Incel Epistemology: On Marginality,Experience and Legitimization of Knowledge

Abstract

This article contributes to the growing corpus of knowledge concerning the incel movement by scrutinizing how claims of marginalization are mobilized in online incel communities to present incels as privileged subjects of knowledge. The study elucidates how incel marginalization is wielded as a legitimizing experience, conferring epistemic privilege upon self-identifying incels by distinguishing between an ‘us’ of marginalized and enlightened incels, and a ‘them’ consisting of duped and privileged ‘others’. It also examines the role of partaking in incel discussions and incel ideology to achieve an incel standpoint, where lived experience is transformed into counter-hegemonic knowledge. Inspired by social movement theory, the article points to similarities between the incel movement’s political mobilization of marginalized experience and feminist standpoint theory and feminist practices in consciousness-raising groups. It argues that this affinity can be understood from the perspective of the dynamic between movements and counter-movements and their tendency to mimic and copy each other’s tactics.

Introduction

In recent years, several instances of severe violence against both women and men have been committed by young men who identified with—and subscribed to—the ‘incel’ worldview (Hoffman et al., 2020). Most of the perpetrators were active members of various incel forums prior to their acts of violence, and many forum members express their approval of attacks carried out under the incel banner (Witt, 2020). These explicitly anti-feminist attacks, and their relation to parts of the growing manosphere, have evoked both a public and a scholarly interest in online incel communities. Scholars have made significant contributions by mapping and critically analysing the incel community, its ideology, its relation to other reactionary movements, and the sentiments and mental health of its members. Recent contributions have also analysed the epistemological frameworks underlying the incel movement, as well as how incels relate to the epistemological traditions of other movements, such as work on the pseudo-scientific collaborative use and rearticulation of academic literature (Baker, 2023; DeCook, 2021; Rothermel, 2023), and the utilization of consciousness-raising practices in online anti-feminist communities (Rothermel, 2020).

The present article endeavours to contribute to the corpus of knowledge concerning misogynic incel forums with a focus on how incels harness their experiences of being marginalized to establish themselves as members of the incel community as well as present themselves as privileged subjects of knowledge. Put differently, the study seeks to elucidate how the idea of incel marginalization is wielded as a legitimizing experience, creating a collective identity while at the same time conferring epistemic privilege upon self-identifying incels, distinguishing between enlightened incels and duped ‘others’. Hence, in contrast to prior examinations of how marginalization operates within the incel movement (Chang, 2022; Czerwinsky, 2023; Daly & Reed, 2022; Gotell & Dutton, 2016; Price, 2023; Witt, 2020), this study investigates how claims of marginalization connected to ethnicity, looks and age, serve to legitimize the knowledge claims put forth by incels, focusing specifically on the epistemological aspect.

The article posits that the interconnections between incel marginalization and knowledge made in incel forums bear a striking resemblance to arguments employed within progressive movements, such as the feminist and the anti-racist movement. More particularly, the focus is on their similarities to some versions of feminist standpoint theory, which suggest that marginalized groups hold epistemic privileges, as experiences of powerlessness and marginalization foster a deeper interest in understanding the mechanisms of oppression (Hartsock, 1988; Kruks, 2001). In so doing, this article offers a novel perspective—inspired by studies on the relation between movements and counter-movements within social movement theory—on the epistemic assumptions that inform the claims-making process within the incelosphere. The aim is not to posit that these movements are simply mirroring each other, nor to delve into the differences between the incel movement and the feminist movement. Rather, the article sets out to point to epistemological similarities between two movements that politically stand very far away from each other.

The fact that incel forums are steadily growing (Hoffman et al., 2020), engaging mainly young men—who do not stand out demographically from the general population (Stijelja & Mishara, 2023)—makes them an important site for studying how certain forms of anti-feminism is practiced, spread and conceptualized among young men. Especially since young men, despite research showing that this group is becoming increasingly conservative and anti-feminist (Off et al., 2022), are commonly understood as being more politically progressive than older generations of men (Flood, 2015). Considering this, the broader aim of the article is to contribute to the study of young people’s engagement in social movements, and the epistemological aspect of such engagement. While much research on social movements emphasizes the pivotal role of young people in various progressive social movements (Biggs, 2006; Buechler, 1990; Earl et al., 2017), this article contributes to the study of young people’s engagement in non-progressive political movements (Esposito, 2019; Nilan, 2021).

