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128-469: Incel ( / ˈ ɪ n s ɛ l / IN -sel ; a portmanteau of " involuntary celibate ") is a term associated with an 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 blame, objectify and denigrate women and girls as a result. The movement is strongly linked to misogyny . Originally coined as " invcel " around 1997 by

256-426: A compound , which fully preserves the stems of the original words. The British lecturer Valerie Adams's 1973 Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation explains that "In words such as motel ..., hotel is represented by various shorter substitutes – ‑otel ... – which I shall call splinters. Words containing splinters I shall call blends". Thus, at least one of the parts of a blend, strictly speaking,

384-458: A queer Canadian female student known as Alana, the spelling had shifted to "incel" by 1999, and the term later rose to prominence in the 2010s, following the influence of misogynistic terrorists Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian . The subculture's attitude can be characterized by resentment, hostility, sexual objectification , misogyny , misanthropy , self-pity and self-loathing , racism , sense of entitlement to sex, blaming of women and

512-638: A wiki , which has been described by researchers publishing in New Media & Society as cherry picking academic papers to promote misogynistic points. 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

640-480: A 2022 study found that most self-identified incels surveyed (79%) rejected 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",

768-464: 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

896-575: 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

1024-457: 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

1152-446: 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

1280-435: 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

1408-535: A form suitable for carrying on horseback; (now esp.) one in the form of a stiff leather case hinged at the back to open into two equal parts". According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language ( AHD ), the etymology of the word is the French porte-manteau , from porter , "to carry", and manteau , "cloak" (from Old French mantel , from Latin mantellum ). According to

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1536-481: 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

1664-455: 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

1792-454: 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,

1920-832: A high level of tolerance for such symptoms. As they begin to mature, however, it becomes easier to make such relationships. Training in social skills, behavioral modification, and medication have some beneficial effects. It is important for youth with ADHD to form friendships with people who are not involved in deviant or delinquent activities, people who do not have significant mental illnesses or developmental disabilities, in order to reduce emergence of later psychopathology. Poor peer relationships can contribute to major depression , criminality , school failure, and substance use disorders . Individuals with autistic spectrum disorders including autism and Asperger syndrome are often characterized by their deficiency in social functioning. The concept of social skills has been questioned in terms of

2048-427: A kind of bath), the attributive blends of English are mostly head-final and mostly endocentric . As an example of an exocentric attributive blend, Fruitopia may metaphorically take the buyer to a fruity utopia (and not a utopian fruit); however, it is not a utopia but a drink. Coordinate blends (also called associative or portmanteau blends) combine two words having equal status, and have two heads. Thus brunch

2176-425: 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

2304-399: 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 . 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

2432-452: 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

2560-800: 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

2688-473: 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

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2816-467: 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 social psychology studies that purport to scientifically prove their victimization. Opposition to feminism and women's rights

2944-1020: 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 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. On August 4, 2009, George Sodini opened fire at an LA Fitness health club in Collier Township ,

3072-479: 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

3200-574: 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

3328-594: A reality they identified with psychopaths from studies that psychopaths are not able to be influenced by any sort of therapy. At the University at Buffalo in New York, Emily Grijalva has investigated narcissism in business; she found there are two forms of narcissism: "vulnerable" and " grandiose ". It is her finding that "moderate" level of grandiose narcissism is linked to becoming an effective manager. Grandiose narcissists are characterized as confident; they possess unshakable belief that they are superior, even when it

3456-420: A result, their self-esteem fluctuates a lot. They tend to be self-conscious and passive, but also prone to outbursts of potentially violent aggression if their inflated self-image is threatened." Richard Boyatzis says this is an unproductive form of expression of emotions that the person cannot share constructively, which reflects lack of appropriate skills. Eddie Brummelman, a social and behavioral scientist at

3584-606: 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". Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured fourteen others before killing himself in Isla Vista, California on May 23, 2014, near

