European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-023-09559-5
Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel
Community on TikTok
Anda Iulia Solea1
· Lisa Sugiura1
Accepted: 17 July 2023
© The Author(s) 2023
Abstract
Incels (involuntary celibates), a subgroup of the so called ‘manosphere,’ have become an
increasing security concern for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners following their
association with several violent attacks. Once mostly contained on niche men’s forums,
redpilled and blackpilled communities and theories are gaining prominence on mainstream
social media platforms. However, whilst previous research considerably enhanced our understanding of the incel phenomenon and their presence on Reddit and secluded incel forums,
incel’s presence on mainstream social media platforms is understudied and their presence on
TikTok is yet to be addressed. The present paper examines the incel subculture on TikTok,
through an analysis of incel accounts, videos and their respective comments, to understand
the role mainstream social media platforms play in the ‘normiefication’ and normalisation
of incel ideology and discourse. The findings suggest that on TikTok the expression of incel
ideology takes a covert form, employing emotional appeals and pseudo-science to disseminate common incelosphere tropes. Further, we demonstrate how the process of mainstreaming incel beliefs is facilitated by their interconnectedness with wider sexism and structural
misogyny. The harms generating from this association are conducive to the normalisation of
blackpill beliefs and the reinforcement of misogyny, sexism and justification of rape culture.
Keywords Incels · Online misogyny · TikTok · Online harms · Mainstream media
Introduction
Of increasing interest to scholars, practitioners and policymakers are online subcultural
communities with deviant and extremist beliefs and their use of digital spaces (Benkler
et al., 2018; Holt et al., 2017; O’Malley et al., 2022). The networked nature of online connectivity allows the diffusion of “moral or legal responsibility for group members” (Henry
& Powell, 2015, p. 769). This facilitates echo-chambers enabling the production of hateful
* Anda Iulia Solea
Anda.Solea@port.ac.uk
Lisa Sugiura
Lisa.Sugiura@port.ac.uk
1
Present Address: School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Portsmouth,
Portsmouth, UK
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A. I. Solea, L. Sugiura
and violent ideologies and narratives, reinforcing opposition to mainstream culture and
resentment towards groups ascribed blame (Bratich & Banet-Weiser, 2019). Online antifeminist men’s groups enabled by technologisation have risen in response to and against
contemporary feminist advancements, contributing to the growth in online hate and activities promoting gender-based violence (GBV) against women (Marwick & Caplan, 2018).
These groups coalesce under the term ‘manosphere’—an association of men’s rights
groups interconnected via websites, blogs and forums promoting masculinity, misogyny
and opposition to feminism (Ging, 2017). Communities within the manosphere include
Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), Incels (involuntary celibates), Men Going Their Own
Way (MGTOW) and Pick-Up Artists (PUAs) (Ribeiro et al., 2020). Whilst manosphere
groups are heterogeneous and exist on multiple platforms and websites, they are united in
male supremacist beliefs, which blame women and feminism for the adoption of a gynocentric society where men are victims and women prioritised (DeCook & Kelly, 2022).
Of the manosphere groups, incels, a portmanteau of involuntary and celibate, have been
most associated with violence. Those who adopt the name view themselves as unsuccessful in obtaining heteronormative sexual and romantic relationships (Sugiura, 2021). Incels
view society as fundamentally hierarchised according to looks, money and status, where
women hold the power and unattractive men are excluded from romantic or sexual relationships (Ging, 2017). Incels have been associated with misogyny, gendered hate speech,
endorsement of physical and sexual violence towards women and linked with several
mass murders over the past decade (Baele et al., 2019; Hoffman et al., 2020). According
to DeCook & Kelly (2022), flaws in current research involve interpreting incel communities as homogenous, which ignores the convoluted and often contradictory nature of incels.
Additionally, Baele et al., (2023) suggest that whilst previous research has enhanced understanding of the incel worldview and its connections with the manosphere and far-right ecosystem (Ging, 2017; Ribeiro et al., 2020) it “fails to capture the dynamism and heterogeneity of different incel formations” (Baele et al., 2023, p.3) impacted by diverse platforms and
their respective affordances, that host incel communities. Hence research on incels needs to
adopt a more dynamic approach to account for distinctions across platforms. The beliefs
and levels of toxicity of incels differ, depending on the platform used, which influences the
content they post and engage with, the degree of misogyny and hate they espouse, and the
types of harm they propagate (Baele et al., 2023; Sugiura, 2021). Mainstream platforms
have stricter policies and are subject to some platform-level moderation but benefit from
heightened visibility, whilst fringe platforms/forums, particularly those dedicated to incels
and misogynistic communities, are more secluded and often lack moderation, resulting in
more toxic and misogynistic speech and content (Mamié et al., 2021; Ribeiro et al., 2020;
Wright et al., 2020). Nevertheless, incel related ideas and messaging are dispersed online
beyond dedicated incel spaces to those sites considered more mainstream, despite more
stringent controls (Sugiura, 2021). Previous literature on incels has analysed incel presence on YouTube (Papadamou et al., 2020) and Reddit (Helm et al., 2022; Hintz & Baker,
2021), whilst others examined incel hosted forums such as incel.co/incel.me (Baele et al.,
2019; Chan, 2022), or a combination of the two (Ribeiro et al., 2020), whilst a few scholars
(Daly & Reed, 2021; Sugiura, 2021) have conducted interviews with incels. More recently
Baele et al., (2023) have created a unique corpus involving data collected from an expansive range of online spaces across the incelosphere spanning several years. However, less
is empirically known about incel activity on mainstream platforms and the extent to which
incels are influencing and influenced by mainstream discourse.
We use the concepts of ‘normiefication’ and normalisation to explore the process of
mainstreaming incel beliefs. According to de Zeeuw et al., (2020), ‘normiefication’ refers
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Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community…
to the online diffusion of ‘born-digital’ cultural artefacts that come to fruition within fringe
online subcultures before evolving to larger and more dispersed mainstream audiences.
Through normiefication previous niche ideas, theories and discursive practices have greater
reach outside of their native subcultural context, on mainstream platforms (de Zeeuw et al.,
2020). Normalisation describes the process where fringe ideas are widely accepted and
societally integrated, with more people believing in the truth of the ideas (Preist et al.,
2014). Normiefication is thus one of the predecessors of normalisation. Considering this,
we argue that the process of normiefication and normalisation of incel beliefs is bi-lateral.
‘New’ fringe ideas undergo a process of adaptation aided by technological affordances global reach, anonymity, audience, community etc. (Castells, 2004), and the manipulation
of emotional and pseudo-scientific appeals to communicate subcultural and misogynistic
concepts to wider audiences. Misogyny, however, is pervasive and not simply the product of fringe ideas or incel communities. Online misogyny is the product and continuation
of enduring offline sexist beliefs and gender stereotypes (Jane, 2016). ‘Novel’ fringe incel
tropes and widespread sexist beliefs converge to promote, amplify and normalise online
misogyny and the justification of violence towards women. We contend that this convergence facilitates the production of ‘generative harms’ (Wood, 2021), which considers what
technologies do to actors and how technologies amplify and facilitate societal harms that
go beyond the use of technology.
This article seeks to contribute new insights regarding incel ideology on TikTok1, a
mainstream social media platform, understudied in current literature. We examine how
incel beliefs are framed and disseminated to users outside of their immediate community, how content is received, adopted and normalised within the comments sections, and
how mainstream discourse is both influenced by incels and influencing them in return. We
explore the generative harms emerging from the interconnectedness between ‘new’ incel
beliefs and ‘old’ sexist tropes that reinforce each other and facilitate the normalisation and
popularisation of incel ideology assisted by technologisation and mainstreaming. In the
first instance, the article begins with a brief explanation of the incel subculture before we
contextualise the concepts of hybrid masculinities and male victimhood. We then explore
the impact of fringe ideologies on mainstream social media platforms through the lens of
normiefication and normalisation.
