In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into the world of incels, discussing a recent study that challenges the common perception of incels as predominantly right-wing. They explore the inherently leftist ideology of the incel movement, the dehumanization of incels by the left, and the role of female interests in shaping the left's stance on the issue. The conversation also touches on the historical context of how societies have dealt with incels, the potential dangers posed by the incel community, and the importance of addressing the root causes of the incel phenomenon. Join them as they offer insights on the complexities of the incel issue and its implications for modern society.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. It is great to be chatting with you today. I always love when statistics and new studies surprise me with information and help change my world perspective. And one such study came out recently on incels.
And what it showed, . Many commenters have suggested a link between incels and the far right. However, using Pew Research's ideological consistency scale, this survey found that incels were slightly left of center on average.
The exception was those who agreed with violence against individuals that cause incels harm or Often justified, these individuals were right leaning, though not extremely so.
They held right wing opinions for 60 percent of the items in the ideological consistency scale, compared to 45 percent for the rest of the sample.
Would you like to know more?
Malcolm Collins: And this is really interesting to me because, and this is one of those things where, you know, the left, they just take a group that's bad, and then they pretend that they are overwhelmingly right leaning. You know, as we always point out, until Obama was elected by [00:01:00] 538 polling, so mainstream Nate Silver polling White Democrats were less likely to vote for a black candidate as president than Republicans.
So there is not a racist voting block on the right that doesn't exist on the left at about equal proportions. And it's the same with incels we're seeing here. Incels exist across parties. Generally, they're slightly on the left. But when they are more violent, which I guess would make sense if they're interested in getting guns and stuff like that and using them, they're going to come up as more on the right.
But
I
Simone Collins: think that's the thing. It's when you see this in I can't use the word people ending themselves stats where women are far less likely to successfully end themselves. Whereas men successfully end themselves. I think a lot of it all comes down to Group efficacy. And I think that conservative groups have higher levels of efficacy and following through on things that are to them.
Well, I think
Malcolm Collins: it's more than that. I think if you think about what in cellism actually is, as you think about the ideology of the movement, it is an intrinsically far left [00:02:00] leaning ideology. So let's talk about this and let's talk about why they're not showing up as far left in the data. And just slightly left leaning.
So specifically what an incel believes is that they are owed something by society that they are not getting from society and that the government should play a role in getting them that thing. If you look within incel circles, You know, what do they ask for? What they ask for is government mandated prostitution and government paid, like they ask for, and you, you see this within social communities, they want the government to find a way to deliver sex to them or to impose social norms Like forced marriages and stuff like that, which would give them access to sex, which are both incredibly left leaning ideas.
The idea that you are owed something by your fellow man, and that those who have a poverty of that thing deserve the state to equitably distribute that thing, or have a right to use the state to equitably distribute that thing. I [00:03:00] And yeah, I mean, it's, it's, like, how is that not obviously a lefty position?
And so then the question is, well, then why are they showing up as, as, as moderates on these surveys? And I think the answer is two things. I think that these surveys are wrongly, as I have pointed out, considering any racist views right leaning, when really they're not. And I do know that racism is really common within NSL communities.
And they are accounting anything that's pro gun. As a right leaning viewpoint, which is also going to be common within himself communities, given their goals. And that's also why, when they turn violent, they come off as right leaning but this gets even more interesting. Well, first, I want to hear your thoughts on, on, on this.
It
Simone Collins: makes sense. And also I learned
the term incel was actually started by a woman in 1997 who created a group for involuntary celibates. So did you have conservative origins?
Malcolm Collins: There's still this female incel movement, which is really psychotic, which we can talk about in the second half of this video is the female incels.
Who are they and why are they so crazy? [00:04:00] Because it's, it's completely unjustified, but yeah, it was started by a woman.
And there is a growing movement of female incels today that primarily kind of use the term ironically, but not really use the term ironically, because they still categorize themselves as this because they see the incel movement as having like a number of things that they are.
Like they're, they're social outcasts who are nerdy and watch a lot of anime and write a lot of fan fiction and they're like, that's me. Like this is my broad set of social issues. And I have trouble getting a man. And when they say a man, they mean a man in a relationship, which they'll often explicitly say, like, they're like, yeah, of course I could get a guy to have sex with me.
But what about a guy who, you know, wants a relationship or something like that?
Hi everybody, I am Chloe, aka Boop Creates. For a period of time I was actually the top Google result for femcell , a femcel is a celibate woman,
however, I think I recognize it's a little bit more complicated than that. Um, I think there's a lot of people that do genuinely struggle in relationships. [00:05:00] Um, and incels by kind of stripping down to like, oh, are you an incel or femcel by defining it as can you get just sex with somebody or able to have sex with someone is really, I think, reductive and not Not what I think the term originally meant, or really what it should mean, because I'd argue a lot of people can, you know, kind of get those things.
Even guys, um, I'd actually hear more so about guys getting offered that kind of, somewhat randomly, a lot of guys that I know, um, than women.
Malcolm Collins: And if you look at the women who identify with this community, they're often fairly attractive or like middling. Which to me shows that this isn't what's happening. It's more of like a cloud thing online that they're using for shock value.
And that is being reinforced on them. And so they, they get affirmation from picking these perspectives by thirsty and sell men who are drawn to this because they think they have a shot with these women. It's like a specific type of being a pick me. But to correlate a [00:06:00] guy who, like, Cannot get sex at all with a woman's experience especially a woman who's not, like, incredibly ugly, is just Like insane if you look at the data they are not experiencing the same hardships at all.
They do not have any understanding of what it would feel like to be a man in that situation at all. They are co opting another community's suffering for social points. In a way that, you know, could be seen as you know, it's like a dressing up like a Native American or something like that, right?
Like, this is a group that is genuinely suffering, genuinely has high rates of suicide, which is talked about in the study genuinely feels wronged by society. And I think, In a part, rightly so, …