3712-486: A total blend, each of the words creating the blend is reduced to a mere splinter. Some linguists limit blends to these (perhaps with additional conditions): for example, Ingo Plag considers "proper blends" to be total blends that semantically are coordinate, the remainder being "shortened compounds". Commonly for English blends, the beginning of one word is followed by the end of another: Much less commonly in English,

3840-435: 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

3968-743: Is frankenword , an autological word exemplifying the phenomenon it describes, blending " Frankenstein " and "word". Social awkwardness Interpersonal skills are actions used to effectively interact with others. Interpersonal skills relate to categories of dominance vs. submission, love vs. hate, affiliation vs. aggression, and control vs. autonomy (Leary, 1957). Positive interpersonal skills include persuasion , active listening , delegation , hospitality and stewardship , among others. Social psychology , an academic discipline focused on research relating to social functioning, studies how interpersonal skills are learned through societal-based changes in attitude, thinking, and behavior. Social skills are

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4096-477: Is a Japanese blend that has entered the English language. The Vietnamese language also encourages blend words formed from Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary . For example, the term Việt Cộng is derived from the first syllables of "Việt Nam" (Vietnam) and "Cộng sản" (communist). Many corporate brand names , trademarks, and initiatives, as well as names of corporations and organizations themselves, are blends. For example, Wiktionary , one of Misplaced Pages 's sister projects,

4224-496: Is a blend of wiki and dictionary . The word portmanteau was introduced in this sense by Lewis Carroll in the book Through the Looking-Glass (1871), where Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the coinage of unusual words used in " Jabberwocky ". Slithy means "slimy and lithe" and mimsy means "miserable and flimsy". Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the practice of combining words in various ways, comparing it to

4352-447: 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

4480-440: Is both phonological and orthographic, but with no other shortening: The overlap may be both phonological and orthographic, and with some additional shortening to at least one of the ingredients: Such an overlap may be discontinuous: These are also termed imperfect blends. It can occur with three components: The phonological overlap need not also be orthographic: If the phonological but non-orthographic overlap encompasses

4608-619: Is causing many problems, according to a study with a sample size of 3,560 students. Problematic internet use may be present in about 4% of high school students in the United States, it may be associated with depression. About one fourth of respondents (28.51%) reported spending fifteen or more hours per week on the internet. Although other studies show positive effects from internet use. Depression can also cause people to avoid opportunities to socialize, which impairs their social skills, and makes socialization unattractive. The authors of

4736-491: 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

4864-422: Is defined as the best revenge and their problem behaviors are repeated "ad infinitum" due to little insight and their proto-emotions such as "anger, frustration, and rage" are refracted as irresistible charm. The authors note that lack of emotional literacy and moral conscience is often confused with toughness, the ability to make hard decisions, and effective crisis management. Babiak and Hare also emphasizes

4992-525: Is due to the neurotoxic long-term effects of alcohol misuse on the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex area of the brain. The social skills that are typically impaired by alcohol abuse , include impairments in perceiving facial emotions, prosody perception problems, and theory of mind deficits. The ability to understand humor is also often impaired in alcohol abusers. Impairments in social skills can also occur in individuals who have fetal alcohol spectrum disorders . These deficits persist throughout

5120-456: Is less sociable. In Spain, [female incels] 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

5248-699: Is neither a breakfasty lunch nor a lunchtime breakfast but instead some hybrid of breakfast and lunch; Oxbridge is equally Oxford and Cambridge universities. This too parallels (conventional, non-blend) compounds: an actor–director is equally an actor and a director. Two kinds of coordinate blends are particularly conspicuous: those that combine (near‑) synonyms: and those that combine (near‑) opposites: Blending can also apply to roots rather than words, for instance in Israeli Hebrew : "There are two possible etymological analyses for Israeli Hebrew כספר kaspár 'bank clerk, teller'. The first