Incel Subculture, Hybrid Masculinity and Male Victimhood
One way of understanding incel’s formation and community is by viewing them as a subcultural group. Subcultures emerge when individuals develop a shared set of beliefs and
values, which guide their perception of the world and influence their behaviour (Cohen
& Short, 1958). According to Carian (2022), secular male supremacist groups share the
belief that progressive social advances aimed at stifling gender inequality such as inclusive employment practices, movements tackling sexual violence e.g. #MeToo (Fileborn &
Loney-Howes, 2019), and anti-rape activism (Loney-Howes, 2020) are subjugating men.
Such advancements and feminist gains, are alleged by male supremacists to have propelled
women into a privileged class, challenging the hegemonic status of men, who are now at a
1
TikTok is a relatively new platform and has been documented as the fastest-growing social media app
with more than 1 billion monthly active users worldwide (Doyle, 2023) and a significant impact on contemporary culture. TikTok has also seen an increase in content created by manosphere and incelosphere communities (Das, 2022; Smith Galer, 2021).
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A. I. Solea, L. Sugiura
disadvantage (Carian & Johnson, 2020). In response to this supposed status shift threatening men’s societal position, the male supremacist beliefs of the redpill and blackpill have
emerged as a solution to dilemmas posed by these ‘new’ social structures and constraints
(O’Malley et al., 2022; Young, 2011). Manosphere groups, including incels, can therefore
be understood as subcultural groups formed in opposition to the imagined dominant culture and its values, as an act of resistance against progressive societal changes and men’s
supposed threatened social status (Eddington, 2020). The redpill ideology, which unites
manosphere groups, purports to awaken men to the process of feminist brainwashing and
misandry (Ging, 2017). Conversely, the blackpill is central to the incel belief system and
claims that unattractive men are unable to transcend the confines of the social-sexual hierarchy that excludes them, and are forced to live in a state of doomed existence because of
women’s rejection and privilege (Baele et al., 2019).
In response to and as a defence mechanism to these supposed circumstances and realisations, multiple types of masculine identities are constructed and performed (Johanssen,
2021). Redpilled MRAs often adopt exaggerated performances of masculinity, dominance
and misogyny to defend or regain hegemonic masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt,
2005). Complexities within incel culture, however, manifest themselves in complicated and
contradicting representations of gender and masculinity (Menzie, 2020; Messner, 1998). In
one respect, incels perform a subordinate masculinity in criticising normative masculinity
and hypermasculine males and claiming to be oppressed victims of an unfair society. Yet,
contrastingly, incels advocate for a return to the older hierarchies of power and desire to
reinstate masculine hegemony (Chan, 2022; O’Malley et al., 2022), by advocating for the
oppression of women.
Incels’ convoluted representations of masculinity has been the focus of academic debate.
Nagle (2017) describes incels as both too subordinate to be hegemonic and too misogynistic to be subordinate. Ging (2017) has challenged this position and introduced the concept
of hybrid masculinity, arguing instead that betas and incels strategically claim subordination in order to reassert hegemony in online spaces. These dual identities, as oppressed
and oppressor, stand in opposition to one another and simultaneously distance incels from
and align them with representations of traditional patriarchal masculinity (Bridges & Pascoe, 2014). Supporting Ging’s position, Halpin’s (2022) study demonstrates how through
hybrid masculine practice incels weaponise their subordination, using their perceived inferior status to justify their misogyny. Adopting a subordinate victim status is not exclusive
to incels or the manosphere as victimhood has previously been examined within the context of white supremacism. Berbrier (2000) discussed how white supremacists adopted a
‘new racist’ discourse, distinct from older overtly racist styles, which denies their prejudice
and privilege, and instead proclaims them to be the victims of a ‘new’ social order in which
whiteness and maleness are stigmatised characteristics. Berbrier (2000) further theorised
that the victim ideology is an attractive recruitment tool for young white males, ignorant
of their privileged position, who also perceive themselves as victims of ‘radical feminism,’
and changing gender roles. The victim narrative constitutes a key aspect of what Carian
(2022) has termed inversive sexism, which represents the idea that feminism has created a
gender order in which women hold the hegemonic position and have an unfair advantage in
society and men hold a subordinate status. Carian (2022) finds that inversive sexism is not
unique to the ideology of ‘radical fringe groups’ such as those within the manosphere, but
reaches a level of endorsement among men outside of such marginal groups, and is indistinguishable from hostile and broader societal sexism.
Building upon the narrative that they have been deprived of a manhood rightfully theirs,
a primary example of incel’s claim to victimhood and marginalisation is the concept of
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Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community…
‘Lookism,’ a central feature of the blackpill philosophy (Papadamou et al., 2020). ‘Lookism’ (2023) is a term first reported in the 1970s describing “prejudice or discrimination
based on physical appearance and especially physical appearance believed to fall short of
societal notions of beauty.” Within the incelosphere, women are perceived as inherently
lookist, prioritising men based on their alpha masculine physical characteristics, thus,
excluding and discriminating against most men (Sugiura, 2021). ‘Lookism’ is imagined to
be the overarching logic of all social interactions, and it is what restricts most unattractive
men from entering sexual or romantic relationships with women as women seek ‘Chads’ or
alpha men as partners. To overcome this predicament, those who subscribe to the redpill
assert that improving their physical appearance or their confidence and ‘pick-up’ skills will
reassert their hegemony (Sugiura, 2021). Blackpilled incels, however, vehemently reject
the notion of improvement as they believe looks are genetically determined at birth, and
thus, this attractiveness-based social hierarchy is immutable (Baele et al., 2019). When
incels are unable to achieve the goals and characteristics of traditional masculinity, their
failures are attributed to the state of society and modern feminism, rather than on patriarchal structures reinforcing strict gender norms and structural inequality (Baele et al., 2019;
Chang, 2020; Preston et al., 2021). This sense of feminism-induced victimhood amplifies
and enables men’s absorption into blackpill beliefs and hateful communities and strengthens the male victimhood trope (Boyle, 2019; Dickel & Evolvi, 2022; Halpin, 2022). How
incels weaponise their supposed marginalisation and subordination to legitimise misogyny
has been documented (Halpin, 2022; Kelly et al., 2021); however, the implications of the
presence of such content on mainstream media necessitates further exploration.
Incels into the Mainstream
Incel forums are becoming increasingly popular with young men (Beauchamp, 2019), and
the incel community has grown exponentially from the use of online communal social
platforms and technological connectivity (Byerly, 2020). Research examining the language employed on dedicated manosphere and incel forums and subreddits established an
increase in violent extremist expressions, including dehumanisation and words depicting
violence towards women (Baele et al., 2023; Ribeiro et al., 2020). Baele et al., (2023) contend that the incelosphere is heterogeneous when it comes to extremist expressions, and as
such the speech employed on one platform can significantly differ from another platform.
In their case, incel-specific forums have been found to be more extreme than subreddits.
However, whilst the exponential rise in the popularity and toxicity of these niche online
spaces is worrying, incel activity goes beyond Reddit and incel-dedicated forums. A narrative in the media frames incels as unique deviant men, populating obscure internet forums
and distinct from ‘normal’ men (Cobby & Francis, 2022; Sugiura, 2021). Viewing misogynistic acts as something that only niche communities of men engage in minimises the seriousness of structural misogyny, underplaying how incel ideology is potentially absorbed,
accepted and disseminated into the mainstream (DeCook & Kelly, 2022). Incel ideas and
rhetoric are not only found on dark corners of the internet and hard-to-reach forums but
also are present on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok (Hajarian & Khanbabaloo,
2021; Papadamou et al., 2020; Smith Galer, 2021), yet the presence of incel communities
on mainstream social media has received less academic attention. This does not indicate
that the language and beliefs deployed on more mainstream platforms are harmless, but
that manosphere and incel rhetoric are reaching greater audiences, encouraging the normalisation of these beliefs and discourse.
