Here we go, part 2, a better look into the specific language used by incels. Now it's important to note that a lot of this jargon is appropriated from other communities around the internet (god knows which, I haven't looked into those, I'm scarred enough as it is).
I'm going to talk about their use of language in general first, and follow that up with a list of lingo. I'm going to be incorporating screenshots and it's important to note that a lot of the language use is inherently violent and can be triggering for some people. I'd avoid this discussion (and avoid looking up incels in general) if this kind of language is dangerous or not good for you and your mental health.
Moving on into the flesh and bones of this discussion. The language used by incels is incredibly nuanced and is intrinsically tied to violence. There is use of fractal recursivity, authentication, erasure, the use of repair in a really interesting (read gross) way, indexicality, entextualization and intertextuality, among other methods and frameworks that operate within linguistic anthropology.
Ahhh fractal recursivity ... (something which .. after many classes I still don't think my head is completely wrapped around it) I believe this is reflected heavily in the linguistic categorizations that incels have created to talk about themselves, and others. The first categorization is incels versus normies. Incels describe themselves as ugly, short, overweight (typically this is because incels are under the belief that looks are 100% everything when it comes to attraction and the fact that they aren't attractive enough is why they're incels in the first place), Nice Guys™ - not to be confused with nice guys, you know, guys that are nice - respectful, etc. whereas normies are described as just that .. normal, not incel, average. Further, normies are divided into Chads and Stacys. Chads are the Ultimate Man™, muscular, attractive, tall, fit, rude men, basically the exact opposite of an incel (and the target of a lot of their hate). Stacys are attractive women basically, super objectified by incels, and absolutely hated (yet chased after??) by them as well. God .. this keeps going too, the breakdown and categorizations further developed by incels is intense.
Anyway, there are also categorizations among incels as well (which is also used as a method of authentication interestingly enough). These categories are not incel specific necessarily but these are definitely associated with incels primarily. Blackpill, Redpill, and Bluepill. Blackpill(ed) incels are those who basically believe all hope is lost, they tend to believe in their own failure and grim future (kinda feels like a type of learned helplessness to me .. fishy) these are the "true" incels. Redpill(ed) incels are those who believe that women are essentially incapable of love and that's the majority of the reason they're incels, these incels are not as "authentic" as blackpilled ones, redpill can be used as an insult by incels at other incels. Finally, bluepill(ed) incels are those that still believe in love, this is thrown around more so as an insult to incels by incels, these are the least authentic incels. This paragraph is getting long but I'd like to briefly touch on another category of semiotics: erasure. This can primarily be seen most particularly in the term femoid. Femoids are basically just women. Erasure is present here as there is no differentiation between women at all, they are all just considered predictable, and as the term implies and indexes when broken down - female | droid - robotic and unfeeling. They consider women all the same and honestly this is part of their problem. That's not what this series is about though.
Alright, now we're getting into a bit of the heavier stuff, content warning for slut-shaming, aggressive language, and violent language (If you think about it... these people tend to not have any social power, and attempt to assert linguistic power in these online communities).
Okay so I'm not 100% sure this is repair (though it feels like it, at least in this context, I could be mistaken though) but there's this phenomenon where when these incels (this also extends to Nice Guys™) are rejected, there is an immediate switch in the way that they speak to attempt to protect their masculinity. This is achieved by going from speaking to a woman in a really typical (I guess) gentlemanly way, and when they are rejected, or told no, they immediately switch to violent, offensive language in order to exert some power and control over the situation. Violence runs deep in the lexicon of incels, as we can see below.
Now this already sounds pretty bad, but trust me it gets worse. But if we look at the way that these incels (and by extension Nice Guys™) react to rejection, we can see this kind of ... personal repair that turns the conversation from seemingly polite and okay to very violent and aggressive really fast. This is also directly related to sexuality as we can see, They immediately turn to words that enforce sexual subordination to themselves (sluts, whore, Stacys, Roasties) in order to make themselves feel better and feel justified in the whole conversation. Might I add that this same kind of structure (acting nice --> getting rejected --> becoming hostile) is utilized very similarly regardless of the type of woman they talk to. These interactions are also aggressively heterosexual in nature (regardless of the sexuality of the woman - even lesbians), there's even some 'no homo' content, though definitely not as prominent as other groups. A lot of this behaviour and word choice can be attributed to toxic masculinities and hegemonic masculinities. The fractal recursivity associated with differences between men and women - men being marked as emotionless, sexually aggressive, and the like - is also associated with incels. This notion that men are to be sexually aggressive and emotionless is perpetuated through the way incels speak themselves.
