{"id":5872,"date":"2025-07-19T12:42:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T12:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/5872\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T12:42:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T12:42:15","slug":"how-incel-language-infected-the-mainstream-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/5872\/","title":{"rendered":"How incel language infected the mainstream internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

This excerpt from Adam Aleksic\u2019s Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language<\/a> has been abridged for online publication. The book is out on July 15th.<\/p>\n

The modern-\u00adday incel is entirely an invention of the twenty-\u00adfirst century. Before the internet, lonely men simply didn\u2019t have a way to gather and share ideas. That all began to change in 1997, when a Canadian student started a website called Alana\u2019s Involuntary Celibacy Project to connect with others over her shared lack of sex. As the name implies, the site wasn\u2019t a place for just straight men; rather, it was used by people of any gender or sexual orientation.<\/p>\n

In subsequent years, that initial \u201cincel\u201d community then dispersed to several other websites. These were more male dominated and less moderated, meaning that increasingly misogynistic discussion was able to take root. The largest of these forums, 4chan, doubled as a gathering place for right-\u00adwing extremists, whose ideas began to fuse with those of the incels.<\/p>\n

In their world-view, the sexual hierarchy was dominated by an elite group of Chads (highly attractive men), who could rely on their good looks as a form of \u201csexual market value\u201d to seduce women at the expense of betas (average men who exchange loyalty to Chads for their romantic leftovers). At the very bottom rung were the incels, who believed they were unable to have sex because of their appearance.<\/p>\n

Acceptance of the lookism philosophy \u2014\u00ad known as getting blackpilled \u2014 meant adopting very specific slang and ideas. For example, a Chad was understood to always \u201cmog\u201d (dominate) and \u201ccuck\u201d (emasculate) a beta, but the beta could attempt to improve their status through \u201clooksmaxxing\u201d (enhancing their physical appearance). This might take the form of working out (gymmaxxing) or even seeking physical modifications through \u201cSurgerymaxxing.\u201d<\/p>\n

With this cynical, deterministic cognitive frame dominating 4chan\u2019s discussion boards, the modern \u201cblackpill\u201d began in earnest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Image: Penguin Random House<\/p>\n

Notably, 4chan didn\u2019t have any user accounts. Every poster was anonymous, meaning that the only way to differentiate yourself as an experienced user was to demonstrate a performative proficiency in shared slang. This unique pressure to show a sense of in- group belonging ended up giving us numerous foundational internet words, such as \u201ctroll,\u201d \u201cdank,\u201d \u201cshitpost,\u201d and \u201crickroll.\u201d Using these words was an important way to show that you weren\u2019t a \u201cnormie\u201d on the website. Because they had wide applicability, they eventually spread beyond the site.<\/p>\n

In the same way, most of the highly specific incel vocabulary was built up by 4chan extremists to match their burgeoning ideology. Words like \u201cmogging,\u201d \u201ccucked,\u201d and \u201cmaxxing\u201d became metalinguistic indicators that the anonymous poster was truly a blackpilled member of the community and not some random outsider. You needed to demonstrate a certain level of prerequisite knowledge to truly fit in.<\/p>\n

Beyond the technological catalyst of 4chan\u2019s user interface, incels have long faced a self-\u00ad imposed social need to adopt new slang to prove their status. Those within the community fight a constant battle to prove their \u201cpurity\u201d as incels and avoid being labeled as \u201cfakecels\u201d or \u201cvolcels\u201d (voluntary celibates). Even within the deepest echelons of the incel filter bubble, many believe that most of their peers still have potential to \u201cascend\u201d to beta status through looksmaxxing, moving location, or accumulating wealth. Only the bottom 1 percent of the population are truecels \u2014 incels with unchangeably unattractive features and no hope of ascension. In the online space, these truecels are able to dominate the discussion due to their purer status.<\/p>\n

Within the incel community itself, language serves the same function as language in a cult: It\u2019s a recruitment tool creating an \u201cus versus them\u201d mentality. Since incel vocabulary is used to mark \u201ccorrect\u201d blackpill philosophy, the incel feels alienated from normies\u2014\u00ad family and friends who don\u2019t use the language. Meanwhile, truecel rhetoric pushes recruits to accept more extremist beliefs, since those ideas are associated with higher social status within the community. Those who use the language sound experienced, appearing to understand the ideology well.<\/p>\n

While extreme, the basic structure of the incel filter bubble mirrors all other filter bubbles online. Those who are further in the in-\u00ad group are more likely to dominate discourse, creating and spreading words for those on the periphery. As users familiarize themselves with the group vocabulary, they identify more with that group, and more readily adopt language to fit shared social needs.<\/p>\n

