Examining incel subculture on Reddit

ABSTRACT

The online presence of incels, or involuntary celibates, has been an increasing security concern for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in recent years, given that self-identified incels – including Alek Minassian and Elliot Rodger – used the Internet to disseminate incel ideology and manifestos prior to committing acts of violence. However, little is empirically known about the incel movement in general or their online communities in particular. The present study draws from a set of comments from r/Incels, a now defunct but once popular subreddit dedicated to the incel community, and compares the most highly-upvoted comments (n = 500) to a random set of other comments (n = 500) in the subreddit. This qualitative analysis focuses on identifying subcultural discourse that is widely supported and engaged with by members of the online community and the extent to which incels utilize this online space to reaffirm deviant behavior. Our study underscores the importance, as well as the difficulties, of drawing from online sources like web-forums to generate new knowledge on deviant communities and behaviors. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this analysis, its limitations, and avenues for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Incel
• online
• subculture
• misogyny
• qualitative

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. ‘NEET’ is an incel acronym for someone ‘Not in Education, Employment, or Training’ (Incel Wiki 2021).

2. Randomly generated Author ID, followed by the comment’s score-value.

3. An incel term for someone with Aspergers, also common referred to as ‘aspie’ (Incel Wiki 2021).

4. An incel term for adopting a false belief in order to cope with the emotional pain of reality. (Incel Wiki 2021).

5. Shorthand for ‘I know the feeling’.

6. Shorthand for ‘in real life’.

7. Shorthand for ‘private messages’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brenna Helm

Brenna Helm is a doctoral student in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on terrorists’ and extremists’ use of the Internet, male supremacist movements, right-wing extremism, and the progression of hate and extremist beliefs on- and offline.

Ryan Scrivens

Ryan Scrivens is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. He is also an Associate Director at the International CyberCrime Research Centre at Simon Fraser University and a Research Fellow at the VOX-Pol Network of Excellence. He conducts problem-oriented interdisciplinary research with a focus on terrorists’ and extremists’ use of the Internet, right-wing terrorism and extremism, and hate crime.

Thomas J. Holt

Thomas J. Holt is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His research focuses on cybercrime, cyberterrorism, and the role of technology in the furtherance of all manner of deviance.

Steve Chermak

Steven Chermak is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. Dr. Chermak's research on rare events focuses on activities in the area of school shootings, terrorism, and mass shootings. This research includes the development of four databases using open source materials. Chermak’s research has been published in Justice Quarterly, Crime & Delinquency, and Terrorism and Political Violence.

Richard Frank

Richard Frank is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Canada and Director of the International CyberCrime Research Centre. Richard completed a PhD in Computing Science (2010) and another PhD in Criminology (2013) at SFU. He is the creator of The Dark Crawler, a tool for collecting and analyzing data from the open Internet, dark web, and online discussion forums.