I keep seeing posts mentioning this phenomenon more and more often.
For instance:
‘Andrew Tate phenomena’ surges in schools - with boys refusing to talk to female teacher
Like, why? Why now? Why even? I really wish I had a time machine where I could go to the future and ask them what the general reasons were for this social development. But I feel like I’m looking for the specific thorn on a cactus that popped my balloon.
An incel is someone wbo claims ro be involuntarily incelibate, as in no one wants to fuck them. The incels claim it is based on looks, but it is because they have shitty, hate filled personalities where they blame women for their problems.
It doesn’t have anything to do with looks. It might have something to do with dressing like an Tate fanboy though.
I’ve been incel for years and never hated or blamed women. I was aware of hateful incels but I avoided them.
I wish people would stop generalizing.
Incel has never been a label without the part about hating and blaming women, although it has expanded to hating men too over time. It has always been about not getting laid and expressing frustration and anger. There isn’t some neutral meaning to reclaim or anything like that.
If you don’t blame the gender(s) that isn’t having sex with, you are not an incel. That just means you haven’t successfully found someone which can be for a wide variety of reasons, most of which can be addressed by changing behavior and how one tries to connect with the desired group.
Yes that is the definition.
However, it’s now being used as an insult as well. I’ve been called this even though I’ve been married 20 years with children, by a 40 year old spinster.
Calling someone a spinster in that context gives off incel vibes.
And you don’t think it may have had more to do with what you were saying / the way you were behaving than your looks? I don’t doubt that incel may be thrown around more as a basic insult these days - it’s just reaching that level of ubiquity in everyday speech - but I have more often heard it used towards men who are saying or doing things that are misogynistic. The same kind of misogyny that betrays a deeper insecurity has long been common in adolescent boys who are going through puberty and dealing with feelings they don’t know how to deal with yet, and the word incel has become a convenient way to call it out, but I do feel that when it comes to adolescents there should be some charitability and understanding. Andrew Tate and the rest of the Manosphere are giving these kids the opposite of what they need, though.
Oh it wasn’t used aptly which pissed me off even more.
Being called an incel to an awkward teenage boy has an equal but opposite effect to an innocent teenage girl being called a slut.
I’m advocating neither term should be used to either of them.