite web |last=Schofield |first=Daisy |date=March 29, 2021 |title=Inside the online 'safe space' for female incels |url=https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/tech/inside-the-online-safe-space-for-femcels |access-date=December 8, 2021 |website=] |archive-date=December 7, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211207234559/https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/tech/inside-the-online-safe-space-for-femcels/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Aronowitz Sep 2021">{{Cite news |last=Aronowitz |first=Nona Willis |date=September 1, 2021 |title=The Femcel Revolution |work=] |url=https://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/a37288143/0168-0169-the-femcel-revolution-september-2021 |access-date=December 13, 2021 |archive-date=December 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211204002010/https://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/a37288143/0168-0169-the-femcel-revolution-september-2021/ |url-status=live}}</ref> {{As of|2020|2}}, the most popular female incel forum was the r/TruFemcels subreddit, with over 22,000 members.{{r|Kohn Feb 2020}} It was banned in January 2021 for violating Reddit's rules against promoting hate.{{r|Aronowitz Sep 2021|Schofield Mar 2021}} Another subreddit reportedly associated with self-identified female incels is r/Vindicta, which contains beauty advice.<ref name="Serrano-2022" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Cortés |first=Michelle Santiago |date=April 14, 2022 |title=In the Pursuit of Hotness: How one sub-Reddit community is defining our beauty standards — and then striving for them at all costs. |work=The Cut |publisher=] |url=https://www.thecut.com/2022/04/how-to-be-hot-subreddit.html |access-date=June 3, 2022 |archive-date=May 13, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240513100003/https://www.thecut.com/2022/04/how-to-be-hot-subreddit.html |url-status=live}}</ref> There are also hashtags pertaining to the idea of female incels in use on ], such as #femcel, #femcelcore and #femcelrights, which as of 2022, have over 250 million views.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Colombo |first=Charlotte |date=March 20, 2022 |title=2022 is the year of the 'femcel' - what you need to know |url=https://metro.co.uk/2022/03/20/2022-is-the-year-of-the-femcel-what-you-need-to-know-16308546/ |access-date=June 24, 2023 |website=Metro |language=en |archive-date=June 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230624032357/https://metro.co.uk/2022/03/20/2022-is-the-year-of-the-femcel-what-you-need-to-know-16308546/ |url-status=live}}</ref> There are reported to be tens of thousands of women self-identifying as female incels on the internet.{{r|Kohn Feb 2020}}

Nonetheless, there is disagreement in online incel communities on whether women can be incels, with some claiming that male incels grossly outnumber female incels,<ref name="Horton Nov 2017">{{Cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/09/reddit-bans-message-board-men-blame-women-celibacy |title=Reddit bans message board where men blame women for their celibacy |last=Horton |first=Helena |date=November 9, 2017 |work=The Daily Telegraph |issn=0307-1235 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180524031529/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/09/reddit-bans-message-board-men-blame-women-celibacy |archive-date=May 24, 2018 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription}}</ref> others claiming that it is impossible for women to be incels at all,<ref name="Baker-2016b" /><ref name="Serrano-2022">{{Cite news |last=Serrano |first=Beatriz |date=May 16, 2022 |title=Femcels: The 'involuntarily celibate' women who say they are barred from sex and romance |work=] English Edition |url=https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-05-17/femcels-the-involuntarily-celibate-women-who-say-they-are-barred-from-sex-and-romance.html |access-date=June 1, 2022 |archive-date=May 13, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240513095933/https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-05-17/femcels-the-involuntarily-celibate-women-who-say-they-are-barred-from-sex-and-romance.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Hullander |first=Megan |date=December 17, 2021 |title=Inside the incelosphere, where the lonely get lonelier |work=] |url=https://www.documentjournal.com/2021/12/inside-the-incelosphere-where-the-lonely-get-lonelier |access-date=June 3, 2022 |quote=IncelWiki's "femcel" page, which, along with the vocal majority of incels, largely denies the notion that women can be incels, states that "it is generally accepted that involuntarily celibate women don't exist." |archive-date=August 18, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220818174510/https://www.documentjournal.com/2021/12/inside-the-incelosphere-where-the-lonely-get-lonelier/ |url-status=live}}</ref> others claiming that only "severely ]" women can be incels,<ref name="Jennings 2018b">{{cite news |last1=Jennings |first1=Rebecca |title=Incels Categorize Women by Personal Style and Attractiveness |url=https://www.vox.com/2018/4/28/17290256/incel-chad-stacy-becky |access-date=26 December 2024 |work=Vox |date=28 April 2018}}</ref> and others arguing that only unattractive women belonging to the "bottom percentile in terms of appearance" can be incels.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://splinternews.com/unfuckable-women-dont-go-on-killing-sprees-1825746733 |title='Unfuckable' Women Don't Go on Killing Sprees |last1=Alptraum |first1=Lux |date=May 3, 2018 |work=] |access-date=May 23, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180505014929/https://splinternews.com/unfuckable-women-dont-go-on-killing-sprees-1825746733 |archive-date=May 5, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Members of male incel communities often reject the concept of a female incel, believing that all women can obtain sex from men, and believing that self-identified female incels are voluntarily celibate. Members of male incel communities may also troll female incels.<ref name="Hart 2023" /> According to the Anti-Defamation League, the majority of self-identified incels do not believe women can be incels.<ref name="ADL-2020" /> Journalists have written that outside of the female incels' own communities, few believe women can be incels.<ref name="Kohn Feb 2020" /><ref name="MahdawiFeb2020" /><ref name="ChesterDec2019" /> M. Kelly wrote for the Political Research Associates in 2021 that members of incel communities point to the existence of female incels as an argument against criticisms of them as misogynist, but that most incel communities do not accept them and ban them from using their forums.<ref name="Kelly-2021" />

Female incel communities are also generally overlooked within academic literature about incels. Like members of male incel communities, female incel community members tend to believe that they are victims to their ugliness and think that only unattractive men will date them. They call more attractive looking women "Staceys", who they believe decrease their chance of having sexual contact with men, similar to discussion of "Chads" in male incel forums. They have adopted the idea of the "pink pill", which has been likened to "red pill" and "black pill" terminology, and which describes a belief that some women are considered undesirable and thus are unable to engage in sexual relationships due to society's focus on certain aspects of female attractiveness. Members of female incel communities are more likely to self-blame rather than blaming men for their dating and sexual difficulties. This may be due to gender stereotypes, such as the belief that women do not have a "natural" need for sex.<ref name="Hart 2023" /> Some women identifying as incels believe they could have ], but fear it would only be from men who would abuse or disrespect them.<ref name="Kohn Feb 2020" /><ref name="MahdawiFeb2020">{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/19/why-only-care-incels-men-involuntary-celibacy |title=Why do we only care about incels when they are men? |last=Mahdawi |first=Arwa |date=February 19, 2020 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200303072403/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/19/why-only-care-incels-men-involuntary-celibacy |archive-date=March 3, 2020 |access-date=March 3, 2020}}</ref><ref name="ChesterDec2019">{{cite web |url=https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/tech/meet-the-women-of-the-incel-movement |title=Meet the women of the incel movement |last=Chester |first=Nick |date=December 5, 2019 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200107174909/https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/tech/meet-the-women-of-the-incel-movement |archive-date=January 7, 2020 |access-date=March 3, 2020}}</ref> Within online female incel communities, misogyny and an impossible ] are also perceived as reasons for female celibacy.<ref name="Aronowitz Sep 2021" /><ref name="Cernik-2021">{{Cite web |last=Cernik |first=Lizzie |date=October 18, 2021 |title='I feel hurt that my life has ended up here': The women who are involuntary celibates |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/18/i-feel-hurt-that-my-life-has-ended-up-here-the-women-who-are-involuntary-celibates |access-date=November 14, 2021 |website=The Guardian |archive-date=November 13, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211113180027/https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/18/i-feel-hurt-that-my-life-has-ended-up-here-the-women-who-are-involuntary-celibates |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Samuelson |first=Kate |date=October 21, 2021 |title=What are femcels? |work=] |url=https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/society/954515/what-are-femcels |access-date=December 13, 2021 |archive-date=May 13, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240513095933/https://theweek.com/news/society/954515/what-are-femcels |url-status=live}}</ref> Many other women have similar problems, but do not self-identify as female incels.<ref name="Cernik-2021" />

Some female incel communities have been critical of ] and mainstream feminism, viewing them as unhelpful to female incels: a former member of the r/TruFemcels community was quoted in '']'' saying, "I'd rather be able to talk about being ugly than just try to convince myself that I'm pretty".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Tiffany |first=Kaitlyn |date=May 12, 2022 |title=What Do Female Incels Really Want? |work=The Atlantic |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/05/femcel-meaning-female-incel-reddit/629836 |access-date=May 12, 2022 |archive-date=May 12, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220512111251/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/05/femcel-meaning-female-incel-reddit/629836/ |url-status=live}}</ref> An expert in psychology interviewed by '']'' characterized these communities as overly insular and skeptical of outsiders (who are deemed "normies"), in what she described as "cognitive inflexibility". She also stated that, "US culture is less sociable. In Spain, would have completely different characteristics... I don't think it would have the same number of followers, to begin with, because in Spain we are more encouraging of interpersonal relationships, and the development of social skills."<ref name="Serrano-2022" />

Women who identify as incels share some similarities with their male counterparts, such as belief that physical appearance is the most important factor in finding a partner. In other ways they tend to be different; for example, according to journalist Isabelle Kohn, rather than being angry at the men who reject them, they empathize with the men for not wanting to date them. Kohn notes the tendency for women identifying as incels to turn their rage inwards, rather than outwards like males.<ref name="Kohn Feb 2020" /> Journalist Arwa Mahdawi hypothesizes that the fact that females who identify as incels do not go on violent rampages like some of their male counterparts is the most obvious reason why they have not received much attention in mainstream media.<ref name ="MahdawiFeb2020"/> In February 2020, Kohn wrote that she could find "mountains" of academic papers on male incels, but none on female incels. She says the assumption that female incels do not exist adds to their pain.<ref name = "Kohn Feb 2020"/> Continued neglect of research on female incels was reported in 2024.<ref name="Femcell2024">{{Cite journal |last1=Rae Evans |first1=Hannah |last2=Lankford |first2=Adam |date=2024 |title=Femcel Discussions of Sex, Frustration, Power, and Revenge |journal=] |volume=53 |issue=3 |pages=917–930 |doi=10.1007/s10508-023-02796-z |pmid=38243101}}</ref>

== Mental health ==

"Involuntary celibacy" is not a medical or psychological condition. Some people who identify as incel have physical disabilities or psychological disorders such as ], ], ], and ].<ref name="Tait-2018"/> A 2022 study found that self-identified incels had higher rates of depression, anxiety, and formal mental diagnoses than the general population: 95% reported depression and 93% reported anxiety. 38% had clinical diagnoses.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Moskalenko |first1=Sophia |last2=González |first2=Juncal Fernández-Garayzábal |last3=Kates |first3=Naama |last4=Morton |first4=Jesse |date=2022 |title=Incel Ideology, Radicalization and Mental Health: A Survey Study |url=https://journals.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/jicw/article/view/3817 |journal=The Journal of Intelligence, Conflict, and Warfare |language=en |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=1–29 |doi=10.21810/jicw.v4i3.3817 |s2cid=246524327 |issn=2561-8229 |doi-access=free |access-date=February 27, 2023 |archive-date=February 27, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227023032/https://journals.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/jicw/article/view/3817 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Sparks-2022">{{Cite journal |last1=Sparks |first1=Brandon |last2=Zidenberg |first2=Alexandra M. |last3=Olver |first3=Mark E. |date=December 1, 2022 |title=Involuntary Celibacy: A Review of Incel Ideology and Experiences with Dating, Rejection, and Associated Mental Health and Emotional Sequelae |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-022-01382-9 |journal=] |language=en |volume=24 |issue=12 |page=734 |doi=10.1007/s11920-022-01382-9 |issn=1535-1645 |pmc=9780135 |pmid=36394688 |access-date=February 25, 2023 |archive-date=January 31, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240131142305/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11920-022-01382-9 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Some posters to incel forums attribute their inability to find a partner to physical or mental ailments, while some others attribute it to extreme introversion. Many of those identifying as incels engage in ] of mental health issues, and members of incel communities often discourage posters who post about mental illness from seeing ] or otherwise seeking treatment.<ref name="elconfi" /><ref name="Romano-2018">{{Cite news |url=https://www.vox.com/2018/6/20/17314846/incel-support-group-therapy-black-pill-mental-health |title=What a woman-led incel support group can teach us about men and mental health |last=Romano |first=Aja |date=June 20, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 12, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180812052926/https://www.vox.com/2018/6/20/17314846/incel-support-group-therapy-black-pill-mental-health |archive-date=August 12, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/435g9p/how-to-help-an-incel-sex-therapist |title=We Asked a Sex Therapist What It's Like to Help An Incel Get Laid |last=Conti |first=Allie |date=May 11, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180812054945/https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/435g9p/how-to-help-an-incel-sex-therapist |archive-date=August 12, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Some members of incel communities with severe depression are also suicidal, and some members encourage suicidal members to kill themselves, sometimes recommending they commit acts of mass violence before doing so.<ref name="Dewey 2015" /><ref name="Romano-2018" /><ref name="Cook-2018c" /><ref name="allieconti" />

== Mass murders and violence ==
{{Image frame
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| content={{Timeline of violence attributed to incels}}
| caption=Timeline of violence committed or suspected to have been committed by men who have self-identified as involuntarily celibate, or whose statements align with incel ideologies
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Mass murders and other violent attacks have been committed or are suspected to have been committed by men who have self-identified as involuntarily celibate, or whose statements align with incel ideologies. Other intended attacks by such individuals have been thwarted by police before being carried out.

