Navigated to From Victim to Violence - Transcript
Incels

ยทS1 E5

From Victim to Violence

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1

From the dark corners of the web.

An emerging mindset.

Speaker 2

I'm a loser if also we know wouldn't pay me either.

Speaker 1

A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point.

Speaker 3

In Cells will be added to the terrorism Guide.

I see literally zero hope.

Speaker 1

This is in Cells, a production of Kat's Studios and iHeartRadio, Season one, episode five, From Victim to Violence.

Speaker 4

So we're injured by women's beauty and so men often see rape as getting even did you get any did she put out she has, he wants, he gets or he takes.

Speaker 2

There's plenty of guys out there who hate women and they do just fine.

Okay, we don't live in some just world.

Speaker 5

Are you also complete genetic trash with no redeeming qualities?

Speaker 1

I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KATI Studios with Stephanie Leidecker.

Gave Castillo, Connor Powell, and Carolyn Miller.

Last episode we heard from three self described in cells.

Hopelessness was a reoccurring theme and the loneliness was palpable.

We found them mostly through Facebook and Reddit, but reaching another corner of the community proved harder men who gather in darker online spaces with angrier, more hostile perspectives.

Investigative journalist Connor Powell reminds us why this divide exists.

Speaker 5

On the Intel discussion board intl dot co or insel dot is, those names are all anonymous, they don't use their real names.

In fact, there was a whole discussion thread about how you can best protect yourself, about protecting your identity so that you can essentially post as angrily as obscene as you want without having to have any repercussions.

And I think you see a lot more abusive language, a lot more sort of obscene language on this in cell website.

Speaker 6

Online anonymity means no repercussions for being nasty.

Speaker 4

Add all this together and you get what psychologists call the online disinhibition effect, and effectively it dictates that people will do things online that they wouldn't do in the.

Speaker 1

Real world because of the strict anonymity and security on these forums.

We weren't able to speak directly with the men, but we wanted you to hear their own words.

It's important to understand exactly what's being discussed and internalized by young men.

Connor share some of these conversations and forum posts with crime Analyst, Body Movement Listener.

Warning, some of the language you'll hear in this episode is offensive.

Speaker 5

When you look at some of the posts, there are some that are sort of indicative of the conversations that are happening in regular and this is just what I found yesterday.

The headline of this thread is called which type.

Speaker 3

Of women do you hate?

Speaker 1

More?

Speaker 3

Ugly women or pretty women?

Speaker 5

And you know, the first post is, well, that's a difficult question for me to answer.

I hate both, to be honest, And then the thread conversation goes sort of sort of self loathing to loathing of the women.

One person says, you know, both would tear me apart because the moment I show any interest and try to make a move, they would sort of destroy me.

It sort of goes back and forth, but it's all very derogatory towards the women.

It's about the ugly women are the cruelest or the pretty women are the cruelest.

This type of conversation is what you see play out really in almost every thread on this discussion board.

Speaker 6

Viewing it from the outside, it's almost like they like this self hatred and they want to wallow in it.

Speaker 5

But there's other ones about like it pisses me off, how men pay for everything is the norm, and then there's a whole discussion about how much these members on this website hate, how men are responsible for pay for dates, for mortgages, nights out, and about women sort of being useless.

The men are responsible everything, and it's very much the men are the victim, and that's what you see time and time again.

Speaker 6

So on one hand they're complaining they're not dating right, and on the other hand they're complaining that if they do date, they're not to pay for it too.

Speaker 3

Exactly exactly.

Speaker 1

We spoke with a self identified Inceel who goes by Brian about his experiences with dating, feeling taken advantage of, and rejection.

It's a glimpse at how real world pain can spill over and sometimes twist into the anger we see on these forums.

Speaker 7

When you're young, you're always trying.

I mean, it's just testosterone hormones.

When you're young, you feel like you need a woman.

I always tried.

I'd go to nightclubs, I tried dating sites and things like that, and nothing was working.

And I had some success, but it was not real success.

The kind of women that I would get and it didn't happen often, but the kind that I did, they would always.

Speaker 8

Have a alterior motive, like they would want money or something like that, or you know, didn't want to constantly go out so that you could afford their lifestyle, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1

We asked Brian if you had an example of a woman having the kind of ulterior motive he described.

Speaker 7

I'll give you an example.

