A New History
As TikTok’s explosion in 2020 brought together all realms of internet dwellers and their information, ‘incel’ saw a resurgence. The derogatory-but-descriptive portmanteau referring to someone who is an ‘involuntary celibate’ became a fitting insult used by those finding leftist, feminist, and queer solidarity on the platform against the hordes of bored and edgy-humoured male users. This resurrection and expansion of the term to insult someone who may not even necessarily be an acutely aware, lifelong celibate, and self loathing person is exactly where the phenomenon of a ‘new’ incel lies.
Understanding Incel: Meme, Mewing, and The Matrix
I can recall the 13 year old version of myself, fresh to the internet, becoming swallowed up in Instagram and YouTube spaces where ‘edgy’ was a title to be worn with pride and certain memes that were ‘dank’ became an opposition to ‘normie’ content. This seemingly innocent dynamic of an alternative, somewhat awakened, but importantly not ‘woke’ group versus the cultural hegemony echoes much of what drives the incel ideology found on Subreddits, 4chan boards, and other sites.
Enter ‘red pill’ culture, one of the many adaptations and interpretations of the fictional conundrum that is most recently depicted in The Matrix series. You can be an incel without subscribing to this specific line of thought, but the general incel ideology is the same ‘truth’ that red pillers seek to grapple with: women only care about looks, and men that don’t fit a certain ‘unrealistic’ standard both socially and physically will forever be in subordination to an evil feminism sweeping the western world.
In a red pill understanding of society, men are either the alpha or the beta. Without looking and acting a certain way that is inherently masculine, a man is always destined to be a beta and be the one of the lesser members of society. In recent years, a lot of red pill content tries to substantiate its views on gender relations with loose interpretations of psychological studies.
The increasingly depraved branch of this view is ‘black pill’, a lesser known term encompassing voices and words that go as far as encouraging oppression of women that is not just systemic, but includes physical violence too. To understand the impact of black pill, one only has to look at the archived internet activity of mass shooters like Elliot Rodger and other incel killers.
Whilst incels wallow in despair, some parts of incel culture endorse self improvement techniques like going to the gym in order to break into the world experienced by alpha men. Although in most cases, this does not solve the root problem, which, other than potential psychological struggles, is where the over-articulation and obsession over social dynamics stifles any chance of organic confidence.
As well as exercise, many incels are huge believers in lesser-proven practices, such as mewing: a pseudo-orthodontic or ‘orthotropic’ practice founded by Orthodontist John Mew in the 1970s, now continued by his son Mike Mew, both of whom have been expelled from the General Dental Council. Mike has been in direct contact with incels since they adopted mewing, and maintains a strong social media presence.
Through tongue posture, breathing exclusively through the nose, and training the muscles involved in chewing, the Mews argue that jaw structure can change, which simultaneously rearranges other facial features and thus ‘improves’ the face. Not only is mewing largely-regarded as medically false, but the Mews’ well-documented views on traditional attractiveness are inherently problematic and are themselves perhaps proto-incels. Unfortunately, through the alt-right conspiracism that often goes hand in hand with all things red pill, the Mews’ influence is even greater: an abstract sense of ‘system’ is out to get you, and silences those who seek to challenge it.
Meme as a Catalyst for Evolution
Certain incels mock each other, feeling they may be already more gifted, successful and thus in a position to poke fun at the people who frequent the same online spaces as themselves. Memes were a weapon for this, such as the use of the greek god figure (the yes chad) who still appears in meme formats positioned against other ‘wojack’ characters that often are supposed to resemble some sort of loser or beta. Instead, the yes chad channels a stoicism derived entirely through his attractiveness, shutting down the other wojaks, which are sometimes female wojaks fawning over him. Ironic, as those who may unironically use the yes chad (or replicate this format in some way) as a reaction to other internet users still exist in the same sphere as incels; both obsessing over social dynamics, and eager to come out on top
The gradual decay of incel spaces was sped up by Reddit’s continued re-brand towards the end of the 2010s where subreddits violating violence and hate rules were banned, including r/incel in 2017. Although a necessary move, to some extent Reddit’s crackdowns on these communities helped propagate fresh incel ideologies elsewhere on the internet.
Where the Incel Lies Now: Gigachad and Beyond
The first appearance of the photoshop render of ‘Gigachad’ dates back to a 2017 social media post and was quickly adopted by forum posters, but all things Chad boomed and entered the mainstream via TikTok, peaking in 2022. Much of the Gigachad content’s popularity was boosted by the demand for popular metalcore and phonk tracks, but the same template of the original ‘Chad vs Beta’ or ‘Chad vs Virgin’ format prevailed in much of the discourse.
