Key Points
- Controversial psychologist and media personality Jordan Peterson shed a tear for them
- But who are the angry young men who describe themselves as "involuntarily celibate"?
Warning: Distressing content
They’re two talking points that set the internet alight: Jordan Peterson and the film Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde.
At first glance, a controversial Canadian clinical psychologist and a movie portraying 1950s housewives supporting their husbands might not appear to have much in common.
But they’ve been linked by a single word: incels.
In Interview magazine, Wilde talked about her movie, which has been caught up in controversy that ranges from on-set feuds, romances, spitting between co-stars and casting choices.
She said a character in the movie, played by Chris Pine, was based on Peterson.
"We based that character on this insane man, Jordan Peterson, who is this pseudo-intellectual hero to the incel community. You know the incels?" Wilde said in the 1 September interview.
That reference later moved Peterson to tears.
In an appearance on Piers Morgan's interview show 'Uncensored' on 28 September he said: “I thought the marginalised were supposed to have a voice?”
"People have been after me for a long time because I have been speaking to young men, what a terrible thing to do,” he added.
In recent years, Peterson has drawn both hero worship and criticism for his no-nonsense advice to young men to toughen up. He's also landed himself in hot water for his 'anti-woke' comments on trans people and plus-size models.
In the interview, Peterson said "incels", a shorthand version of the term "involuntarily celibate", had been demoralised by the casual insults.
“These men, they don’t know how to make themselves attractive to women who are very picky, and good for them. Women, like, be picky. That’s your gift, man... But all these men who are alienated, it’s like they’re lonesome and they don’t know what to do and everyone piles abuse on them.”
The clip of Peterson defending incels has stirred controversy as the video travelled around the internet. Mostly, the criticism lambastes his defence of a subculture that has a notorious online presence.
"Jordan Peterson shows himself to be, at best, an apologist for hate," one person said in a tweet.
What do we know about the incel community?
Dr Sian Tomkinson from The University of Western Australia, who researches the incel community, said it started in the 1990s as a support group for those who felt lonely and had trouble making romantic connections.
The forum was called, 'Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project,' and was founded by a woman before it became a space exclusive to males. Now, forums are filled with frustration, anger, extreme hate, and misogyny.
In 2017, Reddit banned its incel thread for violating its policy prohibiting content that “encourages, glorifies, incites or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or group of people”.
In other forums where they connect, many push the idea that they have not won the genetic lottery, unlike the "Chads" of the world - who, conversely, have and subsequently are "sexually successful" men. They describe the "Chads" of the world as typically blond, muscular, and flashy.
Animations of the so-called "Virgin Incel walk" and "The Chad stride" which has appeared in incel forums.
"Successful" women are frequently referred to as "Stacys", offering a female counterpart to the "Chads".
"Stacys are women who manipulate men, sort of take them for granted, maybe sleep around a lot," said Dr Tomkinson.
"But also, there's [a belief that these men are] entitled to sex and women. A lot also talk about women not necessarily being mentally on the same level as men."
Instead of seeking support as once intended, it is common for men and boys on these forums to encourage a hateful, "second-class" rhetoric.
"In some extreme cases, you can see posts where people who've committed crimes like Elliot Rodger, people sort of allude to 'oh, you should do something like that,'" Dr Tomkinson told The Feed.
Inceldom linked to mass murders: Elliot Rodger and Alek Minassian
In 2014, Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured 14 others in a stabbing and shooting rampage in Isla Vista, California, before he took his own life. For some in the inceldom, he's a hero, for others, he's a villain.
Before his death, Rodger posted a video claiming he was seeking "retribution", also emailing a manifesto explaining why he did it.
The 141-page document details his upbringing, his mental health, and his deep-rooted loathing of women, fuelled by his intense frustration over his virginity.
A photo of Elliot Rodger who killed six people and injured 14 others in a stabbing and shooting rampage before he took his own life. His 141-page manifesto said his deep-rooted hatred for women was fuelled by his virginity. Source: AFP / ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
"All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!" Minassian said in a Facebook post before the attack.
At his sentencing, the judge rejected claims that he embarked on the attack on behalf of the incel "movement", instead suggesting he piggy-backed on the notion to justify his own actions.
Comments on a Reddit thread discussing the "Saint" status given to mass-murderer Elliot Rodger.
"It's a very small subset - but there have been crimes," she said. "Of course, we see other general violence against women attacks, particularly in Australia, it's a huge problem.
"It's not necessarily clear this person went on incel forums or they had very specific incel views, but that general issue of misogyny plays into a lot of these crimes."
Rape posts every half hour on incel forum, new report says
Discussions on a major incel forum are also becoming more violent, a major study by the US-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found .
The report, which came after 18 months of research, found that a post about rape was published every 29 minutes on the most popular incel forum.
The researchers, who assessed more than a million posts, also noted an uptick in advocacy for rape and mass killings, with 89 per cent of forum members supporting rape. Posts on mass murder also increased by 59 per cent from 2021 to 2022.
Overall, forums had also become significantly more radicalised and nihilistic over the 18 months. On 5 March, posting rules changed from “do not sexualize minors in any way, shape or form” to “do not sexualize pre-pubescent minors in any way, shape, or form," the CCDH reports.
The report also states that platforms including YouTube and Google, and internet server, Cloudflare, are facilitating the growth of the forum, which it said is visited by 2.6 million people every month.
Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of CCDH, told The Feed it is a group that poses a very real threat.
"This is a very malignant group of people who have some really sick beliefs, and they're constantly egging each other on," he said.
"They're densely interconnected and highly active, and they're encouraging each other to carry out attacks in the real world.
[Sometimes] cruel men invent cruel ideologies to justify their cruelty.Imran Ahmed, CEO of Center for Countering Digital Hate
"The men that are drinking this nonsense every day and the ones that are posting saying they think rape is acceptable, they pose a clear and present danger to every woman, and every child, every girl in their lives."
Mr Ahmed said some self-proclaimed incels who had carried out previous mass attacks had been linked to forums and YouTube channels of this nature.
"It's come to be a deeply misogynist, woman-hating and fairly extremist subculture of men who blame women and feminism for their various failings in life," he said.
"And they believe that the only solution is for women to be formally subjugated to be second-class citizens under men."
What response is right?
Mr Ahmed said there are a few, clear steps that can be taken by YouTube and Twitter which continue to host popular "incel" channels.
He said platforms need to enforce their rules which already ban hate speech and the incitement of violence. Mr Imran would also like to see governments crack down on the community.
"Australia is pretty progressive and leading in many ways, especially on safety by design. But you know, we need other countries, in particular, the US to buck up."
Flowers fill bullet holes in the windows of the IV Deli in Isla Vista where 22-year-old Elliot Rodger began his mass killing near the University of California in Santa Babara by stabbing three people to death in an apartment. Source: Getty / David McNew
"We should focus on primary interventions, things like setting social norms and encouraging social awareness," she said.
Mr Imran said it's a fine line to walk, showing sympathy for incels.
"They're someone who's been failed by multiple institutions, whether it's their family, school, social services. And the reality is that we need to be tough not just on extremism, but the causes of extremism," Mr Imran said.
But also, he adds this: "[Sometimes] cruel men invent cruel ideologies to justify their cruelty. The truth is that cruel people that want to cause harm, they'll find any excuse. In this instance, they've created a community around this bananas notion that women are to blame for everything."