I did go on it.

I can't even call it a date.

That tells you how bad it is for me, because it was more like a scam.

I went out with a woman and we went to see a movie and that went well.

Of course, it went well because you don't have to talk.

And after I didn't know what to do, and she kind of took charge and she's like, let's go drinking.

So I went drinking with her, and then she invited her sister to come, and I don't even think it was really her sisters, and we didn't really talk.

They just partied and by the end of the night I got the bill for all the drinks.

I mean, nothing happened.

They just party together and drank and you know, by the end of the night, I ended up paying like three hundred bucks for you know what I mean like that.

That's been my experience and that was years ago.

That's the kind of experiences I've had.

I never got to chance to really get to know or loving, and they never got a chance to get to know me.

Speaker 1

Here's doctor Rob Whitley.

He is a professor of psychiatry at McGill University and has been studying men's mental health for over twenty years.

He wrote a book called Men's Issues and Men's Mental Health.

Doctor Whitley talks about why in cells may in fact be less desirable in the dating pool, as in being looked over is not in their imagination.

Speaker 9

There's another effect which is very relevant to this discussion, which is that of gender related mating preferences or dating preferences.

The average man and the average woman has a template in mind about who is the ideal partner, and if we look at female dating preferences, there is research that shows that the type of profile that the typical in cell meets is very low in terms of desirability for female dating preferences.

Speaker 1

Doctor Whitley breaks it down looking at why some men actually may be shut out or overlooked when it comes to dating.

Speaker 9

Many in cells have a lower level of education, many of them are unemployed, many of them have mental health issues.

Whereas female dating prefators and male dating prefaces are typically looking for somebody who's employed, who's successful, who's well established, perhaps who's involved in sports or has a certain type of masculinity and a certain type of physicality and a certain type of energy, and the in cells do not fit that profile, and therefore their interpretation that society is a difficult place for them is matched by the social scientific research in terms of searching for and accomplishing and achieving romantic or sexual relationships.

Speaker 1

We continued speaking with experts from different fields about how dating, both the reality and idea of it, shapes the in cell world.

Here's doctor Sarah Day, whose work on in cells began from an unexpected research path that led her here.

Speaker 10

At PhD and master's degree in criminal justice.

And then while I was in my doctoral program, I studied mass shootings.

I started this around the time of Sandy Hook, and I eventually began really exhausted by that.

It's emotional work.

So as I was thinking about something to pivot to, I came back to thinking about how many men who were mass shooters were really aggrieved and targeted women.

When I came across in cells in twenty eighteen and I initially started on their sites, and since then I've been interviewing a lot of in.

Speaker 1

Cels by public.

Speaker 10

A lot of articles have brief local, state, and federal agencies about it.

Doctor Daily continues with their thoughts on in cells dating and how early expectations around love can become damaging when they go unmet.

I think men and women alike are told from a very young age that when you grow up, you'll meet somebody, you'll get married.

I think that's typically been viewed as a woman's stereotype, right, that we look forward to our wedding day.

But I think wanting to be paired and be loved is a natural human response, and when that doesn't happen, you're missing major milestones in your life.

Speaker 1

Connor continues reading excerpts from INSUL forums.

Even in the language they use, you can hear how missing key life milestones could lead to a kind of arrested development, a more adolescent way of expressing themselves.

Speaker 5

Well, then you also see people sort of trying to control their urges, and one of the threads I came across was was entitled thinking about sex all the time as a normy faggot trait, And then you sort of see them as they try to push back and not engage with women and not engage with their sexual desires.

That then they also attacking themselves and people who have relationships and sex.

Speaker 3

And then it looks back to I don't even want to be a part.

Speaker 5

Of those groups and societies, but they also do want to be a part of those groups and societies.

Speaker 1

Let's stop here for a break.

We'll be back in a moment.

Doctor Michael Kimmel is a professor emeritus of sociology and Studies at Stonybrook University in New York.

He's written extensively about masculinity, and his books include Manhood in America, Guyland, and Angry White Men.

The last one explores why so many American men feel angry and how that frustration connects to in cell culture and the challenges they face in dating and relationships.

Speaker 4

They're now starting to think, well, what's wrong?

Why have I not been able to do that?

Now?

Prior to the year, say, two thousand, these guys would have been sitting alone miserable going to a bar.

