Over the past decade, incels—short for “involuntarily celibate”—have gained notoriety for their aggressive, often violent, misogyny. Gathering primarily in online forums such as 4chan and Reddit, incels have carried out high-profile attacks in physical spaces, including mass shootings, stabbings, and vehicle rammings (Reference Hoffman, Jacob and EzraHoffman et al. 2020). But while incels have only recently gained public visibility, the term—and the set of experiences it represents—dates back over two decades. Deviating from dominant social norms and expectations around sex and sexuality, incels are those who desire to have sex but, for whatever reason, have not found a willing partner. This sense of being “off time” has significant repercussions for one's self-perception, as incels often feel “despair, depression, frustration, and a loss of confidence” (Reference Donnelly, Elisabeth, Sally, Regina and JoyDonnelly et al. 2001: 167) as well as a sense of social marginalization and stigma (Daly and Laskovtsov 2021).
For much of their existence, incels were “notoriously difficult to locate” due largely to the “intensely personal nature of their predicament” (Reference Burgess, Denise, Joy and ReginaBurgess et al. 2001: 6). But with the internet—and its promise of anonymity—incels have found new spaces to not only gather and commiserate but also to build solidarity and a sense of community (Daly and Laskovtsov 2021). In short, the internet provides spaces where incels transformed from what Iris Marion Young calls a “series”—or a “social collective whose members are unified passively” by their similar routines and practices (1994: 724)—to become an active, self-conscious, and mutually acknowledged “social group” instead.
Social groups play an important role in the construction of one's identity, contributing to one's “particular sense of history, affinity, and separateness, even [their] mode of reasoning, evaluating, and expressing feeling” (Reference YoungYoung 1990: 45). But while all groups tend to socialize their members in this way, not all socialization processes are equally desirable in a democratic society. As a “mode of associated living,” democracy is more than a system of government (Dewey [1916] 2008: 93). It is a “way of life” in which all people who are affected by decisions should have a hand in making them—not just in the formal spaces of state institutions, but in all areas of our collective lives (Reference PatemanPateman 1970). As such, according to John Dewey, democracy “signifies the possession and continual use of certain attitudes, forming personal character and determining desire and purpose in all the relations of life” ([1939] 2008: 226). Democracy as a way of life thus requires a certain character or identity, based in specific practices—among them, plurality, inclusion, and contestation or “continuous readjustment” in light of new information and new interlocutors (Dewey [1916] 2008: 92). To the extent that groups cultivate this kind of disposition in their members, then, we would say they are more democratic.
Of course, not all social groups do this. As incels today demonstrate, some groups socialize their members into antidemocratic identities marked by exclusionary practices and aggressive ideals of dominance and supremacy (Reference Chambers and JeffreyChambers and Kopstein 2001); these groups, moreover, seem to proliferate with the affordances of the internet (Reference GaneshGanesh 2018). Incels therefore exemplify a pressing challenge in thinking about democracy and identity, especially in (anonymous) digital environments: how can we create spaces for marginalized social groups to constitute themselves while also ensuring the resulting identities remain democratic?Footnote 1
In answering this question, many are quick to point to anonymity as the problem. Building on the “disinhibition effect” (Reference SulerSuler 2004), scholars argue that anonymity “facilitates hostile and often illegal performances of masculinity” (Reference GingGing 2019: 642) on platforms like 4chan and Reddit. Yet anonymity, as others have argued, is not necessarily a problem—especially when it exists in the form of persistent pseudonyms (Reference AsenbaumAsenbaum 2018; Reference ForestalForestal 2017; Reference MooreMoore 2018). Indeed, in the case of incels, the promise of an anonymous virtual space separated from their offline identities is precisely what enabled the formation of a social group. And while that group is now associated with deadly misogyny, it began as quite the opposite. Incels first gathered in 1997 when a 24-year-old queer woman named Alana started Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project, a website modeled after queer support networks and intended to be a “lively forum” where members could share thoughts, experiences, and resources related to involuntary celibacy (AICP 2003). As a space with a deliberative aim and an inclusive, “supportive spirit,” this early—yet anonymous—incel forum displayed many characteristics of a democratic community (Reference BeauchampBeauchamp 2019).
Recognizing that anonymity alone cannot, therefore, explain the presence or absence of democratic communities online, scholars have turned to other explanations. Some have argued that certain design elements—such as clearly bounded spaces—are required for a collective democratic identity to form (Reference ForestalForestal 2022), while others highlight the role of corporate policies around content moderation (Reference MarantzMarantz 2018). What these approaches have in common is that they focus on top-down interventions intended to shape user behavior in ways that facilitate democratic social groups—and thus democratic identities in users.