The basic structure of the incel filter bubble mirrors all other filter bubbles online. Those who are further in the in-\u00ad group are more likely to dominate discourse, creating and spreading words for those on the periphery.<\/p>\n

I would argue that, if anything, the incel example is very important to understand, for it has probably contributed more to the development of \u201cmodern slang\u201d than any other online community. It\u2019s precisely because of their radicalized and insular echo chamber that they\u2019ve created so much language and have many more avenues to influence the mainstream. It is because of their extreme views that their ideas are so easily spread through memes.<\/p>\n

We can, in fact, use the spread of incel ideas as a case study to examine how memes carry information across social media platforms. Real incels never had access to algorithmic recommendations, since their ideology was too unpalatable and subject to content moderation. So how did their concepts and language move from website to website until eventually arriving, in diluted form, on our social media feeds?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start where the philosophy began in earnest: 4chan. Despite the forum\u2019s early importance, it remained a place where incels mixed with normies. The Incels Wiki page for \/r9k\/, their main discussion board on 4chan, calls it a \u201cpseudo-incelospherian\u201d space: Although it was a medium \u201cfor some genuine incel discussion,\u201d it was never purely an incel forum, and \u201calso served as a place for people to pretend to be incel\u201d and troll actual truecels.<\/p>\n

Seeking a more insular and supportive community in the mid-\u00ad 2010s, the incel subculture largely turned to Reddit, where subreddits like r\/Incels were able to accrue tens of thousands of blackpilled followers. From there, they slowly began pushing their philosophy in other subreddits. Forums like these were fruitful recruiting grounds, but the incels found their greatest success on \u201crate me\u201d subreddits, where people would post pictures of themselves and ask for feedback. Here, incels were able to promote a more accessible version of their philosophy by disguising looksmaxxing language as helpful suggestions. Posters were evaluated on pseudoscientific lookism beauty standards like \u201cinterocular distance,\u201d \u201ccanthal tilt,\u201d and \u201chunter eyes.\u201d They were encouraged to improve their facial structure through \u201cmewing\u201d and jaw surgery so that they could \u201cmog\u201d others. If they were interested in exploring further, the blackpill was waiting around the corner.<\/p>\n

Even once the incel subreddits were eventually shut down by Reddit, forums like r\/RateMe continued to normalize incel jargon, making it easier to both put stock in it and parody it. In the same way that my Discord server jokingly used incel language, jokes about mogging and canthal tilts began to show up in 2021 across Instagram and Twitter, in memes that eventually became viral through TikTok and Instagram Reels.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the first people to bring looksmaxxing to TikTok appear to have been women, who unknowingly began repurposing incel concepts from the early \u201crate me\u201d subreddits. Beauty influencers on #GirlTok would demonstrate how to use canthal tilt to put on eyeliner, or post video filters rating themselves on metrics like forehead size and interocular distance. Eventually, people began picking up on the phrenological absurdity of these ideas and turned them into more memes. The deeper people poked into the underlying philosophy, the more the jokes multiplied, and words like \u201cpilled\u201d and \u201c-\u00ad maxxing\u201d were fully trending by late 2023. Most people thought that the concepts were funny and went on to spread them; those who knew the story and were offended by it also helped the terms spread through the ragebait cycle of attention.<\/p>\n

Once algorithms got involved, the incel terms were amplified by the online Matthew effect: a phenomenon where content that is slightly better at grabbing your attention performs exponentially better on social media. As their memes were recombined into other \u201cphrasal templates\u201d and caught on as comedic references, they were eventually able to reach mainstream popularity. Many words also spawned their own spin-\u00ad off memes. Starting in 2021, for example, the term \u201csigma\u201d began going viral as an ironic reference to the incel hierarchy of alphas and betas. In this particular joke, a sigma was nominally equal to a Chad, but opted to live outside the normal social structure of their own volition. The phrase started out as a genuinely idolized position within the incelosphere, but was then blown up through memes like the \u201cRizzler song,\u201d which contained the lyric \u201cI just wanna be your sigma.\u201d A lot of subsequent \u201cbrainrot\u201d content focused on similar incel classifications, like an analysis of the power dynamics between dancers in a \u201c\u00ad TikTok Rizz Party\u201d or viral \u201csigma face tutorials.\u201d<\/p>\n

By this point, the words were out of the incels\u2019 hands. The community never had the opportunity to gather on major social media apps once their subreddits were shut down, and instead had moved to Discord servers or more specific, hard-to-\u00adfind forums online.<\/p>\n