=== 2000s ===
On August 4, 2009, George Sodini ] at an ] health club in ], a suburb of ]. Three women were murdered and nine other people were injured before Sodini killed himself.<ref name="Channel">{{cite news |date=August 4, 2009 |title='Hell-Bent' Shooter Used 3 Guns In LA Fitness Rampage |work=] |url=http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/20283352/detail.html |url-status=dead |access-date=May 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091209051411/http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/20283352/detail.html |archive-date=December 9, 2009}}</ref><ref name="Tribune">{{cite news |last1=Hasch |first1=Michael |last2=Conte |first2=Andrew |date=August 5, 2009 |title=Gunman kills 3, wounds 9, before killing self at Collier fitness club |work=] |publisher=Tribune-Review Publishing Company |url=http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/multimedia/s_636758.html |url-status=dead |access-date=May 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090808064502/http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/multimedia/s_636758.html |archive-date=August 8, 2009}}</ref> He purportedly expressed ] and complained of constant rejections by women on a website registered in his name.<ref>{{cite news |last=Tatton |first=Abbi |date=August 7, 2009 |title=Pennsylvania gym shooter described as quiet, studious |work=] |url=http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/07/pennsylvania.gym.shooting/index.html |url-status=live |access-date=May 19, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100405212031/http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/07/pennsylvania.gym.shooting/index.html |archive-date=April 5, 2010}}</ref> Sodini and his actions have been embraced and glorified by some members of incel communities, who sometimes refer to incel violence as "going Sodini".<ref name="Woolf 2014" /><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Ansari |first1=Talal |last2=Lange |first2=Ariane |date=November 5, 2018 |title=Nearly 10 Years Apart, Attacks On Women Have Eerie Similarities |url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/talalansari/la-fitness-tallahassee-yoga-shooter-incels-misogyny |access-date=July 22, 2021 |website=] |archive-date=July 22, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210722174907/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/talalansari/la-fitness-tallahassee-yoga-shooter-incels-misogyny |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== 2010s ===
Elliot Rodger ] before killing himself in ] on May 23, 2014, near the campus of ]. These killings drew media attention to the concept of involuntary celibacy, and particularly the misogyny and glorification of violence that are a mainstay of many incel communities. Rodger self-identified as an incel and left behind a 137-page ] and ] videos in which he detailed his involuntary celibacy and discussed how he wanted revenge for being rejected by women.<ref name="Zimmer-2018" /><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/05/24/the-disturbing-internet-footprint-of-santa-barbara-shooter-elliot-rodger/ |title=The Disturbing Internet Footprint Of Santa Barbara Shooter Elliot Rodger |last=Hill |first=Kashmir |date=May 24, 2014 |work=] |access-date=April 24, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180426081023/https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/05/24/the-disturbing-internet-footprint-of-santa-barbara-shooter-elliot-rodger/ |archive-date=April 26, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Nagourney Jun 2016">{{Cite news |last1=Nagourney |first1=Adam |author-link=Adam Nagourney |last2=Cieply |first2=Michael |author-link2=Michael Cieply |last3=Feuer |first3=Alan |last4=Lovett |first4=Ian |date=June 1, 2014 |title=Before Brief, Deadly Spree, Trouble Since Age 8 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/us/elliot-rodger-killings-in-california-followed-years-of-withdrawal.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140603000541/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/us/elliot-rodger-killings-in-california-followed-years-of-withdrawal.html |archive-date=June 3, 2014 |issn=0362-4331 |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="Woolf 2014">{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/30/elliot-rodger-puahate-forever-alone-reddit-forums |title='PUAhate' and 'ForeverAlone': inside Elliot Rodger's online life |last=Woolf |first=Nicky |date=May 30, 2014 |newspaper=] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425162908/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/30/elliot-rodger-puahate-forever-alone-reddit-forums |archive-date=April 25, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> He had been an active member of a community popular among incels called ''PUAHate'' (short for "pickup artist hate"), and referenced it several times in his manifesto.{{r|Woolf 2014}}<ref name="Hermansson 2020">{{Cite book |last1=Hermansson |first1=Patrik |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=43fNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT137 |title=The International Alt-Right: Fascism for the 21st Century? |last2=Lawrence |first2=David |last3=Mulhall |first3=Joe |last4=Murdoch |first4=Simon |publisher=Routledge |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-429-62709-5 |location=Abingdon, Oxon |pages=137 |oclc=1139373651 |access-date=December 13, 2021 |archive-date=January 31, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240131142412/https://books.google.com/books?id=43fNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT137#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.mediaite.com/online/what-is-puahate-a-look-into-elliot-rodgers-anti-pickup-artist-hangout/ |title=What Is Puahate? Elliot Rodger |last=Wilstein |first=Matt |date=May 26, 2014 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200304015924/https://www.mediaite.com/online/what-is-puahate-a-look-into-elliot-rodgers-anti-pickup-artist-hangout/ |archive-date=March 4, 2020 |access-date=March 4, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Burleigh |first=Nina |author-link=Nina Burleigh |date=May 28, 2014 |title=Hating Women Was His Disease |work=] |url=http://observer.com/2014/05/hating-the-players-elliot-rodger/ |url-status=live |access-date=April 24, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180426080154/http://observer.com/2014/05/hating-the-players-elliot-rodger/ |archive-date=April 26, 2018}}</ref> Although ''PUAHate'' shut down soon after the attack, Rodger became something of a ] to some communities that remained, and to some of those that emerged later.<ref name="Janik-2018" /><ref name="Burleigh-2014" /><ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.newsweek.com/elliot-rodger-toronto-alek-minassian-van-attack-hunger-games-peter-rodger-899955 |title=Elliot Rodger's father 'very sad' Toronto van suspect Alek Minassian referenced son |last=Fearnow |first=Benjamin |date=April 24, 2018 |work=] |access-date=April 24, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425000440/http://www.newsweek.com/elliot-rodger-toronto-alek-minassian-van-attack-hunger-games-peter-rodger-899955 |archive-date=April 25, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> It is common to see references to "E.R." in incel forums, and mass violence by incels is regularly referred to as "going E.R.".<ref name="ADL-2020" /><ref name="Hoffman-2020" /> Rodger has been referenced by the perpetrators or suspected perpetrators of several other mass killings, and is one of several attackers who are regularly praised by members of incel communities.<ref name="Branson-Potts" /><ref name="Woolf 2014" />

Chris Harper-Mercer killed nine people and injured eight others before killing himself in a ] campus on October 1, 2015, in ]. He left a manifesto at the scene, outlining his interest in other mass murders including the Isla Vista killings, his anger at not having a girlfriend, and his animus towards the world. In his journal writings, he had related with Elliot Rodger and other mass shooters, describing them as "people who stand with the gods".<ref name="Collins-2018" /> Before the attack, when someone on an online message board had speculated Harper-Mercer was "saving himself for someone special", Harper-Mercer had replied: 'involuntarily so".<ref name="Baker-2016b" /><ref name="Healy Oct 2015">{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/us/chris-harper-mercer-umpqua-community-college-shooting.html |title=Oregon Killer Described as Man of Few Words, Except on Topic of Guns |last1=Healy |first1=Jack |date=October 2, 2015 |work=The New York Times |last2=Lovett |first2=Ian |issn=0362-4331 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180409232214/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/us/chris-harper-mercer-umpqua-community-college-shooting.html |archive-date=April 9, 2018 |url-status=live |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="Nagle 2017">{{Cite book |last=Nagle |first=Angela |title=Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right |year=2017 |publisher=John Hunt Publishing |isbn=978-1-78535-544-8 |author-link=Angela Nagle}}{{Page needed|date=December 2021}}</ref><ref name="Shapiro Oct 2015">{{Cite news |last1=Shapiro |first1=T. Rees |last2=Dewey |first2=Caitlin |author-link2=Caitlin Dewey Rainwater |last3=Bernstein |first3=Lenny |date=October 2, 2015 |title=Probe in college slayings peers into Web rants and possible religious rage |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/probe-in-college-slayings-peers-into-web-rants-and-possible-religious-rage/2015/10/02/d250007a-68ea-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180504155739/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/probe-in-college-slayings-peers-into-web-rants-and-possible-religious-rage/2015/10/02/d250007a-68ea-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html |archive-date=May 4, 2018 |issn=0190-8286 |url-access=limited}}</ref> Several hours before the shooting, someone suspected to be Harper-Mercer posted a threat to a ] college to /r9k/, a 4chan board with many incel posters.<ref name="Dewey 2015" /><ref>{{Cite news |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/4chan-oregon-shooting-anonymous-warning-1.3262686 |title=Warning posted to anonymous forum 4chan before Oregon shooting |last=Bowman |first=John |date=October 8, 2015 |work=] |access-date=May 4, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180126042129/http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/4chan-oregon-shooting-anonymous-warning-1.3262686 |archive-date=January 26, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

On July 31, 2016, Sheldon Bentley robbed and killed an unconscious man in an alleyway in ], Alberta. During his trial, Bentley said he killed the man by stomping on his abdomen because he was frustrated with stress from his job as a security guard and with being an incel for four years.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Theobald |first=Claire |date=August 30, 2018 |title=Security guard who stomped man to death blames involuntary celibacy |work=] Edmonton |url=https://www.thestar.com/edmonton/2018/08/29/security-guard-who-stomped-man-to-death-blames-involuntary-celibacy-sentenced-to-four-years.html |url-status=live |access-date=August 30, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830063333/https://www.thestar.com/edmonton/2018/08/29/security-guard-who-stomped-man-to-death-blames-involuntary-celibacy-sentenced-to-four-years.html |archive-date=August 30, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://edmontonjournal.com/news/crime/security-guard-who-kicked-man-to-death-says-he-was-involuntarily-celibate |title=Security guard who kicked man to death says he was 'involuntarily celibate' |last=Parsons |first=Paige |date=August 29, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 30, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180830234835/https://edmontonjournal.com/news/crime/security-guard-who-kicked-man-to-death-says-he-was-involuntarily-celibate |archive-date=August 30, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

William Atchison killed two people before killing himself on December 7, 2017, in ], in a ], where he had previously been a student. He had used the pseudonym "Elliot Rodger" on several online forums and praised "the supreme gentleman" (a term Rodger had used to describe himself, which has since become a common reference among incel communities).<ref name="Branson-Potts" /><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.splcenter.org/20180205/alt-right-killing-people |title=The Alt-Right is Killing People |last1=Hankes |first1=Keegan |date=February 5, 2018 |work=Southern Poverty Law Center |access-date=May 14, 2018 |last2=Amend |first2=Alex |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180511234711/https://www.splcenter.org/20180205/alt-right-killing-people |archive-date=May 11, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Atchison had also posted far-right content online.<ref name="ADL-2020" />

Nikolas Cruz killed seventeen people and injured seventeen others on February 14, 2018, in a ] in ]. Allegedly also motivated by other extremist views, Cruz had previously posted online that "Elliot Rodger will not be forgotten".<ref name="Collins-2018" /><ref name="ADL-2020" /><ref>{{Cite web |last1=McLaughlin |first1=Eliott C. |last2=Park |first2=Madison |date=February 16, 2018 |title=Social media paints picture of racist 'professional school shooter' |url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/14/us/nikolas-cruz-florida-shooting-suspect/index.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200724033900/https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/14/us/nikolas-cruz-florida-shooting-suspect/index.html |archive-date=July 24, 2020 |access-date=August 1, 2020 |website=]}}</ref>

