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‘There were no warning signs’: what happens when your partner falls into the ‘manosphere’?
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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My daughter won't even talk to guys who in any way support Andrew Tate or MAGA influencers. They aren't incels, they choose to be celibate by openly displaying their hatred for women.
All incelularity is self-inflicted. They put up all the barriers. I mean, it's obvious on the face of it; there is obviously no conspiracy to keep this one guy celibate. If there are factors that are keeping him celibate, they are entirely his own.
I'm not trying to defend them, but the lonely guy to incel pipeline is a real thing. They are targeted, propagandized, and monetized. I believe people are responsible for the decisions they make, so I'm not saying they aren't to blame for that, but I am saying it's more complex than just that.
There was a great interview with a woman who had written a book on the Manosphere and she said that it's "funnel-shaped," which is to say that the first stages are nowhere near as extreme as the ones they lead to. It starts off by talking to lonely young men and telling them that their feelings are valid and that they have value, both of which are things that young men very much do need to hear! But the pipeline then moves them from that to "Your feelings of isolation aren't your fault" to "Your negative feelings are women's fault," and then you're off the primrose path to "Women aren't people" and "Women deserve any horrible treatment you can think of."
But the earliest stages are ones of finding young men that aren't having their emotional or structural needs met, and filling that vacuum in.
That sort of thinking just made me overly emotional and hot-tempered. Just feeling the feelings was a good thing, so the more I felt it the better, right?
Hearing that I needed to temper my feelings so that I can figure out what I need and how to communicate those needs was a lot more helpful. And made me a better person overall.
Couple that with the fact that it's getting harder and harder to go out and socialize with real people due to everything getting more expensive (except wages). People are losing their third space and are replacing it with these grifter online forums, it's far more affordable than going to a bar or social place, more and more people are staying home these days.
You become an incel the moment you externalize all the blame. It is their defining characteristic, that their celibacy is every- and anyone's fault but their own.
Perhaps, but maybe it doesn't matter. I want to live in a society where people are kind to one another, where they listen to one another, and where they have the opportunity to be prosperous. From my experience the place I was born, (BC, Canada), is trending away from that. I believe helping these lost youngsters become better people would help reverse that trend, and I think one of the first steps towards helping them is to have more empathy.
Lots of people have an external locus of control and I don't know if that's easily changed, but I do know it doesn't mean that they have to be hateful.
I believe that process starts with identifying, and then aiding. But we can't break through to any of these people so long as our digital landscapes are just stomping grounds for this idealogy. I honestly can't believe hate and bigotry have caught this much fire after Tolkein created the perfect archetypes for men to follow.
I mean, probably the ones who have an internal locus commit suicide at some point unfortunately. The fluidity of relationships today and people connecting by tech significantly increased the transactional aspect of modern life.
Gender wars are the easiest form of manipulation, you just need to get the extreme cases make a straw-men argument and generalize for both men and women to radicalize new people.
And they seem to be the only ones talking toyoung boys so...