Previous Research and Theoretical Contextualization

Incels are frequently depicted as a homogeneous, deeply anti-feminist and pro-violence collective. However, research indicates that this portrayal does not accurately encapsulate the incel phenomenon. Not all individuals self-identifying as incels endorse violence or engage in the glorification of misogynic attacks (DeCook & Kelly, 2022). On the contrary, most of them adhere to the law and frequent incel forums primarily for interpersonal communication, rather than to orchestrate acts of violence (Cottee, 2021). Considering this, scholars have argued for the need to make a distinction between incels and misogynic incels, where the first term points to incel as personal identification and the second one to a ‘male supremacist ideology and movement’ (Carian et al., 2023, p. 164). Albeit heterogenous, it is fair to argue—as Ging with colleagues have done—that the misogynist incel culture is by large characterized by an anti-feminist rhetoric (Ging et al., 2020). This rhetoric should not be understood as a unique phenomenon but should rather be contextualized in a broader context of male supremacism and sexist ideas and culture (DeCook & Kelly, 2022; Tranchese & Sugiura, 2021). Based upon this scholarship, incel worldviews are to be understood as intricately linked with a wider cultural milieu of anti-feminism. However, it would be reductionist to view incel ideologies merely as a direct reflection of this cultural backdrop; rather, they exert influence upon it in reciprocal fashion (Ging et al., 2020). Hence, some incel forums should be understood as important sites for anti-feminist ideology production, rather than an epiphenomenon with no relation to more generally spread anti-feminist sentiments among younger generations of men (Allen et al., 2022; Cassino & Besen-Cassino, 2021; Off et al., 2022).

The content of the incel ideology, as well as how it aligns with male supremacism and misogynist worldviews is well covered within the field (e.g., Byerly, 2020; Cottee, 2021; DeCook & Kelly, 2022; Menzie, 2020). Scholars have underlined the propensity of incel communities to promote sexist, anti-feminist and pro-violence worldviews and values, alongside the cultivation of hegemonic and toxic—and at the same time vulnerable—forms of masculinity portraying women as powerful and men as oppressed (Byerly, 2020; Cottee, 2021; Ging, 2019; Johanssen, 2022; Menzie, 2020; Palma, 2019; Witt, 2020). It has been pointed out how incels attribute their marginalized status in contemporary society to their perceived biological inferiority as compared to other men—rendering them ‘losers’ in the realm of intimate relationships—as well as how they argue for the supposed subjugation of men as a collective within the context marked by dominant feminism (Czerwinsky, 2023; Gotell & Dutton, 2016; Witt, 2020). Some studies target the way in which incel marginalization is ideologically mobilized to challenge a perceived feminist hegemony (Chang, 2022; Czerwinsky, 2023; Daly & Reed 2022; Gotell & Dutton, 2016; Price, 2023; Witt, 2020). Moreover, the incel movement’s usage of a social justice language, and its relation to other ideological movements, such as the alt-right and neoliberal feminism, has been analysed (Baele et al., 2023; Brace et al., 2023; Johanssen, 2022; Price, 2023).

Scholars in the field of social movements studies have highlighted the intricate interplay between movements and counter-movements, and the proclivity for these to reciprocally mimic each other’s strategies (Clifford, 2012; Meyer & Staggenborg, 2008). For instance, it has been demonstrated that the forming of a collective identity is pivotal not only within social movements perceived as progressive, but also within movements such as the radical right, white nationalist and men’s movements (Futrell & Simi, 2004; Gaudette et al., 2021; Maddison, 1999; Perry & Scrivens, 2016). Other scholars have observed how the tactic of mobilizing everyday experience in emancipatory movements—inspired by thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci—has influenced far right theorizing (Steinmetz-Jenkins, 2018; Valaskivi & Robertson, 2022; Van Kranenburg, 1999).

This mimetic relation between movements and counter-movements is poignantly clear in the case of the feminist and the anti-feminist movement. As Messner and others have shown, the men’s rights movement (MRM) has been deeply inspired by the feminist movement, its vocabulary and tactics (Johanssen, 2022; Messner, 2000). Work on the MRM and the feminist movement has demonstrated that while the MRM started from a feminist critique of patriarchy—while emphasizing that also men were its victims—it developed in a direction where it was ‘as much against feminism as it is for men’s rights’ (Marwick & Kaplan, 2018, p. 546). The MRM has in its turn, as Marwick and Kaplan (2018) and others (de Coning & Ebin, 2022; Rothermel et al., 2022) have argued, been an important inspiration for several contemporary anti-feminist movements and currents which have mobilized a quasi-feminist vocabulary—such as ‘the exploitation of women’—to promote sexist ideologies (Banet-Weiser, 2018; Lyons, 2018). In general, the rhetoric of social justice, and the idea of ‘male injury’ (Banet-Weiser, 2018) is deeply influential within the MRM and the manosphere (de Conig & Ebin, 2022; Kelly et al., 2022). In the case of the manosphere, Rothermel (2020) has shown how versions of consciousness-raising activities are used by members at anti-feminist forums.

