Incels: Understanding the Modern Folk Devil

When incels are brought up in polite company, people instinctively turn up their noses in disgust. This response is equally performative as it is genuine. As a group, incels are so maligned that having insufficient disgust towards the community is grounds for persecution. At first glance, this disgust seems illogical. In a world where atomization is on the rise and young adults are facing what is now being called a sex recession, how have lonely young men become social untouchables? To answer that question, we must explore the lore behind incels, who incels are behind the mask of anonymity, the toxicity of modern romantic relationships, the politicization of male loneliness, and the concept of scapegoating.

In 2020, it was impossible not to know who Andrew Tate was. Called the "king of the incels" by his detractors, the infamous human trafficker managed to dominate the social media algorithms with his "alpha male" persona and extreme takes on women, feminism, and relationships. He and his brother flaunted their supercars, proudly boasted about the money they made from prostituting women, and promised young men they too could be like them if they signed up for their online school dubbed Hustler's University. Because of his comically juvenile conception of masculinity, his pitch was extremely effective on teenage boys. By teaching his students how to earn commissions through his affiliate program, he became something like a digital warlord.  With an army of child soldiers, he instilled fear into the hearts of his enemies. 

The fear worked well; too well. Andrew Tate was demonized in the media as the poster child of toxic masculinity and rape culture. Feminist activists declared the need for the education system to take steps to deradicalize teenage boys who were potential victims of "manosphere" propaganda. Social media companies were shamed for allowing the Tate brothers to spread their misogynistic message unfiltered. Eventually, the constant stream of bad publicity in the mainstream media caught up with them. Not only were they banned from every major social media platform, but they were also debanked. Their saga took an even more unfortunate turn in 2022 when they were arrested in Romania on human trafficking charges. The brothers were able to escape with their freedom, but their reputation remains tarnished.

However, Andrew Tate is only one man. The activists who campaigned to have him unpersoned were more concerned with the audience that he was speaking to, lonely young men. To them, the Andrew Tate phenomenon was just the latest example of the dangerous group of disaffected men organizing online around antifeminism, entitlement to sex, and the subjugation of women. This is ironic, considering that "incels" are the very demographic that manosphere content creators seek to exploit. This fact is elucidated by the online history of the previous poster child for the incel movement in the media, Elliot Rodger.

Before Elliot Rodgers' 2014 killing spree that left 6 people dead, motivated by his inability to find a girlfriend, he was a frequent poster on puahate; a forum for men who had been ripped off by pick up artists. His attitude towards that brand of male self-improvement is the default attitude of most self-identified incels. Taking the "black pill," as they say, means an explicit rejection of the "red pill" and an acceptance of fatalism. Incels are "born fucked", and they should Lay Down and Rot (LDAR). 

The media reaction to Elliot Rodger, in effect, memed the incel subculture into existence. Feminist activists were quick to adopt the #yesallwomen hashtag to encourage women to share their stories of violence and misogyny. They argued that Elliot Rodger's actions were not an isolated event; they were part of a larger problem of a culture that actively promotes violence against women. The core message of the hashtag was that every woman has a similar story about retaliation from a spurned lover.

The pathological desire to demonize incels is perfectly demonstrated by the fact that the two mascots of the movement selected by the media are polar opposites. A six-foot-four kickboxing pimp and an Asian manlet whose autobiography is littered with instances of him being bullied and crying have absolutely nothing in common. In the schizophrenic view of the mainstream, incels are pathetic weaklings, too feeble to pull off being real villains, and at the same time, the primary driver of domestic terrorism. They are sexually impotent losers whom women feel comfortable publicly mocking, and potential pimps jonesing for the opportunity to add an unsuspecting woman to their stable of prostitutes. Their porn induced erectile dysfunction is miraculously cured when presented with the opportunity to rape.

Due to political agendas and advertising-based business models, the media is incentivized to point to the anonymous "shitposts" of the most vocal members to further their sensationalist narrative. They parade around unflattering posts on incel forums that depict users valorizing Elliot Roder to the point of sainthood. Many users casually joke about going ER, a slang term for going on a killing spree, to honor his legacy. These trolls are not representative of your average "incel"; the sad reality of incels is far more depressing and unfortunately far more common than we would like to believe.