Perhaps they're the guys who would have been yelling at the walls of a subway station at two in the morning.

But now there's social media, now there's the Internet, and instead of yelling in the abandoned subway station, they yell on the internet.

And some other guy comes along and go, oh, yeah, man, I feel your pain.

I think this.

You know.

The reason is because those women they I will refrain from using the kind of words that they would use.

Those women just won't let you get any It's their fault.

So now you have something that was missing twenty five years ago, and what was missing with social support, and it's social support from other men for this strange idea that I am not getting what I'm entitled to, and it's their fault.

Speaker 1

Doctor Kimmel explains what contributed to the emergence of inceel identity and the sense of entitlement that often goes along with it.

Speaker 4

It's a collision of two phenomena.

One is the fact that girl power and women are far more sexually aware, agentic out there in the public sphere.

They're not quiet, they're not demure, They're loud and proud and it's fantastic.

They've entered every workplace arena.

And so women's presence, women's sexuality, women's ownership of their sexuality, means that women know that they can like sex and want it.

Now, that's one thing.

The other piece is the dominant emotional experience of in cells is what I call aggrieved entitlement.

And let me look at each of those words, because I think that the idea of the intell idea, the founding ideology, is entitlement.

Speaker 1

Doctor Kimmel shares an experience that first sparked his thinking of aggrieved entitlement.

He was on a TV talk show opposite four wet men who believed that they were the victims of reverse discrimination in the workplace.

They shared stories about how they were qualified for jobs they didn't get, and doctor Kimmel was brought on to respond to them.

Speaker 4

The title of this particular episode of the show was a quote from one of the men, a black woman stole my job.

So when it was my turn to speak, I just said, I have one question for you guys about this, and it's about the title of the show, A black woman stole my job.

Actually, I want to know about the word my where did you get the idea it was your job?

Why isn't the title a black woman got the job or a black woman got a job.

Because without confronting men's sense of entitlement, will never understand why so many men believe that gender equality is a zero sum game and that if women, women are going to lose.

Now, that's what entitlement sounds like.

I, as a man, was in a benign sort of way.

I was raised to believe that one day I will fall in love, get married, and have children, and that sort of includes having sex.

And in a less benign way, you might quote the president, you know grammed by the pussy, they let you do it.

You're entitled to women's bodies.

You're entitled to access to women's bodies.

Speaker 1

He discusses the language many men use when describing women's beauty and how those word choices can reinforce the idea that women are manipulative, dangerous, or somehow out to get men.

Speaker 4

Years and years ago are really really smart.

Journalist wrote a book called Men on Rape, and he talked about how the metaphors we use to describe women's beauty, very many of them are words of violence against men.

She's a knockout, a bombshell dressed to kill right, So we're injured by women's beauty, and so men often see rape as getting even, Like we're you've done a violence to us just by being hot and gorgeous and accessible and wearing a short skirt or whatever, so that that's an injury to us.

Now we're one down.

We have to get even, and getting even means taking what we want.

Did you get any did she put out?

She has?

He wants, he gets, or he takes.

That's what entitlement sounds like.

Sexual entitlement means you have something I want, and if I want it, I'm gonna get it.

And that's why some of these men actually believe, for example, that rape with sexual assault is really just dating by another term.

Speaker 1

Connor shares another excerpt from an in cell forum with crime analyst Body Movin.

Speaker 5

One of the ones I'm looking at right now is again the threat is called if you don't have at least a seven point three inch cock, no foid will ever.

Speaker 3

Have sex with you.

Speaker 5

Even if she has, that foid will never be satisfied.

The conversation then sort of devolves into a a whole back and forth about sex, whether or not the women would ever be happy.

Speaker 3

These conversations just.

Speaker 5

Go all over the place, but all of the language is just pretty offensive, which goes back to what we were talking about.

Why they are so concerned about having their true identities pop up is that they know that this stuff, if it got out generally, could do damage to their real world personas, their jobs, their families, their relationships.

Then the perception is that they just simply want to live in this online space one way and live in the real world another way.

Speaker 6

It's almost like the real world is their mass right.

What I find interesting too is the transition from Stacy's to foids.

It really dehumanizes women.

Okay, so they were Stacy's in the transition to foids is interesting.

It's female humanoid.

It really kind of depersonalizes these women.