In this article, by contrast, I show how these groups and identities are also shaped by bottom-up, user-directed practices that can have similar effects, even within the constraints set by platform design or corporate governance decisions. Drawing from incel wikis, personal reflections, and archived forum posts, I outline the differences in how incel identities were constructed in two early incel communities online: IncelSupport (2006–2013) and LoveShy (2003–2020).Footnote 2 Both sites shared basic platform affordances; they were both anonymous forums populated by users with persistent pseudonyms. Yet they developed oppositional incel identities through distinct choices and behaviors on the part of group members and moderators alike.
In what follows, I show how IncelSupport cultivated a more democratic incel identity by establishing strong norms of inclusion, plurality, and contestation, which were reflected in the group's moderation practices. On LoveShy, by contrast, the community developed an antidemocratic incel identity characterized by aggressive misogyny and violent, exclusionary rhetoric, supported by an authoritarian moderation strategy. By highlighting the role of group norms—and the moderation practices that help set and enforce those norms—I argue we develop a more nuanced understanding of not only the user-directed governance practices through which the experience of involuntary celibacy transformed into a variety of incel identities, but also the social conditions under which democratic identities are cultivated in digital environments. Tracing this history of incels, in other words, provides a stark reminder that we cannot simply dictate democratic norms of inclusion and contestation and expect democratic identities to develop; rather, these democratic norms, and the identities they help cultivate, must be supported by democratic processes of deliberation and enforcement if they are to be effective.
IncelSupport: An Inclusive and Participatory Incel Community
After Alana's list shut down around 2000, its incel community moved between several sites before settling on IncelSupport—a series of message boards on which the community began to thrive (Reference IncelsIncels Wiki 2023). Yet in these early iterations, the incel identity looked quite different from what it does today; the group cultivated a self-understanding of incel as “not a permanent thing” (ReformedIncel n.d.: 3) but rather a temporary condition to be overcome. There was, however, also a degree of internal contestation over this identity, grounded in a shared commitment to embracing multiple ways of “being” incel—including making the space safe for women. In short, IncelSupport cultivated a more democratic incel identity—in both process and outcome—by insisting on norms and moderation practices that made the group, and its corresponding incel identity, more inclusive and welcoming.
On IncelSupport, an incel identity was constructed through the active collaboration of, and internal contestation between, the board's diverse membership. IncelSupport was openly welcoming to married incels (meaning people with spouses who do not want to have sex), as well as women, nonvirgins, and others who, by today's standards, would not “count” as incels. Its group identity not only reflected this plurality but was also continually renegotiated through disagreements as members brought their different perspectives to bear on a shared experience.
This more pluralistic and inclusive group identity is evident in old forum posts. Many posts on IncelSupport focused on members’ shared condition of being incel. New members—both men and women—introduced themselves in these terms; threads included speculation on the causes of incel, discussion of various “fixes,” and support and advice between members on topics both incel related and decidedly not. But this is not to say there was no hint of the misogyny that would later come to be synonymous with incel. In one 2013 post, a new member introduces himself by saying, in part, “I'm an introvert . . . Women like aggressive alpha males. Despite what everyone says . . . I'm no good at playing the part.” Here, we see the kind of hostility toward women—as well as rhetoric around “alpha males”—that are some hallmarks of incels today.
And yet, perhaps unexpectedly, these sentiments were met with immediate reproach by existing IncelSupport members. The first response starts with “Hi! Welcome, kind of!” before admonishing the new user to “please please please please please please please do some reading around here. Read the FAQ. Read our ‘dead horse’ topics. Read threads where people have talked about the issues you bring up.” This member then goes on to “recap” the original poster's (OP's) argument as “not knowing anything about women/assuming the worst of them” before they plea for the new member to “learn about women . . . If you're just assuming that women are materialistic, shallow bitches whose knees go weak at the sight of an Alpha Male, stop assuming that.” Instead of agreeing with the new member's assessment of women, or even just ignoring his casual misogyny, this IncelSupport member explicitly counters the new OP's assumptions; they also introduce the OP to the board's norms, suggesting that such rhetoric is inappropriate for the community and directing him to resources where he can learn more.