There have been past problems with algorithmic filter bubbles leading to extremism: ISIS infamously used YouTube as a recruitment tool in the early 2010s, and the QAnon movement spread in part thanks to Facebook echo chambers. Thankfully, the big platforms had cracked down on more obvious threats by the time incel slang became mainstream. If you look up \u201cincel\u201d on TikTok, for example, it redirects you to a page warning you that your search term is associated with hateful content. Nevertheless, it\u2019s fascinating how far incel humor has reached. One of the most common meme templates on the internet is a crudely drawn comparison of a \u201cChad walk versus virgin stride.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the original version, the characters are labeled like diagrams in a biology textbook, with annotations pointing out why the Chad\u2019s behavior mogs the virgin.<\/p>\n

Another widely shared format contrasts the opinion of a crying loser character with that of a confident Chad. Both templates perpetuate incel ideas about social hierarchies, but to the uninitiated they\u2019re simply funny conduits for categorizing ideas. These memes\u2014\u00ad and many others, from \u201cPepe the Frog\u201d to the \u201cGigachad\u201d\u2014\u00ad started on incel-\u00ad associated 4chan boards before reaching greater popularity on other websites for their easy applicability to everyday situations.<\/p>\n

By now, we know that the dissemination of incel memes across platforms points to how fringe ideas can become mainstream, and that algorithms can perpetuate dangerous concepts in the name of engagement optimization. The lookism concepts from r\/RateMe, including jawline angle, eye distance, and facial symmetry, are eugenics-\u00ad based talking points that were already regarded as pseudoscientific by the nineteenth century. Now, with beauty influencers making content about those metrics, it feels as if we\u2019ve reverted to social Darwinist ideas about skull measurement.<\/p>\n

Phrenological theories barely scratch the surface of how incel memes open the door to eugenics. Since much of the early incel community was heavily influenced by the alt-\u00ad right community on 4chan, they\u2019ve adopted a lot of extreme ideas about interracial relationships. According to lookism philosophy, Asian men are considered the least sexually desirable, and many \u201ctruecels\u201d self-identify as \u201cricecels\u201d or \u201ccurrycels\u201d as reasons for their incel\u00ad dom. These men point to WMAF (white male\/Asian female) relationships as a principal cause of their virginity\u2014\u00ad objectifying the women in these situations and depriving them of their agency to make their own dating decisions.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cbrainrot,\u201d now used to describe a genre of Gen Alpha humor, likely also came from incel circles, which used the expression to describe the perceived decline in intelligence resulting from their lack of social interaction.<\/p>\n

Incel slang is marked by its deeply negative views \u00adtoward society, and these ideas frequently resonate with younger generations who are similarly pessimistic about the present. In the early 2020s, for instance, the catchphrase \u201cit\u2019s over\u201d began making the rounds as a dejected reaction to an adverse situation. Partially a joke, partially a genuine expression of hopelessness, it was buoyed in popularity by incels, who had been using the phrase since it began making the rounds on 4chan.<\/p>\n

In her 2024 book, The Age of Magical Overthinking, Amanda Montell identifies the rise of \u201cdoomslang\u201d \u2014\u00ad dystopian or detached jargon mostly used by younger people. Hyperbolically negative phrases like \u201ceverything sucks\u201d and \u201cI want to kill myself \u201d have become shockingly commonplace, and everyday actions like lying in bed on your phone are bleakly described as \u201cdissociating,\u201d \u201cdoomscrolling,\u201d or \u201cbedrotting.\u201d This kind of language is especially common among incels, who were using phrases like \u201cLDAR\u201d (\u201clay down and rot\u201d) before \u201cbedrotting\u201d ever became a thing. The modern doomslang phenomenon appears to have evolved simultaneously with incel-speak, in some cases even being influenced by the latter.<\/p>\n

One of the stock characters in the Chad memes, known as the doomer, emerged as a way to voice the (frequently incel) dissociated perspective on 4chan, and eventually spread beyond those origins like all the other 4chan memes. Today, I regularly hear my friends calling each other \u201cdoomers,\u201d as well as using other depressive incel words like \u201ccope,\u201d \u201cropemaxx\u201d (an algospeak replacement for \u201ccommit suicide\u201d), and \u201cwagecuck\u201d (someone who works a mindless nine-\u00ad to-\u00ad five job). Meanwhile, the term \u201cbrainrot,\u201d now used to describe a genre of Gen Alpha humor, likely also came from incel circles, which used the expression to describe the perceived decline in intelligence resulting from their lack of social interaction.<\/p>\n