During the lead-up to the release of the Joker movie, a film depicting the origin story of the comic book hero Batman's most iconic villain, controversy broke out about the film's depiction of disaffected men. It was denounced as an ode to toxic masculinity, white nationalism, and incel entitlement to sex by the usual suspects in the media. The movie's crime: giving a villain portrayed by a white man a sympathetic backstory. The critics theorized that incels identify with the Joker's origin and his proclivity towards random acts of terror, citing the 2012 mass shooting carried out by James Holmes during the screening of the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises. The owner of a gun club Holmes applied to reported receiving "bizarre" and "freaky" voicemails from the shooter a couple of weeks before the shooting.

"In hindsight, looking back – and if I'd seen the movies – maybe I'd say it was like the Joker – I would have gotten the Joker out of it... It was like somebody was trying to be as weird as possible,"

Not only was the criticism clutching at straws to find offense, the Aurora shooting happened before incels entered the public discourse: it was also patently false. The real fictional character that captures the essence of incels is Anakin Skywalker, and you don't have to take my word for it. Examine the following video of the man who put incels on the map, Elliot Rodger, telling you in his own words.

If you think I'm reaching, take a look at the following excerpt from his manifesto, My Twisted World.

" As a huge Star Wars fan, this was a big day for me. Episode 3 would complete the whole Star Wars saga. It was the most anticipated movie. To be able to see it before everyone else made me feel special. I really liked the character Anakin Skywalker, and I was amazed to see his epic transformation into Darth Vader on the high quality big screen."

Anakin Skywalker demonstrates the real reason incels can't navigate the current dating landscape. It isn't misogyny, entitlement, or violence. Like Anakin, their fall to the Darkside resulted in scars that can never heal; though the incel's scarring is entirely psychological. The Black Pill functions as a psychic life support system that restrains their actions and keeps their fractured self-image intact, but it isn't what is holding them back. The problem is that despite their misanthropy and hatred of women, they can't bring themselves to fully embrace the Darkside. 

The analogy of Anakin Skywalker's fall is apt because, before the incel, there was the "nice guy": a figure whose unrequited sexual desire was framed as problematic and even predatory. The nice guy would dote on his "victim". showering her with praise and attention, only to withdraw when his advances were rejected. His refusal to continue to provide courtship services to an uninterested party was framed as entitlement and misogyny. Like the "incel" he was scorned in the feminist blogosphere, but not completely marginalized from society. That was because nice guys made good foot soldiers for the feminist movement, and the writers knew that their boundaries were porous enough to be susceptible to that kind of manipulation. That susceptibility would be their downfall.

The "nice guy" persona was already a coping mechanism for feelings of inadequacy, and their implacable self-awareness naturally led them to internalize the demonization of their unwanted advances as these articles rolled out. These feelings were further exacerbated by the rise of dating apps and the inexorable pathologization of heterosexual interactions in other settings. Their mobile phones soon turned them into prisoners trapped in solitary confinement. By turning dating into a market, dating apps made their sexual failure completely legible. By turning the world into a digital panopticon, social media created the potential for global sexual humiliation each time they made an unrequited pass at a woman in real life. The final nail in the coffin came when Elliot Rodger went on his rampage. The societal expectation for men to prove they are having sex to participate in society completely destabilized their social status. Just as Anakin became Darth Vader, the "nice guy" became the "incel".

Incels are mocked as pathetic and disgusting for tying their self-worth to sexual access, but paradoxically, the use of the term “incel” as a pejorative requires the user to believe that sexual access is, in fact, an accurate measure of a man's worth.

In truth, the incel merely articulates—clumsily, bitterly, and without polish—the rules of the sexual economy as they exist today. Where sex is easy, people are disposable. Where intimacy is gamified, those who lose are humiliated. Where dating becomes a marketplace, those without capital become invisible. The incel doesn't invent these realities—he lives them more honestly than most.