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5376-664: Is not a complete morpheme , but instead a mere splinter or leftover word fragment. For instance, starfish is a compound, not a blend, of star and fish , as it includes both words in full. However, if it were called a " stish " or a " starsh ", it would be a blend. Furthermore, when blends are formed by shortening established compounds or phrases, they can be considered clipped compounds , such as romcom for romantic comedy . Blends of two or more words may be classified from each of three viewpoints: morphotactic, morphonological, and morphosemantic. Blends may be classified morphotactically into two kinds: total and partial . In

5504-580: 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 [the incel forum's] 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

5632-452: Is similar to a contraction . On the one hand, mainstream blends tend to be formed at a particular historical moment followed by a rapid rise in popularity. Contractions, on the other hand, are formed by the gradual drifting together of words over time due to them commonly appearing together in sequence, such as do not naturally becoming don't (phonologically, / d uː n ɒ t / becoming / d oʊ n t / ). A blend also differs from

5760-405: Is that it consists of (Hebrew>) Israeli כסף késef 'money' and the ( International /Hebrew>) Israeli agentive suffix ר- -ár . The second is that it is a quasi- portmanteau word which blends כסף késef 'money' and (Hebrew>) Israeli ספר √spr 'count'. Israeli Hebrew כספר kaspár started as a brand name but soon entered the common language. Even if the second analysis is the correct one,

5888-412: 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

6016-537: 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". "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. Self-identified incels are mostly male and heterosexual , and are often described as young and friendless introverts . Estimates of

6144-634: Is unwarranted. They can be charming, pompous show-offs, and can also be selfish, exploitative and entitled. Jens Lange and Jan Crusius at the University of Cologne, Germany associates "malicious-benign" envy within narcissistic social climbers in workplace. It is their finding that grandiose narcissists are less prone to low self-esteem and neuroticism and are less susceptible to the anxiety and depression that can affect vulnerable narcissists when coupled with envy. They characterize vulnerable narcissists as those who "believe they are special, and want to be seen that way–but are just not that competent, or charming." As

6272-551: 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. Some discussions in incel communities endorse violence against sexually active women and more sexually successful men; harassment of women, including activities such as catfishing ; and suicide . According to

6400-611: 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

6528-489: 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

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6656-582: The Employment and Training Administration are: Social skills are goal oriented with both main goals and sub-goals. For example, a workplace interaction initiated by a new employee with a senior employee will first contain a main goal. This will be to gather information, and then the sub-goal will be to establish a rapport in order to obtain the main goal. Takeo Doi in his study of consciousness distinguished this as tatemae , meaning conventions and verbal expressions and honne , meaning true motive behind

6784-533: The OED Online , the etymology of the word is the "officer who carries the mantle of a person in a high position (1507 in Middle French), case or bag for carrying clothing (1547), clothes rack (1640)". In modern French, a porte-manteau is a clothes valet , a coat-tree or similar article of furniture for hanging up jackets, hats, umbrellas and the like. An occasional synonym for "portmanteau word"

6912-439: 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

7040-454: 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

7168-408: 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

7296-505: 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

7424-499: 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 ,

7552-577: 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

7680-453: 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

7808-526: 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

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7936-490: 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

8064-821: 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

8192-605: The University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Brad Bushman at Ohio State University in Columbus says studies show that in western culture narcissism is on the rise from shifting focus on the self rather than on relationships and concludes all narcissism to be socially undesirable ("unhealthy feelings of superiority"). David Kealy at the University of British Columbia in Canada states that narcissism might aid temporarily but in

8320-603: The affected people's lives, and may worsen over time due to the effects of aging on the brain. People with ADHD and hyperkinetic disorder often have difficulties with social skills, such as social interaction. Approximately half of children and adolescents with ADHD will experience peer rejection, compared to 10–15 percent of non-ADHD youth. Adolescents with ADHD are less likely to develop close friendships and romantic relationships; they are usually regarded by their peers as immature or as social outcasts, with an exception for peers that have ADHD or related conditions themselves, or