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On this note, it is important to emphasise that incels are not solely responsible for
popularising subcultural misogynistic ideologies. The reach of broader manosphere and
redpill ideas and their engagement on mainstream platforms has been explored (Ging,
2017; Han & Yin, 2022; Rothermel, 2023; Sugiura, 2021) and more recently highlighted
by the popularity of alpha male men’s rights figures like Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson
and Sneako. Whilst these figures are not part of the incelosphere, and they often challenge their association with the manosphere; their content involves much of the same
anti-feminist and anti-women narratives. The significant rise to fame of such ‘influencers’ is facilitated by mainstream platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. For example, despite much of Tate’s content contravening TikTok’s rules, which explicitly bans
misogyny, hate speech and threats of violence, Tate’s ban from the platform did little to
limit his spread or curb the accounts responsible (Das, 2022). Instead, TikTok has propelled Tate and other similar manosphere figures into the mainstream—allowing their
clips to proliferate, and actively promoting them to young users, predominantly boys
who use the same language and gestures (Sugiura, 2023). Manosphere discourse is therefore extending into the mainstream, which exacerbates and reinforces misogynistic mainstream culture and speech resulting in misogynistic and violent beliefs resonating with
many young men on and offline. The successful protrusion of manosphere discourse into
the mainstream is relevant to the current study on incels for two primary reasons. First,
it demonstrates that fringe ideologies such as that of the redpill can find their way onto
mainstream platforms and enter mainstream culture and speech. It is therefore important
to assess whether the same process applies to the incelosphere and the blackpill. Second,
the presence of misogynistic and violent beliefs on highly regulated platforms such as
TikTok suggests that fringe beliefs and ideologies undergo a process of alteration to contravene platform regulations and be propelled to primarily young men. We suggest that
this process can be explained via normiefication (de Zeeuw et al., 2020) and normalisation enabled by technological affordances, and the convergence of fringe misogynistic
beliefs and widespread sexism.
Normiefication and Normalisation
The Internet plays a significant role in the dissemination of extremist ideas and fringe
online groups as well as their influence on public discourse (Benkler et al., 2018). The
dissemination and popularisation of these ideas and groups is achieved through forms of
multimodal communication, such as memetic imagery, videos, trolling and vernacular
internet humour (Marwick & Lewis, 2017). This is pertinent when exploring the diffusion of information between fringe and mainstream platforms and the concepts of normiefication and normalisation. The fringe is defined as the outer, marginal or extreme
part of an area, group or activity and is generally something that does not conform to
societally dominant ways of speaking, knowing, and doing, and as such is removed from
the centre, or what is known in the context of mass media as ‘the mainstream’ (Chomsky,
1997). However, fringe ideas can sometimes enter the mainstream through the process of
normiefication (de Zeeuw et al., 2020). Whilst de Zeeuw et al., (2020) applied normiefication to examine Q-anon, this concept also applies to the incel community, which similarly emerged and congregated on Reddit, 4chan, and dedicated forums before migrating
to larger platforms, notably YouTube and TikTok (Ribeiro et al., 2020). Through normiefication, previous niche ideas, theories, and discursive practices have greater reach
outside of their native subcultural context, on mainstream platforms governed by other
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Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community…
networked publics and rules of engagement (de Zeeuw et al., 2020). The nature of digital
platforms facilitates this process through increasing exposure and shareability, facilitating and amplifying the viral spread of ideas from one digital sphere to another. Whilst
normiefication does not necessarily lead to these ideas being accepted by more people,
the repeated exposure and popularisation of these ideas to the ‘general’ population might
potentially lead to their normalisation and adoption into mainstream discourse (Phillips,
2018).
Normalisation involves a wider process of acceptance of fringe ideas in the sense
that more people take them to be true (Preist et al., 2014). The extent of misogyny and
harmful speech directed towards women online demonstrates its normalisation (Chadha
et al., 2020; Lewis et al., 2017) but is not limited to the manosphere or the incelosphere,
nor are the two solely responsible for online misogyny. In particular, Lewis et al. (2017)
examined the experiences of women online on several mainstream social media platforms. They argue that there is a continuum of online abuse directed towards women
raging from frequent, highly threatening and hateful messages to sporadic, less inflammatory, non-threatening messages and suggest these particular instances of routine lowlevel misogynistic abuse play a significant role in the desensitisation to and normalisation of abuse and harmful speech directed at women (Lewis et al., 2017). This reflects
wider experiences of victimisation, beyond online communities, what Liz Kelly (1987)
terms the continuum of sexual violence, which connects everyday intrusions into women’s autonomy with the rarer, though no less serious, instances of rape and sexual violence. Therefore, whilst the normalisation of misogynistic abuse on social media, outside
of the incelosphere, has been established (see Jane, 2016 for example) further research is
required to examine how the presence of incel content and beliefs on mainstream social
media contributes to the amplification of and adds more complexity to the normalisation
process.
Generative Harms
Perspectives on online abuse and emerging gendered harms need to be considered
to contextualise the harms generated by incel content present on mainstream media.
Lewis et al., (2017) suggest that online abusive messages result in serious emotional
and physical repercussions for women and have a cumulative effect leading to the
normalisation of online abuse and misogyny, where it is something mundane women
have to manage. Megarry (2014) argues that online abuse limits women’s voices,
thereby impacting women’s participation in the online sphere. Citron and Norton
(2011) contend that the gendered nature of online abuse represents a civil rights violation, compromising women’s ‘digital citizenship.’ Similarly, the mainstreaming of
online incivility has been theorised by Emma Jane (2014), as ‘e-bile,’ conceptualising
practices such as trolling, cyberbullying, cyberviolence and cyberhate. Jane (2014)
argues that online incivility is becoming more prevalent, encompasses several distinctly gendered characteristics and is bounded by elements of hostility, harassment,
denigration and exclusion. Such practices, including violent and sexual threats, have
become normalised within online spaces and represent a gendered practice targeting primarily women (Jane, 2014; Powell & Henry, 2017). This is supported by Herring (2003) who contends that both online and offline, women are more likely to be
the targets of this type of discourse whereas men are disproportionately the perpetrators. Furthermore, women are most impacted by rape culture (Herman, 1989) and
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rape myths, where men are excused for their sexually deviant behaviours, consent is
viewed as an optional, subjective afterthought, and blame is attributed to women for
instigating such behaviours.
There is no consensus in the literature when considering the harms propagated
by incels. There is research which purports incels as extremists engaging in unique
and spectacular forms of misogynistic violence, focusing on instances of domestic
terrorism and mass shootings (Chan, 2022; Hoffman et al., 2020). Whilst other studies (Helm et al., 2022; Heritage & Koller, 2020; Jaki et al., 2019) found that most
members of incel communities appeared to be nonviolent, only a few engaged in
misogynistic and toxic hate speech (however, why they would choose to participate
in misogynistic spaces is unexplained). Other research contends that incel violence
goes beyond such attacks and that the harm they produce does not need to be spectacular or physical to have serious effects on women (Kelly et al., 2021; Sugiura,
2021). Incels are infamous for their engagement in technology-facilitated harms
towards women including online harassment campaigns (e.g., THOT campaign;
Sobieraj, 2020), gender trolling and gendered hate speech portraying women as unintelligent, subhuman or evil (Banet-Weiser & Miltner, 2016; Southern Poverty Law
Center, 2021). Henry & Powell, (2015) argue that the intersection of online harms
with real physical harms coalesce to generate technology-facilitated sexual violence
(TFSV) conducive to tangible effects impacting women as much as traditional physical harms.