This response was not unique. Other members of IncelSupport responded to the same thread “seconding everything” the first member said, offering other suggestions such as “taking a look at some of the rules and topics that are best left not discussed before proceeding [to participate on the board]” and warning that “many of your thoughts about what has kept you in incel are not only harmful to yourself, there [sic] are tiring and harmful for others to hear as well.” Here, we see IncelSupport members actively and consciously countering the kind of casual misogyny that is synonymous with incel communities today (Reference TolentinoTolentino 2018). Responses to the OP emphasized not just an interest in pluralistic membership but also a desire to maintain a space that was both welcoming and inclusive—hallmarks of a democratic community. Thus, rather than allow casual misogyny to pass without mention, this example illustrates how IncelSupport members engaged in a collective response that simultaneously worked to “correct” the OP by identifying ways he violated the community's norms while also reifying the identity of IncelSupport as a “feminist” community that would not tolerate misogyny (Reference IncelsIncels Wiki 2023).Footnote 3 And such responses were common in the community, indicating strong norms of inclusion and anti-misogyny among incels on the site.
Yet the community norms that helped cement IncelSupport's democratic identity were not just spontaneously developed; they were also intentionally reinforced through moderation practices. Moderation on IncelSupport was undertaken by a group of people, usually two to four at any given time. And, as one 2008 thread (“Proposal Regarding Moderators”) reveals, the IncelSupport community seemed to explicitly and intentionally ensure that at least one of the board's moderators was always a woman. In addition, the thread suggests that logistics such as who would moderate (and how) were the subject of discussion threads that any member could join to raise and debate concerns about the site and its governance.
In reading these threads, it is also clear that there was disagreement over the community's identity—and the moderation practices that helped maintain it. In a 2009 thread, one member notes that they have “noticed that there is MUCH more negativity on the board lately . . . Maybe it has to do with Valentine's Day. But it's definitely affecting all parts of the board.” Another poster criticizes this observation—and its implication that negativity is necessarily a problem—by arguing that “there is a blatant attempt by some, to make people STFU [shut the fuck up] that are not saying something that is beneficial to everyone in a positive manner . . . It does not feel much like a support community for everyone lately IMO [in my opinion].” Here, we see members and moderators discussing—and disagreeing about—the direction the community is taking, expressing concern over both its shift in identity and the practices through which that identity is maintained, as well as what is left out by these norms.
From these examples, we can begin to see how IncelSupport developed a reputation as an inclusive, and even “feminist,” space: this democratic identity was the result of deliberately inclusive, and specifically anti-misogynistic, norm-setting by community members, as well as moderation practices that were representative, transparent, and contested by a pluralistic membership. The result, as one former member recalls, was that while there “still was negativity” on the board, “fatalistic and defeatist attitudes as well as misogyny and anti-feminism weren't as problematic as it is now” (ReformedIncel n.d.: 3). But this communal identity cannot be fully understood by looking solely at technological affordances like anonymity. Rather, it illustrates how the meaning of incel on IncelSupport was the product of deliberate choices on the part of the community members regarding the kind of group identity they wanted to create.
LoveShy: An Aggressively Exclusionary IncelSupport Alternative
Contrast the norms and moderation practices of IncelSupport with a “rival” incel community: love-shy.com (LoveShy).Footnote 4 Founded in 2003, the LoveShy forum served, for many years, as a landing site for those members who were banned from IncelSupport for violating the group's norms of inclusion (Reference IncelsIncels Wiki 2021). Though LoveShy, too, cultivated a collective incel identity, it differed from IncelSupport by being explicitly exclusionary—notably in its open and aggressive misogyny (Reference BakerBaker 2016). And this difference was not a coincidence. Rather, it accompanied a difference in community norms and moderation practices that, I argue, helped facilitate the creation of a more antidemocratic—a more radically misogynistic and violent, less diverse and contested—incel identity.
In many ways, the two boards were quite similar. As on IncelSupport, the LoveShy forum often hosted new visitors who were unfamiliar with the board's norms. But by comparing how the two forums responded to new voices, we can begin to see how the LoveShy community's norms differed from those of IncelSupport—and how board members deliberately encouraged those differences. In one 2015 thread, for example, a new poster introduces herself, writing, “I've read some of the posts around here & frankly I'm rather concerned . . . I think it might be helpful if you got some insights from a woman's mind as well as a few tips.” Those tips echo the advice shared by members of IncelSupport in their own forum: women aren't just after “some muscle bound dude,” there are different standards of beauty and people are attracted to all kinds, and social context matters for meeting people.