After an April 23, 2018 ], Alek Minassian was convicted of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder.<ref name="Gillies-2021" /> Shortly before the attack, Minassian had allegedly posted on ] that "the Incel Rebellion has already begun" and applauded Rodger.<ref name="Zimmer-2018" /><ref name="Chokshi Apr 2018" /><ref name="Suspect faces more">{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44072689 |title=Toronto van attack suspect faces more attempted murder charges |date=May 10, 2018 |work=BBC News |access-date=May 14, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180513112842/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44072689 |archive-date=May 13, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Bowden-2018">{{Cite news |url=https://thehill.com/policy/technology/384610-toronto-rampage-suspect-referenced-extremist-mens-movement-on-facebook/ |title=Toronto rampage suspect referenced extremist male 'incel' movement |last=Bowden |first=John |date=April 24, 2018 |work=] |access-date=April 24, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180425115357/http://thehill.com/policy/technology/384610-toronto-rampage-suspect-referenced-extremist-mens-movement-on-facebook |archive-date=April 25, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> The term "Incel Rebellion" is sometimes used interchangeably with the term "] Uprising", which refers to a violent response to incels' perceived sexual deprivation.<ref name="Beauchamp-2018" /> Following the attack, a poster on a website created to supersede r/incels wrote about Minassian, "I hope this guy wrote a manifesto because he could be our next new saint".<ref name="Janik-2018" /> Following the attack, police claimed that Minassian had been radicalized by incel communities. A video interview was later released in {{nowrap|September 2019}} showing Minassian being interrogated by police shortly after the attacks. In the video, Minassian is shown telling police that he was a virgin, and that he was motivated by a resentment of "Chads and Staceys", as well as women who gave "their love and affection to obnoxious brutes" rather than to him. The video also showed Minassian saying that he hoped the alleged attack would "inspire future masses to join me" in committing acts of violence as a part of the "Beta Uprising".<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=How the Toronto Van Attack Suspect Was Radicalized by Incels |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/alek-minassian-toronto-van-attack-incels-891678/ |last=Dickson |first=E. J. |date=September 27, 2019 |magazine=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191208000852/https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/alek-minassian-toronto-van-attack-incels-891678/ |archive-date=December 8, 2019 |access-date=May 24, 2020}}</ref> The judge who found Minassian guilty on all counts wrote in her decision that Minassian had attempted to tie his attack to the incel community as a way of increasing his notoriety, and that "working out his exact motivation for this attack is{{nbsp}}... close to impossible". She found that Minassian had "lie to the police about much of the incel motivation he talked about and that the incel movement was not in fact a primary driving force behind the attack".<ref name="Rozdilsky-2021">{{Cite web |last1=Rozdilsky |first1=Jack L. |last2=Snowden |first2=Edward |date=March 4, 2021 |title=Toronto van attack: Guilty verdict, but Canada still needs to tackle ideological violence |url=http://theconversation.com/toronto-van-attack-guilty-verdict-but-canada-still-needs-to-tackle-ideological-violence-156452 |access-date=March 19, 2021 |website=] |archive-date=March 10, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310002647/https://theconversation.com/toronto-van-attack-guilty-verdict-but-canada-still-needs-to-tackle-ideological-violence-156452 |url-status=live}}</ref>

On November 2, 2018, Scott Beierle killed two women and injured four women and a man before killing himself in a ] in ].<ref name="Mack-2018" /> He had been a follower of incel ideologies for a long time, and also had a history of arrests for grabbing women's buttocks.<ref name="Hoffman-2020" /><ref name="Burlew-2018">{{Cite news |last=Burlew |first=Jeff |date=November 3, 2018 |title=Scott Beierle, gunman in Tallahassee yoga studio shooting, remembered as 'really creepy' |work=] |url=https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/11/03/gunman-had-history-arrests-grabbing-women/1871941002/ |url-status=live |access-date=November 4, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181104003958/https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/11/03/gunman-had-history-arrests-grabbing-women/1871941002/ |archive-date=November 4, 2018}}</ref> In 2014 he posted several YouTube videos of himself espousing extreme hatred for women and expressing anger over not having a girlfriend, mentioning Elliot Rodger in one video. In the months leading up to the shooting, he posted numerous misogynistic, racist, violent, and homophobic songs to ].<ref name="Mack-2018">{{Cite news |last1=Mack |first1=David |last2=Jamieson |first2=Amber |last3=Reinstein |first3=Julia |date=November 3, 2018 |title=Tallahassee Yoga Shooter Was A Far-Right Misogynist Who Railed Against Women And Minorities Online |work=] |url=https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/tallahassee-yoga-shooter-incel-far-right-misogyny-video |url-status=live |access-date=November 4, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181104001311/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/tallahassee-yoga-shooter-incel-far-right-misogyny-video |archive-date=November 4, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Burlew-2018" /><ref>{{cite web |title=How mass shooters practice their hate online |url=https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/10/31/18039294/scott-beierle-tallahassee-shooting-pittsburgh-gab |last=North |first=Anna |author-link=Anna North |date=November 3, 2018 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181104035140/https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/10/31/18039294/scott-beierle-tallahassee-shooting-pittsburgh-gab |archive-date=November 4, 2018 |access-date=November 4, 2018}}</ref>

In January 2019, Christopher Cleary was arrested for posting on Facebook that he was "planning on shooting up a public place soon and being the next mass shooter" and "killing as many girls as I see" because he had never had a girlfriend and was a virgin. He has been described as an incel in the media.<ref name="Bever Jan 2019">{{Cite news |last=Bever |first=Lindsey |date=January 22, 2019 |title=A man cited his virginity as reason he planned to kill 'as many girls' as he could, police say |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2019/01/22/man-cited-his-virginity-reason-he-planned-kill-many-girls-he-could-police-say/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190123024745/https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2019/01/22/man-cited-his-virginity-reason-he-planned-kill-many-girls-he-could-police-say/ |archive-date=January 23, 2019 |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Jeltsen |first=Melissa |date=January 23, 2019 |title=Man Arrested For Threatening To Kill 'As Many Girls As I See' On Day Of Women's March |work=] |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/man-arrested-for-threatening-to-kill-as-many-girls-as-i-see-on-day-of-womens-march_us_5c4887f7e4b025aa26bf24cf |url-status=live |access-date=January 24, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190124012953/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/man-arrested-for-threatening-to-kill-as-many-girls-as-i-see-on-day-of-womens-march_us_5c4887f7e4b025aa26bf24cf |archive-date=January 24, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Giordano |first=Chiara |date=January 23, 2019 |title=Virgin threatened to 'kill as many girls as I see' because he couldn't get a girlfriend |website=] |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/christopher-cleary-arrested-virgin-girlfriend-facebook-post-incel-denver-utah-a8742156.html |url-status=live |access-date=January 24, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190124070008/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/christopher-cleary-arrested-virgin-girlfriend-facebook-post-incel-denver-utah-a8742156.html |archive-date=January 24, 2019}}</ref> In May 2019, Cleary was sentenced to up to five years in prison for an attempted threat of terrorism.<ref name="Donovan-Smith May 2019">{{Cite news |title=He pledged to kill 'as many girls as I see' in mass shooting. After second chances, he's going to prison. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2019/05/24/he-pledged-kill-many-girls-i-see-mass-shooting-after-second-chances-hes-going-prison/ |last=Donovan-Smith |first=Orion |date=May 24, 2019 |newspaper=The Washington Post |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200517000108/https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2019/05/24/he-pledged-kill-many-girls-i-see-mass-shooting-after-second-chances-hes-going-prison/ |archive-date=May 17, 2020 |url-access=limited}}</ref>

Brian Isaack Clyde began what was ] at the ] in ] on June 17, 2019, but was shot and fatally wounded by officers from the ] before he injured anyone. Clyde had shared incel memes on social media, along with other posts referencing right-wing beliefs and ].<ref name="RadicalizedSolomon">{{cite news |last1=Solomon |first1=Dan |date=June 20, 2019 |title=How Did the Dallas Courthouse Gunman Get Radicalized? |work=] |url=https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/dallas-courthouse-shooter-brian-clyde-radicalized/ |url-status=live |access-date=June 27, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190621155745/https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/dallas-courthouse-shooter-brian-clyde-radicalized/ |archive-date=June 21, 2019}}</ref><ref name="Martelle">{{cite news |last1=Martelle |first1=Scott |date=June 18, 2009 |title=A Thwarted Dallas Shooting goes Viral |work=] |url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/enterthefray/la-ol-dallas-gunman-brian-isaack-clyde-video-federal-building-20190618-story.html |url-status=live |access-date=June 27, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190626053031/https://www.latimes.com/opinion/enterthefray/la-ol-dallas-gunman-brian-isaack-clyde-video-federal-building-20190618-story.html |archive-date=June 26, 2019 |url-access=limited}}</ref> Following the incident, the ] military base briefed its personnel on certain online behaviors among "introverted, sexless individuals," with a spokesman describing them as "a very real threat to military members and civilians".<ref name="BrumfieldSigns">{{cite news |last1=Brumfeild |first1=Loyd |date=June 22, 2019 |title=Inspired by Dallas courthouse shooter, Air Force base circulates 'incel' warning signs |work=] |url=https://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas/2019/06/22/air-force-base-prompted-dallas-courthouse-shooter-educates-personnel-recognizing-incel-warning-signs |url-status=live |access-date=June 27, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190627221007/https://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas/2019/06/22/air-force-base-prompted-dallas-courthouse-shooter-educates-personnel-recognizing-incel-warning-signs |archive-date=June 27, 2019}}</ref>

Self-identified incels have also praised attackers with unclear motives who they believe to be incels. After the ], some of the incel community celebrated the shooter ], who they felt was a hero who was targeting "normies".<ref name="Janik-2018" /> After the ], posters on an incel message board expressed excitement with the possibility that the perpetrator might be an incel, although no motive was identified.<ref name="Cook-2018">{{Cite news |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/incels-looksmaxing-obsession_us_5b50e56ee4b0de86f48b0a4f |title=Inside Incels' Looksmaxing Obsession: Penis Stretching, Skull Implants And Rage |last=Cook |first=Jesselyn |date=July 24, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811220219/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/incels-looksmaxing-obsession_us_5b50e56ee4b0de86f48b0a4f |archive-date=August 11, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== 2020s ===
On February 24, 2020, ] in an attack that also severely injured her female coworker at an ] in Toronto. On May 19, the ] declared the attack was being treated as a terrorist incident after evidence pointed to the stabbings being motivated by incel ideology, and police laid charges against a 17-year-old male alleged to have committed the stabbings. This was the first time violence thought to be motivated by incel ideologies was prosecuted as an act of terrorism, and is also believed to be the first act of violence not perpetrated by an ] to be prosecuted as terrorism in Canada.<ref name="Bell-2020">{{Cite web |title=Deadly attack at Toronto erotic spa was incel terrorism, police allege |url=https://globalnews.ca/news/6910670/toronto-spa-terrorism-incel/ |last1=Bell |first1=Stewart |last2=Russell |first2=Andrew |date=May 19, 2020 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200519230940/https://globalnews.ca/news/6910670/toronto-spa-terrorism-incel/ |archive-date=May 19, 2020 |access-date=May 19, 2020 |last3=McDonald |first3=Catherine}}</ref> On September 14, 2022, the perpetrator entered a guilty plea to murder and attempted murder.<ref name="cbcguiltyplea">{{Cite news |last=Nassar |first=Shanifa |date=September 14, 2022 |title=Toronto spa killer pleads guilty to murder in deadly sword attack, cites van attacker as 'inspiration' |publisher=] |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/incel-massage-parlour-guilty-1.6582534 |access-date=June 7, 2023 |archive-date=June 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230607114941/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/incel-massage-parlour-guilty-1.6582534 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="guiltyplea">{{Cite news |last=Hasham |first=Alyshah |date=September 14, 2022 |title=17-year-old spa killer said he was inspired by Toronto van attack, cited 'incel rebellion' |publisher=] |url=https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/09/14/17-year-old-spa-killer-cited-incel-rebellion-used-sword-etched-with-thot-slayer-toronto-terror-trial-reveals.html |access-date=June 7, 2023 |archive-date=June 2, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230602231641/https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/09/14/17-year-old-spa-killer-cited-incel-rebellion-used-sword-etched-with-thot-slayer-toronto-terror-trial-reveals.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="torsunguiltyplea">{{Cite news |last=Mandel |first=Michele |date=September 14, 2022 |title=MANDEL: Guilty plea in alleged incel-inspired sword attack on Toronto spa worker |publisher=] |url=https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/mandel-guilty-plea-in-alleged-incel-inspired-sword-attack-on-toronto-spa-worker |access-date=June 7, 2023 |archive-date=January 31, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240131142304/https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/mandel-guilty-plea-in-alleged-incel-inspired-sword-attack-on-toronto-spa-worker |url-status=live}}</ref> The attack was ruled a terrorist attack during sentencing proceedings.<ref>{{Cite news |date=June 6, 2023 |title=Incel-inspired Toronto massage parlour murder was act of terror, judge rules |work=] |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/incel-toronto-massage-killing-terrorism-1.6867177 |access-date=May 20, 2020 |archive-date=June 6, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230606211024/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/incel-toronto-massage-killing-terrorism-1.6867177 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Armando Hernandez Jr. opened fire on May 20, 2020, at ], a ] in ], before being arrested by police. A 19-year-old man was critically injured, while a 30-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl suffered minor injuries. According to the ] prosecutor, Hernandez identified himself as an incel and claimed he wanted to target couples and shoot at least ten people.<ref>{{cite news |last1=McLaughlin |first1=Eliott C. |last2=Rose |first2=Andy |last3=Toropin |first3=Konstantin |date=May 21, 2020 |title=Suspect in Arizona shooting wanted to target couples, prosecutor says |work=] |url=https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/us/westgate-arizona-shooting/index.html |url-status=live |access-date=May 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200522025510/https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/20/us/westgate-arizona-shooting/index.html |archive-date=May 22, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Villarreal |first=Daniel |date=May 21, 2020 |title=Westgate Shooting Suspect Was an 'Incel' Who Wanted to Kill Couples, Prosecutor Alleges |work=] |url=https://www.newsweek.com/westgate-gunman-identified-incel-intended-shoot-couples-prosecutor-says-1505837 |url-status=live |access-date=May 22, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200522043036/https://www.newsweek.com/westgate-gunman-identified-incel-intended-shoot-couples-prosecutor-says-1505837 |archive-date=May 22, 2020}}</ref> The prosecutor said, "Mr. Hernandez is a self-professed incel{{nbsp}}... He was taking out his anger at society, the feeling that he has been bullied, the feeling that women didn't want him". The prosecutor also alleged that Hernandez sent a video of the attack to a woman he wished to impress.<ref name="ADL-2020" />