These terms spread partially because the algorithm thrives on negativity and partially because they confirmed our existing cultural outlooks. Phrases like \u201cdoomer\u201d and \u201cit\u2019s over\u201d spoke to our disconnected reality, while \u201cbrainrot\u201d held a mirror up to our online addictions and \u201cwagecuck\u201d reflected our growing disenchantment with the American dream. And since apocalyptic statements are good for engagement, the phrases eventually became a part of the zeitgeist, emergently reinforcing our pessimistic points of view. Words are memes, and memes are trends, but all are also ideas.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s difficult to determine for certain the actual impact of incel vocabulary on our culture, the incels themselves certainly believe they\u2019ve effectively spread their ideas. On incel sites, longtime truecels use the terms \u201cNewgen\u201d and \u201cTiktokcel\u201d to describe those who only recently joined their forums from short-form video platforms. The Incels Wiki lists the looks-maxxing trend on TikTok as a primary driver of this recent incel influx, meaning that the meme pipeline has had at least some efficacy in making the blackpill more accessible.<\/p>\n

If incel memes are so dangerous, how were they able to spread so easily? It all comes down to the very blurred line between comedy and authenticity. To most of us, these memes were just funny. We weren\u2019t blackpilled by incel language, and we didn\u2019t perpetuate them to promote lookism or racism or sexism. Instead, we used them as a form of dark humor, flipping the script on the incel community to ultimately satirize them. When we repurposed the \u201cChad versus virgin\u201d meme template, the incels became the butt of the joke. When my friends and I used words like \u201c-\u00ad maxxing\u201d and \u201cpilled,\u201d we established a new in- group: the community of young people on social media. The terms were silly jokes to connect over, signaling that we knew something exclusive about popular culture. Since everybody wanted to feel like part of the in-\u00ad group, the words spread, taking them out of the incels\u2019 hands and robbing them of their original power as they simply became \u201cbrainrot\u201d words.<\/p>\n

I suspect that the vast majority of people sharing the memes probably didn\u2019t even know they came from incels. The most disturbing concepts\u2014\u00ad like calling women \u201cfoids\u201d or Asian people \u201ccurrycels\u201d\u2014\u00ad remained in-\u00ad group, because these are far too offensive to become mainstream. But for other concepts such as mewing, there was simply no reason to assume the underlying idea would be problematic until you \u00ad really looked into it.<\/p>\n

If incel memes are so dangerous, how were they able to spread so easily? It all comes down to the very blurred line between comedy and authenticity.<\/p>\n

Some time after the serious philosophy was turned into a joke, though, it began to be treated seriously again by some of those out of the loop. At least some of the beauty influencers talking about hunter eyes and interocular distance misinterpreted the ironic context of the lookism words and spread them as genuine beauty standards, which spawned more jokes, leading to more serious reinterpretations. After the jokes about canthal tilts and mewing went viral, we began seeing increases in canthal tilt eyeliner demonstrations and Google searches for \u201cjaw surgery.\u201d On the one hand, that just made the jokes funnier; on the other, incel ideas about attractiveness became more culturally relevant.<\/p>\n

Again, how did this happen? Well, it\u2019s famously difficult to discern tone on the internet, to the point where there\u2019s an adage about it called Poe\u2019s law: \u201cAny sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken for a sincere expression of those views,\u201d and vice versa.<\/p>\n

Poe\u2019s law explains how dangerous ideas spread as memes. If something is meant genuinely, but it is also crazy enough to be interpreted as a joke, people may reward it with \u201clikes\u201d and other engagement because they find it funny. Meanwhile, if something ironic is interpreted as genuine, people will be offended by it, which then also drives engagement as a form of ragebait. Either way, \u201cedgy\u201d humor is able to worm its way into the mainstream via the algorithm.<\/p>\n

Incels themselves often introduce serious topics as jokes, which can normalize their idea until it is revealed in its entirety. You start out laughing at how funny a \u201cwalkpilled cardiomaxxer\u201d meme is, and then all of a sudden your For You page is dominated by incel memes, bringing you closer to the ideology.<\/p>\n

You can see this in how their language has spread. I think it\u2019s pretty clear that the word \u201cChad\u201d started out as a humorous archetype, but at a certain point incels began using it as a genuine classification to parallel the \u201cbeta\u201d and \u201cincel\u201d social tiers. Then those tiers appeared so ridiculous to outsiders that they were able to spread as memes beyond their serious usage. Now we have people using the \u201cChad\u201d and \u201cvirgin\u201d characters as if they were stock characters in a new commedia dell\u2019arte. Poe\u2019s law has created a dangerous game of hopscotch. We\u2019re jumping between irony and reality, but we\u2019re not always sure where those lines are. Interpreting words comedically helps the algorithm spread them as memes and trends, but then interpreting them seriously manifests their negative effects.<\/p>\n

From ALGOSPEAK: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language by Adam Aleksic, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC, on July 15, 2025. Copyright (c) 2025 by Adam Aleksic.<\/p>\n

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