The largest self-described incel forum is now without any clothes
Posted: Thu May 12, 2022 1:53 pm
Think this qualifies as "deviant subject"
For almost 5 years now, many digital journalism outlets have been characterizing r/incels derived forums as the most extreme corners of the internet, hotbeds of violence, and engaging in terrorist speech (albeit legal terrorist speech).
Over time they helped get all the public-facing, self-described incel forums banned with the exception of 2: incels.net and incels/.is, the latter of which enjoys almost 10x as much traffic, and now qualifies as the largest self-described incel forum. Even when it wasn't, journalists were acting as if it was.
The identities and background of the site founders/owners were revealed in a front page NYTimes story, and subsequently republished in many other (mostly South American) outlets: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... og-on.html
The result? Uruguay opened up a criminal investigation into one of the founders according to WBUR
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/01 ... es-caution
The other founder, upon release of the article, let Elliot Rodger's manifesto be pinned on his forum, and then claimed to hand the site to a neo-nazi despite being an African-American. 6 months later he "returned".
Now that the largest incel site is without any clothes, what are the chances the media will now try to shut the site down for hate speech? Or to dive deeper than the NYTimes article? Who knows. They need at least 1 incel site to exist to grift off. And one that validates their narrative of incels being toxic. Additionally as the guy who appear to own/run it is African-American, it'd mess with their 'incels are the product of white Trumpism' line etc to deep dive further than NYT
For almost 5 years now, many digital journalism outlets have been characterizing r/incels derived forums as the most extreme corners of the internet, hotbeds of violence, and engaging in terrorist speech (albeit legal terrorist speech).
Over time they helped get all the public-facing, self-described incel forums banned with the exception of 2: incels.net and incels/.is, the latter of which enjoys almost 10x as much traffic, and now qualifies as the largest self-described incel forum. Even when it wasn't, journalists were acting as if it was.
The identities and background of the site founders/owners were revealed in a front page NYTimes story, and subsequently republished in many other (mostly South American) outlets: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... og-on.html
The result? Uruguay opened up a criminal investigation into one of the founders according to WBUR
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/01 ... es-caution
The other founder, upon release of the article, let Elliot Rodger's manifesto be pinned on his forum, and then claimed to hand the site to a neo-nazi despite being an African-American. 6 months later he "returned".
Now that the largest incel site is without any clothes, what are the chances the media will now try to shut the site down for hate speech? Or to dive deeper than the NYTimes article? Who knows. They need at least 1 incel site to exist to grift off. And one that validates their narrative of incels being toxic. Additionally as the guy who appear to own/run it is African-American, it'd mess with their 'incels are the product of white Trumpism' line etc to deep dive further than NYT