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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26864 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024

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It may well have made its way out into wider society and lost all sharp edges of definition, like other terms of disapprobation such as "racist" and "Nazi", but it originated as "involuntarily celibate" meaning someone who wanted romantic relationships and was unsuccessful for no reason they could discern easily.

But it became popularised, and unfortunately set as the image of the 'incel', by that young man who killed young women because he felt aggrieved over not getting the love life he felt he deserved. And if you read any of his writing, it's clearly evident why he couldn't get and keep a girlfriend and it was down to his own flaws and lacks. The kind of person who goes and murders random people, after all, is not the kind of person who can manage to get on with others in the ordinary way of things.

that young man who killed young women

Are you referring to Elliot Rodger? He killed four men and two women.

He was at least as much misandric as misogynistic.

Oh, he hated and resented everybody, but he was operating off an inflamed sense of grievance - how dare his (few) male friends dump him when they got girlfriends, and how dare girls not be his girlfriend when he was such a catch? But his writing is full of evidence as to why he had such problems making friends and attracting girls, and every time I feel a little sorry for him, he spouts some horrible nonsense.

He definitely had problems, but making him into some kind of hero or "see? that's what drives people like me to acts of desperation" by self-identified incels is not the way to go. "Yeah, I admire the guy who wanted to murder as many women as he could" is not going to persuade women that you're the boyfriend they want.

I think you're correct, I was mixing him up with the Canadian shooter Marc Lépine. Another guy who blamed feminism for his problems, which was not in fact the reason he was troubled.

Are you referring to Elliot Rodger?

Despite all the crying and complaining about incel killers, there's basically only three, and two were before the term came into being (Rodger and LePine).

Exactly. I was about to point that out, but I wasn't sure if the OP is referring to E.R.

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