Amanda Montell
speaker
1,990 appearances
11 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 15 Sep
Amanda Montell’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 4.
Appearances
Uh-uh.
Yes.
They made it messy, just not in the way you think.
A similar thing comes to mind.
I I guess what we're getting at already is that like incels are not just this sort of disparate, threatening ideology.
It is a cult, even though these people are mostly like alone in their basement.
Because humor is is the glue that keeps them unified.
But I remember I spoke to a folklorist, Tom Mould, while I was reporting a chapter in my last book, which covers this cognitive bias called the illusory truth effect, which is our tendency to think something is true just because we've heard it multiple times.
It's like this deceptively simple but very impactful bias where we mistake processing fluency for accuracy, which has all
Always existed in the human mind, or at least for a very, very long time, but takes on new risks in the age of information, including misinformation and disinformation.
And I remember him telling me that one of the qualities that makes a piece of information sticky, especially a piece of false information, is humor.
It is such a sort of underrated tool or weapon of these online cults.
And so many of us inadvertently.
Use incel memes and incel humor.
Like the Wojack, for example, makes its way into the sort of neoliberal side of nihilist memes.
And I think through that it is sort of like subtly perpetuating incel culture, causing it to show up in places you would never think to look.
Which again, I think is representative of ugly impulses that human beings have always had.
But they're coming to fruition differently in this like internet mediated epidemic of loneliness.
I'm so glad you said this because, like, this is another thing that I think makes incels a cult specifically, is that they're so unoriginal and so boring and so conformist.
Incels do not uh have original thoughts or like modes of
Showing 321–340 of 1,990 · page 17 of 100
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