TikTok users interpreted the meme in the same way original incels did with wojaks, communicating snarkily with each other. Sometimes this was through transforming themselves with Gigachad-esque filters rather than simply creating their own encoded meme with an image of Gigachad. The intention was the same either way; Gigachad was a marker used to indicate being ‘better’ in some sense, or correct in the case of an actual disagreement. Although seemingly innocent, the hyper-masculine appearance of the Gigachad and presence of inceldom in the trend opens up a can of worms for incel culture to thrive and develop in the years following.
Looksmaxxing
Like memes in incel culture, looksmaxxing predates its recent explosion on social media last year. First seen in the early 2010s, the term has been used to describe the embracing of various holistic, surgical, and exercise-based approaches (including mewing) in order to better one’s appearance.
Since progressing out of forum spaces, its hashtag on Instagram is featured on nearly 200,000 posts, and looksmaxxing itself has swallowed up other self-care and self improvement methods on the internet, as well as creators to promote, and often sell them. Through the new era of E-commerce, incel is now commodified and sold to the masses, with pet-like ‘chews’, poor quality Gua Shas, and microneedling tools (for the hairline, eyebrows, and beard) that are flogged through ‘link in bio’ websites and the TikTok shop.
There is even an AI face scanning app that rates users with an attractiveness score, supposedly highlighting ‘weak’ points and advising how to fix them. Alarmingly, this has been downloaded over 10 million times across and has no age rating.
Whilst mewing is still huge, its place in looksmaxxing is somewhat shadowed by the multitude of different things to work on in the face. One area of looksmaxxing to gain recent attention is ‘bone smashing’, where budding looksmaxxers are told to hit parts of their face with a hammer. Ridiculously, this is alleged by some users and creators to cause only tiny, harmless breaks that encourage bones (normally the cheek, jaw, and brow area) to grow back larger and more prominent than before. Funnily enough the less dramatic side of looksmaxxing may entail spending an a significant portion of their day massaging, stretching, and ‘training’ the muscles of their face and neck, like this Instagram user documents.
Looksmaxxing’s intention to target an abundance of minute things gives young boys and men predisposed to insecurity even more to worry about. It is not uncommon now to see internet users consumed by the incel roots of the trend insulting each other’s facial features in comments sections: ‘negative canthal tilt bro’ (a downwards eye angle). Tied up with looksmaxxing is the secondary term ‘mogging’, a strange rendition of playground bullying where the use of the word ugly is not necessary, but posting yourself pouting and flexing to show your own attractiveness — to ‘mog’ — does the job instead.
Some users in this sphere are quite literally selling the premise that something with your appearance is flawed, and must be fixed. But why must it be fixed, and who are you appealing to? Not only is looksmaxing far from true self-improvement, but it is a golden ticket into the red pill ideology where women (with unrealistic standards made up in the incel imagination) are the enemy. The likely failures that arise due to the unproven and often fake methods (fabricated results) of looksmaxxing only heightens this sense.
Gymcels
Past incels seeking to better themselves through the gym would often frequent bodybuilding forums, where anecdotal stories from other men were a valuable resource to learn from. Such stories and baseless claims were typically the source of ‘bro science’ strategies adopted to by beginners, in this case incels, to maximise their gym experience and physique. Without any reason to not believe what felt like a fountain of knowledge and insight into the ‘alpha’ life, a lot of the worst teachings from sites like bodybuilding.com were relayed back into incel hubs.
The greatest example of this may be the ‘soyboy’ stereotype, based on the popular myth that soy decreases testosterone and promotes estrogen growth in excess. This idea plagued bodybuilding discourse for a while, but was accelerated on 4chan with wojaks, a few of which are labelled as soyboys. Simply consuming soya bean protein was a taboo; for incels it was another factor that could make them a weak, low testosterone, beta male; undesirable to women and society.
Looking at toxic comments on social media, it is clear that soyboy as an insult has never died, however the anti-soy myth lives on largely through an explosion of the carnivore diet, which was popularised in the late 2010s by red-pill aligning figures like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan. Whilst there are more comedic figures like the egg-loving Eddie Abbew that endorse this diet, the fetishism with all things primal, raw, and powerful found in carnivore diet content aligns with the regressive and misogynist utopia of the incel, as well as the more-often-than-not homophobic rhetoric found in soy shaming.
The (ab)use of PEDs (performance enhancing drugs, like steroids or the more recent trenbolone) is also bundled up with the new wave of gymcels. In the past decade there has been reasonable progress in awareness around steroid harm, but a new niche of influencers now mock any discourse centred around the ‘safe’ use and forbearing from steroids. Instead, they choose to glamourise hyper-sized bodies in a hedonistic way that completely disregards the possibility of an early grave or other health complications.
