Senate Misogyny, Entitlement, and Pop Culture

Wait a second, so many casual assumptions you've just thrown there.
"Explain away" implies that I'm somehow trying to give them an excuse, which is the opposite of what I said.
I never said that it had to be simplistic, or even simple. Trying to have a discussion about it is still way better than just saying "they are just awful people period".
By the way, of course you can discuss the factors that led to the KKK, nothing just "magically happens". You need to make a distinction between making an analysis of the historical context of some cultural/social/political phenomena and providing justifications for them. Those are two very different things.

 

Entitlement poisons the minds of anyone who feel that way.

 

I'm just offended that there's a documentary, or anything really, titled "TFW No GF."

 

I’m going to be frank, I don’t know how to reply to your posts.

You seem to be overly focused on my choice of words, but you're not giving me anything to engage with. You want to discuss the problem of incels? Okay... what is your theory, then? What do you disagree about what I said previously about unemployment being a reason? I honestly don't know what is your stance on the issue.

Btw, I used the KKK as an example because I honestly don’t think, with their over-eagerness to engage in extreme acts of torture and murder of other people, can just be simply explained by the historical context. The context can, however, explain how these people were enabled and empowered to do whatever they wanted.

 

That feel when

 

we need an acronym to describe the over-use of acronyms.

 

TJCCINAGAIUTB

 

Do you think KKK are all just psychopaths? They're not. I mean, I can explain the KKK. The KKK is cultural. I imagine most KKK members come from KKK families. Some see it as a normal part of southern culture, almost like a club. They're dangerously ignorant and enabling, but many don't torture or murder anyone themselves. Daryl Davis has convinced many people to leave the KKK. They weren't psychopaths, they weren't just trash human beings, they were very poorly raised and educated, and one man, Daryl Davis, essentially "fixed" them.

Similarly, very few incels are actually mass shooters, and I doubt a majority are actually hopeless narcissists.

 

I actually agree with you that it's not that simple, and we can't just consider unemployment as the defining reason.
It's complicated, I think there might be several factors contributing, among which there is for sure the transformation of society due to internet, that dramatically changed the way we interact with one another, and Yes, I guess that there might also be an additional form of alienation that is connected, in one way or another, to the current economic system.

I cannot give you a satisfactory answer because I don't really know, it's not an easy problem. All I was saying is that closing the conversation by just saying that they are trash people is too simplistic. It's also a bit unclear: were they born that way? Did they become like that? If you think that they became like that, then you agree with me, and wondering why it happened is totally fair.

 

Just as a brief aside, how do you think this factors in? I would have thought the Internet should make it easier to meet people, join social/community activities, etc.
Do you think it hasn't done that for all?

 

Internet provides more opportunities, but it also means that there is more competition, and in general there is a tendency to value instant gratifications with respect to forming more solid bonds. I once read an article in which they calculated the Gini coefficient of dating apps, where the equivalent of money were the swipes to the right, and as we could expect they realized that there was an extreme inequality on the way the "appreciation" was distributed.

So the paradox is that internet makes things worse, because these people see how the opportunities are more, and yet they keep being alone, so their sense of inadequacy is even stronger.

Besides, it's easier to connect, but the quality of the connections tends to be more shallow, on average. And we tend to spend more time alone at home because of internet. Also, because of internet, they end up radicalizing in their online bubbles.

 

Anecdote:

Spoiler

I never had success with Tinder and so I've given it up. It's not the way I want a romance to start anyway.

Paradoxically, the one real girlfriend I did have I met via social media and then we talked more before meeting IRL. Went south fast after that, but a lot of why it didn't work was because we hadn't gotten to know each other well enough via electronic communication to know if we were compatible. The s-word never came up once. I made it a point not to mention it during the short time we were an item and I wouldn't have if we had continued.

Places like here, I do seek genuine friendship but I've never thought of anything more. Part of why I don't currently seek either romance or worse IRL is because I don't feel I have a lot to offer- I don't drive, I'm employed but work and school take too much of my time, so I need to be realistic about how much attention I can give a girlfriend.

 

Spoiler

 

To connect my story with the topic more clearly, I agree that online gratification will not be rewarding. It's also true that not everybody falls prey to the entitled mindset, though those that do may bond over shared bitterness.

The thing I've learned is when forming any connection to have "getting laid" as the last thing on your mind. The personal connection and bond should be the main purpose, as cliche and unoriginal is the notion is.

 

Hm. When I used the KKK as an example, next to Pol Pot, I did not mean the nobodies, minimum salary Joes that followed the herd. I meant the leaders. The Bedford Forrests and the David Dukes. They were not representative of the poor, exploited, ignorant working class.

I don't disagree with you. But I think we are talking about different things. I would agree that there might be a bunch of nobodies out there who are alienated and unemployed and find a home, so to speak, in some online incel forum, because they knew a friend or whatever. But they don't seem to the "root" of the problem - at least, I never really found a link between that and the shooters that, well, more or less birthed the movement. And as I mentioned earlier with examples, I don't think you can just throw the incel problem under the neoliberal critique umbrella because you think it fits.

I think this topic can be divided into different discussions because trying to comprehend the outreaches of the incel subculture is different than trying to find a reason to how did it happen in the first place. It's kinda like Trump, his hardcore supporters, and secondary voters that are angry at the system.

 

I think a more equitable society would fix that mindset, to a large extent. Much of it is to do with entitlement under the patriarchy.

 

Wasn't there some study that found how white-supremacist/neo-nazi orgs were actually targeting these groups of lonely, online men who couldn't get girlfriends and had a lot of resentment and bad beliefs to begin with, to try and indoctrinate them into their more nefarious beliefs? They'd fill their heads with pickup artist bs. Show them ways to score, get laid, be strong, weight-lift, get a girl. Tell them really unhealthy stuff and how they're owed this and that, and be ALPHA, and not beta, and then when that didn't quite work, but got them on the hook, and actually built that resentment even more, slowly introduced them to other ideas, like how you're this was taken from you because of some other group, along with sexist, racist, hateful bs.

Not implying that all incels are like this, and it's still not excuse for their behavior...just that there was some overlap in the evolution of all this.

 

You're correct on part of it, but they don't fill their head with PUA nonsense. That's a separate group that actually hates incels (though it's also filled with a ton of misogyny). You're confusing a bunch of different phenomena together. There's essentially three types of groups here. MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) is sort of the "evolved" version of incels. Alt Right targets incels by saying that they need to reject modern sex culture and embrace a traditionalist ideology and that is the way to a happy, fulfilled, traditional life with a tradcon woman. PUA (pick up artists) doesn't target incels because they believe incels are incapable of putting the "tricks" to work.

Yes I've spent way too long studying online groups.

Incels are a product of the commodification of social interaction. This may be hard to believe, but capitalism is alienating as ****. Tinder culture, if you're not in the top percentage when it comes to looks, is degrading to the human self-worth. This is because it commodifies sex and commodifies social interaction, and the "privilege" in that is being someone society considers to be traditionally beautiful.

 

It's such a colossally stupid way to put it - he makes his dad sound like an alcoholic - "I don't need to drink" - except, y'know, he's talking about raping women.

 

To add to that, he's also making it sound as if women are inanimate objects. I mean, jesus god.

 

When it comes to the actual issue this thread is about, I highly recommend the meme subreddit r/gamingcirclejerk. It's basically the anti-Gamergate subreddit, where they make fun of the notion that women and gay people in games equals "politics" equals bad.

For an even more wholesome experience, check out r/GirlGamers.