Anda Iulia Solea
Incels, short for involuntary celibates, represent an online subculture associated with misogyny, anti-feminism and the endorsement of and involvement in acts of online and offline violence. Originally congregating on fringe online forums such as 4chan, the incel subculture has drawn the focus of academic and media literature, primarily examining its community and content within secluded online platforms. However, there has been a notable lack of research concerning the incel presence and manifestation on mainstream social media platforms. My doctoral research centres on the examination of the incel subculture on TikTok and YouTube, two widely used and prominent video-sharing platforms. This investigation aims to discern the methods used to disseminate the incel ideology to more heterogenous audiences and the ramifications emerging from the popularisation of such beliefs in perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes and misogynistic rhetorics. This year, I had the opportunity to showcase my research findings at the BSC conference, where I presented my recently published paper on a panel, and at the PG conference, where I displayed my PhD research as a poster. I am proud to have been awarded this year’s BSC PG Poster Prize, which also included the invitation to contribute a blog post about my ongoing research.
My preliminary findings suggest that the incel ideology is gaining prominence on both TikTok and YouTube, extending beyond the confines of their initial online communities. For this blog post, I will present findings from my TikTok study, particularly focusing on the methods incel content creators use to disseminate the BlackPill ideology. My research reveals that, on TikTok, incels employ a subtle approach to disseminate their ideology. Instead of explicit language, they rely on emotional appeals and pseudo-science to communicate, explain and disseminate their beliefs to more diverse audiences and to escape content moderation.
Defining Incels
Incels, are an online community of primarily men who view themselves as unsuccessful in obtaining heteronormative sexual and romantic relationships (Sugiura, 2021). They are often characterised as holding deep resentment, hatred and hostility towards women, feeling entitled to sex and blaming women for their lack of sexual success. The subculture subscribes to the BlackPill ideology according to which one’s attractiveness is genetically predetermined and therefore unattractive men are stuck at the bottom of the attractiveness hierarchy and cannot escape their predicament (Baele et al., 2019). While this extreme worldview often inspires hopelessness, self-loathing and nihilism, incels also aspire to rebel against women and society and have been associated with misogyny, gendered hate speech, endorsement of physical and sexual violence towards women, and have been linked with several mass casualty events over the past decade (e.g., the 2021 Plymouth shooting; the 2018 Toronto van attack; the 2014 Isla Vista killings).
Incels on TikTok
Several studies have examined the incel community on more secluded online spaces such as incels.me and incels.co (e.g., Baele et al., 2019; Chan, 2022); on Reddit (e.g., Helm et al., 2022; Hintz & Baker, 2021); and on YouTube (e.g., Papadamou et al., 2020) yet less is known about their online manifestation on mainstream social media, and particularly on TikTok. TikTok is a leading medium in the social media landscape, and has seen a surge in misogynistic and anti-feminist content (Arteaga, 2023; Das, 2022; Smith Galer, 2021). The presence of incel content on TikTok has the potential to expose the BlackPill ideology to larger and more dispersed audiences that might be unfamiliar with the ideology before stumbling upon it through TikTok’s algorithmic recommendations. In our paper, we investigate how the BlackPill ideology is conveyed on TikTok and the consequences and risks associated with its spread on a widely-used platform.
In our study, we have examined two prominent incel TikTok accounts, and their respective 52 videos and 1657 comments to uncover the type of content and stylistic presentation used to communicate the BlackPill ideology. The videos examined ranged from two thousand to 1.6 million views and from forty-three to 159 thousand likes per video, thus demonstrating a relatively large engagement with this type of content.
Implicit Language and Pseudo-Scientific Evidence
One intriguing aspect of the incel presence on TikTok is their use of more implicit language and terminology to communicate their ideology in contrast to incel content observed on secluded incel spaces. Instead of openly promoting misogyny and violence through threats or offensive language, the analysed videos employ a subtler rhetoric. This rhetoric often masks itself in pseudo-scientific terminology and relies on unverified, misinterpreted, or fabricated evidence, including graphs and statistics. This strategic approach aims to legitimise and validate BlackPilled incel beliefs.
An example of this is a video explaining the concept of the heightpill – a common incel trope referring to the belief that a man’s height determines his attractiveness and that women dislike and feel disdain towards sorter men (see Figure 1). The video features a graph that ostensibly substantiates this belief. The narrator of the video contends that a man is considered “mostly safe” if he stands over 6 feet tall, while the rejection rate supposedly increases as a man’s height decreases. At the height of 5’4″, the narrator concludes that a staggering 90% of women would reject a man solely based on his height. The video implies that this information is derived from statistical data and therefore should be considered true. However, crucial details regarding the source of the graph, the study’s conditions, and its methodology are conspicuously absent. Consequently, the overall message of the video generalises all women as superficial individuals primarily interested in physical appearance and unfairly discriminating against shorter men.
Figure 1. Pseudo-scientific appeal
Graph used as scientific evidence to confirm the incel heightpill.