The similarity between movements and counter-movements is poignant when looking at the way in which victimhood is used in political discourse and the formation of collective identity. As Illouz (2007) and Chouliaraki (2021) have argued, claims of victimhood have taken centre stage in contemporary political discourses, resulting in a situation where, as Chouliarki puts it: ‘Both a feminist politics of civic duty and a reactionary affirmation of male identity, put simply, can rely on the tears of their respective victims in order to animate collectivities of empathetic support’ (Chouliaraki, 2021, p. 13). Victimhood is hence not simply connected to political passivity and lack of agency but becomes central in mobilizing groups as politically active subjects. In other words: ‘Claims of vulnerability can translate to claims to agency and voice, but these claims can have completely oppositional political consequences, depending on who is making them’ (Koivunen, et al., 2018, p. 4). The claim of victimhood hence plays a pivotal role in contemporary political processes of forming political collectives and collective identities. As a result, a key issue of contestation between contemporary political movements and their counter-movements is who has the right to claim vulnerability, in what could be called a ‘vulnerability struggle’ (Johansson Wilén, 2019). As Cottee (2021) has argued, incel forums could be understood in terms of a ‘wound culture’, in which the vulnerability or sense of marginalization is a central ingredient. Inspired by the theoretical perspectives reviewed in this section, I will scrutinize the ways in which the collective identity of incels is shaped through claims of their epistemic privilege, stemming from their position as enlightened marginalized victims. The focus is on how incels mimic arguments stemming from a feminist epistemological tradition, where knowledge, experience and marginalization are interconnected.

Methodological Discussion

The empirical basis of the article is comprised by two sources. First, I have analysed Elliot Rodger’s manifesto My Twisted World. This choice is substantiated by two considerations. First, although Rodger stands out in not expressing the same self-hatred as most other incels and does not directly address the incel community, the manifesto encapsulates many central tenets of incel ideology. Second, it carries a particular significance and status within the incel community. As Witt asserts, within the incel community the manifesto is treated like a hagiography—that is, the textual account of a saint (Witt, 2020). Although the allusions to the manifesto and the glorification of Rodgers may be interpreted as attempts to create sensation or provoke shock and indignation (Pelzer et al., 2021), this does not—in my view—diminish the significance of Rodger’s role in incel culture. I argue that as an alternative to the hagiography, the manifesto could also be identified as the most influential ‘movement text’ or movement document for the misogynic incel movement (also see Kelly et al., 2022, p. 167). Sunnemark and Thörn define movement texts as: ‘[M]anifestations of movement discourse, producing action-oriented collective identities’ (Sunnemark & Thörn, 2023, p. 60; see also Thörn, 2015). Although some—among them large parts of self-identified incels—might question whether incel communities should be understood as being part of a counter movement, I make use of Thörn’s definition of social movements as fields of collective actions and practices that aim to challenge an established social order (Thörn, 2007). Alongside collective action to produce change, the articulation of social conflicts and an antagonistic collective identity that distinguishes between ‘us’ and ‘others’ is equally central (Sernhede et al., 2016). As demonstrated by Andersen (2023), misogynic incels engage—in a manner consistent with theories of antagonistic collective identity—in a form of symbolic boundary work through which they construct and negotiate their identity, delineating out-groups and in-groups.

Previous research on incels has shown that, while incel violence has typically been performed by lone perpetrators, incel terrorists have been backed by other misogynic incels and have—through various forums online—consumed incel ideology before their attacks. Furthermore, the perpetrators themselves justify their actions as part of a collective ‘incel rebellion’ and a broader political project. Finally, many of the forums themselves are distinguished by a clearly politized antagonistic language in which incels are part of a larger community of ‘brocels’, that is in opposition to the alleged feminist hegemony of the heterosexual dating market and an overall gynocentric order. As DiBranco concludes, citing Braine: ‘[T]o act alone does not mean acting outside of social movement frameworks, philosophies, and networks’ (DiBranco, 2022, p. 8). All these factors taken together further motivate me to analyse the incel community in terms of a movement, and Rodger’s manifesto as a movement text.