8448-639: 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. The term "involuntary celibate" (shortened to "incel") refers to self-identifying members of an online subculture based around

8576-971: The autistic spectrum. In response to the needs of autistic children, Romanczyk has suggested adapting a comprehensive model of social acquisitions with behavioral modification rather than specific responses tailored for social contexts. Individuals with few opportunities to socialize with others often struggle with social skills. This can often create a downward spiral effect for people with mental illnesses like anxiety or depression. Due to anxiety experienced from concerns with interpersonal evaluation and fear of negative reaction by others, surfeit expectations of failure or social rejection in socialization leads to avoiding or shutting down from social interactions. Individuals who experience significant levels of social anxiety often struggle when communicating with others, and may have impaired abilities to demonstrate social cues and behaviors appropriately. The use of social media can also cause anxiety and depression. The Internet

8704-502: The beginning of one word may be followed by the beginning of another: Some linguists do not regard beginning+beginning concatenations as blends, instead calling them complex clippings, clipping compounds or clipped compounds . Unusually in English, the end of one word may be followed by the end of another: A splinter of one word may replace part of another, as in three coined by Lewis Carroll in " Jabberwocky ": They are sometimes termed intercalative blends; these words are among

8832-567: 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:

8960-443: 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

9088-556: 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 incels can also 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,

9216-512: 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

9344-588: The book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work explore psychopathy in workplace. The FBI consultants describe a five phase model of how a typical psychopath climbs to and maintains power . Many traits exhibited by these individuals include: superficial charm , insincerity, egocentricity, manipulativeness, grandiosity, lack of empathy, low agreeableness, exploitativeness, independence, rigidity, stubbornness and dictatorial tendencies. Babiak and Hare say for corporate psychopaths, success

9472-477: 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

9600-491: 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

9728-438: 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. 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

9856-539: 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

9984-513: The conventions. Deficits in social skills were categorized by Gresham in 1998, as failure to recognize and reflect social skills, a failure to model appropriate models, and failure to perform acceptable behavior in particular situations in relation to developmental and transitional stages. Social skill deficits are also a discouragement for children with behavioral challenges when it comes to adult adjustment. Social skills are often significantly impaired in people suffering from alcoholism . This

10112-484: 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

10240-405: 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

10368-447: 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

10496-599: The final syllable ר- -ár apparently facilitated nativization since it was regarded as the Hebrew suffix ר- -år (probably of Persian pedigree), which usually refers to craftsmen and professionals, for instance as in Mendele Mocher Sforim 's coinage סמרטוטר smartutár 'rag-dealer'." Blending may occur with an error in lexical selection , the process by which a speaker uses his semantic knowledge to choose words. Lewis Carroll's explanation, which gave rise to

10624-417: The former incel subreddit r/braincels, the term "blackpill" was used for memes that criticized women as egocentric, cruel, and shallow. 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;

10752-401: 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. Incel communities are

10880-493: 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. 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,

11008-511: 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

11136-468: 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

11264-417: 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

11392-423: 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,

11520-450: 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

11648-665: 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." The largest incel forum

11776-403: The ingredients is the head and the other is attributive. A porta-light is a portable light, not a 'light-emitting' or light portability; light is the head. A snobject is a snobbery-satisfying object and not an objective or other kind of snob; object is the head. As is also true for (conventional, non-blend) attributive compounds (among which bathroom , for example, is a kind of room, not

11904-494: 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 women with a physical deformity 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

12032-565: 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

12160-440: The long run it is better to be true to oneself, have personal integrity, and be kind to others. Behaviorism interprets social skills as learned behaviors that function to facilitate social reinforcement. According to Schneider & Byrne (1985), operant conditioning procedures for training social skills had the largest effect size, followed by modeling , coaching, and social cognitive techniques. Behavior analysts prefer to use