We scoff at incels for not “getting laid,” while glamorizing the very systems that stripped the act of its meaning. The sex worker who services incels while publicly degrading them isn't superior to her clients—she’s employed by them. To be a sex worker, by definition, is to have a boss. And in every session, it’s the man with the money who decides when it starts, what’s on the menu, and when it ends. His currency becomes the contract; her body, the deliverable. If she brings hatred into the room, he doesn’t need to return it. He already won.

The hobbyist knows this. The man who pays routinely and strategically for sex wears his consumption like armor. He isn’t seeking intimacy—he’s reclaiming power. His very presence collapses the illusion that sex work is empowering. By embracing the transactional nature of sex fully, he steals the psychological leverage the sex worker believes she holds. She may believe he is pathetic, but he is not confused. She is working. He is in charge.

This is not some new digital pathology—it’s ancient. When archaeologists search for the ruins of brothels, they look for infant skeletons. The presence of tiny bones—often male—is what confirms they’ve found a red-light district. The message is simple and brutal: the women weren’t paid enough to keep their sons alive. That’s what the sex economy does to value. It consumes what it cannot sell.

Patriarchy, for all its flaws, recognized this danger. It created a price floor for female intimacy by requiring men to give everything in return—marriage, protection, labor, a surname, and a future. The cost of sex wasn’t money—it was life. Men paid with commitment. Now, they pay with cash, and leave nothing behind. Fatherhood was the price of access. Today, the price is whatever’s in your wallet—and the product can’t speak, can’t need, can’t linger.

And yet, the incel abstains. Not out of virtue, but because some part of him still longs for connection. That is his tragedy. It isn’t his rage or bitterness that defines him—it’s his lingering romanticism, the last bit of delusion he hasn’t blackpilled away. He can’t pay for sex, not because he doesn’t understand the game, but because he still believes it shouldn’t be one. That’s why he suffers. The incel isn’t an outlier—he is an exposed nerve in a system that rewards numbness. 

Societies have always required scapegoats—figures who can absorb collective guilt, confusion, and contradiction. The incel serves this role with almost surgical precision.

He is mocked for being powerless, then blamed for systemic violence. He is ignored as sexually invisible, then accused of upholding patriarchy. He is excluded from public life, then held responsible for its moral decline. He is condemned for fetishizing women, but also for retreating from them. He is told to “man up,” and then criminalized when he tries. This impossible bind isn’t accidental—it’s useful.

In a world that doesn’t know what to do with sex, with intimacy, with gender, or with loneliness, the incel becomes a moral trash can—a character onto whom we can offload everything we no longer know how to process. By treating him as uniquely toxic, we get to avoid asking harder questions:
— Why is sex now both a public performance and a private transaction?
— Why are men socially punished for being romantics, and women punished for expecting commitment?
— Why are we still measuring human worth in sexual capital—then punishing those who notice?

We never answer these questions. We just punish the ones who ask them badly.

The incel is despised not because he is wrong, but because he forces the conversation into view. He is inconvenient, inelegant, and crude—but he is also correct about one thing: something is deeply broken. And the only way we can ignore it is by making sure that no one listens to him.

That’s the role of a scapegoat. To be hated not for his sins, but for our own.

At its core, this website isn’t just about teaching men how to make money online. It’s about recognizing the unique potential in men who have been cast aside, demonized, and misunderstood. 

Why target this demographic? Because, contrary to popular belief, low status is a powerful asset. Incels and men in similar situations are uniquely positioned to take risks that those higher up the social ladder can’t afford to. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, they aren’t shackled by the peer pressure or conformity that stifles creativity and growth in more "mainstream" crowds. They aren’t looking to play it safe, which is exactly the mindset needed to push boundaries, disrupt systems, and build something truly unique.

This website embraces the incel-adjacent because they see the world without the tint of social convention. They know what it’s like to be at the bottom, and they’re not afraid to face the world as it really is—without illusions. In fact, it's precisely this outsider perspective that gives them clarity, the same kind of clarity that can fuel entrepreneurial drive.