As with the IncelSupport introductory thread, the new LoveShy poster is soon made to realize that she violated the board's norms. One LoveShy member simply responds to the new OP with “GTFO [get the fuck out],” while another says, “Not trying to ‘scare’ you away or anything . . . You'll receive some ‘abuse,’ yeah, but if you take the time to even try to understand what these guys are going through and be respectful, you'll be better received.” Both boards responded to new members’ norm violations with reproach. But whereas IncelSupport members attempted to teach their newcomer the board's norms by pointing to resources and giving explanations for the existing norms, LoveShy simply rejected the OP's perspective, admonishing her to simply defer to the (mostly male) membership's experiences and warning that she may receive “abuse” if she stayed. Where IncelSupport members countered a newcomer's misogyny with norms of thoughtful inclusion, highlighting the broad consequences of harmful language, the LoveShy members responded to a more inclusive perspective with more violent and aggressive language that largely precluded discussion.
As is clear from other threads, this difference in response was, at least in part, the result of LoveShy's deliberate decision to distinguish themselves from IncelSupport. In a 2010 thread, one member of LoveShy writes that he “read a thread on here recently, that said there are only 5 or 6 truly misogynistic posters on here. The rest just vent about women, but don't really hate women . . . but it's hard to tell between the ones that do and the ones that don't sometimes, by reading their posts.” In response to this nuanced analysis of the community's (misogynistic) norms of discourse, however, one LoveShy moderator responds with critique and advice: “I've just noticed your writing style has all the hallmarks of the incel Forum [IncelSupport]! It's back-breakingly polite . . . We're the mirror-mirror of the Incel Forum.” And this opposition to IncelSupport is echoed by other LoveShy moderators and administrators in the thread; another moderator points the OP to a different thread (“Rant about IncelSupport”) and reflects on the difference between IncelSupport and LoveShy by saying “It just comes [sic] to show how castrated the male mods [moderators] over there [on IncelSupport] really are and all for the sake of keeping the women there and not getting their precious feelings hurt.”
Here, we see members of the LoveShy forum actively constructing their community's identity in opposition to the more inclusive and pluralistic IncelSupport. They juxtapose LoveShy as a community that deliberately encourages a single way of being incel: one premised on casual—if not aggressive—misogyny and a disregard for women's feelings. In a thread dedicated solely to misogynistic “fat jokes,” for example, one poster complains by saying, “I personally find these jokes insensitive. Come on, guys” before another responds, “So fuck off then” and posts another misogynistic and fatphobic joke “[i]n order to annoy feminists and whinging manginas.” Here, we can see how the norms of LoveShy operate: misogyny runs unchecked and is even encouraged, while the few LoveShy members who do respond with criticism of these practices are called names and others double down on the misogynistic practices being critiqued as a way to reify the board's exclusionary, misogynistic identity.
These community norms, as the examples above reveal, were reflected and reinforced by the board's moderators. LoveShy moderators generally accepted—and, in some cases, encouraged—aggressive misogyny; in one case, a moderator dismissed one member's violent threats against women (“I hope EVERY bitch who rejected him . . . will suffer a slow and agonising death”) by simply replying “Meh. [He's] in one of his phases of severe depression again.”
Importantly, this moderation approach was not without critics. As one new member wrote in frustration, after a moderator derailed his introduction thread, “Fuck it, this is my goodbye. [One of the board's mods] just pissed me the hell off . . . When a moderator calls members names, that's one forum I don't wish to be a part of. Fucking asshole.” Rather than apologizing or explaining his behavior, however, the moderator simply jokes in response. Another moderator responds, “Meh, [that moderator] gave me a hard time when I first came here too” before again invoking IncelSupport by suggesting that the OP “try out the incel forum? it will probably have a positivism [sic] you want, but prepare to be coddled.” Instead of taking seriously the member's complaints about the unwelcoming and aggressive behavior of members and moderators alike and the community identity it reflected, LoveShy moderators were more likely to simply adopt a “take it or leave it” attitude. Rather than use members’ disagreements as opportunities to discuss the forum's norms, practices, identity, and direction, as we saw on IncelSupport, moderators on LoveShy shut down dissent by banning, deleting, or otherwise ignoring dissenters and their complaints.