However, the manifesto does not provide comprehensive insights into the mechanisms and negotiations through which marginalization is instrumentalized in the epistemological legitimation of the incel worldview and the construction of incels as privileged epistemic authorities. To gain deeper understanding, it is therefore necessary to engage more thoroughly with incel communication. Hence, the primary empirical material of this article was collected through netnographic observations of discussion threads on the forum Incels.is (Kozinetz, 2015). This forum is the largest online forum where incels communicate with each other. The forum contains a higher level of aggressive and hateful posts than the two second-largest international incel forums—Lookism.net and Lookmax.me—as well as the sub-reddits, which largely contain discussion threads on looks and self-improvement (Baele et al., 2023). This indicates a clearer politicization of the incel position at Incel.is than in the other forums, making it the most suitable forum for the study, as it aligns with my interest in the political aspects of the incel identity, in terms of an antagonistic collective identity.

During a period of three months (September–November 2023), I visited the forum twice a week, without actively participating in any discussions. I followed the threads, took field notes and downloaded relevant material for later analysis. My observations primarily focused on the ‘incel discussions’ section, which is dedicated to the sharing and exploration of the users’ experiences and thoughts. The forum’s rules explicitly state that ‘low effort’ contributions, such as memes or bare links without commentary, are unwelcome in the ‘incel discussions’ section. Users are actively encouraged to only post high-quality posts and responses in this part of the forum, resulting in a preponderance of longer and well-constructed posts.

In navigating the ‘incel discussions’ terrain, I took particular interest in threads categorized under the labels ‘Theory’, ’Black pilled’, ‘Serious’ and ‘White pilled’. These threads have consistently exhibited a propensity for more extensive posts and in-depth discussions, setting them apart from other threads on the platform. However, whenever I found pertinent discussions in these thematic threads and received recommendations to explore posts of similar relevance but categorized under different labels, I extended my exploration to encompass this related material. In this way, my methodological approach may be described as semi-structured, driven by a focus on specific thematic threads, but at times incorporating empirical material outside of the initial selection criteria.

The study has undergone an ethical review and has been conducted as a covert study (Willis, 2019). This is in line with previous studies of incel communities (Byerly, 2020; Menzie, 2020) and scholarly discussions on internet ethics, which claim that consent is not needed when studying public and semi-public online forums (Moreno et al., 2013; Willis, 2019). To protect the users of Incels.is, all quotations are processed—meaning that the quotations are slightly altered—to make them more difficult to trace.

The Incel Identity: Marginalized Experience, Enlightenment and Collectivity

Distinguishing Between Truecels and Fakecels

On the homepage of Incels.is, there are clearly indicated rules for the forum and what activities and behaviours are allowed and prohibited. One of these rules addresses who has the right to use the forum. You must be a ‘genuine’ incel, which is a decision that was made collectively by the users of the forum through a poll. In other words, it is not enough to be just an incel sympathizer who agrees with the overall analysis and critique of society on the incel forum. Also, you must be male and heterosexual. The second requirement is a consequence of the first, as the common understanding in the incel movement is that there is no such thing as female incels.

While the definition of an incel is commonly simply an ‘involuntarily celibate man’, many threads on the forum are dedicated to lively discussions on who qualifies as a real incel, as well as which groups and individuals fall outside the definition. In other words, claiming to be an incel does not necessarily mean that you are one, according to the users. There are truecels and fakecels, and what sets them apart is that fakecels have not had the same experience of the impossibility of attracting a partner (see incels.wiki), and have the physical traits that are required to meet someone. In one thread on signs of being a fakecel it is stated that you are a fakecel if:

You’re more than 6,2

You’re totally jacked and shredded

You have a 6/10 face and above

You’re white or passing as white

You have a top tier frame (shoulder to waist ratio)

You have many friends and/or friends that are foids

(Incels.is, 24 October 2023)