It is a select few that go this far, but meme culture’s fashion for extreme irony has allowed this new form of gym hedonism to spread far and wide. Take popular bodybuilding influencers ‘The Tren(bolone) Twins’, who have often warned their fans about doping, at least not before one’s natural — ‘natty’ — peak, but have still made a career out of memeing dangerous drugs. The popularity of the Twins and other influencers has enabled plenty of PED puns to plague modern bodybuilding, such as ‘tren hard’, or the sarcastic self-identification as a ‘natty vegan’. These jokes are also found as slogans on merchandise that has become so trendy there are plenty similar examples found on sites like Temu.
For those young, new, or feeling generally insecure in the gym, much of the education on the dangers of PEDs is almost drowned out by incessant joking. When done frequently by people who ostensibly seem to be in great shape, all this chattering is indirectly absorbed as advice.
But how has this bizarre realm of social media content come to be, and been able to thrive? What purpose does it serve? For some influencers and their followers, extreme steroid use may be to ‘maximise their genetics’, become the ‘best in their bloodline’, but other more general discourse I have observed entails jokes about smashing the gym and not being able to talk to women. Both reek of a surface level incel mentality, but this much is disguised by post-ironic tendancies. Failed attempts to achieve the peak gymcel body (which through comedic existentialism is now not even sold as the key to winning over women) may easily drive confused men towards red and black pill ideologies.
The Tate Sphere
Andrew and his brother Tristan Tate are the peak manifestation of red and black pill ideologies, who together live out what is arguably an incel utopia. Surrounding themselves with flash indicators of their wealth, the two alleged traffickers brag about their history of pimping women into camgirls and Onlyfans models. The physical process of this is laid out for all to see: Andrew has repeatedly spoken about physically subordinating even his own partners in ways that he denies to be abuse or assault, but evidently are.
The heart of the Tate’s network is their grifting of online ‘courses’ centred around earning an abundance of money and controlling women, often preached by Andrew as achievable targets that will better your life and ‘status’ as a man. Through this age-old ‘look at me, be like me’ method, the Tates’ have achieved an influence that almost posits them as supreme leaders of the new incel.
Whilst there are various examples of the above, the most well known example is the pyramid scheme found in their online ‘Hustler’s University’, where ‘students’ are paid to post short clips of any Tate appearances in videos and podcasts. The brazen controversiality (and sometimes edgy ‘memeabilty’) of this content was swept up by engagement-favouring algorithms which are still propelling the brothers towards millions of men and children today. Many of whom may not necessarily be disillusioned, isolated, or a typographic incel, but in being presented with a twisted — and significantly — a largely intangible version of self-improvement, may quickly become coerced into incel culture.
The extent of the Tate sphere’s harm is well documented by school teachers reporting more cases of misogyny at the same time as students vocally referencing the Tates. This is unfortunately substantiated by an Observer report that found there to be a 40% rise of child-to-child sexual abuse and rape cases in Britain. With much of the rising far-right across the globe endorsing tate, speculating the extent and future of these real life implications becomes daunting.
What next?
Without fear mongering, incel is now everywhere. The self, contained, tortured figure is no longer a useful stereotype, and perhaps never was either. Going as far back as the infamous ‘M’Lady’, internet culture has continually mocked this typical incel image to the level where very few people would now consider self-identifying as an incel. Likewise one would struggle to find dedicated incel communities too. Therefore, incel may now be more useful as an umbrella term rather than a label.
it is important not to disregard any of what I have observed to be ‘new incel’ as less radical simply for how it is used in a post-ironic way, or visible in mainstream spaces of the internet. Through pervasive algorithms and data collection, accidentally shifting from spaces where incel histories lie into deliberate sites of hate isn’t far fetched. With gymcel culture and looksmaxxing, misogyny is not the starting point or active practice either, but rather the consequence.
As an umbrella term, incel should instead apply to content, and be considered as a dangerous genre of content not just on a one off, guideline-violating basis by moderators on social media. The exact phenomenon of ‘new incel’ is where this content, at varying depths and visibility of incel ideology, is consumed to varying degrees by a spectrum of boys and men that is much vaster than people’s imagination. Only by dropping this perception of the incel, a mythical product of the internet who even when causing physical harm is still an enigma that is a product of an already-deviant mind, can we begin to tackle the true damage of incel — and tackle it with empathy and education.
All I can think of concluding with is to stress to readers the importance of holding those around you accountable. I’ve seen horrific posts get too much traction on Instagram and TikTok. Where MAGA-influenced big tech falls short, we must stay alert. Complacency and ignorance is a huge factor in enabling this culture too. You’ve heard this before, but it is now so much more important to pay attention to your counterparts’ digital activity.
Another article you might enjoy: Reform’s Racist Rampage in South East England