In my mind, that's what I think of when I hear the term foid.

It's just very depersonalized, you know.

It's it's almost like we're not people.

Speaker 1

Doctor David Lee is a clinical psychologist, sex therapist, and writer.

He further explains foids and how the use of that term perpetuates misogyny and hatred.

Speaker 11

One of the ones that I think is a little sad and really really emphasizes the core misogyny here is that they oftentimes in the NZEL community refer to women as foid and that means female humanoid, because they don't want to give them the benefit the credit of being a person of being human.

And I think that that just really underscores how much misogyny, hatred, and fear of women is driving so much of the INZEL community.

Speaker 1

Language is important, especially when it starts getting thrown around repeatedly.

For young boys eleven, twelve, fourteen years old to ingest and start using it can begin to shape young worldviews dangerously.

Here again doctor Sarah Daly, who holds a PhD in criminal justice.

She talks about the link between victimhood and violence.

Speaker 10

I think if we think about in cell violence relative to the number of in cels online, it's not a lot, which I think we're lucky about, but I mean, any act of violence is too much.

But most of the in cels online share this notion of victimhood and frustration and loneliness.

And when we look at the ones who have committed violence from their manifesi festos, from their posts, the ones who we've seen that have committed violence are the ones who have moved all of their anger outward.

Speaker 3

Right.

Speaker 10

Lots of in cells view themselves as being ugly or weird or not worthy, But the most infamous inzels who've committed violence directed their anger outwards.

It is at women, it's at society, it's at everyone who bullied them.

So, like all the other perpetrators of mass violence, their attack becomes like an act of revenge and an active strength after a lifetime of being viewed as weak.

Speaker 1

Elliott Roger is an incell who murdered six innocent people and injured fourteen more in twenty fourteen.

He left behind a lengthy written manifesto and posted a retribution video to YouTube before he took his own life to end the rampage.

Speaker 12

All those popular kids who live such lives of hedonistic pleasure, while I've had to rotten loneliness for all these years, they've all looked down upon me.

I'll be a god exacting my retribution and all those who deserve it, And you do deserve it, just for the crime of living a better life than me.

Oh, you popular kids, you've never accepted me.

Now you'll all pay for it.

Speaker 1

Sickeningly, Roger is held up as an icon, a hero, referred to as a literal saint by some in cels.

Doctor Daily continues referencing Roger's impact.

Speaker 10

Victimhood is the common bond with in cells.

As much as he wants to be a very alpha male in this right saying that women should be caged in things, I think he wants to be seen as a victim, and so in cells that we do view him in this way.

Understand this lifetime of hurt and this lack of friendship.

And unfortunately, this is a part of American culture that when you are not viewed as a strong man, a gun and killing people is viewed as an act of strength.

We as a society no better.

But for those people who are homicidal, violent, this is an active of revenge.

And if we look at societally, you know strong men, we look at men are who are violent action movies, Rambo, right, take your pick.

So this is kind of an act of violent masculinity.

Speaker 1

Connor and Body discuss a final thread from the insull forums that illuminates the profound self loathing common and in cell communities and what that can lead to.

Speaker 5

There's a thread that says, are you also complete genetic trash with no redeeming qualities?

I have no self worth, I have no value to society.

Speaker 6

You know.

Speaker 5

I spoke to one person who said, I try to stay off of these websites.

It's because they bring me down.

They make me feel worse, they make me hate women more, But they also make me hate myself more as well.

Speaker 6

Right, because it's feeding, right, it's like self sustaining hatred.

It's feeding that negative energy.

Speaker 5

Yeah, I mean the genetic trash comment.

It just shows a complete lack of self worth on their side, and so you see them sort of attacking themselves but then taking that anger and frustration about themselves and their self worth out on women as well.

Speaker 6

Viewing it from the outside, it's almost like they like this self hatred and they want to wallow in it.

Speaker 3

Exactly exactly.

It's victimhood too.

Speaker 6

I think victimhood is a big talking point when it comes to in cells.

They want to be the victim.

It's real easy to say I'm not successful and like because I'm a victim instead of actually trying and failing and trying and failing and trying and succeeding.

Right, you have to keep trying, and it's so much easier to sit back in your computer chair and be like, it's none of this is my fault.

Speaker 3

I'm the victim.

