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Everyones here is commenting on the low-hanging fruit, why the guy fucked up. But what explains the vitriolic response?
Like yeah, he fucked up, but fuckups happen. Why is he being painted as an incel scum, entitled sex field, and all the other horrible things in the book? Literal rapists don't get this much vitriol. Adulterers don't get this much vitriol. I really thought you were exaggerating, but I went and read the comments and these people could form a lynch mob if they could. (I spew a lot of anger in the opposite direction too but I don't have malice in me, it's more of the "why are you like this??" type than "incel delenda est" type seen in the comments)
What gives?
I'm sure there are some ingroup outgroup dynamics, but I would posit that there are a few other factors here.
Token ass-covering. I can guarantee you a good chunk of the males commenting on that post are just about the same in the mating hierarchy as OP. But OP's group is reviled, you must disavow him ala 50 Stalins to show where you allegiances lie. You must make it clear to the online strangers that no you are not one of those guys. And you must convince yourself by that you are not that by strongly disavowing it, it hits too close to home for some.
The females commenting there are harder to pin down. But I would say they are taking out their frustrations at men as a class towards the scapegoat. "How dare you think we are meat bags that you can just have sex with?". I also think there is some sort of status anxiety here the women on the post know they can't do much better than the type of guy OP is (seriously you think hot girls use mainstream reddit?), and this fills them with resentment.
And I think the above is true. "Cool" (high status) people are usually exceptionally well-mannered and tolerant, they don't have much to prove, let alone waste time shitting on the personal attributes of a random online. The stereotype that high-status people are mean and catty is one of the stupidest copes/fantasies ever.
Maybe it's because there's generally no disagreement that such people are scum, so there no point belaboring the point. But there is disagreement about how much vitriol low status men deserve - even on the linked thread there are some dissenting comments. So if one wishes to change the expected amount from some to much, one must put in the effort, in hopes that the general audience will think "this much smoke, there must be fire."
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Especially in the schoolyard, bullies are usually members of the social precariat. Kinda dumpy girls. Kinda awkward guys. Sociopathic bullies also exist, but bullying is usually best understood as an attempt to shore up social standing through asserting dominance over an outcast. The bullied will inevitably be a safe target with some mark of cain on their forehead.
The failure of popular culture to grasp this dynamic is why I think interventions against bullying have proved mostly ineffective, despite so much energy being marshalled against it.
It's even sadder that people bully for an imaginary audience that doesn't even see them, as on Reddit.
Yeah. They can sometimes be ruthless, in the Nietzschean sense, but don't usually go around squashing puny peasants like bugs for the same reason we don't sit around squashing ants from an anthill because we can.
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Because self-righteousness knows no boundary of political views, and being able to get away with things without consequences, because you're in an Internet mob, brings out the worst in people. This is why "the mob" was always regarded with suspicion and "democracy" was treated as undesirable.
To quote "Men in Black":
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