12288-511: 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

12416-495: The morphemes or phonemes stay in the same position within the syllable. Some languages, like Japanese , encourage the shortening and merging of borrowed foreign words (as in gairaigo ), because they are long or difficult to pronounce in the target language. For example, karaoke , a combination of the Japanese word kara (meaning empty ) and the clipped form oke of the English loanword "orchestra" (J. ōkesutora , オーケストラ ),

12544-619: 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

12672-1138: 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

12800-495: The original "portmanteaus" for which this meaning of the word was created. In a partial blend, one entire word is concatenated with a splinter from another. Some linguists do not recognize these as blends. An entire word may be followed by a splinter: A splinter may be followed by an entire word: An entire word may replace part of another: These have also been called sandwich words, and classed among intercalative blends. (When two words are combined in their entirety,

12928-573: 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

13056-685: 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. 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 , and evolutionary biology ; labelling such studies collectively as

13184-487: 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

13312-519: 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

13440-453: The result is considered a compound word rather than a blend. For example, bagpipe is a compound, not a blend, of bag and pipe. ) Morphologically, blends fall into two kinds: overlapping and non-overlapping . Overlapping blends are those for which the ingredients' consonants, vowels or even syllables overlap to some extent. The overlap can be of different kinds. These are also called haplologic blends. There may be an overlap that

13568-551: 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

13696-471: 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 and

13824-472: 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

13952-518: 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. Portmanteau In linguistics , a blend —also known as a blend word , lexical blend , or portmanteau —is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. English examples include smog , coined by blending smoke and fog , as well as motel , from motor ( motorist ) and hotel . A blend

14080-584: 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

14208-576: 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

14336-509: 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

14464-563: 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. 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 prostitutes , as well as attributes they believe increase one's desirability as

14592-458: 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

14720-406: 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

14848-521: The term behavioral skills to social skills. Behavioral skills training to build social and other skills is used with a variety of populations including in packages to treat addictions as in the community reinforcement approach and family training (CRAFT). Behavioral skills training is also used for people with borderline personality disorder , depression, and developmental disabilities. Typically, behaviorists try to develop what are considered cusp skills, which are critical skills to open access to

14976-484: The then-common type of luggage , which opens into two equal parts: You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word. In his introduction to his 1876 poem The Hunting of the Snark , Carroll again uses portmanteau when discussing lexical selection: Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. For instance, take

15104-587: The tools that enable people to communicate, learn, ask for help, get needs met in appropriate ways, get along with others, make friends, develop healthy relationships, protect themselves, and in general, be able to interact with the society harmoniously. Social skills build essential character traits like trustworthiness, respectfulness, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. These traits help build an internal moral compass, allowing individuals to make good choices in thinking and behavior, resulting in social competence. The important social skills identified by

15232-462: The two words "fuming" and "furious". Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first … if you have the rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious". In then-contemporary English, a portmanteau was a suitcase that opened into two equal sections. According to the OED Online , a portmanteau is a "case or bag for carrying clothing and other belongings when travelling; (originally) one of

15360-406: The use of 'portmanteau' for such combinations, was: Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all. For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words ... you will say "frumious." The errors are based on similarity of meanings, rather than phonological similarities, and

15488-542: The whole of the shorter ingredient, as in then the effect depends on orthography alone. (They are also called orthographic blends. ) An orthographic overlap need not also be phonological: For some linguists, an overlap is a condition for a blend. Non-overlapping blends (also called substitution blends) have no overlap, whether phonological or orthographic: Morphosemantically, blends fall into two kinds: attributive and coordinate . Attributive blends (also called syntactic or telescope blends) are those in which one of

15616-424: The worldview dangerous. Estimates of the overall size of the subculture vary greatly, ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of individuals. 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,

15744-511: 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

15872-444: 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

16000-482: 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

16128-730: 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

16256-542: Was reported in 2024. "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

16384-471: 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

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