Between January and {{As of|2020|July|30|alt=the end of July 2020}}, five self-identified incels were arrested in separate incidents in North America for killing or planning to kill women.<ref name="ADL-2020" /> Among them was Cole Carini, a man who was charged with making false statements to law enforcement in June 2020 after claiming serious injuries to his hands had been caused by a lawnmower accident. Police alleged that Carini was actually injured while trying to make a bomb, and that he had written a note threatening violence against women and referencing Elliot Rodger.<ref>{{Cite web |date=June 6, 2020 |title=Man's hand blown off; note references violence against women |url=https://apnews.com/4aede80947dc6faead4c49a3ea15c840 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200606190406/https://apnews.com/4aede80947dc6faead4c49a3ea15c840 |archive-date=June 6, 2020 |access-date=June 6, 2020 |website=]}}</ref>

In April 2021, Malik Sanchez, a 19-year-old self-described incel who praised Elliot Rodger,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Crane-Newman |first1=Molly |title=Manhattan incel 'Smooth Sanchez' gets no prison time for livestreamed bomb threat |url=https://www.nydailynews.com/2022/04/06/manhattan-incel-smooth-sanchez-gets-no-prison-time-for-livestreamed-bomb-threat/ |access-date=February 6, 2024 |work=New York Daily News |date=April 6, 2022 |archive-date=February 6, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240206170459/https://www.nydailynews.com/2022/04/06/manhattan-incel-smooth-sanchez-gets-no-prison-time-for-livestreamed-bomb-threat/ |url-status=live}}</ref> was arrested on federal charges after allegedly videotaping himself approaching women sitting outside a restaurant in ], New York and telling them he was going to detonate a bomb.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Neumeister |first=Larry |date=April 14, 2021 |title='Incel' teen held without bail on federal bomb threat charge |url=https://apnews.com/article/new-york-bomb-threats-arrests-manhattan-2080251d9390401f387cfff16f6ef6bd |access-date=April 28, 2021 |website=] |archive-date=April 28, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428013123/https://apnews.com/article/new-york-bomb-threats-arrests-manhattan-2080251d9390401f387cfff16f6ef6bd |url-status=live}}</ref> The man had previously been arrested several times for harassing others, often while recording or ], and for multiple assaults with ].<ref name="Jacobs Apr 2021">{{Cite news |last=Jacobs |first=Shayna |date=April 14, 2021 |title='Incel' devotee in New York terrorized Manhattan diners with bomb hoax and pepper-sprayed several victims, feds say |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/incel-bomb-hoax-manhattan/2021/04/14/022fe9e6-9d3c-11eb-b7a8-014b14aeb9e4_story.html |issn=0190-8286 |url-access=limited |access-date=April 28, 2021 |archive-date=December 3, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221203201823/https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/incel-bomb-hoax-manhattan/2021/04/14/022fe9e6-9d3c-11eb-b7a8-014b14aeb9e4_story.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

In July 2021, a 21-year-old self-identified incel from Ohio was charged with attempting a ] and illegally possessing a machine gun. The man was a frequent poster on a popular incel website, where he wrote posts venerating Elliot Rodger. He wrote a manifesto in which he expressed his desire to "slaughter" women, and in another document he allegedly wrote about his goals to kill 3,000 people in a mass casualty attack.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Diaz |first=Jaclyn |date=July 22, 2021 |title=Police Foiled An Ohio Incel's Plot To Kill Women In A Mass Shooting, Prosecutors Say |url=https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019089834/police-foiled-an-ohio-incels-plot-to-kill-women-in-a-mass-shooting-prosecutors-s |access-date=July 22, 2021 |website=] |archive-date=January 31, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240131142303/https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019089834/police-foiled-an-ohio-incels-plot-to-kill-women-in-a-mass-shooting-prosecutors-s |url-status=live}}</ref>

On August 12, 2021, Jake Davison, a 22-year-old man who referenced "inceldom" in online videos and expressed similar views, perpetrated a ] in ], England. He killed five people, including his mother, and injured two others before killing himself.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Topping |first=Alexandra |date=August 13, 2021 |title=Plymouth shootings may be a sign 'incel' culture is spreading |url=http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/13/plymouth-shootings-may-be-a-sign-the-incel-culture-is-spreading |access-date=July 31, 2023 |work=The Guardian |archive-date=August 15, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815103900/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/13/plymouth-shootings-may-be-a-sign-the-incel-culture-is-spreading |url-status=live}}</ref>

On December 27, 2021, an individual who harboured views common with incels, Lyndon McLeod (whose pen name was Roman McClay), committed the ], murdering 5 people before being killed by a police officer.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.newsweek.com/denver-shooter-lyndon-mcleod-guns-misogyny-social-media-1663930 |title=Denver Shooting Suspect Lyndon McLeod Glorified Guns and Misogyny: 'War is Coming' |website=] |date=December 29, 2021 |access-date=March 20, 2024 |archive-date=December 29, 2021 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20211229183344/https://www.newsweek.com/denver-shooter-lyndon-mcleod-guns-misogyny-social-media-1663930 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/denver-s-mass-shooter-was-tragically-predictable-white-male-misogynist-n1286995 |title=Denver's mass shooter was tragically predictable: white, male, and misogynist |website=] |date=January 5, 2022 |access-date=March 20, 2024 |archive-date=March 20, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240320051603/https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/denver-s-mass-shooter-was-tragically-predictable-white-male-misogynist-n1286995 |url-status=live}}</ref>

On May 6, 2023, 33-year-old self-identified incel Mauricio Martinez Garcia went on a ]. Garcia killed eight people and injured at least seven others before he was killed by a police officer.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebrahimji |first=Casey Tolan, Paul P. Murphy, Curt Devine, Josh Campbell, Alisha |date=May 8, 2023 |title=What we know about the North Texas outlet mall gunman and his online posts |url=https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/08/us/mauricio-garcia-allen-texas-shooting/index.html |access-date=May 13, 2023 |website=CNN |language=en |archive-date=May 9, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230509202637/https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/08/us/mauricio-garcia-allen-texas-shooting/index.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

== Criticism ==

=== Of the subculture ===

Incel communities have been criticized in the media and by researchers as violent, misogynist, and extremist.<ref name="Beauchamp-2018" /><ref name="Taub May 2018" /><ref name="Ohlheiser-Talbot-CBC-Rouner" /><ref name="Cook-2018" /><ref name="Cook-2018b" /> Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst working for the Southern Poverty Law Center, has cautioned that exposure to violent content on incel forums "play a very large role" in the radicalization of their members, and describes incel forums as having "more violent rhetoric than I'm used to seeing on even white supremacist sites".<ref name="Cook-2018c" /> Journalist David Futrelle has described incel communities as "violently misogynistic", and is among critics who attribute worsening violent rhetoric on incel forums to the growth of the alt-right and white supremacy, and the overlap between incel communities and online hate groups.<ref name="Cook-2018c" /><ref name="Cook-2018" /><ref name="Cook-2018b">{{Cite news |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/online-extremism-radical-misogyny_us_5b491358e4b0bc69a787458f |title=Internet Giants Are Banning Extremists (Just Not The Ones Targeting Women) |last=Cook |first=Jesselyn |date=July 27, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811021553/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/online-extremism-radical-misogyny_us_5b491358e4b0bc69a787458f |archive-date=August 11, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://globalnews.ca/news/4167152/toronto-van-attack-incel-alek-minassian-violence/ |title=Expert traces link between violent online alt-right fantasies and real-world attacks |last=Cain |first=Patrick |date=April 27, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180812024437/https://globalnews.ca/news/4167152/toronto-van-attack-incel-alek-minassian-violence/ |archive-date=August 12, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Psychologist and sex researcher ] has described incels as "a group of people who usually lack sufficient social skills and{{nbsp}}... find themselves very frustrated". He has said that in incel forums "when they're surrounded by other people with similar frustrations, they kind of lose track of what typical discourse is, and they drive themselves into more and more extreme beliefs".<ref>{{Cite web |date=April 24, 2018 |title=What's an 'incel'? Unpacking the disturbing Facebook post linked to Toronto van attack |url=https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/what-s-an-incel-unpacking-the-disturbing-facebook-post-linked-to-toronto-van-attack-1.3900226?cache=wfwhhfmnihogp%3FclipId%3D104059 |access-date=April 27, 2021 |website=] |archive-date=April 28, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428015607/https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/what-s-an-incel-unpacking-the-disturbing-facebook-post-linked-to-toronto-van-attack-1.3900226?cache=wfwhhfmnihogp%3FclipId%3D104059 |url-status=live}}</ref> Senior research fellow at the ]{{Nbsp}}(ISD), ], has criticized some incel communities where calls for violence are commonplace, saying "under the right set of psychological and personal circumstances, these kinds of forums can be dangerous and push people into violence".<ref name="dark-side" /> Another researcher at the ISD, Jacob Davey, compared the radicalization of men in incel forums to teenagers being urged to go to extreme measures on online ], and to online campaigns convincing people to join ]. Speaking about their feelings of entitlement to sex, Davey said the attitude "can go as far as the justification of rape".<ref name="Tait Aug 2018" />

While generally agreeing with critics' concerns about misogyny and other negative characteristics in the incel subculture, some commentators have been more sympathetic. In April 2018, economist ] wrote a blog post likening access to sex with access to income, writing that he found it puzzling that similar concern had not been shown to incels as to low-income individuals. Hanson was criticized by some for discussing sex as if it was a commodity; others wrote more positively about his opinions.<ref name="FTMay2018" /> ''The New York Times'' columnist ] wrote a similarly controversial op-ed in May 2018 titled "The Redistribution of Sex" in which he suggested sex robots and ]s would inevitably be called upon to satisfy incels' sexual desires.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.vox.com/2018/5/4/17314260/incel-sex-robots-sexual-redistribution-ross-douthat-history |title=We're talking about "sex robots" now. We've been here before. |last=Burton |first=Tara Isabella |date=May 4, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180828175807/https://www.vox.com/2018/5/4/17314260/incel-sex-robots-sexual-redistribution-ross-douthat-history |archive-date=August 28, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Douthat May 2018">{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/opinion/incels-sex-robots-redistribution.html |title=The Redistribution of Sex |last=Douthat |first=Ross |author-link=Ross Douthat |date=May 2, 2018 |website=The New York Times |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200201222133/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/opinion/incels-sex-robots-redistribution.html |archive-date=February 1, 2020 |url-access=limited}}</ref> Some commentators wrote articles agreeing with this view, including ], who agreed that sex robots could be a "workable solution";<ref name="spectate" /> others criticized the column for objectifying women and for legitimizing the incel ideology.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Actually We Don't Owe You Sex, and We Never Will |url=https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a20138446/redistribution-sex-incels/ |last=Donegan |first=Moira |date=May 4, 2018 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200516144738/https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a20138446/redistribution-sex-incels/ |archive-date=May 16, 2020 |access-date=May 26, 2020}}</ref><ref name="Cole-2018">{{Cite web |title='Redistributing Sex' Is a Toxic Conversation About Toxic People |url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evqy3j/what-are-incels-redistributing-sex-new-york-times-ross-douthat |last=Cole |first=Samantha |date=May 3, 2018 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191224083836/https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evqy3j/what-are-incels-redistributing-sex-new-york-times-ross-douthat |archive-date=December 24, 2019 |access-date=May 26, 2020}}</ref>

Journalist Zack Beauchamp has expressed concern about other types of harm inflicted by incels that may be lost in the attention paid specifically to mass violence; he points to forum posts in which users brag about yelling at, catfishing, and sexually assaulting women.<ref name="Beauchamp-2019" /> ] lecturer Lisa Sugiura has described incel forums as a "networked misogyny", and urged the posts in such forums be taken seriously not only in the context of ] but also as a form of ] that could radicalize "impressionable and vulnerable disillusioned young men".<ref name="Tait Aug 2018">{{Cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/rise-women-haters-inside-dark-world-british-incels/ |title=Rise of the women haters: Inside the dark world of the British 'incels' |last=Tait |first=Amelia |date=August 18, 2018 |work=The Daily Telegraph |issn=0307-1235 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180901112114/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/rise-women-haters-inside-dark-world-british-incels/ |archive-date=September 1, 2018 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Some sociological research on incel communities has analyzed them as a ], in which privileged men distance themselves from ] while simultaneously reproducing it.<ref name="Ging" />

=== Of platforms providing services to incel communities ===

Criticism has also been directed against platforms that host or have hosted incel content, including Reddit (which banned the r/incels community in 2017, and banned most of the remaining incel communities in September 2019, but is still home to some identifying as incels) and ].<ref name="Cook-2018b" /><ref name="Robertson-2019" /> ], which provides services including ], ] and obsfucation of the source host of the content,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Carlisle |first1=Stephen |title=Cloudflare: The "Now You See Me, Now You Don't" of the Internet |url=http://copyright.nova.edu/cloudflare/ |website=Office of Copyright |access-date=January 25, 2022 |date=May 19, 2017 |archive-date=January 25, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125064823/http://copyright.nova.edu/cloudflare/ |url-status=live}}</ref> has also been criticized for protecting incel websites against ] even when webhosts have terminated service.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cook |first=Jesselyn |date=July 25, 2018 |title=From Nazis To Incels: How One Tech Company Helps Hate Groups Thrive |work=] |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/incels-cloudfare-online-content-protection_us_5b491632e4b022fdcc597327 |url-status=live |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811021625/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/incels-cloudfare-online-content-protection_us_5b491632e4b022fdcc597327 |archive-date=August 11, 2018}}</ref>

