Chapter 1: What is the origin and evolution of the term 'incel'?
Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host, writer and researcher, Nick Pell. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.
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A 25-year-old compulsive gamer with cystic acne lives in his mom's basement. He only turns off Call of Duty to go on 4chan, an internet message board, and talk about how much he hates women and minorities. He's a big fan of Elliot Rodger, the guy who decided to kill six and injure 14 out of his hatred and malice for the opposite sex. I'm talking about incels.
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Chapter 2: How does the 'blackpill' philosophy affect incels' perceptions?
You might be familiar with the phenomenon, or maybe you just heard the term, and you're not really sure what it means. Today, I want to tackle the heart of the question about incels. Who are they, really, beyond the media caricatures? Does what we think about them square up with reality?
And what does this all say about men, dating, and loneliness in an age where we're more connected than ever, yet somehow all feeling totally alone? Here to help me unpack the lonely truth is writer and researcher Nick Pell.
Yeah, you give me all the fun ones. When do I get to do bananas or something, man?
You don't, man. You're my go-to guy for exposing the shadowy underbelly of the internet. Sorry, dude. No, it's fine.
This is what I get for cultivating a relentlessly dark set of interests and living almost entirely online.
Yeah, but also you're good for stuff like incels or antisemitism or the lost looks maxing episode because you help bring some balance to what are decidedly unbalanced subjects.
Yeah, I sort of hate one-dimensional takedowns of things that are more complex.
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Chapter 3: What does the UK Home Office study reveal about incel demographics?
I mean, the point here is to satisfy people's curiosity with reality, not caricatures.
Fair. So incels, they're just total losers who can't get laid and have decided to punch the wall at women about the whole thing, right?
Well, in general, the answers to these kinds of questions require more than a yes or no answer, which is fine. why we dedicate an hour or more sometimes to unpacking these subjects. There's some history involved here, as per usual. The term incel dates back to the late 90s, and to disappoint any incels who might be out there listening, the term was coined by a foid. Okay.
I'm probably going to regret asking, but what is a phoid? It's their term for women. Okay. It's a shortening of femoid. I think the general idea is that women are sort of not really human in the same way that men are. They're these automatons who just act out of instinct and have no deeper emotional feeling like men do.
Yeah, so men is the romantic gender and women is the remorseless Machiavellian sharks.
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Chapter 4: How do ex-incels successfully transition to normal lives?
That's a new one.
You know, it's not too far off from what German philosopher Schopenhauer had to say. And many incels will sometimes quote his text on women if they're a little more intellectually savvy. And you've read this, I'm guessing. Have I read the most important German pessimist philosopher of the 19th century, the man who inspired Nietzsche and Michel Houellebecq? Yes.
In any event, the connection between incels and Schopenhauer, it's more of a case of them like finding out that he said things that support what they already believe in this movement, having any kind of intellectual heft to it. So the term incel was coined by a woman in the late 90s who we only know as Alana. And it was a gender neutral term.
She was using it to describe her experience and experiences. you know, presumably other people's on her blog. It just means involuntary celibate, somebody who wants to have sex, but isn't. And now you have fem cells, which is kind of a different community, but not really any less toxic. So that's female incel, right? Yeah.
Chapter 5: What role does mental health play in the incel phenomenon?
We're just going to focus on the male of the species for the purpose of this episode, because fem cells, a whole other rabbit hole. And it's, you know, Who even knew what that was before I mentioned it?
Right, right. Okay. So where do they meet? I get the sense that these guys are not getting together and having meetups at the local Starbucks or the Elks Club or whatever.
Uh, forums, mostly. They were banned from Reddit. I see. I looked for incel subreddits. The only ones I found were banned.
Speaking of Reddit, I have a funny aside, man. Sorry to derail you. So we did the episode on dick size recently, a couple of weeks ago.
Chapter 6: Are incels predominantly a violent threat in society?
And I was like, oh, I'm going to post this on the Reddit forums where people complain and go like, is my penis big enough? Right. Because that's like what we answered in the episode. I posted it on like average dick problems and all, you know, penis question, all these weird subreddits that like apparently exist and have thousands of members, by the way. And all they do is talk about dicks.
And then I posted it on a couple of other subs, like small dick problems was one of them. And I come back from lunch today and it's like, you have been banned from small dick problems. And then it was like, you have been muted, you have been muted and you cannot reply to this message. And I was like, This is the most small dick energy thing that I've seen.
Like, I'm banning your podcast about dick stuff because we don't allow podcast posts in here. And also, I'm muting you so you can't reply. Ha ha. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that's other forums were like, hey, like mods would message and go, hey, we don't love cross posting. Can you add a little context?
Chapter 7: What societal factors contribute to the rise of incel communities?
And I was like, oh, that's a very good response. Average dick problems, moderators, small dick problems, just like immediate nuclear option. And you can't even say anything back. Ha ha. I was just like, ah, the problem might not only be the pee pee, guys. It might be the thing that's attached to it. I just thought that was like the most ironic thing that I got banned and muted from there.
And that was the most ridiculous response that I got. And the podcast was completely reasonable if people heard it. And it was actually kind of designed to make some of those guys feel better. But yet they just rejected it out of hand. And I was like, I think I see the problem that you guys might be dealing with a symptom of it anyway.
As we get deeper into this episode, these comments will become strangely relevant. Oh, really? Okay.
Chapter 8: How can friends help someone who identifies as an incel?
Okay. Yeah. Keep it coming then. Yeah. I mean, in terms of like, maybe the problem is not the dick. It's the person it's attached to. Yes. Yeah. They were banned from Reddit.
Incel is kind of like, sometimes it's self-applied and there's actually, our guys will get mad if somebody claims to be an incel, but isn't, or they don't think he is, or don't think he has to be, or I don't, it's very strange.
Sometimes it's applied ironically, you know, I'm such an incel or, you know, like when people who aren't autistic call themselves autistic because they are socially awkward and have some niche interest or something like that, you know, used kind of comically.
People have also started throwing it around as a swear word in a manner similar to how fascist gets applied to like anything and everything.
I get called this whenever I do an episode that might offend a certain group of people. I won't say the group because I don't need more emails saying, ha, incel. But it's basically, if I say something like, I had an episode with this guy, this psychologist, Orion Taraban, and he talked about like, here's what red pill gets right. Here's some dating stuff. Here's some evolutionary psychology.
And people were like, you guys are incels. And I was like, ah, that's funny. Cause we're both talking about like our significant others and the dating stuff and the years of dating we've done and brought this experience. But it was like, no, the fact that you think X makes you an incel now, even though that can't actually be true in our situation.
Well, there's living, breathing proof that you've had sex at least twice.
Yes, exactly. And I assume both of them are mine. They do look like me. So I've got that going for me. But yeah, like, dude, I've seen people call Elon Musk an incel. And doesn't he have like four dozen kids? So like not an incel, I guess, you know?
Right. Yeah. The incel communities start off as being like the supportive groups for these guys, which, you know, if you want to have sex and you're not, it's a bummer. Some of these guys are awkward and the groups reflect that, but...
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