“I’m Better Than This”: A Qualitative Analysis of the Turning Points Leading to Exiting Inceldom

ABSTRACT

Scholars are at the beginning stages of understanding the trajectory of incels’ deradicalization process. This study aimed to gain insight into the trajectories of individuals who have left or expressed a desire to leave inceldom, by focussing on the turning points that propel incels to deradicalize from the misogynistic ideology associated with inceldom. To achieve this, 28 threads related to the process of exiting inceldom were extracted from r/IncelExit, a subreddit which caters to incels seeking support and guidance in said process. A reflexive thematic analysis allowed for the identification of three distinct stages in the process of exiting inceldom: 1) pursuing dating, 2) attempting to change ideology, and 3) struggling to leave the incel ideology. Our findings show that, initially, the prospect of entering a romantic relationship was perceived as the primary means of leaving inceldom. However, after experiencing a few attempts at dating, a turning point was reached when individuals recognized the importance of changing their ideology. This stemmed from the realization that the incels’ ideology had a detrimental impact on their overall well-being. Consequently, they turned to their peers on the subreddit for strategies for ideological transformation. Various courses of action were proposed, with particular emphasis on the importance of addressing fundamental needs through self-care practices. Simultaneously, participants reported a range of challenges encountered during the process of leaving inceldom. These findings underscore the requirement for interventions adapted to this clientele’s needs to accompany them through their deradicalization journey. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the graduated and ongoing students at the Canada Research Chair in Developmental Sexology, particularly Sabrina Laplante and Sabrina Leite-Mendonca, for their help during the analysis and revision processes. We would also like to thank Professor Sophie Gilbert and the three anonymous reviewers of our manuscript for their fantastic suggestions that helped improve the quality of our work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Chads are seen as men who are highly desirable to women and, consequently, have unlimited sexual access to them (Menzie, 2022).

² “Shit-posting” is the action of posting shocking memes or comments that can be used by incels to provoke other members of society while also exposing their ideology (Daly & Reed, 2022).

³ Lurking is complete unobtrusive observation of online group discussions (Garcia et al., 2009).

⁴ A thread is defined as a post and all the comments that reply to it (Aragón et al., 2017). However, the comments that were below the second level (i.e., responding to a comment’s comment) and therefore were not visible on the initial page of the thread were not considered in the data because they often did not refer to users’ firsthand experiences (Hintz & Baker, 2021).

⁵ A code represents a segment that conveys a single idea, which can group one or multiple words or sentences (Braun & Clarke, 2012). Titles and text were coded, but usernames and non-textual elements were not.

⁶ ChatGPT was only used to enhance the form of the text, not the content. It was used in the same way that a linguistic reviser has been used in past manuscripts. Instead of mentioning a linguistic reviser in the acknowledgments, we decided to mention ChatGPT in this part of the Method section to be transparent about our usage of a Large Language Model as suggested by Sage Publications (2023).

7 Isla Vista killer, Elliot Rodger, killed 6 people (including himself) and injured 14 people in 2014, leaving behind an autobiographical manifesto signifying his loneliness and misogynistic beliefs (Witt, 2020).