=== Of reporting and research ===

Reporting on incels by media outlets following the incel-related attacks during the 2010s has been criticized for its "breathless" coverage, for normalizing incel communities by describing them only as "sexually frustrated", and for directing readers to incel communities.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.wired.co.uk/article/toronto-attack-incel-alek-minassian |title=After the Toronto attack don't explain Incel ideology, ban it |last=Kobie |first=Nicole |date=April 26, 2018 |magazine=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180812021921/https://www.wired.co.uk/article/toronto-attack-incel-alek-minassian |archive-date=August 12, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> Some reporting has also been criticized for giving attackers notoriety by reporting on them at length, or for ] by implying that women who had rejected the attackers' romantic or sexual advances held some responsibility for provoking the attacks.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44321469 |title=The problem with mass shootings and the media |last=Cooper |first=Kelly-Leigh |date=May 31, 2018 |work=] |access-date=August 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181013045609/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44321469 |archive-date=October 13, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=No, girls and women don't 'provoke' mass murderers |url=https://www.salon.com/2018/05/21/no-girls-and-women-dont-provoke-mass-murderers/ |last=Williams |first=Mary Elizabeth |author-link=Mary Elizabeth Williams |date=May 21, 2018 |website=] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180810193542/https://www.salon.com/2018/05/21/no-girls-and-women-dont-provoke-mass-murderers/ |archive-date=August 10, 2018 |access-date=August 11, 2018}}</ref> Those who have written sympathetically about incels have faced criticism for legitimizing the incel ideology, such as from Samantha Cole in '']'' who condemned media outlets who "cove and amplif toxic internet culture as if it's valid ideology".<ref name="Cole-2018" />

In a 2021 report published by the Political Research Associates think tank, M. Kelly wrote about recent attempts by various self-identified incels to "rebrand" their communities and stated that "incels' attempts to reframe their identity have also been helped along by researchers, journalists, and 'counter-violent extremism' experts, who, in their attempts to investigate and understand incels, have given them larger, more mainstream platforms. These new platforms have allowed self-identified incels to reframe the public narrative about them; minimize the threat their community poses; and have amplified—or even endorsed—their hate-laced grievances, centering their self-perceived victimhood at the hands of women who deny them sex". Kelly criticized a podcast titled ''The Incel Project'' for platforming incel ideologies without challenging or fact-checking their statements. She said the creator, Naama Kates, was "no longer just reporting on incels' misogyny, but justifying and sharing it with the world". Kelly criticized the International Center for Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE), who published several reports on incels co-authored by Kates and by the founder and lead moderator of a major incel forum, writing that "while previous ICSVE reports have drawn from primary data, including interviews and surveys with members of the community being studied, this seems to be the first time—at ICSVE or in academic research more broadly—that someone actively involved in a community that regularly expresses bigoted or violent ideology has co-authored the resulting study".<ref name="Kelly-2021" />

== Portrayals in fiction ==
In his debut novel '']'' (1994), French writer ] seems to portray early examples of incels. However, the term did not yet exist at the time; neither did the online communities. The unnamed, 30-year-old protagonist looks unattractive, lacks social skills and suffers from depression, which means that despite his excellent job as an IT professional, he is not popular with women. Things are much worse for his colleague, who is downright ugly and still a virgin at 28. The main character tries to seduce his friend into killing a young woman who has rejected him, which his friend refuses at the last moment. In this novel, the main protagonist philosophizes about the disastrous consequences of the ]. Because of sexual liberalism, the market mechanism has come to determine human relationships. As a consequence, beautiful people get everything, ugly people get nothing.<ref>{{Aut|]}} (1994): '']''. French: ''Extension du domaine de la lutte''. Translated by Paul Hammond. Serpent's Tail, London, 1998. {{ISBN|1-85242-584-9}}.</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Kirsch |first1=Adam |author1-link=Adam Kirsch |title=A French Novelist Imagined Sexual Dystopia. Now It’s Arrived. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/books/review/michael-houellebecqs-sexual-distopia.html |access-date=26 December 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=12 July 2018 |type=book review |url-access=limited |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240131142304/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/books/review/michael-houellebecqs-sexual-distopia.html |archive-date=January 31, 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Aut|]}}, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240807130300/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/20/involuntary-celibacy-incels-problem-right-to-sex-not-the-answer |date=August 7, 2024 }}, in: '']'', October 20, 2022.</ref>

Two episodes of the American crime drama '']'' are based on incels. In ], the episode "]" (2014) is based on ] and the ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Niazi |first=Amil |date=October 18, 2018 |title=The Best Episodes from All 20 Years of 'Law & Order: SVU' |url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qv95nx/the-best-episodes-from-all-20-years-of-law-and-order-svu |access-date=August 18, 2020 |website=] |archive-date=March 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210304015154/https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qv95nx/the-best-episodes-from-all-20-years-of-law-and-order-svu |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Easton |first=Anne |date=October 16, 2014 |title='Law & Order: SVU' Recap 16×4: The Quest for Validation |url=https://observer.com/2014/10/law-order-svu-recap-16x4-the-quest-for-validation/ |access-date=August 18, 2020 |website=] |archive-date=October 19, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141019115200/http://observer.com/2014/10/law-order-svu-recap-16x4-the-quest-for-validation |url-status=live}}</ref> In ], the ] (2018) features a group of incels who attack the targets of each other's obsession to exact revenge while creating alibis for one another, the plotline which in itself is inspired by a 1950s novel, '']''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=VanArendonk |first=Kathryn |date=October 17, 2018 |title=Law & Order: SVU Did a Whole Episode About Incels |url=https://www.vulture.com/2018/10/law-and-order-svu-season-20-incel-episode.html |access-date=August 18, 2020 |website=] |archive-date=November 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109025336/https://www.vulture.com/2018/10/law-and-order-svu-season-20-incel-episode.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

'']'', a 2020 ] novel by ], features a company that buys ] data on women genetically identified as vulnerable to ]. The company sells their names and addresses to incels, one of whom is a ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dallas |first=Sandra |date=May 22, 2020 |title=Book review: In 'Fair Warning,' the lucrative world of DNA testing is fodder for crime |url=https://www.denverpost.com/2020/05/22/book-review-fair-warning-michael-connelly/ |access-date=August 18, 2020 |website=] |archive-date=August 17, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200817164422/https://www.denverpost.com/2020/05/22/book-review-fair-warning-michael-connelly/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Loosley |first=Stephen |date=June 12, 2020 |title=Michael Connelly's Fair Warning: forensic take on chilling serial crime |url=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Farts%2Freview%2Fmichael-connellys-fair-warning-forensic-take-on-chilling-serial-crime%2Fnews-story%2F5e4bb3ebe9bde104a55dfd89306b9d1b&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&nk=46675982c182767ffbb97c07f5b58f4a-1597765886 |access-date=August 18, 2020 |website=] |archive-date=November 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104215611/https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&dest=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/michael-connellys-fair-warning-forensic-take-on-chilling-serial-crime/news-story/5e4bb3ebe9bde104a55dfd89306b9d1b&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&nk=46675982c182767ffbb97c07f5b58f4a-1597765886 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The 2023 science fiction film '']'' also features a character based on Rodger.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Croll |first=Ben |title=Director Bertrand Bonello Explains the Shocking, Incel Inspiration for 'The Beast,' Starring Lea Seydoux, George MacKay (EXCLUSIVE) |url=https://variety.com/2023/film/global/bertrand-bonello-incel-the-beast-lea-seydoux-george-mackay-1235712237/ |date=September 3, 2023 |access-date=October 17, 2023 |website=Variety |archive-date=September 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230924032912/https://variety.com/2023/film/global/bertrand-bonello-incel-the-beast-lea-seydoux-george-mackay-1235712237/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

== See also ==
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== References == == References ==
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==External links== == External links ==
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*{{Wiktionary inline|incel}}
* {{Cite news |title=INVCEL |url=https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76h59o |work=] |agency=Gimlet |date=May 10, 2018}} Podcast episode about the early history of the incel subculture.
* ] The thesaurus entry for ] at Wiktionary
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Latest revision as of 03:45, 28 December 2024

Online subculture For other uses, see Incel (disambiguation). Not to be confused with sexual frustration.

Incel (/ˈɪnsɛl/ IN-sel; a portmanteau of "involuntary celibate") is a term associated with a (mostly online) subculture of people (racially diverse but mostly white, male and heterosexual) who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, and who may blame, objectify and denigrate women and girls as a result. Originally coined as "invcel" around 1997 by a queer Canadian student, the spelling had shifted to "incel" by 1999, and the term rose to prominence in the 2010s in the aftermath of the misogynistic terrorist acts of Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian.

History and organization

The first website to use the term "incel" was "Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project", founded in 1997 by a Canadian university student known only by her first name, Alana, to discuss her sexual inactivity with others; however, some media has incorrectly dated it to 1993, the date of a personal interaction that later inspired her to design the page. The site was used by people of all genders and sexual orientations to share their thoughts and experiences. During 1997, she started a mailing list on the topic that used the abbreviation INVCEL, later shortened to "incel", for "anybody of any gender who was lonely, had never had sex or who hadn't had a relationship in a long time". During her college years and after, Alana realized she was bisexual and became more comfortable with her identity. She stopped participating in her online project around 2000 and gave the site to a stranger. In 2018, Alana said of her project: "It definitely wasn't a bunch of guys blaming women for their problems. That's a pretty sad version of this phenomenon that's happening today. Things have changed in the last 20 years". When she read about the 2014 Isla Vista killings, and that parts of the incel subculture glorified the perpetrator, she wrote: "Like a scientist who invented something that ended up being a weapon of war, I can't uninvent this word, nor restrict it to the nicer people who need it". She expressed regret at the change in usage from her original intent of creating an "inclusive community" for people of all genders who were sexually deprived due to social awkwardness, marginalization, or mental illness.

The message board love-shy.com was founded in 2003 as a place for people who felt perpetually rejected or were extremely shy with potential partners to discuss their situations. It was less strictly moderated than its counterpart, IncelSupport, which was also founded in the 2000s. While IncelSupport welcomed men and women and banned misogynistic posts, love-shy.com's userbase was overwhelmingly male. Over the next decade, the membership of love-shy.com and online fringe right-wing communities like 4chan increasingly overlapped. In the 2000s, incel communities became more extremist as they adopted behaviors common on forums like 4chan and Reddit, where extremist posts were encouraged as a way to achieve visibility. According to Bruce Hoffman and colleagues writing in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, as "edgy" and extremist statements became more prevalent in incel communities, so too did extremist trolling and "shitposting".

The r/incels subreddit, a forum on the website Reddit, later became a particularly active incel community. It was known as a place where men blamed women for their inceldom, sometimes advocated for rape or other forms of violence, and were misogynistic and often racist. On November 7, 2017, Reddit banned the r/incels subreddit following a new policy that prohibited "content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people" adopted earlier in October 2017. At the time of the ban, the community had around 40,000 members. The incel community continued to inhabit Reddit in other subreddits, such as on the subreddit r/braincels. Although the tone of the subreddit was similar to r/incels, moderators of the r/braincels forum said that they did not endorse, support, or glorify violence or violent people, a distinction they made from the subject matter of its predecessor that resulted in its being banned from Reddit. The r/braincels subreddit was banned later, however, on September 30, 2019, after Reddit again broadened its banning policy. Incel communities began to migrate away from shared platforms and instead use their own closed forums dedicated specifically to the subject.

The subculture came to wider public notice throughout the 2010s with the banning of r/incels and when a series of mass murders were committed by men who either identified as members of the subculture or shared similar ideologies. Increased interest in incel communities has been attributed to feelings of "aggrieved entitlement" among some men who feel they are being denied rights they deserve and blame women for their lack of sex.

Since around 2019, some self-identified incels have attempted to redefine their views to appear more mainstream by writing blog posts and articles on subject-specific wikis and forums rejecting the more open expressions of misogyny within other segments of the subculture, highlighting the heterogeneity of incel communities, and reframing incels not as an online subculture but as those experiencing a life circumstance that applies even to individuals who are not members of the subculture. M. Kelly wrote for the Political Research Associates think tank in 2021 that these attempts to redefine themselves contradicted the communities' self-identifications and moderation strategies, where members regularly challenge other users' "legitimacy" as incels, but have accepted as members individuals with sexual experience who nonetheless shared similar political ideologies.

