Online Identification and Offline Experience: Constructing a Collective Incel Subjectivity

This paper explores the way collective subjectivities formed online are negotiated and interpreted offline, with a specific focus on how incel (a portmanteau of the words ‘involuntary celibate’) online communities, which are often portrayed in research and public discourse as relatively uniform, are experienced by individuals. Incel communities are anti-feminist online milieus, predominantly comprising young men who have formed an identity around an inability to form intimate or sexual relationships with women. The phenomenon has links to misogyny, radicalisation and mass violence, and connects to wider anti-feminist movements both on- and offline. Many incels dispute the idea that incels share any kind of ideology and claim inceldom should be understood as a “life situation”, not a worldview. Indeed, it is important to note that incels are a heterogenous group of people from a variety of backgrounds, with differing understandings of both themselves and others. However, incel communities often discuss and promote shared ideas such as the belief that men are being oppressed by feminism, or that unattractive men are discriminated against, especially when seeking a romantic partner. Inceldom is an identification created and adopted online, but it shapes the way individuals experience and navigate their offline lives. To explore how this identification and the shared ideas and theories of the world are understood and negotiated by individuals participating in incel communities, we use discourse analysis of loosely structured, long-form interviews with both former and current incels. How do they understand and present their position in society both as individuals and as a group, and what kind of experiences do they view as important in their identification as incels? Our preliminary results suggest that self-proclaimed incels’ understanding of inceldom and incel communities vary considerably, as do the life experiences and worldviews presented as inceldom.