A different perspective with analytic potential for investigating incel propagated harms
is that of generative harms (Wood, 2021), which considers not only how individuals use
technologies to enact harms but also rather what technologies do to actors and how they
amplify and facilitate societal harms moving beyond the use of technology. This approach
builds on Henry & Powell’s (2015), Jane’s (2014) and Lewis et al., (2017) conceptualisations of gendered harms by first acknowledging that online hate and abuse have ‘realworld’ implications extending beyond the online environment. Second, this perspective
puts at the forefront that the presence of hate speech and sexual abuse within mainstream
digital spaces plays a significant role in the reproduction and amplification of misogyny
and sexism.
For the purpose of this study and based on Baele et al., (2023) “Incel Violent
Extremism Dictionary,” we consider incel extremist expressions as containing mentions of acts of violence (‘kill’ and ‘rape’) and explicit dehumanisation of women
(e.g., ‘femoid’/’foid,’ ‘roasties’). We hypothesise that on TikTok, more covertly sexist
incel expressions like ‘lookism,’ and ‘heightpill,’ and more conventional (though no
less sexist) stereotypical descriptions of women (for example, women as promiscuous or as gold diggers) and surreptitious language will be employed to disseminate
the incel ideology, to avoid moderation. In this sense, incel content on TikTok can
be interpreted as borderline content, described by Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT, 2022) as content/accounts that do not clearly violate platform
policies but may be hateful or harmful. This would be represented by less inflammatory, non-threatening messages that deny incel’s prejudice and instead portray women
as nefarious and discriminatory through reinforcing common incelosphere and sexist
tropes.
Responding to the growing influence of fringe communities on mainstream platforms, this article seeks to explore the incel community on TikTok. As of the time of
writing this article, the incel TikTok content and community have not been examined in
the academic literature apart from O’Connor’s (2021) investigation of extremism and
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Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community…
hate speech on TikTok, which considered online misogyny but not incels. Whilst the
concept of harms emerging from normalising hostile and harmful modes of discourse
online have previously been examined, there is limited understanding of the generative harms emerging from the normiefication and normalisation of incel beliefs and discourse on mainstream social media platforms, particularly on TikTok. By examining the
generative harms emanating from the popularisation of these beliefs disseminated on
mainstream media, we can gain a more nuanced view of incel misogyny and how this is
reflected in mainstream society, amplifying social and cultural inequalities. To explore
how incel rhetoric is presented and embraced on mainstream social media, as well as
how blackpill beliefs fit with common misogynistic tropes, we analysed two TikTok
accounts dedicated to incel ideology, providing an analysis of the account’s videos and
their respective comments.
Methodology
The methodological approach employed in this study is a qualitative multimodal thematic analysis of TikTok involving two accounts, 52 videos and 1657 comments examining incel’s presence, content, and rhetoric on TikTok. First, we aim to identify how
incels frame and present their ideology on TikTok and to what extent this ideology is
embraced and further diffused by TikTok users. Second, through a combined analysis
of TikTok incel accounts, videos and their respective comments sections, we consider
whether the incel discourse present on TikTok plays a role in the diffusion of fringe
misogynistic beliefs into the mainstream, facilitating their normalisation. Lastly, we
consider whether these beliefs converge with, reproduce and amplify widespread sexism and evaluate the emerging generative harms.
Account Selection and Data Analysis
Whilst we can only make inferences about the demographics of the accounts, video
creators and users posting comments on our sample of videos, according to recent
research, 71.3% of TikTokers are between the ages of 18 and 34, 38.9% of which are
aged between 18 and 24 and 46.6% of TikTok’s global users are male (DataReportal,
2023). Additionally, due to their ideology, incel content is targeted at males. Within
our sample of comments, commenters’ profile names and pictures were used to assert
their identification as men.2 These demographics align with the presumed demographics of incels, which are often described as young men (Jaki et al., 2019; O’Malley
Table 1 TikTok accounts metrics
Account
Followers
Likes
Videos (N)
lookism.tiktok (Account1)
4625
217.6k
45
redblack_pills (Account2)
4330
51.3k
7
2
We have also encountered a limited number of comments made by users explicitly identifying as women,
but these comments have been excluded from this analysis and will be considered in a future study.
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et al., 2022) and are consistent with Carian’s (2022) findings which suggest inversive
sexism is more concentrated among young lower-middle class men. Therefore, for this
study, it is assumed that many users commenting on these videos are primarily young
men.
Data from two active and public TikTok accounts disseminating blackpill content
was analysed. This study considers that whilst the accounts and their content were
created by users that subscribe to the blackpill ideology, the target audience of these
videos may not be members of the incel community, but rather general TikTokers.
Both accounts were identified by searching incel-adjacent key terms in the TikTok
search bar. Whilst the specific terms ‘incel’ and ‘blackpill’ were banned, searching for the term ‘lookism’ revealed multiple results out of which the two accounts
were selected for their relevance (see Table 1). All the accounts’ videos were posted
between May 2022 and September 2022 and collected in October 2022. Videos were
downloaded manually and comments were scraped employing pyktok.
The multimodal analysis was done on three levels involving accounts, videos and
comments analysis and consists of the examination of the visual (pictures, videos,
titles and overlay text) and audio (narrations, dialogues and music) content. Thematic
analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021) was employed to critically explore and interpret patterns and themes present in the videos and comments sections. The data was first
organised into initial codes, which were then reviewed and collated into themes and
sub-themes. The videos were coded to establish the general messages they purport
and underpin the mode in which fringe beliefs are presented and communicated on
the platform (see Table 2). For the analysis of the comments, the three most popular
videos (according to TikTok’s metrics of views, likes and comments, see Table 3)
from both accounts were selected, and thus, six videos formed the sample of the comment analysis. The comment analysis explored how blackpill ideological tropes are
received and responded to by a heterogeneous audience and their intersection with
widespread sexism on a mainstream platform (see Table 4).
Table 2 Thematic categorisation of videos by account
Account
Account1(lookism.tiktok), N = 45
Account2(redblack_pills), N = 7
13
Video theme categories
Count
Lookism
38
Women cruel
Hybristophilia
Women promiscuous
Beta bucks
Anti-redpill
Men’s suffering
Sexual assault claims subjective
Advice for unattractive men
Lookism
Exposing dating misconceptions
Beta bucks
9
7
7
6
6
6
3
3
5
4
1
Account
Video title
Views
Likes
Comments*
Collected
comments
Account1—lookism.tiktok
Video1—Watch how Chad can kiss without consent
1.2M
131.9k
821
595
Account2—redblack_pills
Video2—Watch what it takes to get girls as a short guy
Video3—Looks > “gAmE” (clown emoji)
Video4—Height matters pt.1
Video5—Dating lies you’ve been told
Video6—The Entitlement Switch Pt. 4 (last part)
72.4k
16.5k
401.1k
274.1k
36.8k
2773
436
22.2k
24.7k
1508
256
37
1166
475
121
156
20
621
201
64
*The total number of comments displayed by TikTok is higher than the actual number of visible comments displayed underneath each video. The reason for this is unclear but
we believe this is because a number of comments have been deleted or removed from the comments section
Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community…
Table 3 TikTok video metrics
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A. I. Solea, L. Sugiura
Table 4 Categories, themes, and sub-themes for comments analysis (including counter-comments)
Category
Theme
Sub-theme
Count Total
Blackpill
Incel ideology
Nihilism
22
196
Lookism
Attractiveness—confidence/
pick-up artistry/improvement
Attractiveness—money
Consent is optional
Sexual assault (SA) claims
subjective
Praising perpetrator/SA
endorsement
Injustice/difficulty for unattractive men
Hypocritical
Promiscuous
176
38
90
Redpill
Redpill ideology
Intersection with sexism Perpetuation of rape culture
Male victimhood
Women’s characteristics
Counter-comments*
Importance of consent
Disagreement with video content
Dismissive comments
52
115
49
186
20
102
102
110
22
53
82
44
132
Note: these are not discrete categories as in some instances themes/sub-themes overlap, exemplifying the
contradictory nature of incel/manosphere ideologies and their interconnectedness with widespread sexism
*
Counter-comments are beyond the scope of this article and will be approached in a future study
We received ethics approval for this research from our institutional faculty ethics committee. To prevent individuals from being identified usernames of the commenters are anonymised
and quotations are not presented verbatim (Sugiura et al., 2017). The names and profiles of the
two TikTok accounts are included because as creators they can be treated akin to authors, in
terms of being credited for their online contributions and do not require anonymisation (Snee,
2013). Furthermore, the inclusion of the account names aids the contextualisation of the videos analysed, showcasing how users can contravene TikTok’s content moderation measures by
avoiding banned key terms, instead identifying themselves as ‘incel’ content accounts through
inconspicuous terminology. Lastly, due to the comments’ relation to specific media artefacts,
the qualitative analysis should not be seen as generalisable to all incel/blackpill expression on
TikTok—rather, it serves to explore and assess blackpill and incel ideology presence on TikTok in the context of the two accounts analysed and their comments.