As we see to the left, it's a perfect example of the gendered language that is used, the sexism, the misogyny. We also this user refer to himself as the epitome of masculinity, which indexes then the standard of masculinity itself, as he seems to describe in his first paragraph. Masculinity is an extremely central part to incel culture in general.
I also find this phenomenon surrounding masculinity very interesting. Incels consider themselves as lesser than other men, especially when you look at themselves describing Chads as Alpha males, which is not a new concept, versus how they describe themselves. Incels heavily invest in the concept of hegemonic masculinity - i.e. the Chad - and then remove themselves entirely from it. They essentially emasculate themselves, proceed to blame women for this, and then use violent language against said women to reinforce their own sexuality and masculinity. It's the most absurd sort of cycle of behaviour I've ever looked at, but that's just my opinion. OH! How could I forget this sort of male solidarity though as well, these men come together on these subreddits and forums to bond over his strange sort of emasculated masculinity they've created for themselves.
The community of incels has become so large I'm inclined to call it a community of practice, they have a shared, mutually understood lexicon they ascribe to, ideologies they ascribe to, and are essentially creating tradition and shared practice as time goes on.
The language used is also decidedly antifeminist, I'm certain you don't need another example of this, considering we've already seen an example of what they think of feminism.
I could also argue that a lot of what these incels say are performatives in nature. They call themselves incels, and so they become such, they ascribe labels to themselves, and hand in hand with authenticity, they decide if someone else should then receive the identification. These utterances, while technically non-verbal, still have an element of performativity to them. There is a lot to do with authenticity within the community itself, and what is considered to be truly incel is an ever-changing definition. Remember how I said that 'true incels' are the ones that are considered blackpilled? Well what if I told you there is one step beyond that that is considered and even more true version of an incel? this is atomic blackpill. Like I said, this authenticity game is just a matter of moving the goal posts, and there may never be a true authentic incel.
Overall, I can say that the biggest factors in incel language is the use of power, violence, and constructions of masculinities. The way that women are spoke to and about is incredibly misogynist, the use of gendered slurs is prominent, and sexual intimidation (which .. aggressively heterosexual) is the norm for conversations and regular posts on the subreddit. Notice how none of these incels are women or even gay men, this is nearly exclusively a cishet man's community and issue. The language used by incels is certainly more nuanced than what I've shown you, but this gives a good scope of how incels use language to assert power and masculinity over their object of hatred: women.
The discourse surrounding this whole concept of incels is not that developed yet, despite this community being so large, it still mostly flies under the radar. A lot of the discourse occurs online, and most certainly the subreddit I've gotten my examples off of: r/inceltears. This is certainly discourse as ideology as even the discourse within the incel community itself is perpetuating the ideologies within it. I think we do need to open up discussions about this particular community though due to the nature of the violent language and the ideologies that follow suit. This community cannot be allowed to get away with uttering threats against people (and in certain cases following through on those threats that I talk about later), otherwise there is the risk of this developing into a community that acts on their violent language.
Now we move on to a list of terms, most of these were described in the context in which I used them, but there are a few extra here that are worth knowing. The fact that there's even a list of vocabulary that's needed to understand how these men talk seems to reinforce the community of practice claim I made earlier.
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The List! (The source is down below ... can we just thank these reddit users that compiled this) alright lets get to this:
Incel - Involuntary Celibate
Normie - a ... 'normal' person, basically someone who isn't an incel (but also isn't a Chad, Stacy, Roastie, etc)
Blackpill(ed) - both a verb and a noun; basically an incel & the process of becoming one. i.e. if you're becoming blackpilled, you're becoming an incel
Redpill - a person who believes that women are incapable of love
Bluepill - a person who still believes in true love; incels look down on this
Chad - The perfect, ideal man, muscular, good facial structure, etc etc.
Stacy - Basically .. a woman
Roastie - a super sexist term, essentially slut shaming, a woman who has had sex with more than one person
Mog - a verb, to look down on someone
Landwhale - another sexist term, fat-shaming women this time, a woman who is overweight
Femoid - another word for women (as if they're robotic, uncaring, and predictable)
Elliot Rodger - the incel "God" essentially; he went on to murder and injure a bunch of innocent people because of his incelness
White-Knight(ing) - a noun and a verb, basically a man who defends a woman, and the act of defending said woman (not limited to incels)
These are the basics, if you want to know more follow this link (which is also our source) though ... if you value your mental wellbeing I wouldn't look into this more.
Overall, incels are super hard on themselves for their own "ugliness" but expect the prettiest girls to be the ones that like them - and subsequently their gross attitudes, an interesting and not entirely unexpected double standard.
In part 3, I'm going to give you a few more specific examples of some of these frameworks.
Once again feel free to comment!