In a comment to this post, another user agrees by stating: ‘It is true that most white normies can’t be incel, and they can easily hook up with a white foid since foids a very loyal to their race’ (Incels.is, 24 October 2023). Another user, commenting on a post on the ethnicity of the members of Incels.is that states that 53.8% are white, concludes: ‘53,8 of fakecels on the forum’ (Incels.is, 3 November 2023). What is particularly interesting in these posts is the concept of whiteness as a privilege that disqualifies someone from being an incel. As Kelly and colleagues have pointed out, this idea of a racial hierarchy is an important component of the theoretical framework of the incel movement (2022, p. 174). While not all users on the forum agree on this and bring up other factors (such as mental health issues) that explain why some white men cannot enjoy their ‘white privilege’, the idea that racial minorities find it harder to develop heterosexual relations is widespread. This is why being of, for example, Indian or Chinese descendance, is seen as a factor contributing to inceldom (making you a currycel or a ricecel). The discourse surrounding the delineation of authentic incel identity stands out as a notable example of boundary construction, elucidating the dynamics of in-group formation and out-group exclusion as part of the creation of a collective subjectivity (Sernhede et al., 2016), which Andersen has underscored as a foundational component of communal identity negotiation (Andersen, 2023).

Also in Rodger’s manifesto, the question about race is a reoccurring theme; throughout his childhood Rodger is unhappy with himself being mixed-raced. To him, being mixed-race was largely contributing to his loneliness. When describing his shyness, which made him uncomfortable with the ‘cool kids’, he adds: ‘On top of this was the feeling that I was different because I am of mixed race. I am half White, half Asian, and this made me different from the normal fully-white kids that I was trying to fit in with’ (Rodger, 2014, p. 17). To adapt, Rodger bleached his hair, without this bringing any improvement in his social and sexual life. When describing his college years, and his frustration about being lonely and sexually and romantically isolated, he describes getting especially triggered when black men proved to have been sexually active. When his black housemate reveals that he lost his virginity with a white girl at the age of 13, Rodger is enraged, writing ‘How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half-white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves’ (Rodger 2014, p. 84). While Rodger in the first case describes his half-Asian side as contributing to his sense of marginality, in the latter case the privilege that he attributes to being white is challenged. In this case, it is rather the idea of lost privilege—and a gap between expectations and reality—than a sense of marginality that is at play.

Age is another recurrent topic, and many of the users argue that it is impossible to be a real incel if one is too young, since much can change, both when it comes to physical attributes and social situation. Being a true incel, in other words, requires an experience of inceldom during a longer period, and many users recommend young users to wait a couple of years before they define themselves as incels. In one thread on this topic, one user replies to another, younger user’s post, in which he is asking the forum if they think he qualifies as an incel: ‘I would recommend young men to wait sometime until everything is more or less stabilized. From what I know, the body can still change until the age of 25, but after 20 not that much’ (Incels.is 11 October 2023).

As I have demonstrated in this section, incel marginalization is often understood as being based on a combination of appearance, ethnicity, age and social status, where some ethnicities are described as uglier and lower standing—and, thus, more marginalized. An incel is defined—strangely echoing intersectional theory while at the same time being deeply entrenched in a racist logic—in relation to others, where different axes of power intersect, further intensifying the marginalization experienced by incel men, and at the same time creating in- and out-groups (see also Andersen, 2023; Heritage & Kollers, 2020; Jaki et al., 2019). While there seems to be no commonly accepted definition of exactly where to draw the line between a fakecel and a truecel, it is apparent that the discussions often revolve around one’s degree of marginalization and how distant one is from being able to form a heterosexual relationship. In this sense, the experience of marginalization becomes a central yardstick used to form the antagonistic collective identity of ‘brocels’, who are joined by inhabiting a certain subjugated position.

In many ways, the focus on marginalization could be said to mimic central tenets within feminist standpoint theory, pointing to the intricate relation between movements and counter-movements (Clifford, 2012; Meyer & Staggenborg, 2008). As Wylie has argued, feminist standpoint theory’s ‘central and motivating insight is an inversion thesis’, meaning that a crucial starting point is that ‘those who are subject to structures of domination that systematically marginalize and oppress them may, in fact, be epistemically privileged in some crucial aspects’ (Wylie, 2003, p. 26). In line with this position, Hartsock has argued that feminist claims to knowledge should be understood as justified based on women’s specific position as marginalized in society. She believed that there are certain positions—the privileged ones—from which it is difficult to see one’s relationships and world clearly. Instead, these positions often generate a partial and distorted description of the state of affairs (2019 [1988]). Hooks describes the critical impulse of the racially marginalized as follows: ‘Living as we did—on the edge—we developed a particular way of seeing reality. We looked both from the outside in and from the inside out’ (Hooks, 1984, p. xi.). As Geerts and van der Tuin point out, ‘Some of the key points of feminist standpoint theory—that social relationships are power-laden and often conflictual, and that social disadvantage translates into epistemological advantage’ (2013, p. 173) have also been central for how intersectional feminists argue that ‘subjugated knowledge’ (Collins, 1990) allows for a clearer picture of societal conditions.