Findings
Stylistically, the videos present on the two TikTok accounts employ emotional appeals,
viral internet clips and pseudo-scientific claims as means to assert and convey the ideology
of the blackpill. The language and terminology employed are covert and implicit signalling a departure from incel content observed on more secluded incel spaces. In terms of
the message communicated, whilst the content was focused on explaining and diffusing the
incel ideology, several links to traditional, widely endorsed sexist tropes and stereotypes
were identified, and these findings were mirrored in the comments. Discussions about
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Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community…
incelosphere concepts of lookism and unattractive men’s predicament are normalised,
amplified and legitimised through their convergence with structurally ingrained gendered
misconceptions such as male victimhood, female privilege and the perpetuation of rape
culture. The generative harms resulting from the normiefication and normalisation of such
beliefs and their convergence with wider misogynistic stereotypes are then considered.
The Stylistic Framing of Incel Content on TikTok
Whilst both TikTok accounts were chosen because they espoused blackpill and incel ideology, the two accounts differ in the stylistic presentation of this ideology. The name of the
first TikTok account (Lookism.tiktok) demonstrates the focus on the issue of lookism, stating in the account’s description “Looks determine your dating life as a man. Fuck the red& the bluepill
.” Account1 videos include repurposed and collated viral internet
pill
videos and pictures to demonstrate women’s lookist nature. The account creator provides
little explanations in his videos, no narration, and relies on sensationalised titles and brief
overlay text commentaries to make his point (see Fig. 1).
Account2, however, attempts an educational format, with slides and overlay text specifically created to further points argued for by the narrator, using ‘evidence’ involving
graphs, surveys, and pseudo-scientific input (see Fig. 2). This account reposts short clips
originally created by Wheat Waffles—a self-identified blackpilled YouTube content creator. The videos on this account are centred around the themes of dating and women’s lookist nature. Despite the account’s name (redblack_pills), the content here dismisses redpill
beliefs and instead makes a case for the blackpill ideology. The account claims to expose
and explain dating misconceptions and myths, and provide ‘evidence’ supporting the belief
that unattractive men have minimal chances of dating a woman. The ‘scientific’ evidence
provided includes graphs and results obtained from dating application surveys and research
studies; however, there are no references as to where this ‘evidence’ was obtained from, the
population surveyed, or any other data and methodological information. Furthermore, the
pseudo-scientific nature of this account is evidenced by bold and generalised claims about
women’s behaviour backed up by a selection of pictures, videos and supposedly incontestable factual evidence based on ‘well-established scientific proof’. Through the attempted
scientific style and tone of the videos, the author seeks to legitimise the content and portray
Fig. 1 Account1 sample of thumbnails and video style
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A. I. Solea, L. Sugiura
the information presented as conclusive and well-known ‘truths.’ Therefore, whilst the
first account provides an emotional appeal, through videos depicting unattractive men’s
humiliation and women’s ‘double standards,’ the second account makes a pseudo-scientific
appeal using ‘logic’ and ‘evidence’.
Fig. 2 Account2 sample of thumbnails and video style
Lookism and the Unjust Sexual Market
Account1’s video content is unsurprisingly focused on lookism. Women are depicted as
preferring men with traditional masculine characteristics, with handsome facial features
and height above 6 ft. For example, in Video3 a typical pick-up artist meeting is depicted
where a male dating guru presents an ‘unattractive’ man to an ‘attractive’ woman asking her if from a ‘feminine perspective’ she would be sexually attracted to this man. The
woman instantly rejects the man. The overlay text argues “The real problem here is that
he’s unattractive and she is repulsed by his presence....” The hyperbolic choice of language
for (mis)interpreting the woman’s reaction as ‘repulsed’ at the man’s mere presence is
aimed at inducing a negative emotional reaction from the viewers. Subsequently, the message of this video and several videos on this account is not just exposing women’s lookist
nature but also their ‘cruel rejection’ methods and propensity to humiliate men that do not
fit hegemonic masculinity standards. It is also noteworthy that the emphasis is on women’s
‘cruel rejection,’ and not the actions of the PUA who has orchestrated this ritual of humiliation. Therefore, both the rejected man and the man instigating this event are absolved of
responsibility.
Account2’s videos seek to further the lookist claim by demonstrating through supposed
‘facts’ and ‘evidence’ that height and looks are the deciding factors for dating and therefore
short unattractive men are disadvantaged. For example, in video4, titled “Height matters
pt.1” and video5 titled “Dating lies you’ve been told” the creator aims to demystify common misconceptions about dating and expose several ‘truths’. One of these is the “brutal
heightpill” truth according to which the shorter a man is the more women will reject him.
Pointing to a graph, the creator argues that a man is “mostly safe” if he is 5’10 where the
rejection rate is only 15%. However, with every two inches, men’s rejection rate increased
to the point that men that are 5’4 get rejected by “an insane 90% of women”. Other ‘lies’
exposed in these videos are the common sayings “Just be yourself” and “Just be confident”
which are usually told to men who cannot get a date. The creator argues that men can only
be themselves if they are attractive and that men’s looks represent their confidence; thus,
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Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community…
such advice is counterintuitive and false. It is notable that these claims are in direct opposition to the manosphere redpill ideology, which maintains improvement and confidence are
the key to sexual and romantic success.
This was reflected within the comments sections, where debates around attractiveness
and lookism represented the most frequently discussed theme. The commenters claimed
women solely desire men that are traditionally good looking (i.e., attractive face/body) and
tall. A recurrent argument was that men need to conform to women’s strict aesthetic standards to qualify for sex and relationships “it all basically comes down to how good you
look”; “Step 1: be attractive Step 2: don’t be unattractive”. Height was also a deciding
factor in men’s sexual or romantic success, with women portrayed as despising short men
to the extent of regarding them as non-existent- “Short guys literally don’t exist to the average woman. it’s sad”; “How sad they shamed and laughed at a man that can’t control his
height, this still goes on to this day and they say men are the toxic ones”. Some commentators argued that a lack of desirable physical characteristics can be bypassed by men being
financially successful as they can take advantage of what they termed women’s ‘greedy,
shallow and self-interested nature’,“You just have to have a stack of hundos in your pocket
doesn’t matter if you are 5’0 money talks baby”; “I mean just chase the bag if ur under 5’8.