Emotional Appeals and Male Victimhood
A separate tactic identified was the use of viral internet clips, memes and soundbites to depict unattractive men’s humiliation and women’s supposed double standards and cruel nature, to garner sympathy for the plight of unattractive men. We posit that this approach is strategically used to establish a connection with a broader audience by tapping into shared emotions and experiences. Consequently, this makes the incel ideology more relatable and appealing to the average viewer.
An example of this can be seen in Figure 2. This video represents a short skit, about a man discovering that his wife has been unfaithful. The wife then files for divorce and as part of the divorce settlement she is depicted as gaining possession of the couple’s residence and a significant portion of the man’s financial assets. Text overlaid on the video characterises this situation as a form of “divorce rape”. This term implies that wives manipulate family court systems to ruin the lives of men and accrue money that they do not deserve. The video ends with a scene portraying the man taking his own life. The narrative purported by the video is that the man is the victim, unfairly treated by both his spouse and the family court system. It is worth noting that this narrative involves the co-optation of the term “rape”, framing women as perpetrators against men and alluding to the complicity of family courts in this act. This perspective, however, minimises the gravity of the term “rape” and does not acknowledge that women are primarily victims of sexual assault, while men are more commonly identified as perpetrators (see Rape Crisis website).
Figure 2. Emotional Appeal
Divorce skit exemplifying the “divorce rape” trope.
Popularisation of Incelosphere Tropes and Link with Everyday Sexism
The examples previously discussed merely scratch the surface of the narratives propagated by the accounts we have analysed, both in their videos and comments. Additional concerning beliefs are being disseminated, including the dismissal of the importance of consent, the tendency to place blame on women for their sexual victimisation, and the unfounded belief that allegations of sexual assault are tools wielded by women to unjustly accuse and discriminate against men. We argue that such harmful beliefs extend beyond the realm of incels and are, in fact, a continuation of everyday sexism and misogyny. For example, the embracement of what is commonly referred to as “rape culture” remains distressingly prevalent in society, as discussed in Powell and Sugiura’s 2018 book chapter. However, the presence of videos espousing such views on TikTok has the potential to contribute to the normalisation of BlackPill beliefs and the reinforcement of misogyny, sexism, and the justification of violence against women. This unsettling phenomenon underscores the pressing need for heightened awareness and vigilance concerning the potential dissemination of harmful ideologies on widely-used social media platforms.
In our recently published paper, titled ‘Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community on TikTok’ and co-authored with Dr Lisa Sugiura (Solea & Sugiura, 2023), we further explore the incel community on TikTok, by thematically analysing incel accounts, videos and their respective comments sections. Additionally, we explore the connection between incel misogyny and everyday sexism, highlighting how these are interconnected and mutually reinforce each other, leading to the amplification of harmful gendered stereotypes and the justification for violence against women.
References
Baele, S. J., Brace, L., & Coan, T. G. (2019). From “Incel” to “Saint”: Analyzing the violent worldview behind the 2018 Toronto attack. Terrorism and Political Violence, 33(8), 1667–1691. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2019.1638256
Chan, E. (2022). Technology-facilitated gender-based violence, hate speech, and terrorism: A risk assessment on the rise of the incel rebellion in Canada. In Violence against women. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012221125495
Helm, B., Scrivens, R., Holt, T. J., Chermak, S. M., & Frank, R. (2022). Examining an incel subculture on Reddit. Journal of Crime and Justice, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2022.2074867
Hintz, E. A., & Baker, J. (2021). A performative face theory analysis of online facework by the formerly involuntarily celibate. International Journal of Communication, 15, 20.
Papadamou, K., Zannettou, S., Blackburn, J., De Cristofaro, E., Stringhini, G., & Sirivianos, M. (2020). Understanding the incel community on YouTube. http://arxiv.org/abs/2001.08293
Powell, A., & Sugiura, L. (2018). Resisting rape culture in digital society. In W. S. DeKeseredy, C. M. Rennison, & A. K. Hall-Sanchez (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Violence Studies (1st ed., pp. 447-457). (Routledge International Handbooks). Routledge.
Solea, A.I., Sugiura, L. Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community on TikTok. Eur J Crim Policy Res 29, 311–336 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-023-09559-5
Sugiura, L. (2021). The incel rebellion: The rise of the manosphere and the virtual war against women. Emerald Group. https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/51536
About the author
Anda Solea is a PhD candidate at the University of Portsmouth. She researches online misogynistic men’s groups, specifically incels (involuntary celibates), and the role mainstream social media platforms play in the dissemination of misogynistic subcultural ideologies. She is an enrichment student at the Alan Turing Institute and a mentee of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism.
Contact
Anda Iulia Solea
University of Portsmouth
Anda.Solea@port.ac.uk
Twitter: @AndaIulia
LinkedIn: Anda Solea
This article gives the views of the author, not the position of the British Society of Criminology or the institution they work for.
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