Speaker 5

To that point point, there were discussions on Facebook and read it about people trying to better themselves, and you saw self described in cells as offering advice and support in that effort.

I can't find any of that type of support and advice on insul is.

It is all just vitriolic hatred.

Speaker 1

Let's stop here for another break.

We'll be back in a moment.

Doctor David Lay sheds light on how the victimhood mentality can evolve from self pity to hostility.

Speaker 11

These communities.

They have flavors of what philosophers called gnosticism, where they promote the idea that they and they alone hold secret knowledge.

Gnosticism is a real core philosophical principle under the blue pill red pill kind of concept.

But what's fascinating is that rather than this secret knowledge making these in cells more powerful or healthier, instead the secret knowledge that they are being fed is that they are victims and that their value in the community comes from acknowledging this victimhood.

One of the things that has been fascinating over the past couple of years is that we've now identified that there are people who use victimhood identity as a manipulative tool to manipulate others.

We see it a lot online and many of the people that embrace this victimhood identity have what we call the dark triad personality characteristics.

These are any social traits of not following the rules and not having empathy for other people, narcissism, viewing yourself as being particularly special, and machiavelianism, being manipulative towards others.

And as people in those dark Triad characteristics become more vocal in these online communities and become more powerful, they encourage and promote violence as an answer and a response to that victimhood.

So they use the victimhood identity and then violence to manipulate and whip up these folks in dangerous and unhealthy ways.

We've seen it in in cell communities where mann are encouraged towards greater misogyny, violent hatred towards women, and even to scientists and researchers like me who challenge their beliefs.

Speaker 1

Here again, doctor Michael Kimmel, who breaks down the manosphere and the largely toxic ideas it's spreading widely to men and boys in a continual outpouring on social media.

Speaker 4

The manosphere is a fairly substantial section of the Internet.

That is, you know, the overall picture, the Internet is a marvel.

Speaker 12

You know.

Speaker 4

If you have a rare disease, you can put out a call and suddenly two hundred people from all over the world will say, oh, I have the same condition.

It's amazing you have an instant support group.

But just as it's miraculous in that way, it also provides support for all manner of crazy ideas, all manner of misinformation disinformation.

One of the more pernicious parts of that is to look for others to blame.

If you're unhappy, it must be somebody else's fault, and there are hundreds of thousands of people who will tell you whose fault it is besides yours.

Now, the manisphere is a particularly gendered space where men are encouraging each other, complaining to each other, offering support to each other true, but also finding people that they can blame for their situation.

Speaker 1

Luis is a self identifying in cel who speaks with us about how men, especially young men are being lured into the manosphere.

They feel hopeless, reach out for solace and find community, but too often that path leads to idolizing so called alpha males, like misogynist Andrew Tate.

Tate is a former MMA fighter who has been charged with rape, human trafficking, and forming an organized criminal group to sexually exploit women.

Tate also sells dating schemes tied to pick up artistry to men insecure about their status and masculinity.

He has more than ten million followers on x alone.

Speaker 2

Here's Luis insults were former pickup artists, which is very interesting.

There's actually research on that on pickup artist forums.

When Internet traffic and user bases were going down.

On insul forums, that were eight that were going up.

So there's a pickup artist to insul pipeline.

So you can imagine like a young man who's like struggling with women and goes into pickup artistry and all that bullshit they do, all those like stupid manipulative tactics that they use and work and then boom they become an insul.

People call Andrew Tate an inso like insos hate all those I hate those people.

Those people suck.

So that's one misconception that it's not a guy who hates women.

Look, I hate to say this, there's plenty of guys out there who hate women and they do just fine.

You know, that's just the unfortunate reality.

Okay, we don't live in some just world, and there are plenty of guys who don't hate women and their virgins.

Speaker 1

We've heard how isolation and victimhood can grow into violence, loneliness into identity, and resentment into community.

This echo chamber is only getting louder.

Next time, we'll step into the broader world of the manosphere, from online influencers to self proclaimed alpha males.

We'll look at how their messages are reaching literally hundreds of millions of men and boys, and what that means for the rest of us.

For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram at kat on Score Studios.

In Cells is produced by Stephanie Leideger, Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong.

Additional producing by Connor Powell and Caroline Miller, editing by Jeff tooi music by Vanicore Studios.

In Cells is a production of Kat's Studios and iHeart Radio.

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