If ur rich ur 6’3 in their eyes”.
Male Victimhood and the Belief that Women Are Privileged
Women’s lookist nature is further framed within the videos as being conducive to a constant ritual of men’s humiliation. This is evident in several Account1 videos. For example,
one video showcases a woman on an online meeting shouting “You are ugly as fuck” to the
man on the other end of the call; another video presents a woman verbally abusing a police
officer because he was short “Why did the police let this short man join? Who the fuck is he
gonna hurt? Look at this munchkin, look at this baby ass bitch”; and a third video of a man
recounting his experiences with online dating stating that he was told he should kill himself because he is short “Why is it ok for women to say—Oh you are 5 ft on a dating site?
You should be dead!—that’s ok?”. The actions of these individual women (presented without context) are used to represent all women. Yet, if faced with the overwhelming evidence
of men’s violence against women, would the same generalisation be made of men or would
the #NotAllMen rear its defensive head? This is of course a moot point as such content has
no place on this account or would be automatically discredited. Videos further contend that
rejecting a man is not simply an example of women voicing their preferences, but instead,
it is done maliciously to degrade unattractive and short men and to make them feel inferior.
This supports the trope of male victimhood and the injustice supposedly directed at unattractive men from privileged, unreasonably cruel and discriminatory women. The message
promoted by these videos is that unattractive men are the most disadvantaged group in
society because of women, reflecting what Carian (2022) terms as inversive sexism. The
victimhood narrative is further accentuated by emotional appeals as exemplified in some
videos and overlay text. According to these, the habitual rejection and humiliation leads
men to feeling dehumanised as suggested by a video with an insect staring at a wall over
which sad music is played—the caption reads “Non-chads after realizing only team tinder
wants to date them…”. The insect represents unattractive men, or ‘non-chads’, who come
to the realisation that women will never be interested in them and they will be forever dateless and celibate, demonstrating the hopeless perpetuity of the incel condition.
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In Account2’s video content, the unjust sexual and romantic marketplace and men’s
experiences of victimisation are ‘evidenced’ by (uncited) online dating surveys claiming
women are the ones who most discriminate based on looks “Here is the truth about online
dating. 90% of women would not swipe on themselves if they were a man. Meanwhile 90%
of males would swipe on themselves if they were a woman”. The message of the videos
contends that today’s sexual and dating market is skewed against men and women hold all
the power when it comes to dating, “Men offer. Women get to decide whether they accept
that offer”. The creator calls this the “entitlement switch” (as presented in video6), which
delineates a phenomenon whereby women, influenced by the advent of online dating and
the accrual of heightened privileges, presently perceive themselves as entitled to engage in
relationships with men who surpass them in terms of attractiveness. In contrast, in previous instances, women would have been inclined to settle for partners possessing a similar
sexual market value. This supposed ‘entitlement switch’ closely links with the notion of
women displaying hypergamous tendencies, actively seeking and substantiating their belief
in deserving partners of superior value to themselves. Whilst not overtly stated, the message implied by the content of these accounts is that men used to have unrestricted access
to women, but this has now been revoked or diminished. The ‘injustice’ that these videos
refer to relates to women’s gains in rights and autonomy over their own choices and bodies.
This has resulted in men’s loss of privilege and threat to their hegemonic status in society,
leading to what Kimmel (2013) terms aggrieved entitlement and the growing adoption and
support of inversive sexism (Carian, 2022).
The theme of male victimhood was frequently mentioned and reinforced within the
comments, where women’s lookist nature was linked with men’s experiences of ‘injustice’
and ‘discrimination’. Short and unattractive men expressed their frequent rejection and the
‘power’ that women wield, because the characteristics that women desire were deemed
unachievable. “Who in the world believes that it’s men who have the power of choice
lmao”; “Women have all the cards today. Period”; “everyone the world over knows women
gatekeep relationships”. The ‘injustice code’ thus legitimises men’s claims to victimhood. Men are supposedly forced to live by women’s high and impossible standards, whilst
women reside in a place of sexual privilege controlling the sexual marketplace resulting in
“Unfettered Hypergamy”. As one commenter put it “its like men are applicants and women
are jobs, if we dont live up to the expectation/requirements no job etc”.
Perpetuation of Rape Culture
Account1 further builds upon the notion of women’s privileged status, arguing that it is
not just women’s entitlement that is problematic but also women’s nefarious and hypocritical nature. This is ‘evidenced’ by women’s supposed preference and idolisation of ‘bad’,
abusive and even ‘criminal’ men, chosen at the detriment of ‘nice guys’ with less appealing physical characteristics. An example of this is Video2 titled “Watch what it takes to
get girls as a short guy!” which presents a short man on a dating competition show getting repeatedly rejected by all the women candidates. When questioned as to what it would
take to pick the short man, the women stated they would only pick him if the other four
candidates were convicted murderers. An overlay text appears on the screen informing the
viewers that “Even now they are lying. They would rather be with a tall murderer Chad
than a manlet”. According to this video, women’s immorality and lookist nature are so pervasive that they would prefer a good-looking murderer to a decent short man, but women
are hypocritical and would never admit to this ‘fact’. This is expanded by clips showcasing
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Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community…
‘hybristophilia’ (2023)—women’s sexual attraction to mass murderers, violent criminals,
rapists and even paedophiles. For example, two videos depict the adoration women have
for Ted Bundy and Jeremy Meeks, two infamous and attractive convicted criminals. The
text overlay on the Ted Bundy video states “Chad can get hoards of women despite being a
rapist and a murderer”.
Women’s preference for abusive attractive men at the detriment of unattractive betas
or incels is further implied in the most viewed video on Account1 (video1). In this
clip, a woman is approached and kissed without consent by a young man characterised as a Chad, which the woman says she is happy with. The video then switches to
a second clip in which a group of armed police agents break down a door and enter an
apartment. The text added above this video reads “Meanwhile… You’d go to prison for
“attempted r**e”. The message of this video is that Chads have free access to women’s
bodies, yet betas or incels do not enjoy the same entitlements. This, according to the
video, showcases women’s hypocrisy and challenges the notion that consent is needed
when engaging in sexual acts. Furthermore, the harmful subtext of this popular video
suggests that women’s claims of sexual assault should not be taken seriously. It implies
that it is not the nature of the acts themselves that constitute sexual assault, but rather
women’s reception, which is influenced by the attractiveness of the perpetrator. It is
therefore implied that women enjoy and even seek sexual assault or harassment when
performed by attractive, Chad-type men, but reject, demonise and criminalise the same
acts when enacted by unattractive men. This converges the concept of rape culture
(Herman, 1989) with incel-specific beliefs as to women deserving and/or causing their
physical or sexual abuse by Chad/alpha males. Whilst incels claim to despise and envy
Chads (and their dominant sexuality), they also celebrate and glorify the same men
when they engage in acts of physical or sexual violence towards women because they
feel vicariously avenged through these acts (Tranchese & Sugiura, 2021)
Rape culture and justification of sexual assault are further amplified within the comments. Here, women are portrayed as a homogenous group rather than as individuals
and described as hypocritical, liars and promiscuous. It is suggested that women’s double standards and hypocrisy are most obvious when it comes to sexual advances—unattractive men are rejected and found ominous whereas the same type of behaviours are
encouraged and desired by women from attractive men “The difference between creepy
”; “women dont get mad at advances, they are
and sexy is how attractive you are
just selective on who is doing it”. Additionally, commenters debated the importance
of consent. Whilst a small number of comments argued that sexual assault has serious
repercussions, the consensus was that women’s claims of sexual assault or harassment
are subjective. According to this, Chads can have their way with women and do not
need consent from women to engage in sexual behaviours with them. Attractive men
are therefore viewed as having ‘handsome privilege’ entitling them to women’s bodies
and protecting them from repercussions “That’s called pretty privilege”; “Difference
between flirting and assault is how attractive you are”. The notion of consent is used
to support the trope of male victimhood, with commenters stating that unattractive
men would be prosecuted for the same acts Chads/attractive men are entitled to “Wait
what happened to the “Me Too” outrage? Oh that’s right… he’s HOT so never mind.”;
“Just goes to show, it’s usually more about regret than consent….”; “If he was ugly it
would be a felony”. The complicity of the criminal justice system is also implied by
the commenters who claim that “Different rules depending on attractiveness” because
“if she didn’t think he was attractive he’d be in prison now”. Whilst women are the
primary instigators, the law is also seen as skewed against men, suggesting we live
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A. I. Solea, L. Sugiura
in a gynocentric society, where rape charges, convictions and even life in prison are
”. Thus,
ascribed by women based on looks - “good looking pasts rape charges
women are seen as taking advantage of a system biased against men, and therefore,
women’s claims of sexual assault cannot or should not be taken seriously “This is why
women can’t be taken seriously. It’s good for one but not the other. You want change?