Extremism

The incel subculture's attitudes can be characterized by extremist resentment, hostility, sexual objectification, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity and self-loathing, racism, sense of entitlement to sex, blaming of women and the sexually successful for their situation (which is often seen as predetermined due to biological determinism, evolutionary genetics or a rigged game), nihilism, rape culture, and the endorsement of sexual and non-sexual violence against women and the sexually active. Incel communities have been increasingly criticized by scholars, government officials, and others for their misogyny, the endorsement and encouragement of violence, and extremism. Over time the subculture has become associated with extremism and terrorism, and since 2014 there have been multiple mass killings, mostly in North America, perpetrated by self-identified incels, as well as other instances of violence or attempted violence.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described the subculture as "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem" that is included in their list of hate groups. The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism states that "the incel community shares a misogynistic ideology of women as being genetically inferior to men, driven by their sexual desire to reproduce with genetically superior males thereby excluding unattractive men such as themselves" which "exhibits all of the hallmarks of an extremist ideology", and that it is the combination of a wish for a mythical past where all men were entitled to sex from subordinated women, a sense of predestined personal failure, and nihilism, which makes the worldview dangerous. Estimates of the overall size of the subculture vary greatly, ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of individuals. Incel communities became more extremist and focused on violence from the late 2010s. This has been attributed to factors including influences from overlapping online hate groups and the rise of the alt-right and white supremacist groups. The misogynistic and violent rhetoric of some members of these communities has led to numerous bans from websites and web hosts. Incel communities continue to exist on more lenient platforms including 4chan, 8chan, and Gab, as well as on web forums created specifically for the topic. More extremist self-identified incels have increasingly migrated to obscure locations including gaming chat services (such as Discord) and the dark web to avoid site shutdowns and the self-censorship that has developed among some incel communities as an effort to avoid drawing scrutiny from law enforcement or website service providers.

Beginning in 2018 and into the 2020s, the incel ideology has been described by North American governments and researchers as a terrorism threat, and law enforcement have issued warnings about the subculture. In May 2019, an American man was sentenced to up to five years in prison for making terrorist threats, posting on social media, "I'm planning on shooting up a public place ... killing as many girls as I see". In September 2019, the U.S. Army warned soldiers about the possibility of violence at movie theaters showing the Joker film, after "disturbing and very specific chatter" was found in conversations among self-identified incels on the dark web. A January 2020 report by the Texas Department of Public Safety warned that the incel movement was an "emerging domestic terrorism threat" that "could soon match, or potentially eclipse, the level of lethalness demonstrated by other domestic terrorism types". A 2020 paper published by Bruce Hoffman and colleagues in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism concluded that "the violent manifestations of the ideology pose a new terrorism threat, which should not be dismissed or ignored by domestic law enforcement agencies". John Horgan, a psychology professor at Georgia State University who in 2019 received a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to study the incel subculture, explained why the incel ideology equates to terrorism: "the fact that incels are aspiring to change things up in a bigger, broader ideological sense, that's, for me, what make it a classic example of terrorism. That's not saying all incels are terrorists. But violent incel activity is, unquestionably, terrorism in my view". In February 2020, an attack in Toronto that was allegedly motivated by incel ideologies became the first such act of violence to be prosecuted as terrorism, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stated that they consider the incel subculture to be an "Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremist (IMVE)" movement. Jacob Ware publishing in Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses wrote that analysis of incels has been focused within the United States and Canada due to the concentration of incel-motivated attacks in those countries. The United States Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center, in a March 2022 case study titled "Hot Yoga Tallahassee: A Case Study of Misogynistic Extremism", sought to draw attention to "the specific threat posed by misogynist extremism."

Forums

The largest incel forum was founded in 2017 by a previous moderator of the r/incels subreddit. The forum had almost 15,000 members as of October 2022. It is composed of public and registered message boards for self-described incels to discuss their personal experiences. Moderators ban women and LGBT individuals from joining, justifying so by stating that the forum is oriented towards straight men. Talia Lavin in her book Culture Warlords describes the site's culture as one of "one-upmanship", "barroom boast-off" and shock content. Rolling Stone describes a vindictive site culture, giving an example of an ex-moderator who entered a romantic relationship and was subsequently rejected by site members as a "fake incel". Vox states that the site has a culture of praising mass killers, which is treated lightly by the site's admins.

The site has used several top-level domains since its creation, after being suspended by one over violence and hate speech and denied renewal by another.

The site owners also operate a wiki, which has been described by researchers publishing in New Media & Society as cherry picking academic papers to promote misogynistic points.

Connection to suicide forums

See also: Sanctioned Suicide

In September, the UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) published a report in September 2022 about the largest dedicated incel forum, based on monthly visits, and a network of other sites run by the same two pseudonymous individuals. The Washington Post, New York Times, and the CCDH identified them as Uruguay-based Diego Joaquín Galante and United States–based Lamarcus Small. In December 2021, the New York Times reported that it had identified 45 people, individually, who died in connection to a website called Sanctioned Suicide, and estimated that the true number was likely much higher. The Times reporters discovered that Galante and Small created and operated the suicide website, in addition to their several incel forums. The CCDH reported that Galante and Small also maintained forums for online communities dedicated to body image and unemployment.

Ideology

Many incel communities are characterized by resentment and hatred, self-pity, racism, misogyny, and misanthropy. Discussions often revolve around the belief that men are entitled to sex; other common topics include idleness, loneliness, unhappiness, suicide, sexual surrogates, and prostitution, as well as attributes they believe increase one's desirability as a partner such as looks, income or personality. The incel community has a shared victimhood identity in which individuals fatalistically celebrate their failures and discourage each other from seeking romantic success. Many self-identified incels adopt the "blackpill". Additionally some focus on the "scientific blackpill", a series of studies that purport to scientifically prove their victimization. Opposition to feminism and women's rights is common, and some posters blame women's liberation for their inability to find a partner. Some believe there was a golden age in which couples married early, were strictly monogamous, and adhered to traditional gender roles. They believe that during this time, looks played less of a role in romantic pairings and men's "entitlement" to sex with women was never denied. Those holding this belief often disagree about precisely when this golden age occurred, but they concur that it was gradually destroyed by feminism, the sexual revolution, women's liberation, and technological progress. Racism is generally considered to be common on incel forums, though some researchers have questioned its prevalence. In 2019, Jaki et al. estimated that 3 percent of comments on incel forums contained words from a list of racist words identified by the researchers. Antisemitic beliefs are also regularly found on incel forums, with some posters going so far as to blame the rise of feminism on a plot masterminded by Jews to weaken the Western world. Alexei Podnebesny, whom the media calls the leader of the incel movement in Russia, has developed his own theory of vaginocapitalism (from "vagina" and "capitalism"), according to which men are deprived of the right to sex by women, every man is forced to pay for it in some way.

Some researchers have questioned linguistic analysis of incel forums as the primary methodology for studying the subculture, recommending that future researchers employ qualitative methods such as one-on-one interviews to obtain a more nuanced view and to avoid results being skewed by the prevalence of shitposting on incel forums.

"Blackpill"

"Blackpill" redirects here. For other uses, see Blackpill (disambiguation).

The "blackpill" (sometimes written as "black pill") generally refers to a set of beliefs mostly held by incel communities, which include biological determinism, fatalism, and defeatism for unattractive people. These beliefs are supported by continued reference on incel forums to scientific studies in fields such as psychology, sociology, evolutionary biology and economics (specifically studies about the dating market that use data from online dating services); labelling such studies collectively as the "scientific blackpill". Believers are referred to as being "blackpilled". The black pill has been described by Vox correspondent Zack Beauchamp as "a profoundly sexist ideology that ... amounts to a fundamental rejection of women's sexual emancipation, labeling women shallow, cruel creatures who will choose only the most attractive men if given the choice". The term was first popularized on the blog Omega Virgin Revolt, where it represented a belief that the entire social system was broken and that one's place in the system was not something any individual could change. One who has "taken the black pill" has adopted the belief that they are hopeless, and that their lack of success romantically and sexually is permanent regardless of any changes they might try to make to their physical appearance, personality, or other characteristics.

On the former incel subreddit r/braincels, the term "blackpill" was used for memes that criticized women as egocentric, cruel, and shallow.

Scientific studies used as justification

Many self-identified incels justify their prejudices using interpretations taken from concepts such as biological determinism and evolutionary psychology. Self-identified incels also regularly endorse the ideas of "female hypergamy"; genetic superiority of men over women; the "80/20 rule" (an application of the Pareto principle) which suggests that 80% of women desire the top 20% of most attractive men; and, among non-white men within the subculture, the "just be white" (JBW) theory, which suggests that Caucasians face the fewest obstacles to relationships and sex. Self-identified incels also believe that people seeking a romantic or sexual partner participate in a cruel, mercenary, and Darwinian sexual selection, wherein incels are genetically unfit and where women hold an advantage for reasons ranging from feminism to the use of cosmetics. Incels may attribute their lack of sexual success to factors such as shyness, sex-segregated work environments, negative body image, penis size, or their physical appearance, and commonly believe that the only thing more important than looks in improving a man's eligibility as a prospective partner is wealth. Some justify their beliefs based on the works of fringe social psychologist Brian Gilmartin and clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson.

"Red pill"

See also: Red pill and blue pill

The "red pill" is an allusion that is common among manosphere communities, as well as some communities outside of the manosphere. It originates from the dilemma in the movie The Matrix where the protagonist must choose whether to remain in a world of illusion (taking the blue pill) or to see the world as it really is (taking the red pill). Among communities that use the term, the "red pill" often refers to the core set of beliefs of that community, and people who are "redpilled" or who have "taken the red pill" are those who hold those beliefs. In manosphere communities such as men's rights groups and, according to some researchers, in incel communities as well, "taking the red pill" means seeing a world where feminism has given women too much power over men and male privilege does not exist. The "black pill" is an extension of the red and blue pill analogy. There is some disagreement among researchers and journalists over which beliefs are "red pill" and which are "black pill", and whether the black pill ideology is a distinguishing belief of the incel ideology or if there are self-identified incels who do not subscribe to black pill ideas. Some researchers and journalists use the term "red pill" to refer to the set of beliefs commonly held by men's rights' activists, and the term "black pill" to summarize the incel ideology as a whole. Hoffman et al. have said that "'Taking the black pill' is critical to the incel identity, since it means recognizing 'inceldom' as a permanent condition". Aja Romano writing for Vox has said, "what unites all incels is something known as the black pill". Researchers at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) write that there are some incels who believe in the red pill and others who believe in the black pill.

Researchers at the ADL have said that some incels follow the red pill ideology. Those who believe they can improve their chances with women are adherents to the red pill, whereas only incels who believe they have no power to change their position in society or chances with women are blackpilled. The ADL writes that, among incels, the beliefs summarized as "red pill" center around the idea that feminism has unbalanced society to favor women and give them too much power. Redpilled incels believe they have the opportunity to fight back against this system which disadvantages them, which they do by trying to make themselves more attractive to women. Conversely, blackpilled incels are those who believe they can do nothing to change their situation. The ADL writes, "This is where the incel movement takes on characteristics of a death cult". Those who have taken the black pill are left with few options, says the ADL: giving up on life (referred to by incels as "LDAR", an abbreviation for "lie down and rot"), dying by suicide, or committing mass violence.

Promotion of violence

Many incels glorify Elliot Rodger (pictured) and consider him their "saint"

Some discussions in incel communities endorse violence against sexually active women and more sexually successful men; harassment of women, including activities such as catfishing. According to the Anti-Defamation League, they form the most violent community within the manosphere. In some incel communities, it is common for posts to glorify violence by self-identified incels such as Elliot Rodger (perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings) and Alek Minassian (perpetrator of the 2018 Toronto van attack), as well as by those they believe shared their ideology such as Marc Lépine (perpetrator of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre), Seung-Hui Cho (perpetrator of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting), and George Sodini (perpetrator of the 2009 Collier Township shooting). Rodger is the most frequently referenced, often being referred to as their "saint" with memes in which his face has been superimposed onto paintings of Christian icons. Some incels consider him to be the true progenitor of today's online incel communities. The BBC described Rodger in 2020 as "the founding father of the incel ideology".

Some within these communities view violence as the only solution to what they see as societal oppression and abuse against them and speak frequently of incel "uprisings" and "revolts". Others take the more nihilistic view that nothing will change society, even violent acts, and focus their efforts on constructing a scientific justification for this nihilism. Some support the idea of violence as revenge on society, without the hope it will lead to societal change.

However, other researchers have questioned the degree of violence found in incel communities, with some suggesting that "extreme inceldom looks more like suicidality than violence toward others". Some violent posts may be motivated by status seeking behavior by individuals on forums, rather than a desire to promote violence. A 2021 study found that the overwhelming majority of self-identified incels themselves do not think that incel groups promote violence, and a 2022 study found that most self-identified incels surveyed (79%) rejected violence.

Sexual violence

A subgroup of self-identified incels who frequent websites founded by Nathan Larson, who was a perennial political candidate and active participant in incel communities, work deliberately to convince other self-identified incels that they are justified in raping women if they are rejected sexually. Some self-identified incels describe women's sexual rejection of them as "reverse rape", a phenomenon they consider to be equally harmful as rape.

A September 2022 report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate on the largest dedicated incel forum found that users posted about rape once every 29 minutes during their study period and used the word "kill" 1,181 times in one month. During the study period, 89% of forum users expressed that they support rape in general. According to the report, some posters on the forum try to normalize the idea of child rape, and more than half the total forum during their study period supported pedophilia. The report also exposed that the incel forum site operators had changed a forum rule in March 2022 to allow for the sexualization of pubescent minors, narrowing an existing rule to outlaw only the sexualization of "pre-pubescent" minors.