However, within feminist standpoint theory, this privileged standpoint linked to marginalization is generally not something that is understood to simply exist by virtue of being marginalized but is rather something that must be formed through an active political collective analysis. In line with this, Weeks contends: ‘This project of transforming subject positions into standpoints involves an active intervention, a conscious and concerted effort to reinterpret and restructure our lives. A standpoint is a project, not an inheritance; it is achieved not given’ (Weeks, 2004, p. 136). A crucial part of this transition from a female to a feminist standpoint is, as Kruks emphasizes, a self-critical analysis of one’s own experience and its conditions (Kruks, 2001), allowing for deeper social understanding (Bannerji, 2021).

As I will develop in the following section, the achievement element in feminist standpoint theory is replicated in the way that incels describe the legitimacy of their knowledge claims, since it is the incel experience of being marginalized—combined with an ideological awakening—that makes it possible for them to reach a ‘subjugated knowledge’ (Collins, 1990) that privileged groups, not living on ‘the edge’, as Hooks describes it, are not able to achieve.

Becoming an Incel: Seeing it ‘as it is’ and the Role of the Incel Community

Having an experience of inceldom and marginalization is not enough to become accepted as an incel in the community of Incels.is. Another rule presented on the home page of Incels.is is that it is forbidden to publish so-called blue-pilled content (Incels.is). This terminology originates from the movie The Matrix, where the main character Neo is given the choice between taking a blue or red pill. If he chooses the blue pill, he will continue to live in ‘the matrix’, which means living without seeing the lies that surround his life. His life may remain comfortable, but it is also false. If he chooses the red pill, he will wake up and see the world as it is beyond all ideological haze (Glace et al., 2021). In incel terminology, in addition to being blue pilled and red pilled, one can also be black pilled, white pilled and purple pilled. While the purple pill is a combination of the blue and the red pill, the black pill ideology describes everything as hopeless and unchangeable. The white pill contains a more positive identification with the incel movement and conveys a certain pride in being an incel and a member of the incel movement. While the black pill ideology implies a kind of political passivity, the white pill ideology opens the possibility that incel ideology critique can contribute to a better society. From an incel perspective, black pill analysis is characterized by nihilism, while red and white pill analyses are seen as more politically constructive.

Essentially, the pill terminology illustrates how the incel identity should be understood as a type of acquired standpoint rather than something innate. Although incel ideology, in contrast to a feminist standpoint tradition, adheres to biological determinism—where some men are described as having drawn the short straw in the biological lottery—the incel identity is also understood as something that you acquire by subscribing to a specific worldview. Or as one user describes it: ‘To be an incel, you actually have to open your eyes and look past the lies of our society’ (Incels.is, 30 September 2023). It is about transitioning from being an incel in itself to becoming an incel for oneself, achieved through a critical unveiling of the mechanisms that shape the society we live in. As one user argues: ‘The blackpill is literally just observable reality. Imagine denying observable reality’ (Incels.is, 21 November 2023). This gives incel men an epistemic privilege that ‘normies’ do not have, as exemplified in the following posts:

Being an incel has many negative sides but I would choose anytime to be born as an incel rather than being like these valueless androids. Black-pilled chads and incels are the only ones who can see the world the way it actually is. Chads are the angels and us incels are the demons. Meanwhile normies are the mindless mob of souls wandering the purgatory. (Incels.is, 26 October 2023)

[N]ormies are living life in a reality cushioned by optimism and societal norms. They just go with the flow, and do not question anything. Now, when a cynical person enters their bubble, it’s like a cold splash of water. It’s not nice and it is disturbing. The cynic questions things and exposes harsh realities. He does not sugarcoat the world. (Incels.is, 3 November 2023)

A similar trope is traceable in Rodgers’ manifesto. Describing his childhood and adolescence, Rodger depicts himself as gradually becoming more and more marginalized and desperate. However, all his attempts to ascend from celibacy amounts to nothing and he stops trying to socialize and go to classes as it: ‘[J]ust wasn’t worth the trouble’ (Rodger, 2014, p. 65). He describes how the gradual insights on how sexuality works initially had a traumatizing effect: ‘As these truths fully dawned on me, I became deeply disturbed by them. Deeply disturbed, offended, and traumatized’ (Rodger, 2014, p. 84). However, Rodgers explains how he wanted to understand the world, rather than just being a victim of it:

I felt hatred and dissatisfaction with the world and society, but I didn’t want to hide away from it anymore. I needed to be as productive with my time as possible, and I had a lot of free time at this point. The best way to make use of this time, I concluded, was to spend it self-educating myself. Knowledge is power. (Rodger, 2014, p. 65)

In parallel with the incels on Incels.is, Rodger describes the moment in which he understands the real constitution of world as central for his awakening. While Rodger does not relate to this insight as part of making him a ‘real incel’, since this is not a word that he makes use of in the manifesto, it is apparent that these insights consolidate his view of himself as highly intelligent and supreme while others (those who are actively participating in heterosexual love) are deemed stupid. In many ways, this echoes the ideas of the normies as a ‘mindless mob’ of ‘worthless androids’ in the posts from Incels.is. Having the experience of being marginalized and being able to dismantle the mechanism behind this marginalization, seeing the world ‘as it is’ is central in the formation of the incel as an antagonistic collective identity, but also to its emancipatory logic (Price, 2023).

While incels are often described—and identify themselves as—lone wolfs, at Incels.is they frequently address each other as ‘brocels’, indicating that many of them consider themselves as being part of a bigger collective (DeCook & Kelly, 2022). As one user, who is thinking of ending his life and is reaching out to other members at the forum, puts it: ‘I want to thank everyone that made me feel in a community, understood, something I don’t think I have ever experienced before’ (Incels.is, 12 September 2023). Another new user posts a sad story about his life and is greeted with consoling words: ‘I’m sorry to hear that you had to go through all that’ (Incels.is, 26 October 2023). While welcoming him to the forum, acknowledging and empathizing with his account of his hardships and traumatic experiences, the other forum members also—in a way that echoes consciousness-raising practices of feminism—politicize his experiences and give him a role as part of a community: ‘Life really is not fair, and this world is far away from just. Welcome brocel’ (Incels.is, 26 October 2023).

A central idea within feminist consciousness-raising group, as well as in some threads on Incels.is, is that the personal is indeed political (Hanisch, 1969). Freedman points to this role of experience in consciousness-raising groups, stating that these provided:

[A] dedicated space where roomfuls of women met each other and exchanged stories of growing up female, dating, schooling, sexuality, marriage and so much more. Each woman’s story was her own, but there were also many commonalities that led to an understanding of how personal conditions, roles, and attitudes were shaped by political and social structures. And from this understanding grew an agenda for change and an array of activist projects. (Freedman, 2014, p. 11ff)

Many users describe their entry into the incelophere as a pivotal moment in their conversion to the black pill ideology, being introduced to discussions that theorize heterosexuality and the dating market in various threads and incel discussions, making their own experiences more comprehensible and politically meaningful. In several threads on when the users subscribed to the black pill ideology, users describe how they made sense of their experiences by consuming content on the forum, sometimes by reading a particular post: ‘I got black pilled when I read one of your posts, and then registered on the site’ (Incels.is, 27 November 2023). In other words, the shared space provided by the forum is central to transforming individual incel experiences into collective incel knowledge.

While there is no clear unanimity among the incels themselves about whether the incel community constitutes a movement or not, many of those who regard it as a movement point to the importance of creating a safe and respectful space, rather than fighting and mocking each other—for example by defining others as fakecels or trying to get other users blocked. To many users, the latter is regarded as a problematic feature of the forum, through which other issues and conflicts are allowed to stand in the way for creating a strong collective. As one user writes: ‘The core of our movement is its goal: creating free homelands for all incels. This is how I define the Blackpill movement. You are part of our movement if you fight for this goal. Everything else that we quarrel about is secondary’ (Incels.is, 6 November 2023). In the same thread, one user states that he wishes:

[F]or a greater sense of solidarity, brotherhood and camaraderie amongst and between the forum members. This website wants to be a community and at the same time many of us feel alienated because we are bullied, ridiculed and demeaned by the very people that we seek to confide in…[T]here ought to be more acceptance, tolerance and above all, empathy, for our comrades and brocels in Arms. (Incels.is, 6 November 2023)

The debates about who should have the right to participate in the forum, as previously discussed in this paper, are hence perceived to create a negative effect where individuals feel alienated rather than enjoying the sense of belonging to something larger. Similar to progressive political movements, there is a tension between focusing on similarities versus differences among forum participants. Some users propose a solution akin to ideas presented by feminist thinkers, who advocate shifting focus from questions of recognition to questions of political alliances, arguing for a collective struggle for shared goals rather than seeking recognition for individual identities (Brown, 1993, p. 407; Yuval-Davies, 1997, p. 120). Therefore, while the incel men’s experiences of marginality are central to forming a collective incel identity, focusing too much on marginality and its definitions also creates destabilization, which some users criticize. In essence, the incel movement, through its emulation and appropriation of feminist concepts pertaining to the interplay among lived experience, epistemic authority and marginalization, appears to be grappling with challenges analogous to those recognized within feminist discourse by scholars of feminism.