Try being consistent.”; ”If he was ugly it’s sex assault and he would be classified as
creepy that’s why women are sick”.
The video content, along with the accompanying comments, contribute to the proliferation and normalisation of the fallacious belief that women derive pleasure from sexual assault. Furthermore, it portrays women as utilising allegations of sexual assault
as a means to pursue legal action and discriminate against men deemed less desirable, taking advantage of the inherent biases within the criminal justice system. Consequently, these narratives not only reinforce the notion of male victimhood but also
undermine the credibility of women and invalidate their lived experiences of sexual
assault.
Discussion
Whilst the incelosphere has received considerable academic attention in recent years,
less is known about the presence of the incel community on TikTok, except for occasional mentions of their infiltration on the platform in the media (e.g., Smith Galer,
2021). Whilst at the surface level, incel-specific content might appear to have a diminished presence on TikTok, and despite TikTok’s Community Guidelines (2023) according to which, hateful content including gendered prejudiced speech and hateful ideologies are not permitted, our findings suggest that to evade content moderation, incel
content on TikTok employs covert language to present, explain and diffuse misogynistic,
harmful and established incelosphere tropes and theories. This is a departure from previous incel research examining community dynamics and discourse on more secluded
forums and websites, where more overt ideological expressions, including mentions of
and calls to violence and dehumanising language, were identified (Baele et al., 2019;
Chang, 2020; Helm et al., 2022; Jaki et al., 2019). However, our findings support previous understandings of the blackpill itself, indicating that the same incel tropes (lookism, heightpill, Chads, etc.) are utilised on both fringe media and on TikTok, but that
the style in which these are communicated diverge with content on TikTok to be more
implicit, insidious and palatable.
The two accounts employed emotional and pseudo-scientific appeals to adapt and
‘translate’ the blackpill to a wider audience and used implicit language indicating that
users might be actively toning down more extreme content to avoid removal. Emotional
appeals were used to convey unattractive men’s ‘suffering’ through videos depicting the
rejection, humiliation and discrimination of men by women. Emotional appeals represent a manipulative communication method designed to evoke strong responses such as
anger and resentment (Kaid & Johnston, 1991). Many videos within our sample (especially the Account1 videos) relied on emotion-based arguments to further the idea that
unattractive men are discriminated against based on their looks, whilst women are entitled and privileged. Academic literature has found emotional language and manipulation to be a key aspect in furthering the successful rise of right-wing and far-right political parties and movements (Doroshenko & Tu, 2022; Schrock et al., 2018).
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Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community…
Similarly, the pseudo-scientific appeal presented by Account2 can be contextualised
within the growing wave of right-wing populist manipulation of information and opposition to science (Edis, 2019; Eslen-Ziya, 2022), surrounding topics such as election and
COVID-19 misinformation (Boutros, 2020; Pennycook & Rand, 2021). The pseudo-scientific framing of Account2 videos employed graphs, statistics and well-known ‘facts’.
Whilst these supposed facts lacked veracity and empirical accuracy, their intentional
framing as ‘scientific’ was aimed at providing legitimacy and support to incel tropes
such as the ‘heightpill,’ ‘handsome privilege’ and women’s entitlement. Pseudo-scientific theories are a fringe phenomenon per definition, lacking general social, scientific
and political endorsement (Harambam & Aupers, 2014); however, they may traverse
public acceptance whereby they are no longer considered alternative, untrustworthy and
unscientific, but rather as unmasking truths about a situation, phenomenon or even the
world. Confirming previous literature (Baele et al., 2019; Chang, 2020; Ging, 2017),
the accounts aimed to expose women’s privilege, unattractive men’s victimisation at the
hand of women and the immutability of the incel condition. These beliefs are fuelled
by feminism’s supposed negative societal impacts, the halo effect—where good-looking
people are favoured, and the erosion of traditional and conservative values, which have
provenance beyond online men’s communities within the wider conservative and farright theorising (de Zeeuw & Tuters, 2020; Marwick & Lewis, 2017).
The ideological interconnectedness between right-wing politics and manosphere groups
has been established (Mamié et al., 2021; Rothermel, 2023). However, the appropriation
of tools previously employed for furthering right-wing ideologies, in disseminating and
gathering support for the blackpill ideology, is noteworthy. We argue that these same tools
are essential for the process of normiefication (de Zeeuw et al., 2020). The implicit ‘scientific’ framing of blackpill beliefs and the emotional and pseudo-scientific appeals serve
as a tool for the process of normiefication, where fringe beliefs and speech infiltrate the
mainstream media and discourse. Disguising these beliefs as scientific claims and delivering these messages through emotional, hyperbolic language, introduces, explains and
diffuses these beliefs beyond their native subcultural context to a more diverse audience,
perhaps previously unfamiliar with these concepts. Through such delivery tools, incelosphere beliefs have the potential to extend beyond the stereotype of the young, nihilistic,
perpetually online individual, especially if they align with and amplify common sociopolitical anxieties (de Zeeuw & Tuters, 2020).
Furthermore, technology is essential in the normiefication and normalisation of incel
beliefs. The presence of these videos and their respective messages on TikTok serves as a
gateway for incelosphere beliefs on mainstream social media. As highlighted by Ging et al.
(2020) and Massanari (2017), this process is accelerated by the technological affordances
of new media, allowing for the rapid amplification and dissemination of certain words and
concepts through echo-chambers. Amplification in this setting is understood as how social
media publics contribute to the attention paid to a message by elevating recipients’ perceptions of the message’s worthiness and importance (Zhang et al., 2018). The presence of
incel content on TikTok has the potential to legitimise and gather an audience and support
for these beliefs, by exposing these messages to users who may not have discovered this
information otherwise (Zhang et al., 2018). Whilst the results of this study cannot be generalised to overall TikTok users, the data suggests a certain level of endorsement and normalisation of incel beliefs, evidenced by the high number of views, likes and confirmatory
comments encountered. Whereas comments challenging the incel ideology and the content
of the videos were present (but not discussed within the current article), many comments
supported the interpretations offered by the video creators. The comments further validated
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A. I. Solea, L. Sugiura
and legitimised lookism, female privilege and male victimhood, via recounting their own
experiences of dating and rejection. Commenters trivialised sexual violence by claiming
that women incite and deserve to be subjected to such acts, demonstrating the pervasiveness of a ‘non-consent’ rhetoric and the embracement of rape culture (Powell & Sugiura,
2018), linking blackpilled beliefs with normalised sexual violence (Kelly, 1987). This is
conducive of what Jane (2017) terms as ‘Rapeglish,’ discourse portraying women as promiscuous and deserving of non-consensual sexual acts, often issued via rape threats. However, the language employed on TikTok can be understood as borderline (GIFCT, 2022), in
the sense that it was sufficiently implicit to escape content moderation, yet apparent enough
to be harmful and perpetuate rape culture.
