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Last week, Luke Pollard, the UK Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, yet again called for a "national incel strategy". According to him, it's vital that we do this to prevent another "incel terror attack" like the Keyham shootings.
I think the first time I actually heard the word was around the time Todd Phillips' Joker had released. What I don't understand is this extreme alarmism of progressives surrounding incels, when they say the exact opposite of Islamist terrorism. An internet subculture of terminally online, socially disabled men who find themselves unable to order a Big Mac without feeling butterflies in their stomachs are such a big threat to our society that we need a national strategy to combat them? This to me seems like it's completely tarred by alarmism surrounding white supremacy and racial animosity. Granted, incels do hold on to ethno-supremacist views, such fringe ideologies always find purchase among those on... the fringes of society, often young, single men with no social life and no job/ a dead end job and having nothing to lose. They spew all the vitriol online because they tend to be non-confrontational in real life, they might claim to support violence but almost never have the stomach to commit violence themselves. They've locked themselves inside their heads, no one's allowed inside and they view the world, society and women through a tiny keyhole into the sewer that is the most toxic spaces on the internet. They aren't hurting anyone but themselves. But why are the "basement dwelling gamur incels" among the most reviled subgroups in the culture war? Is it simply because they spew the most bile against every 'vulnerable' demographic (women, minorities, LGBTs) online?
Incels are perceived to be a threat to women, and women are indispensable.
But I do not agree with the thesis statement that anyone actually fears incels. I can very comfortably post some rant about how incels should be rounded up and slaughtered on any major social medium and face minimal repercussions, outside of perhaps a boiler plate dispassionate ban for “inciting violence.” I think this fear-mongering is empty posturing done to signal status (virgins are losers, and displaying antipathy towards virgins is a low cost way to signal sexual desirability). This antipathy isn’t even universal. Plenty of people (yes, even women) feel bad for incels and want them to succeed, and believe that overcoming their insecurities will at least make them happier, if not sexually successful.
And as a 30+ virgin myself, I do not believe there is any disease that has infested western civilization by a few men getting no pussy, or that incels are endemic of a greater social morass. For every Epictetus who wrote on the nobility of being blessed by God to live as a crippled slave, plenty of ancient low-status men hated their lot and thought God was a dick. They’re just given access to the cheap and easy printing press that is the internet now.
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