In context of related communities

Incel communities are a part of the broader manosphere, a loose collection of misogynist movements that also includes men's rights activists (MRAs), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), pickup artists (PUAs), and fathers' rights groups. Journalists for the New York Times in 2018 wrote that involuntary celibacy is an adaptation of the idea of "male supremacy" and that the communities have evolved into a movement "made up of people—some celibate, some not—who believe that women should be treated as sexual objects with few rights". The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) also described the subculture as "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem", which they began including in their list of hate groups in 2018. While the incel ideology involves the belief that one is physically inferior to the rest of society, often referring to oneself as "subhuman", researchers have agreed that self-identified incels also espouse supremacist views: either that they are superior to women, or superior to non-incels in general. A 2019 study published in Terrorism and Political Violence found that self-identified incels believe themselves to be the only ones who are "capable of pro-social values and intelligent enough ('high IQ') to see the truth about the social world". The study determined that they followed a pattern that is typical of extremist groups, ascribing highly negative values to out-groups and positive values to in-groups, with the unusual caveat that despite seeing themselves as psychologically superior, they also view themselves negatively in terms of physical appearance.

Incel communities sometimes overlap with communities such as Men Going Their Own Way, men's rights activism, people who believe they are experiencing "true forced loneliness" (TFL), and pickup artistry, although at least one incel website has expressed hatred for pickup artistry and accused pickup artists and dating coaches of financially exploiting incels. Media scholar Debbie Ging writes that incels' discourse around "victimhood and aggrieved entitlement" began on 4chan and has spread into more mainstream groups such as men's rights activists (MRAs) and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW). Incel communities have also been observed to overlap with far-right groups, with the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right noting that the subculture is "part of a growing trend of radical-right movements" that are distressed by neoliberalism, especially women's empowerment and immigration. Hoffman and colleagues, publishing in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, stated that "a particularly worrisome trend is how seamlessly the militant incel community has been integrated into the alt-right tapestry, with common grievances and intermingling membership bringing the two extremisms closer together". Der Spiegel reported in March 2021 on the overlap between the incel community and the Feuerkrieg Division, a group modeled after the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi terrorist network.

Lexicology

The term "involuntary celibate" (shortened to "incel") refers to self-identifying members of an online subculture based around the inability to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, a state they describe as "inceldom" or "incelibacy". It is sometimes used interchangeably or alongside other terms, such as "love-shy" (describing those with social anxiety or excessive shyness preventing romantic success), "FA" (short for "forever alone"), "unfuckability", "omegas", "betas", "betafags", "the undersexed", or "the sexless". Alana, the coiner of the term "incel", initially considered using other terms such as "perpetually single" or "dating shy".

Members of incel communities regularly use jargon and a distinct dialect. They often use dehumanizing and vulgar terms for women, such as "femoids" (a portmanteau of "female humanoids", sometimes shortened further to "foids") and "roasties" (a reference to the labia minora, which incels falsely believe changes shape and begins to resemble sliced roast beef after a woman becomes sexually active). They refer to attractive, sexually active women as "Stacys", less attractive sexually active women as "Beckys", and attractive sexually active men as "Chads" (and recently, "Tyrone" - black men equivalent). People who are average-looking but not incels are "normies". "Mogging" refers to the act of eclipsing another person in terms of physical appearance and thereby undermining them. Looksmaxxing is an attempt at enhancing one's appearance by methods including getting a haircut and dressing nicely, taking steroids and working out, undergoing plastic surgery, or engaging in alternative techniques such as mewing to improve facial aesthetics. The abbreviation "NEET" refers to people who do not have jobs and are not attending school: "not in education, employment, or training".

Members of incel communities use many variations of the term "incel" to refer to subgroups within the community, such as "volcels" (voluntary celibate; someone who chooses to forego sexual intercourse), "fakecels" (those who claim to be incel, but in reality have recently had sex or been in a relationship), and "truecels" (true incels; men who have never had any sexual or romantic encounters). There are also a number of race-based variations of the term "incel" which refer to people who believe their race is the reason behind their inability to find a partner, including "currycels" (people of South Asian ancestry) and "ricecels" (those of Chinese or Southeast Asian backgrounds), or collectively, "ethnicels".

There are also disease-based terms such as "gynocel" or "gynecomastiacel" (a man who is an incel because he suffers from gynecomastia).

Incels refer to their own amateur scientific (sometimes pseudoscientific) experiments where they use a very good looking man's pictures on online dating apps as "Chadfishing".

"Incel" has also come to be used as an insult against people who do not necessarily identify with the subculture, but who are perceived to be sexually inexperienced, undesirable, or unpopular.

Demographics

Self-identified incels are mostly male and heterosexual, and are often described as young and friendless introverts. Estimates of the size of incel communities during 2018–2020 varied, and ranged from the thousands, to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands. A statistical analysis of the largest incel forum shows that only a few hundred accounts made up the vast majority of forum posts during all of 2021 and most of 2022.

Incel communities are largely made up of emerging adults who feel they have not met their sexual milestones "on time". Approximately half of incels live with their parents or grandparents.

Many sources describe incels as predominantly white. Sociologist Ross Haenfler was quoted in The Washington Post describing them as primarily white. Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center echoed this to NBC News, saying they are "young, frustrated white males in their late teens into their early twenties who are having a hard time adjusting to adulthood". Jaki and colleagues, publishing linguistic analysis of a large incel forum in The Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict in June 2019, contended that "contrary to what is often reported" there was no definitive evidence that the group is predominantly white, and that "it is impossible to say whether the majority of users are white men, but our data implies that this may be less true than expected". They suggested that the various mentions of race on the forum "may reflect, to some extent, the ethnic variety of the forum". Hoffman and colleagues, publishing in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, reported that a March 2020 survey of the same forum determined that most respondents self-identified as Caucasian.

A survey of self-identified incels by researchers from the University of Texas found that incels tended to be slightly center-left. They are significantly left in questions about homosexuality, corporate profits and welfare benefits. In an earlier study, researchers from the University of Texas ran a poll of self-reported incels, which found that 63.58% of those who responded identified as white, a smaller percentage than non-incels in the study. They also found that 45% of incels who responded leaned to the left on the political spectrum, 17.5% were centrists, and 38.9% leaned to the right, showing no differences between the incel and the control group of the study.

Self-identified incels are mainly located in North America and Europe, although there are also incel communities for people outside the Anglosphere, such as the Italian website Il Forum dei Brutti. The English language forums also receive much traffic from non-Anglophone countries. Research published in 2020 by the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) on the three largest incel forums found they had a total of about 20,000 users, with only about 1,000 who post actively. The FOI found that between 4.6 and 7.3% of the visitors to the forums originated from Sweden, though they caution this may not be accurate given the use of personal VPNs.

Some media outlets depict incels as unemployed or NEET ("not in education, employment, or training") and living with parents.

Female incels

The first incel website, Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project, was gender-inclusive. There have been more contemporary female-specific incel (or "femcel") communities, such as r/TruFemcels and its successor ThePinkPill. As of February 2020, the most popular female incel forum was the r/TruFemcels subreddit, with over 22,000 members. It was banned in January 2021 for violating Reddit's rules against promoting hate. Another subreddit reportedly associated with self-identified female incels is r/Vindicta, which contains beauty advice. There are also hashtags pertaining to the idea of female incels in use on TikTok, such as #femcel, #femcelcore and #femcelrights, which as of 2022, have over 250 million views. There are reported to be tens of thousands of women self-identifying as female incels on the internet.

Nonetheless, there is disagreement in online incel communities on whether women can be incels, with some claiming that male incels grossly outnumber female incels, others claiming that it is impossible for women to be incels at all, others claiming that only "severely deformed" women can be incels, and others arguing that only unattractive women belonging to the "bottom percentile in terms of appearance" can be incels. Members of male incel communities often reject the concept of a female incel, believing that all women can obtain sex from men, and believing that self-identified female incels are voluntarily celibate. Members of male incel communities may also troll female incels. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the majority of self-identified incels do not believe women can be incels. Journalists have written that outside of the female incels' own communities, few believe women can be incels. M. Kelly wrote for the Political Research Associates in 2021 that members of incel communities point to the existence of female incels as an argument against criticisms of them as misogynist, but that most incel communities do not accept them and ban them from using their forums.

Female incel communities are also generally overlooked within academic literature about incels. Like members of male incel communities, female incel community members tend to believe that they are victims to their ugliness and think that only unattractive men will date them. They call more attractive looking women "Staceys", who they believe decrease their chance of having sexual contact with men, similar to discussion of "Chads" in male incel forums. They have adopted the idea of the "pink pill", which has been likened to "red pill" and "black pill" terminology, and which describes a belief that some women are considered undesirable and thus are unable to engage in sexual relationships due to society's focus on certain aspects of female attractiveness. Members of female incel communities are more likely to self-blame rather than blaming men for their dating and sexual difficulties. This may be due to gender stereotypes, such as the belief that women do not have a "natural" need for sex. Some women identifying as incels believe they could have casual sex, but fear it would only be from men who would abuse or disrespect them. Within online female incel communities, misogyny and an impossible feminine beauty ideal are also perceived as reasons for female celibacy. Many other women have similar problems, but do not self-identify as female incels.

Some female incel communities have been critical of body positivity and mainstream feminism, viewing them as unhelpful to female incels: a former member of the r/TruFemcels community was quoted in The Atlantic saying, "I'd rather be able to talk about being ugly than just try to convince myself that I'm pretty". An expert in psychology interviewed by El País characterized these communities as overly insular and skeptical of outsiders (who are deemed "normies"), in what she described as "cognitive inflexibility". She also stated that, "US culture is less sociable. In Spain, would have completely different characteristics... I don't think it would have the same number of followers, to begin with, because in Spain we are more encouraging of interpersonal relationships, and the development of social skills."

Women who identify as incels share some similarities with their male counterparts, such as belief that physical appearance is the most important factor in finding a partner. In other ways they tend to be different; for example, according to journalist Isabelle Kohn, rather than being angry at the men who reject them, they empathize with the men for not wanting to date them. Kohn notes the tendency for women identifying as incels to turn their rage inwards, rather than outwards like males. Journalist Arwa Mahdawi hypothesizes that the fact that females who identify as incels do not go on violent rampages like some of their male counterparts is the most obvious reason why they have not received much attention in mainstream media. In February 2020, Kohn wrote that she could find "mountains" of academic papers on male incels, but none on female incels. She says the assumption that female incels do not exist adds to their pain. Continued neglect of research on female incels was reported in 2024.

Mental health

"Involuntary celibacy" is not a medical or psychological condition. Some people who identify as incel have physical disabilities or psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, autism, and body dysmorphic disorder. A 2022 study found that self-identified incels had higher rates of depression, anxiety, and formal mental diagnoses than the general population: 95% reported depression and 93% reported anxiety. 38% had clinical diagnoses.

Some posters to incel forums attribute their inability to find a partner to physical or mental ailments, while some others attribute it to extreme introversion. Many of those identifying as incels engage in self-diagnosis of mental health issues, and members of incel communities often discourage posters who post about mental illness from seeing therapists or otherwise seeking treatment. Some members of incel communities with severe depression are also suicidal, and some members encourage suicidal members to kill themselves, sometimes recommending they commit acts of mass violence before doing so.

Mass murders and violence

2023 Allen, Texas outlet mall shootingPlymouth shooting2020 Westgate Entertainment District shooting2020 Toronto machete attackHanau shootings2019 Dallas courthouse shooting2018 Tallahassee shootingToronto van attackStoneman Douglas High School shootingAztec High School shootingUmpqua Community College shooting2014 Isla Vista killingsTimeline of violence committed or suspected to have been committed by men who have self-identified as involuntarily celibate, or whose statements align with incel ideologies

Mass murders and other violent attacks have been committed or are suspected to have been committed by men who have self-identified as involuntarily celibate, or whose statements align with incel ideologies. Other intended attacks by such individuals have been thwarted by police before being carried out.

2000s

On August 4, 2009, George Sodini opened fire at an LA Fitness health club in Collier Township, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Three women were murdered and nine other people were injured before Sodini killed himself. He purportedly expressed sexual frustration and complained of constant rejections by women on a website registered in his name. Sodini and his actions have been embraced and glorified by some members of incel communities, who sometimes refer to incel violence as "going Sodini".

2010s

Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured fourteen others before killing himself in Isla Vista, California on May 23, 2014, near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara. These killings drew media attention to the concept of involuntary celibacy, and particularly the misogyny and glorification of violence that are a mainstay of many incel communities. Rodger self-identified as an incel and left behind a 137-page manifesto and YouTube videos in which he detailed his involuntary celibacy and discussed how he wanted revenge for being rejected by women. He had been an active member of a community popular among incels called PUAHate (short for "pickup artist hate"), and referenced it several times in his manifesto. Although PUAHate shut down soon after the attack, Rodger became something of a martyr to some communities that remained, and to some of those that emerged later. It is common to see references to "E.R." in incel forums, and mass violence by incels is regularly referred to as "going E.R.". Rodger has been referenced by the perpetrators or suspected perpetrators of several other mass killings, and is one of several attackers who are regularly praised by members of incel communities.

Chris Harper-Mercer killed nine people and injured eight others before killing himself in a shooting at the Umpqua Community College campus on October 1, 2015, in Roseburg, Oregon. He left a manifesto at the scene, outlining his interest in other mass murders including the Isla Vista killings, his anger at not having a girlfriend, and his animus towards the world. In his journal writings, he had related with Elliot Rodger and other mass shooters, describing them as "people who stand with the gods". Before the attack, when someone on an online message board had speculated Harper-Mercer was "saving himself for someone special", Harper-Mercer had replied: 'involuntarily so". Several hours before the shooting, someone suspected to be Harper-Mercer posted a threat to a Pacific Northwest college to /r9k/, a 4chan board with many incel posters.