The normalisation and popularisation of incel beliefs on TikTok, however, can be partially attributed to the interconnectedness of these beliefs with widespread and generally
endorsed forms of sexism and misogyny. The ‘real’ and the virtual are not separate experiential realms (Lewis et al., 2017); there is a continuous flow of sexist and misogynistic
beliefs adopted and further developed by the manosphere and incelosphere and returned
to the mainstream via constant dissemination on social media. Therefore, many popular
blackpill rhetorics predate the incelosphere. For example, the over-lexicalisation of female
promiscuity (Russell, 2018), hypergamy (women seeking partners of higher financial
means and/or status) and the ‘halo effect’ have provenance and are well-documented sexist societal tropes (Ging et al., 2020; Sugiura, 2021). These resonate with people because
they are not brand-new but rather repurposed ideas adapted to fit the technological world
and assert new linguistic hegemony. Their intersection coalesces to explain, justify and
amplify, violence towards women both online and ‘offline’, within incel communities and
independent of these (DeCook & Kelly, 2022).
The male victimisation narrative is useful to examine this convergence, exemplifying what Carian (2022) terms inversive sexism—the belief that women are privileged in
society and that men are at disadvantage. Thus, feminist advances in gender equality, and
progressive social movements are blamed for the unjust sexual market, women’s privilege
and men’s supposed oppression and diminished status (Ging, 2017; Messner, 1998). Men’s
subordination claim emboldens incel’s victimhood status and serves as a tool to reassert
their hegemony in online spaces (Ging, 2017), demonstrating the role hybrid masculine
practices play in justifying and enacting their misogyny. However, Carian’s data indicates
that whilst inversive sexism is endorsed by a unique population concentrated among young
and lower-middle class women and men, it is not merely an ideology of a radical fringe
group. Instead, the level of endorsement of inversive sexism is statistically indistinguishable from that of other well-documented forms of sexism (e.g., modern sexism; see Swim
et al., 1995). The normalisation of incel misogyny should therefore not be considered in a
vacuum but as a reflection of the upsurge in societal misogyny and harmful speech directed
towards women (Chadha et al., 2020; Lewis et al., 2017), which goes beyond online men’s
communities. We contend that the endorsement of inversive sexism by non-incel members
and possibly TikTok users aids the acceptance and normalisation of incel beliefs on mainstream social media because it connects with and emboldens claims of women’s privilege
and male oppression.
The resulting generative harms are thus twofold. First, the presence of incel activity
on mainstream media allows for the aggregation and popularisation of seemingly novel
blackpill beliefs. Whilst the normiefication of incel beliefs does not necessarily lead to
their acceptance, the generative harms emerging from this process encompass the repeated
exposure of these ideas to the ‘general’ population, potentially leading to their normalisation and adoption into mainstream discourse. This process is described by Henry &
13
Mainstreaming the Blackpill: Understanding the Incel Community…
Powell (2018) as technologisation, referring to the ways in which violence towards women
is enacted and facilitated by communications technologies. The affordances of TikTok
including the recommendation algorithms, the like and share features and the echo-chambers emerging from these features aid, amplify and distribute these messages to a wider
audience (Doroshenko & Tu, 2022). Second, the intersection of incel beliefs with widespread sexism offers the incel ideology legitimacy, perpetuating misogynistic stereotypes
and incitement of sexual violence towards women. This convergence can be exemplified
through the perpetuation of rape culture, which is pervasive and extends beyond online
men’s communities and is indicative of the cultural normalisation, trivialisation and legitimisation of sexual harassment and assault (Herman, 1989). The prevalence and enduring
nature of rape culture continues with 1 in 3 women globally in their lifetime experiencing
sexual violence (WHO, 2021), the demonisation of outspoken survivors of sexual violence
(Mendes et al., 2018), and the backlash against the #MeToo movement (Boyle, 2019).
Our data demonstrates endorsement of victim-blaming attitudes, through the justification
of sexual violence and delegitimisation of consent and sexual assault claims, which were
deemed as subjective. The criminal justice system was also presented as biased against
(unattractive) men in the data further validating incel’s beliefs of a supposed gynocentric
social order. The male victimhood trope is used to explain and legitimise hatred and advocation for sexual violence towards women as a punishment not only to avenge incels’ supposed exclusion, but also as a repercussion for women’s alleged superior status. Whilst
incels’ beliefs mirror rape myths, their presence and ideological dissemination on mainstream media generates further harms by confirming and legitimising rape culture, conducive of what Massanari (2017) terms as ‘toxic technocultures’.
Furthermore, whilst our findings point towards covert expressions of gendered hate and
justification of sexual abuse, the continuum of sexual violence (Kelly, 1987) indicates the
dangers of less overt forms of abusive behaviours. Instances of routine low-level misogynistic abuse play a significant role in the desensitisation to and normalisation of abuse and
harmful speech directed at women (Lewis et al., 2017). The harms emerging from exposure to such content on mainstream media have a cumulative effect, potentially influencing
not only young men’s perceptions of women but also women’s perceptions of themselves
(Lewis et al., 2017). The effects of such ideologies on mainstream social media extend
beyond the technological environment and produce generative harms that influence the
internalisation of misogyny, the perpetuation of harmful gender stereotypes and sociocultural support of misogyny and gendered violence.
Conclusion
This article explored the presence, responses and implications of incel content on TikTok.
We contend that whilst certain subcultural and overt forms of misogyny were once mostly
contained on fringe forums, they are now mainstreamed beyond their space of emergence.
Our findings evidence the role of normiefication and normalisation in mainstreaming the
incel blackpill ideology by considering both technological affordances and emerging generative harms. We argue that the normiefication and normalisation of incel’s ideology on
mainstream social media can be formulated as bi-lateral. On the one hand, the normiefication of fringe anti-feminist theories and incel subcultural terminology is amplified by
technologisation and propelled by commonly employed right-wing communication tools
of emotional and pseudo-scientific appeals, which enable and facilitate their entrance and
13
A. I. Solea, L. Sugiura
absorption into the mainstream media. On the other hand, the normalisation of incel beliefs
is further reinforced by their convergence with widespread sexist beliefs. Therefore, whilst
blackpill beliefs and incel terminology are unique to the incel subculture, their shared
features with inversive sexism and widespread misogyny aids their absorption into the
mainstream. This bi-lateral process is conducive to generative harms by reasserting male
hegemony in digital spaces and reinforcing the support for misogyny, sexism and the justification of violence towards women. This framing is essential for investigating the sociocultural impacts surrounding the popularisation of misogyny that goes beyond the use of
technology. Through the process of mainstreaming, incel beliefs have profound implications for internalising and amplifying harmful gender stereotypes and increased tolerance
and support for gender-based violence.
As current literature on incel activity on TikTok is scarce and the platform continues to
gain popularity, future research is needed to fully understand the magnitude and reach of
mainstreaming incel ideology. As previously argued (Baele et al., 2023; Papadamou et al.,
2020), research on incel communities should attempt to analyse them beyond their forums
and across platforms to examine why mainstream online spaces are showcasing a growing acceptance of misogynistic, hateful speech and acceptance or endorsement of violence.
Furthermore, the presence of counter-comments—comments that demystify and dismantle
incel beliefs—in our data, that were beyond the scope of this article, warrants future investigation for establishing their role in the perpetuation or prevention in the mainstreaming of
incel beliefs.
Data Availability The manuscript has no associated data being deposited.
Declarations
Conflict of Interest The authors declare no competing interests.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,
which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article
are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the
material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not
permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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