This undemocratic—even authoritarian—moderation approach was explicit; the board's guidelines clearly proclaimed that “this forum IS NOT A DEMOCRACY.” And moderators seemingly took this to heart, ruling the board according to their own inclinations. Responding to complaints from board members, for example, one moderator wrote
I would also like to clarify a few things. Yes, I did encourage Alexius to go buy a gun and kill his crush . . . I will neither retract, apologize or somehow make my opinion more palatable . . . If you have a problem with that somehow ruining the forums for you, then tough shit. I'm the owner and I say what I want whereas at a moments [sic] notice I can restrict your right to do the same.
By encouraging violently misogynistic attitudes and behaviors and ignoring or banning members who criticized those choices, the LoveShy moderation style facilitated the construction of an incel identity that was more aggressive, misogynistic, fatalistic, and antidemocratic than IncelSupport.
Conclusion: Identity Construction and the Future of Incels
Focusing on the role of social norms and moderation practices reveals a more nuanced account of how incel identities were constructed, maintained, and altered in the group's early days. As we have seen, the members of IncelSupport, while still focused on their condition of incel, were nevertheless actively anti-misogynist; both members and moderators quickly identified and countered misogynistic posts with strong norms of inclusion and anti-misogyny. And these norms and moderation practices were themselves the subject of discussion and critique, as members openly complained about moderators’ approach and discussed alternative strategies for maintaining the board's identity. As a result, IncelSupport worked to cultivate an “incel” identity premised on strong democratic norms of inclusion, contestation, and plurality (Reference IncelsIncels Wiki 2023). On LoveShy, by contrast, the board actively and intentionally cultivated exclusionary norms of misogyny and aggression. And moderators reinforced those norms by wielding their considerable power to encourage this antidemocratic community identity, ignoring or dismissing members who complained or criticized them.
Importantly, the creation of these democratic and antidemocratic incel identities cannot be fully explained by top-down interventions such as the technological affordances of the message boards. Both boards operated in a similar manner. And anonymity played a similar role on both sites—hiding incels’ real names and offline identities, including gender (unless self-disclosed), thereby allowing incels to gather as a social group in the face of stigma. Instead, these cases suggest that it was, at least in part, the differences in the communities’ user-directed norms and moderation practices that led to different forms of disclosure and discussion that cultivated often-dramatic differences in self-understanding.
The implications of this analysis, then, are twofold. First, it reveals that today's radically misogynistic, even murderous, incel identity was not an inevitability; rather, the histories of IncelSupport and LoveShy emphasize just how actively and deliberately this identity was constructed by members and moderators of LoveShy—and constructed specifically to be the opposite of the welcoming, democratic IncelSupport.Footnote 5 Second, and following, this investigation into early incel community dynamics also reminds us that democratic identities—as a set of personal attitudes based in practices of plurality, inclusion, and contestation—cannot be inculcated by simply dictating rules and expectations of individuals. The processes through which communities set and enforce social norms are just as important as the resulting behavior; truly democratic outcomes require democratic methods to achieve (Dewey [1939] 2008). Ultimately, then, the trajectories of these early incel communities illustrate how the democratic way of life—and the democratic identities it requires—can be cultivated only in spaces and groups that actively encourage discussion and contestation among members; authoritarian enforcement practices—as we saw on LoveShy—work to stifle critique and debate in a way that ultimately facilitate antidemocratic norms and identities in members.
As we continue thinking about how to best use the internet to support democracy, then, examining the development of incel communities—from democratic support group to antidemocratic extremists—not only illustrates how social groups develop (anti)democratic norms, practices, and identities but also highlights the limitations of approaching antidemocratic online extremism as a technological problem of anonymous message boards or an ideological problem of toxic masculinity. These conceptual frameworks—like the solutions they generate, including technological “nudges” and corporate moderation policies—ultimately work to minimize the role of users in directing their own communities and actively constructing their own identities. A more democratic approach to cultivating healthy social groups online, and facilitating the formation of democratic identities in their members, must take seriously the ways in which democratic outcomes must be accompanied by democratic processes—processes that are necessarily both unfinished and contestable, as we saw on IncelSupport—if they are to be effective.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Hans Asenbaum and Taina Meriluoto for inviting me to be part of this special issue and for their edits on an earlier draft. This article was presented at the 2023 Western Political Science Association meeting, where conversation with fellow panelists and audience members was quite helpful. Thanks also to Yuna Blajer de la Garza, Danielle Hanley, and Menaka Philips, as well as the two anonymous reviewers, for comments that absolutely improved the article.
Open access