On July 31, 2016, Sheldon Bentley robbed and killed an unconscious man in an alleyway in Edmonton, Alberta. During his trial, Bentley said he killed the man by stomping on his abdomen because he was frustrated with stress from his job as a security guard and with being an incel for four years.

William Atchison killed two people before killing himself on December 7, 2017, in Aztec, New Mexico, in a shooting at Aztec High School, where he had previously been a student. He had used the pseudonym "Elliot Rodger" on several online forums and praised "the supreme gentleman" (a term Rodger had used to describe himself, which has since become a common reference among incel communities). Atchison had also posted far-right content online.

Nikolas Cruz killed seventeen people and injured seventeen others on February 14, 2018, in a shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Allegedly also motivated by other extremist views, Cruz had previously posted online that "Elliot Rodger will not be forgotten".

After an April 23, 2018 vehicle-ramming attack in Toronto, Ontario, Alek Minassian was convicted of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder. Shortly before the attack, Minassian had allegedly posted on Facebook that "the Incel Rebellion has already begun" and applauded Rodger. The term "Incel Rebellion" is sometimes used interchangeably with the term "Beta Uprising", which refers to a violent response to incels' perceived sexual deprivation. Following the attack, a poster on a website created to supersede r/incels wrote about Minassian, "I hope this guy wrote a manifesto because he could be our next new saint". Following the attack, police claimed that Minassian had been radicalized by incel communities. A video interview was later released in September 2019 showing Minassian being interrogated by police shortly after the attacks. In the video, Minassian is shown telling police that he was a virgin, and that he was motivated by a resentment of "Chads and Staceys", as well as women who gave "their love and affection to obnoxious brutes" rather than to him. The video also showed Minassian saying that he hoped the alleged attack would "inspire future masses to join me" in committing acts of violence as a part of the "Beta Uprising". The judge who found Minassian guilty on all counts wrote in her decision that Minassian had attempted to tie his attack to the incel community as a way of increasing his notoriety, and that "working out his exact motivation for this attack is ... close to impossible". She found that Minassian had "lie to the police about much of the incel motivation he talked about and that the incel movement was not in fact a primary driving force behind the attack".

On November 2, 2018, Scott Beierle killed two women and injured four women and a man before killing himself in a shooting at the Hot Yoga Tallahassee studio in Tallahassee, Florida. He had been a follower of incel ideologies for a long time, and also had a history of arrests for grabbing women's buttocks. In 2014 he posted several YouTube videos of himself espousing extreme hatred for women and expressing anger over not having a girlfriend, mentioning Elliot Rodger in one video. In the months leading up to the shooting, he posted numerous misogynistic, racist, violent, and homophobic songs to SoundCloud.

In January 2019, Christopher Cleary was arrested for posting on Facebook that he was "planning on shooting up a public place soon and being the next mass shooter" and "killing as many girls as I see" because he had never had a girlfriend and was a virgin. He has been described as an incel in the media. In May 2019, Cleary was sentenced to up to five years in prison for an attempted threat of terrorism.

Brian Isaack Clyde began what was intended to be a mass shooting at the Earle Cabell Federal Building and Courthouse in Dallas, Texas on June 17, 2019, but was shot and fatally wounded by officers from the Federal Protective Service before he injured anyone. Clyde had shared incel memes on social media, along with other posts referencing right-wing beliefs and conspiracy theories. Following the incident, the Joint Base Andrews military base briefed its personnel on certain online behaviors among "introverted, sexless individuals," with a spokesman describing them as "a very real threat to military members and civilians".

Self-identified incels have also praised attackers with unclear motives who they believe to be incels. After the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, some of the incel community celebrated the shooter Stephen Paddock, who they felt was a hero who was targeting "normies". After the 2018 Toronto shooting, posters on an incel message board expressed excitement with the possibility that the perpetrator might be an incel, although no motive was identified.

2020s

On February 24, 2020, a female spa worker was stabbed to death in an attack that also severely injured her female coworker at an erotic massage parlor in Toronto. On May 19, the Toronto Police Service declared the attack was being treated as a terrorist incident after evidence pointed to the stabbings being motivated by incel ideology, and police laid charges against a 17-year-old male alleged to have committed the stabbings. This was the first time violence thought to be motivated by incel ideologies was prosecuted as an act of terrorism, and is also believed to be the first act of violence not perpetrated by an Islamist extremist to be prosecuted as terrorism in Canada. On September 14, 2022, the perpetrator entered a guilty plea to murder and attempted murder. The attack was ruled a terrorist attack during sentencing proceedings.

Armando Hernandez Jr. opened fire on May 20, 2020, at Westgate Entertainment District, a mixed-use development in Glendale, Arizona, before being arrested by police. A 19-year-old man was critically injured, while a 30-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl suffered minor injuries. According to the Maricopa County prosecutor, Hernandez identified himself as an incel and claimed he wanted to target couples and shoot at least ten people. The prosecutor said, "Mr. Hernandez is a self-professed incel ... He was taking out his anger at society, the feeling that he has been bullied, the feeling that women didn't want him". The prosecutor also alleged that Hernandez sent a video of the attack to a woman he wished to impress.

Between January and the end of July 2020, five self-identified incels were arrested in separate incidents in North America for killing or planning to kill women. Among them was Cole Carini, a man who was charged with making false statements to law enforcement in June 2020 after claiming serious injuries to his hands had been caused by a lawnmower accident. Police alleged that Carini was actually injured while trying to make a bomb, and that he had written a note threatening violence against women and referencing Elliot Rodger.

In April 2021, Malik Sanchez, a 19-year-old self-described incel who praised Elliot Rodger, was arrested on federal charges after allegedly videotaping himself approaching women sitting outside a restaurant in Manhattan, New York and telling them he was going to detonate a bomb. The man had previously been arrested several times for harassing others, often while recording or livestreaming, and for multiple assaults with pepper spray.

In July 2021, a 21-year-old self-identified incel from Ohio was charged with attempting a hate crime and illegally possessing a machine gun. The man was a frequent poster on a popular incel website, where he wrote posts venerating Elliot Rodger. He wrote a manifesto in which he expressed his desire to "slaughter" women, and in another document he allegedly wrote about his goals to kill 3,000 people in a mass casualty attack.

On August 12, 2021, Jake Davison, a 22-year-old man who referenced "inceldom" in online videos and expressed similar views, perpetrated a mass shooting in Plymouth, England. He killed five people, including his mother, and injured two others before killing himself.

On December 27, 2021, an individual who harboured views common with incels, Lyndon McLeod (whose pen name was Roman McClay), committed the 2021 Denver and Lakewood shootings, murdering 5 people before being killed by a police officer.

On May 6, 2023, 33-year-old self-identified incel Mauricio Martinez Garcia went on a spree shooting in a mall in Allen, Texas. Garcia killed eight people and injured at least seven others before he was killed by a police officer.

Criticism

Of the subculture

Incel communities have been criticized in the media and by researchers as violent, misogynist, and extremist. Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst working for the Southern Poverty Law Center, has cautioned that exposure to violent content on incel forums "play a very large role" in the radicalization of their members, and describes incel forums as having "more violent rhetoric than I'm used to seeing on even white supremacist sites". Journalist David Futrelle has described incel communities as "violently misogynistic", and is among critics who attribute worsening violent rhetoric on incel forums to the growth of the alt-right and white supremacy, and the overlap between incel communities and online hate groups. Psychologist and sex researcher James Cantor has described incels as "a group of people who usually lack sufficient social skills and ... find themselves very frustrated". He has said that in incel forums "when they're surrounded by other people with similar frustrations, they kind of lose track of what typical discourse is, and they drive themselves into more and more extreme beliefs". Senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), Amarnath Amarasingam, has criticized some incel communities where calls for violence are commonplace, saying "under the right set of psychological and personal circumstances, these kinds of forums can be dangerous and push people into violence". Another researcher at the ISD, Jacob Davey, compared the radicalization of men in incel forums to teenagers being urged to go to extreme measures on online forums that promote anorexia and other eating disorders, and to online campaigns convincing people to join ISIL. Speaking about their feelings of entitlement to sex, Davey said the attitude "can go as far as the justification of rape".

While generally agreeing with critics' concerns about misogyny and other negative characteristics in the incel subculture, some commentators have been more sympathetic. In April 2018, economist Robin Hanson wrote a blog post likening access to sex with access to income, writing that he found it puzzling that similar concern had not been shown to incels as to low-income individuals. Hanson was criticized by some for discussing sex as if it was a commodity; others wrote more positively about his opinions. The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote a similarly controversial op-ed in May 2018 titled "The Redistribution of Sex" in which he suggested sex robots and sex workers would inevitably be called upon to satisfy incels' sexual desires. Some commentators wrote articles agreeing with this view, including Toby Young, who agreed that sex robots could be a "workable solution"; others criticized the column for objectifying women and for legitimizing the incel ideology.

Journalist Zack Beauchamp has expressed concern about other types of harm inflicted by incels that may be lost in the attention paid specifically to mass violence; he points to forum posts in which users brag about yelling at, catfishing, and sexually assaulting women. University of Portsmouth lecturer Lisa Sugiura has described incel forums as a "networked misogyny", and urged the posts in such forums be taken seriously not only in the context of hate speech but also as a form of grooming that could radicalize "impressionable and vulnerable disillusioned young men". Some sociological research on incel communities has analyzed them as a hybrid masculinity, in which privileged men distance themselves from hegemonic masculinity while simultaneously reproducing it.

Of platforms providing services to incel communities

Criticism has also been directed against platforms that host or have hosted incel content, including Reddit (which banned the r/incels community in 2017, and banned most of the remaining incel communities in September 2019, but is still home to some identifying as incels) and Twitter. Cloudflare, which provides services including DDoS protection, caching and obsfucation of the source host of the content, has also been criticized for protecting incel websites against downtime even when webhosts have terminated service.

Of reporting and research

Reporting on incels by media outlets following the incel-related attacks during the 2010s has been criticized for its "breathless" coverage, for normalizing incel communities by describing them only as "sexually frustrated", and for directing readers to incel communities. Some reporting has also been criticized for giving attackers notoriety by reporting on them at length, or for victim blaming by implying that women who had rejected the attackers' romantic or sexual advances held some responsibility for provoking the attacks. Those who have written sympathetically about incels have faced criticism for legitimizing the incel ideology, such as from Samantha Cole in Vice who condemned media outlets who "cove and amplif toxic internet culture as if it's valid ideology".

In a 2021 report published by the Political Research Associates think tank, M. Kelly wrote about recent attempts by various self-identified incels to "rebrand" their communities and stated that "incels' attempts to reframe their identity have also been helped along by researchers, journalists, and 'counter-violent extremism' experts, who, in their attempts to investigate and understand incels, have given them larger, more mainstream platforms. These new platforms have allowed self-identified incels to reframe the public narrative about them; minimize the threat their community poses; and have amplified—or even endorsed—their hate-laced grievances, centering their self-perceived victimhood at the hands of women who deny them sex". Kelly criticized a podcast titled The Incel Project for platforming incel ideologies without challenging or fact-checking their statements. She said the creator, Naama Kates, was "no longer just reporting on incels' misogyny, but justifying and sharing it with the world". Kelly criticized the International Center for Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE), who published several reports on incels co-authored by Kates and by the founder and lead moderator of a major incel forum, writing that "while previous ICSVE reports have drawn from primary data, including interviews and surveys with members of the community being studied, this seems to be the first time—at ICSVE or in academic research more broadly—that someone actively involved in a community that regularly expresses bigoted or violent ideology has co-authored the resulting study".

Portrayals in fiction

In his debut novel Whatever (1994), French writer Michel Houellebecq seems to portray early examples of incels. However, the term did not yet exist at the time; neither did the online communities. The unnamed, 30-year-old protagonist looks unattractive, lacks social skills and suffers from depression, which means that despite his excellent job as an IT professional, he is not popular with women. Things are much worse for his colleague, who is downright ugly and still a virgin at 28. The main character tries to seduce his friend into killing a young woman who has rejected him, which his friend refuses at the last moment. In this novel, the main protagonist philosophizes about the disastrous consequences of the sexual revolution. Because of sexual liberalism, the market mechanism has come to determine human relationships. As a consequence, beautiful people get everything, ugly people get nothing.

Two episodes of the American crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit are based on incels. In season 16, the episode "Holden's Manifesto" (2014) is based on Elliot Rodger and the 2014 Isla Vista killings. In season 20, the episode "Revenge" (2018) features a group of incels who attack the targets of each other's obsession to exact revenge while creating alibis for one another, the plotline which in itself is inspired by a 1950s novel, Strangers on a Train.

Fair Warning, a 2020 thriller novel by Michael Connelly, features a company that buys genetic test data on women genetically identified as vulnerable to sex addiction. The company sells their names and addresses to incels, one of whom is a serial killer.

The 2023 science fiction film The Beast also features a character based on Rodger.

See also

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External links

  • "INVCEL". Reply All. Gimlet. May 10, 2018. Podcast episode about the early history of the incel subculture.
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