Six Signs You Might Be an Incel

The term “incel” doesn’t just mean “involuntary celibate” in the literal sense anymore. While it used to refer to any person who is a reluctant virgin, it has evolved to encompass the characteristics of an online culture with deep ties to misogyny and exasperating self-victimization.

More recently, the term has become synonymous with being “black-pilled,” for all intents and purposes. If you’re black-pilled or an incel, it means you believe that you will never be able to attract a woman because of your supposedly “inferior” genetics and women’s supposed lack of morals or rationality.

To sane people, that belief sounds absolutely radical in the worst possible way, and it is. However unbelievable, these are real beliefs held by a significant amount of real boys.

Are you one of these incels, or are you at risk of becoming one? Let’s go through the checklist:

1. You spend more time in male-dominated online communities than out in the real world.

In your free time, do you mostly hang out online with a bunch of other dudes on Discord? Do they often make jokes about women and other politically incorrect topics? Do your online friends feel emboldened to say nasty things with no feelings of accountability or remorse? No matter how well your momma raised you, your friends influence your mind whether you know it or not. If you’re regularly spending time in these kinds of environments, you might find yourself smack dab in the middle of the incel pipeline before you even realize it.

Or do you hang out in real-world communities where there are women? Do your hobbies include things that women also enjoy? Do you volunteer your time to causes that women also care about? Do you drink and play with friends of all genders and backgrounds? Diverse face-to-face communities are an essential vaccine to inceldom because it gives you more chances to develop your empathy and compassion for people who don’t necessarily look like you.

2. You possess what psychologists call an “external locus of control.”

“Someone with an internal locus of control will believe that the things that happen to them are greatly influenced by their own abilities, actions, or mistakes. A person with an external locus of control will tend to feel that other forces — such as random chance, environmental factors, or the actions of others — are more responsible for the events that occur in the individual’s life.” — Psychology Today

Like I said before, incels blame two things for their lack of dating success: their genetics and women’s supposed nature. Neither of those things are controllable. Blaming your circumstances primarily on things you have no personal control over is definitively indicative of an external locus of control.

If you have the mental habit of blaming everything and everyone else for bad things that happen to you, or even giving credit to such external forces for everything good that happens to you, you’re at greater risk of becoming an incel.

Yes, it is objectively true that external forces play a significant role in the results we experience in life. Being short and Asian has indeed caused many women to reject me. However, it would be downright idiotic to believe that personal effort has zero effect. Even though I’m short and Asian, all of my efforts in practicing social skills and charisma has led to me doing very well with women and dating.

Possessing primarily an external locus of control contributes to developing a defeatist attitude, a core feature of incels’ ideological dysfunction.

On the other hand, if you value personal responsibility and believe that your own effort can affect at least some change in any endeavor, this attitude is shielding you from the incel pipeline.

3. You have no interest in self-development.

If you have an external locus of control, you’ll probably see no point in self-development or self-improvement.

I’ve struggled with depression for most of my life. I manage it well, though. Something I’ve learned in my journey with depression was that the balance between production and consumption heavily affected my mental state.

What I mean by production is activities that result in growth or creation. Learning a new skill, writing music, writing my book, building my body in the gym, helping a community, leading events: these are all forms of development that produce things, whether it’s in myself or in others.

What I mean by consumption is activities that simply use what others have created. Binge-watching shows and movies, playing video games, indulgently eating and drinking: these are all forms of escape that consume things.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying some consumption, but if my consumption is higher than my production, I get depressed and start losing sight of my value of growth. If, however, I keep my production higher than my consumption, I can maintain my zeal for life and self-development.

Incels tend to have higher consumption than production, and that invariably leads to a lack of interest in actually improving themselves. To immunize yourself from this risk, keep up with your productive passions.

4. You’re politically conservative or alt-right.

If the connection between alt-right conservatives and the manosphere (the broader umbrella encompassing the incel community) isn’t already obvious to you by now, check this out:

“The first and most obvious politician whose success has emboldened the manosphere and alt-right alike is Trump. From his description of women as ‘fat pigs’ and ‘dogs’ to his assertion that putting a wife to work is ‘dangerous’; from his own admissions of grabbing women ‘by the pussy’ to his implication that women on their periods are unstable; from his description of Mexican immigrants as rapists to his tweets telling four ethnic minority US congresswomen to ‘go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came’ — the president has repeatedly voiced ideas and deeply misogynistic, racist statements that fit neatly within the worldview of male supremacists and the alt-right. They, in turn, expressed delight at his election, and many continue to revel in what they perceive as his support of their cause and his influence in helping to push it into the mainstream.”