Conclusion

Through my investigation into how incels emulate feminist perspectives on the intersection of marginalized experience and knowledge, I have aimed to contribute to the expanding understanding of incel forums and their validation of knowledge claims rooted in claims of marginalization. I have argued that the incel movement’s political mobilization of marginalization can be understood as a mimicry of feminist standpoint epistemology, as well as of the practices of consciousness-raising groups within feminism, which in turn can be comprehended through the lens of the interplay between movements and counter-movements at large.

This dynamic, however, unfolds within a specific political context. As underscored by Illouz (2007) and Chouliaraki (2021), the assertion of marginality and victimhood occupies a central position in contemporary political claims-making. This ‘culture of victimhood’ intertwines with the broader positive valuation of experience within identity politics (Bernstein, 2005). In a political landscape where victimhood and marginalization are deemed assets, political legitimacy and knowledgeability are established by positioning oneself as a victim. Consequently, alternative political narratives of marginalization must be delegitimized, implying a struggle over who’s vulnerability counts as real. This struggle is discernible within incel studies. While some scholars acknowledge incels’ vulnerability (see Murphy 2023; Sparks et al., 2022), others are hesitant. DeCook and Kelly (2022) want to conceptualize incel violence as an expression of societally spread misogyny, and argue against a therapeutic perspective: ‘In positioning the misogynist violence perpetrated by some incels as the result of mental illness, autism spectrum disorder […] or as removed from broader societal misogyny, incels are exceptionalized’ (2022, p. 717). In general, there is a tendency to treat the political claims of incel vulnerability, and their disidentification with hegemonic masculinity, as a strategic rhetoric underbuilding male supremacy (Ging, 2019; Halpin, 2022). While I agree with the risks of not situating incels in a misogynist context, and most certainly find the incel worldview—and its hatred of feminism and women—troubling to say the least, I still deem it important to acknowledge that many incels express a real vulnerability. This does not hinder us from arguing that their conceptualization of what causes this vulnerability is misogynist and largely inaccurate. My understanding of incel marginalization—on which I will not expand in this article—adheres to perspectives that situate incel men, and their predicament, in a context of neoliberal developments, rationality and the crisis of the neoliberal entrepreneurial subject (Bratich & Banet-Weiser, 2019). While Bratich and Banet-Weiser acknowledge that incels’ ‘actions are on a continuum of reactive violent responses to women’s refusal of social reproduction roles and aim to defend and restore patriarchal order’ (2019, p. 5003), they at the same time situate them as a symptom of a wider political and economic development, in which these men are—indeed—vulnerable. Moreover, although the incel rhetoric is deeply rigid in its way of describing the sexual market, it is possible to acknowledge that their descriptions are not totally misguided, as we certainly live in a society guided by both lookism, intolerance for mental illness and heteronormative and gender conservative scripts of attraction, where male power and female passivity are eroticized (Kay, 2021).

In conclusion, I contend that there are substantial reasons to consider many incel men as genuinely marginalized and to recognize that certain elements of the claims underlying incel ideology have some basis in reality. However, the supposed marginalization of incels does not—in itself—confer epistemological authority, just as women’s experiences of oppression do not automatically grant them a privileged standpoint from which to generate reliable knowledge about the world. As Oksala (2014) suggests, the tension between personal experience and hegemonic frameworks can create a space for critique, motivated by the desire to comprehend the friction encountered. Yet, experience is not a pure category (Scott, 1991), and the ways in which marginalized groups perceive the world may be as influenced by ideology as those of other groups. While this is not the appropriate venue to delve into the problems associated with feminist standpoint theory and its role in contemporary feminist theory and practice (for a critical discussion on feminist standpoint theory, see Johansson Wilén and and Gunnarsson (2024)), I argue that the findings of this article compel us to critically examine how both reactionary and progressive movements deploy marginality to validate their claims.