“‘Everytime I feel no one likes us I realize we are defended by the most powerful people in the world. The Trumps support incels, Trump loves us and respects us,’ wrote one incel forum member in 2018, going on to add: ‘He never said anything after the Alek Minassian thing like he did with every muslim attack ever.’”

“Dr Sugiura suggests that Trump has both emboldened and validated the views of extremist online communities: ‘Yes, absolutely, it’s validation. When you have the most powerful man on the planet who is openly sexist — well, he’s more than that, he’s a misogynist — when he can openly talk about women in the way that he does, that obviously gives justification to others for their views.’
And the manosphere has every reason to celebrate, because there is ample evidence that their views are, indeed, being validated.”

— Excerpts from Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates

Extremist views, such as those of MAGA and the alt-right, thrive in online echo chambers like incel communities. In those spaces, there’s no one there to say, “It’s wrong and f**ked up to think that you’re entitled to sex and that r*pe should be legalized.” Instead, you have community members celebrating how these Republican politicians are actually saying and doing things that align with those very kinds of views. Needless to say, this sort of political alignment has become a strong risk factor in inceldom or other manosphere alignment.

Unfortunately, though, liberal ideology as it exists today isn’t a perfect immunization against incel indoctrination. The idea of helping men become better at attracting women isn’t popular in leftist spaces. In fact, it’s wildly unpopular. These spaces often alienate and demonize such efforts and discussions. The most popular sources of help being offered to lonely men are alt-right voices. Among men’s dating coaches, there are very few of us who are both feminist and passionate about helping these men. We do exist, but the marketing in today’s environment of rage-fueled algorithms is tough to crack, to say the least.

5. You think of yourself as part of one of the world’s most underprivileged groups as a straight male.

This one is very much connected to the previous point about political alignment.

Believe it or not, there are many conservatives these days saying things like, “The group facing the most discrimination and oppression today is straight, white, Christian males.”

Those of us with common sense will immediately see how ridiculous such a statement is, but let’s break it down a bit in the context of the incel mindset.

Being lonely and sexless can be incredibly difficult and damaging to a man’s self-esteem, especially within a patriarchal society that tells you that you’re not a real man if you don’t f**k a ton of hot women. Living with that pain, combined with an external locus of control that prevents you from fully embracing personal responsibility, will often cause you to externalize blame onto others and self-victimize.

From there, there aren’t too many mental steps to thinking of yourself as among the most unfortunate, underprivileged groups there is.

Also, sociological research has found that male victimhood ideology is mainly the result of economic factors rather than actual social advantages taken away from men and given to women. Unfortunately, we often displace blame for the sh*tty economy onto groups that don’t deserve it.

6. You view men who are successful with women with contempt rather than viewing them as role models.

Indoctrination into incel ideology culminates into bitter resentment not just toward women, but also toward men who are “good with women.” Incels see themselves as the unwitting “have nots” at war with the “haves.”

Instead of embracing an internal locus of control in efforts to replicate the success of such men, incels will derogate these “Chads” while imagining that every grape in the world is sour.

When you’ve submitted yourself to the learned helplessness of inceldom, it’s easier to start feeling like more successful people could not have possibly earned the success they attained in a fair way. You become blind to the fact that flirting is a learned skill that can be improved, that there are things you can do to make approaching women easier, or even the simple fact that certain words you say can make it far more likely for you to connect with women than other words.

I have nothing but compassion for men who struggle with dating despite having more love for women than they can hold onto. I used to be a clueless virgin who faced rejection after rejection, too, before I figured sh*t out. However, my compassion ends where misogyny and self-imposed helplessness begins.

Incels living in online echo chambers full of angry men blaming women for all their struggles in dating have forever stained the term with unbridled vitriol, but that doesn’t define every man who struggles with dating.

If you don’t possess most of the characteristics above, congratulations! Even if you have never held hands with a girl before, you’re probably not an incel in the modern sense, and there’s hope for you yet.

Just remain vigilant against all of those above symptoms. Focus on your empathy and love. And, if you want help finding home in the arms of the women you love, don’t turn to any communities spouting hateful rhetoric. That sh*t’s poison. There are far better resources out there.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.